Anastasia went lower.
‘Third course, dessert…’ her face was level with Cat’s pussy. ‘I’ll go here,’ she dotted her tongue onto Cat’s clitoris, making her arch her back. ‘In your bedroom.’
‘Dios mio…’ Cat sighed.
‘I want to see where you sleep.’
‘Sí,’ she whispered breathlessly, trying not to think of the ridiculousness of Anastasia in her bedroom; in her small staff quarters, when she slept in a mansion.
Anastasia slipped her tongue in a circle then stopped, and raised her head.
‘Even better, we can do it on Viktor’s bed.’
Cat raised her head and looked down her body.
‘When are the Kivvis next out of town?’
She couldn’t conceive of this but Anastasia had paused between her legs. Was she serious?
‘All of them?’ Cat laughed. ‘It’s rare. And Aapo’s back in town next weekend, staying for at least a week until the party.’
‘That’s a shame…’ Anastasia pouted.
‘Anyway, there are servants! I’d lose my job…’ Cat was so reeled in, she wanted Anastasia to carry on; she wanted to press her head back down and make her stop talking.
Anastasia lifted herself up, back level with Cat, so their breasts were pressed together again.
‘I’ll get you another job.’ Anastasia shrugged, plainly. ‘I could get you a chef job in any hotel in town.’
‘They’re good to me,’ Cat protested.
‘I’mgood to you,’ Anastasia said, kissing Cat on the lips again, slipping her tongue inside her mouth, and tragically, they both knew she was lying.
Chapter Forty-Three
‘The iPad’s not working, Emme! It’s stuck!’ Bella complained, as she sat up from lying prone on the sofa. It was the last Friday in November and the kids were tired from ski school. Bella had been watching cartoons on the iPad and Harry was in his bedroom building Lego while Emme took a breather and looked at her phone on the sofa next to Bella. She had spent the week idling over Tristan Du Kok and why she hadn’t seen or heard from him, and it left her full of regret. Not about what she had done. Sex in the gondola had been spectacular. She was regretful she hadn’t bumped into him in this small town. Every night she had gone to bed she had thought of the delicious sensation of Tristan inside her. But the polite thing would have been for him to seek her out.
Emme had certainly sought Tristan out. She’d finally found his social media footprint since remembering what Cat told her: that he was called Tristan Joubert by birth. Emme had found the news stories. Charles Joubert had gone missing while ski touring in the Swiss Alps with his son Tristan. Both were competent skiers. Charles was believed to have fallen down a ravine near the Teufelsgletscher glacier. Tristan, then twenty-two, gave search and rescue accurate coordinates of the last known sighting, but Charles’s tracking device was found elsewhere, in his abandoned coatpocket, hanging off a branch hundreds of metres away from where his son last saw him.
And now she was looking at pictures of Tristan Joubert again on Instagram: Tristan looking like something out of a Gillette ad: playing polo, rugby, surfing or heli-skiing. Tristan on safari. Tristan in a verdant vineyard. He looked younger and less refined, even more tanned, but he hadn’t posted for eight years and his comments were turned off. As Emme ruminated on the screen and studied his beauty, Bella tapped her on the arm.
‘It’s stuck! This box is in the way, it won’t let me watch!’
‘Sorry Bells, let me have a look,’ Emme said, taking the device. ‘Why don’t you watch the cartoons on TV while I fix this?’
Emme gave a deft clap and commanded Gustav to raise the television, and the vast flat screen glided upwards from a sideboard. How far Emme had come in less than a month.
As Bella settled to watch TV a knock at the door startled them both. Usually visitors buzzed on the downstairs main entrance first.
‘You wait here,’ Emme said, stroking Bella’s hair as she got up. Emme put her phone on the console table by the large oak door and opened it, expecting to see a neighbour from the building, but aghast to see Vivian Steinherr standing eagerly on the other side, clutching a document file. Emme smoothed down her hair and checked herself. She suddenly felt terribly exposed.
‘Oh! Hello.’ Vivian smiled, not expecting Emme either, although she looked less furrowed than when Emme had seen her on the terrace café with Tristan; less prim than she had seen her that night in Down Mexico Way. Todayshe looked professional and cool, her game face on. Emme was relieved she wasn’t angry and confrontational. Vivian couldn’t know.
Emme glanced at the phone on the side in full view, grateful that the screen had darkened to sleep.
‘Hi,’ Emme said unsurely. ‘Can I help?’
‘Is Lexy in?’ Vivian asked hopefully. ‘I have a press release for her. I was heading to a meeting nearby and thought I’d drop the hard copy. It’s full of my scribbles.’
