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The building was mostly used for short-term rentals. That last text had come from the ski instructor who had told her about this apartment two years ago, but tourists who were only staying a week would think nothing of letting someone in to knock on her door.
Her brain slipped into the self-preservation mode that had gotten her onto a train to Zermatt the first time. She threw her laptop and a few overnight things into her shoulder bag, then dressed for the cold. A hat with earflaps wasn’t out of place. Neither was the wide scarf she layered up to her chin. At the last second, she thought to put on a different coat from the photos. This one was long and quilted, built for the coldest temperatures winter could throw at her, which she loved when she needed it, but it turned her into a shapeless lump of beige, something she hoped would disguise her on her way to the train station.
She would go to her stepmother’s until this blew over.
Please let this blow over.
The twins’ birthday was coming up and they both needed shoes. Beate’s application fee for the music academy was due soon, too. Stella helped with all of those costs.
She needed her job.
As she trotted down the stairs, she heard voices in the foyer.
She had reached the floor where the ski instructor lived so she slipped down the hall to their door and punched random codes into their keypad, pretending to be entering while she listened for the footsteps to climb the stairs behind her.
Whoever it was took them two at a time then halted, making her scalp prickle.
“Stella.”
She snapped around to see Atlas with his hand on the newel, one foot on the first step of the next flight. His gray wool topcoat hung open over black trousers and a pale gray turtleneck. He wore five-o’clock shadow and a scowl.
“I thought you lived on the top floor?” he said.
“How do you know that?”
“Unimportant. Come. I have a limo waiting.” He sounded crisp and remote as he stepped back to wave her toward the stairs.
She didn’t move. “You need to fix this. I might lose my job.”
His mouth flattened. “Let’s talk in the car. If my people can find where you live, so can the paps.” He waved again.
She hesitated, wanting to talk this out but, “Is your fiancée there?”
“I don’t have one. Go,” he insisted with a point down the stairs.
She tsked. “I didn’t even want to speak to you,” she reminded him as she hurried down the stairs in front of him. “You’re the one who turned it into a scene. Now—”
“Wait until we have privacy.” He caught her arm to halt her as they arrived in the foyer. He glanced both directions through the glass of the exit door, then, with a curt nod, opened the door and ushered her straight into the open back door of a waiting limo.
He slid in so fast behind her, he sat on her coat.
The door slammed, and in a powerful move, he gathered her and scooched her along, settling her just as quickly while shoving his hip against hers.
She was no delicate flower like the fiancée he claimed he didn’t have. It was both thrilling and disconcerting to be enveloped by his long arms and powerful chest and the faint cloud of a fading cologne. He could easily overpower her and she was letting it happen.
She wiggled to settle into her spot, putting space between them, but feeling cold as she did. Wary and frightened.
The driver slid behind the wheel and was away before she’d found her seat belt, let alone her composure.
“Are you taking me to the train station? That’s where I was headed,” she said as she clipped.
“To go where?”
“My stepmother’s.”
“Where’s that? Doesn’t matter,” he dismissed with a brush of his hand. “They’ll figure it out and look for you there. Text her. Tell her no matter who asks, she should say, ‘No comment.’”
“They’re going to badger my family?” She had a flash of her father’s reaction and cringed, then quickly texted Grettina. She said she would call to explain as soon as she could. “That’s the train station,” she pointed out as the limo shot right past it.