It had been thirty years since their passion on the bearskin in front of the fire in Walter’s study.
The sex was still fiery, deep, loving and illicit.
‘We’ve done what’s needed to be done ever since you returned, Lumi.’
‘But what are we going to do?’ she trailed an elegant, manicured finger along his liver-spotted arm. His skin bore the hallmarks of age, but he was no less of a lover than he had been that night. More daring and free perhaps.
‘We are going to have a wonderful time. Make up for all those years wasted.’
‘But how? This would break Viktor!’ As Lumi said it, she wondered if Viktor would even care. Increasingly, he had been speaking to his wife as if she were staff or a waitress– and he never spoke nicely to them. Apart from his assistant Benjamin. He seemed to have more time for Benjamin than for his wife of twenty-five years.
‘How are we going to manage this?’
Walter sat up, now slightly indignant. They were not children, running around behind their parents’ backs. He owned this town, and dammit if he and Lumi wanted to be together, they of all people would be able to make it work. He lay back with a sigh.
‘We’re not teenagers, Lumi. We’re not stupid. I did not wait thirty years to mess this up now. We will have our own channel to each other– I’ll get you a phone– we will meet up whenever we damn well want.’
As Walter shifted his position against the plump pillows, Lumi noticed a violent-looking bruise on his back, dark blue and ample, as if an elephant had kicked him in the liver.
‘What’s that?’ she asked, disturbed, smoothing her palm down his back.
‘What’s what?’ Walter gruffed, remembering. ‘Oh, I, er, I had a bit of a mishap on the slopes…’
Lumi studied him. She didn’t believe him, and gave him a look as if to let him know.
‘It’s fine. Really.’ He leaned over to kiss her neck again, with a slight wince. She wasn’t convinced he was telling her the truth.
‘And what about your wife?’
Lumi was surprised by how much it had stung when the news got out that Walter Steinherr had a new wife. And a croupier at that! When Lumi had moved back to Kristalldorf, Walter had been recently divorced. Available, even though she didn’t ever imagine she would be with him again. And she didn’t really want to, after the business with Seven Summits. But time had softened her.
‘Irrelevant,’ he said dourly. ‘What about your husband?’ he asked, with a devilish twinkle.
A flash of guilt washed over Lumi’s kindly face.
‘Walter… please…’ she said. Perhaps this was all a terrible idea.
He clasped her hand and sought to reassure her.
‘You don’t think I waited for you, but I did. All those lonely years, in my marriages, in my solitude. I thought about you, I dreamed about you.’
Lumi looked at him, concerned for a second that he was confusing her with Anna Maria. With that time in his life. Her blue eyes penetrated his.
‘When you waltzed back into town ten years ago, I knew we’d be together again. Kiki was just a… a distraction. I was scared I could never have you. But…’
He leaned over her and she surrendered again, her long silk chemise riding up.
‘Oh Walter!’ she said, in the tangle of their passion, and stretched open her legs deliciously.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Harry and Bella had come out of school buoyant, excited for the first lesson of the season. It seemed half the class were heading to the ski train on the other side of the river. Emme had worked out there were two ways to get up to the slopes. One was the fast and slick ski train from the centre of town, on the Harringtons’ side of the river which cut through the mountain in minutes. She didn’t know it was owned by the same man whose hotel she stole a bikini from this morning, but that was by the by.
The other way to get to the slopes was from the gondola station at the end of the valley path towards the Silberschnee, by the Anna Maria hotel. There, cable cars glided quietly and graciously, luxurious pods with heated seats, rising up the mountain with the best view of the valley. Ski school’s meeting point was at the main ski train station in town, where the masses would clunk through a short tunnel in ski boots and pile into train cars, damp with melted snow, and that’s where Emme, Harry and Bella were due to meet Cedric.
Emme and the kids arrived along with the post-school crowds and located the Harrington locker with a little help from Bella, before Emme helped the children into their salopettes, boots and helmets. She crouched down and zipped their ski passes safely into their trouser pockets.
‘OK, can you see where–’
