Emme touched her cheek self-consciously.
‘Yes, yes fine, I just went skiing… beautiful conditions up there,’ she said, flushing pink. ‘It was so cold I needed a really hot shower when I got back.’
It had been a long and luxuriant shower, washing Tristan away. As she’d lathered suds into her breasts, her taut tummy, her crotch, she’d replayed every thrill of it over and over.
‘I bet,’ Lexy said, as her sage eye lingered over Emme. ‘Did you go with friends?’ She was onto something. She could smell it.
‘I went on my own,’ Emme replied, proudly. ‘Cat and Tiago were busy.’
‘He’s a pretty boy isn’t he, Tiago?’ Lexy was following a dead lead.
Emme hadn’t really noticed, but he had clearly caught Lexy’s eye whenever she was in the Steinherrhof.
Lexy opened the fridge and took the KristallKit out of it with the simple instructions.
‘Gosh, I am sooo shattered,’ Lexy said. ‘What have we got? Please let it be quick…’
‘I can do it…’ Emme offered.
‘Oh good, thanks,’ Lexy said, sliding the boxes along the worktop to where Emme was leaning. ‘It’s been a long day.’
Emme looked at the instructions. Chicken tagine, jewelled couscous and flatbreads. All pre-cooked, it just needed warming.
‘It won’t take long.’
Emme busied herself reading the heating instructions on the KristallKit’s boxes as Lexy picked upVanity Fairand went to the lounge area with the large, inviting sofas. She yawned.
‘Oh, before I forget: Bella needs to rest after today, so I think I’ll cancel Cedric’s lesson tomorrow and tag it onto another day. Maybe the Saturday of the Kivvi Christingle– I’ll be having my hair and nails– ooh.’ Lexy stopped when she spied a white Louis Vuitton ski helmet on the sofa, in just the spot she was about to slump into. ‘Whose is that?’ she said excitedly. She dropped the magazine and picked up the helmet, inspecting its smooth surface; her eyes lit up with avarice as she thumbed the LV logo.
‘Oh, it’s mine,’ Emme said, a little embarrassed.
‘Goodness!’ Lexy smiled, icily. ‘Didn’t they pay you well in the City!’
Chapter Forty-Two
‘Why did you sleep with Tristan Du Kok?’ Cat asked Anastasia, as they lay naked on the bed of room 204 of the Silberblick. Cat thought back to that night on the same bed, the night after their reunion. Insatiable Anastasia, lying on the bed spent. She was tender and she couldn’t come because she’d already fucked TDK several times that morning. But then what did Cat expect? She already knew what she was capable of. Mrs Diamandis was a married woman who Cat already knew wasn’t faithful. She was a spoilt bitch who could summon her whenever the desire took over. She was heiress to both a hotel fortune and her husband’s family shipping empire. Cat knew what she had been getting into.
Cat thought back further, to last New Year’s Eve, at a party at the Steinherrhof. The Kivvis were away in the Caribbean, so she was helping Tiago, working a party Anastasia and Dimitri were hosting for friends in the private dining room. The hotel manager Pietro had bragged that they had Viktor Kivvi’s personal chef working for them that night, hoping it would get back to Walter, who was with Kiki at a party in Monte Carlo.
That night, Anastasia had made a beeline for Cat. Flattering her behind the scenes. Complimenting her onher exceptional palette. Locking eyes with her as she cleared the plates. Following her to the cloakroom and confessing to Cat that she was so intrigued by her she wanted to make her come against the fur coats and ski jackets belonging to their friends. Cat was mesmerised and didn’t stop to askWhy me?when Anastasia slipped Cat her phone number at the end of the night. She was paralysed with passion. She wanted to do it back to Anastasia, a million times over, and over the course of the past eleven months, she had.
And here they were again, facing each other, wrapped loosely in sheets having enjoyed a beautiful stolen hour of Sunday afternoon sex that Anastasia had begged Cat for. Cat had a few hours off between going through the Kivvi Christingle tastings with Lumi and a dinner she was scheduled to cook that evening, so when Anastasia texted her ‘204?’, their code for their rendezvous, followed by begging, flattery and dirty talk, Cat responded with a thumbs up. She agreed because she wanted to look Anastasia in the eye and ask her what the hell she was thinking, sleeping with the man her own sister was dating. Another treachery against her husband. Another treachery against Cat. Plus it was a chance to say goodbye to her for good. But not before tasting her one last time.
Cat felt surprisingly calm about it, as if she had resigned herself to not liking Anastasia very much. If she didn’t like her, perhaps it would make it easier to walk away. She was in lust with Anastasia, nothing deeper. The woman was stunningly beautiful.
Anastasia rested her cheek on her closed palms, on her pillow, looking at Cat.
She shrugged.
‘He’s hot, isn’t he?’
She didn’t seem to feel much remorse about it.
‘But what about your sister?’
‘Oh that’s dead in the water. She’s just obsessed with the idea of him. Anyway she’s even more obsessed with thatfuckinghotel, she’ll bore Tristan to tears if she hasn’t already.’
Cat frowned, her disapproval clear, if calmed by the sensational orgasm Anastasia and she had reached together.
