‘Will you be OK with Clara, or should we take her home with us?’
‘You go. I’ll look after her,’ Tania said.
Clara had necked glass after glass of wine in the pizzeria and was on goodness knows which number drink since they’d arrived at Le Bar. They’d noticed Clara was drinking more and more. To be honest, Rose couldn’t remember the last time she’d spent a sober evening with her diminutive friend. But she couldn’t really blame Clara for her slip into the abyss. Wasn’t sure anybody else would have coped any better. Not after what happened.
‘If you’re sure?’ Rose said, looping a scarf around her neck and pulling on her jacket.
‘I’m sure,’ Tania said. ‘It’s not as if it’s the first time I’ve dealt with her in this state. We’ll be fine.’
Once Rose and Madeleine had left, Tania kicked a piece of fallen tinsel out of her way and took a seat at the bar– or should that be Le Bar– toying with the bottom half of her glass of Kir Royale. A solid Harrington family tradition, to drink champagne mixed with the sweet blackcurrant syrup liqueur on the first night of a ski trip. One of the few family traditions she did still hold onto, although since her mid-teens Tania had observed the tradition in Le Bar, rather than in Snow Pine Lodge. And tonight, this glass was rapidly losing its appeal, the bubbles were all but gone and the liquid had warmed in the fug of the heaving bar.
Sighing, she pushed the glass away, scrolling through the photos she’d taken since their arrival in France. She would create a montage and post them everywhere in the morning. Maybe she would claim she had been partying too hard to have a moment to think about social media this evening. She paused. Or maybe she wouldn’t.
She’d flirted with her social media audience– as well as the media in general– for as long as she could remember. There hadn’t really been any way to avoid it, with her father being who he was. And she thought she’d worked out how to navigate the fine line between courting the media and being eaten alive by it. But recently she’d almost come unstuck. She’d felt the metaphorical snap of the press’s teeth at her heels, had only escaped being named in the tabloids because almost everyone who played this game knew when to close ranks. When to stay quiet.
The thing was, she would have deserved a mauling. Her behaviour had left her open to accusations and criticism; there was no doubt the whole episode had shown a distinct lack of good judgement on her behalf. The situation had left her questioning whether she wanted to play the game any longer. The pressure of having to think about how everything she did looked to other people was relentless. It was exhausting.
Maybe now was as good a time as any to change direction. She wondered what it would be like to disappear, even if it were only for a little while. Scrolling through the pictures, she began to delete them, one by one. Maybe this was the week to find out.
‘Can I buy you a drink?’
‘No thank you,’ Tania said, without looking up. How many times had she heard that? If that was the best introductory line the guy could think up, then she already knew she wasn’t interested. Oliver Ordinary. Vincent Vanilla. Felix Forgettable.
‘Shall we short cut straight to sex in a hot tub instead, then?’
That got her attention. She looked at him, taking in a rough approximation of his face: a heavy jawline, dark eyes set perfectly beneath a rough mop of hair, eyebrows thick and arched as if he was seriously waiting for her to reply. Her mouth had already begun to form the expletives required to tell him exactly what he could do with his proposition, but the words never got the chance to materialise. Instead, a crash on the other side of the room loud enough to eclipse the noise of the DJ’s bass-heavy track took everyone’s attention.
Tania swung around in time to see Clara sliding the final few inches onto the floor, an upturned table and the accompanying flotsam and jetsam of broken bottles and glasses the clear markers of her undoing.
A different range of expletives made themselves available for Tania to pick through as she pocketed her phone, pushed past Mr Explicit, and headed for her friend. In the end, the glass cut on Clara’s hand aided her choice of words.
‘Oh, shit,’ Tania said, quietly.
Chapter 2
5 DAYS TO CHRISTMAS
The next morning, Tania was at the picture window on the top level of the lodge, staring out at a view she knew well, but never tired of. She’d missed seeing the rose-coloured tips of the mountains which came with the sun rising behind them, but the sky still managed to make up for her tardiness. Without a cloud in sight, the pale blue stretched to infinity above the jagged beauty of the scenery below.
‘Tom?’ She glanced briefly away from the view. ‘It is Tom, isn’t it?’
A figure peered around the pillar separating the kitchen area from the rest of the open-plan living area. The new chef was pale-skinned, with messy dark hair and tattoos it was impossible to ignore winding their way up both arms. He wore a nervy smile. ‘Yes? And yes, I’m Tom.’ The touches of a Scottish accent swirled around the edges of his words.
‘Could I have a coffee, when you have a moment? Black, no sugar, thank you.’
He probably thought she was a lazy privileged bitch. She expected he already had a cast-iron idea in his head of what she was like.
Well, he could think what he wanted. She could make her own coffee, but that would involve turning away from this window– which framed her favourite view in the entire world– and she didn’t want to do that just yet. Anyway, she thought with a wry smile, if he thought this week was going to be bad, he had no idea what he’d signed up for. He couldn’t predict the perfect storm he would be facing when her stepmother, Brigitte, and her cronies turned up. Pouring a mug of coffee would be the least of his worries once they arrived. She was doing him a favour, breaking him in gently.
Tania had had to fight tooth and nail to get Christmas week, this year, a week usually favoured by Brigitte. And in usual circumstances, Tania would prefer to wait until later in the season; sometimes the snow wasn’t all that great this early on. But she wanted to get Clara away from her empty cottage, take her away from the hideousness of being at home, alone, for her first Christmas since it had happened. So far, everything had fallen into place. Clara had agreed to come to France, the snow was exceptional for so early in the season, and Tania was going to spend Christmas skiing with Rose and Clara– the two people she treasured the most in the world.
A few moments later, Tom appeared at her shoulder.
‘Thank you,’ she said, taking the mug he offered.
‘Awesome view.’
She watched from the corner of her eye as he scanned the full panorama. ‘It’s the best thing about the lodge,’ she said. ‘How are you settling in?’
