Page 41 of The Chalet Girl

She grabbed her phone before it could ring off, not even stopping to see who was calling.

‘Hello?’

‘Emme.’

The voice sounded distant.

‘Oh. Tom.’

Her heart raced.

There was a silence as Emme wrapped one arm across her body and looked at her goosebumped skin. She pressedher brow into her plump white robe to dab away the sweat, then swiftly put it on.

‘Everything OK?’

She walked back inside to the pool area, where she found an empty lounger. All the loungers were empty. She could talk freely. She could still feel the wetness between her legs.

‘Yeah, I just wanted to… erm, check in on you.’

‘From your honeymoon?’

‘Yes.’

There was another pause, and all she could hear was the sound of her heart sinking.

‘How are the Maldives?’

‘Beautiful. Just beautiful.’

‘What time of day is it there?’

‘It’s late afternoon, I’m about to have a sundowner. We’re about to have sundowners…’ he sounded guilty.

Emme’s fantasy and her frustration at being cut short from it made her feel bold.

‘Why are you calling Tom?’ she took a deep breath. ‘To rub it in?’

‘Rub it in?’

‘Yes, that you’re in the Maldives and I’m freezing!’

‘No! No… I wanted to, erm, say hi. See how you’re getting on in Switzerland. I’ve been wanting to make sure you’re OK. I’ve been thinking about you… about what you said to me. The night before.’

‘Please Tom, let’s not– I shouldn’t have. I was speaking out of turn.’

‘You weren’t, it was very… brave.’

Emme chewed her lip and searched her brain for a response.

‘I don’t really want to talk about it. It’s fine. I’ve moved on.’ She knew she hadn’t, of course, she was just trying to make this call less excruciating. Although she did find her mind on Tristan Du Kok again and felt another fleeting flash of excitement. But who was she kidding? Tom was the love of her life. And he was on honeymoon with someone else.

She let out a sigh, lay back on the propped-up lounger, and examined her legs stretched out in front of her. The gulf between them made Tom sound nervous, she could tell that even from his breathing.

‘I’m fine, really, you’re not all that, anyway…’ Emme joked, hollowly.

Tom gave a meagre laugh. Sounding relieved that she was joking, but as though he desperately wanted to talk to her about it. He hadn’t realised she was moving to Switzerland so soon and it was obviously not the goodbye he wanted.

‘Well I suppose… I just wanted to see how you’re getting on, with your new life in the mountains.’