Page 91 of The Chalet Girl

He looked up at the portrait of his first wife and his family. He wanted to ask Anna Maria how the hell he was going to fix the mess between their daughters, but he heard the front door open again, and wondered if it were Anastasia. He wasfuriouswith her. For making a scene more than what she had done behind her sister and her husband’s backs.

He walked into the ample hallway, its floor tiled black and white.

‘Dimitri…’ he said sharply. Walter was furious with him too. Honestly! The first time he had gone to the Kivvi’s Christingle and his son-in-law– his attorney– had started a brawl.

The children stood around their father, their faces pale in shock.

Dimitri’s thin hair, or what remained of it, was dishevelled and he had a swollen bloody fist.

‘Go upstairs and find Nanny Iris,’ Dimitri said, tepidly. The children went running up the mansion stairs, passing Kiki as she came down.

‘What the hell are you playing at, brawling in public like that? With that man?’ Walter scolded, towering over Dimitri, who looked like he might vomit.

Walter saw Kiki at the curve in the stairs, wearing a pink chiffon peignoir and fluffy mules and stopped.

‘Are you still here?’ he snapped.

Kiki observed Dimitri’s swollen fist and dishevelled combover and gave a coquettish smile.

‘Jeez, I thoughtIwas in trouble.’

Chapter Fifty

It was almost 8pm when Emme punched in the code and let herself into Chalet Stern. She hoped the children would be in bed– Lexy and Bill put the kids to bed at weekends, to make up for all the days they didn’t in the week, unless they were out for the evening themselves. But after the drama of the afternoon, Emme decided to buy herself a little more time by heading straight to the laundry room on the ground floor.

She opened the carrier bag with her tights, Cat’s little black dress and Cassie’s shoes in it, and examined the dress in the blade of moonlight that shone through the small side window. Chocolate mousse had got on the white Peter Pan collar.

‘Shit.’

The room smelled of washing power; Mr and Mrs Muller’s bedsheets billowed from drying lines across the ceiling in the dark, alongside the cloak that always hung there and no one seemed to own. A tumble drier whirred and offered warmth.

Emme put Cat’s dress and her tights in a washing machine drum with some liquid and thought about the chaos of the party. Anastasia’s outburst. How cruelly she had looked at her sister. About the screams when her husband punched Tristan. The smash of all the glassas Emme went crashing underneath him in a heap. She slammed the machine door to snap herself out of it but jumped when she saw a silhouette in the reflection of the washing machine door.

Emme gasped and turned around sharply.

Lexy was lingering in the doorway, leaning against the wooden frame, her arms folded. Her face was in the shadows. The suspended cloak looked like the grim reaper was watching them.

‘You made me ju—’ Emme was trying to brush off her scream.

‘You be careful Emmeline,’ Lexy said. Her voice was low and angry, at a pitch Emme hadn’t heard before.

Water started to rush into the drum, which made her think she must have misheard. Lexy Harrington sounded threatening.

‘What?’

‘That man is no good.’

Emme scrunched up the empty plastic bag with the broken shoes and pulled it across her body. The long sleeves of Tiago’s sweatshirt drowned her.

‘I thought you were family friends.’

Lexy wouldn’t know how Emme knew this; it seemed to have caught her off guard.

‘He was a sweet boy, but greed got the better of him.’

Emme knitted her eyebrows together.

‘Be wary of anyone who can breakthreehearts in one callous hit.’ Lexy said it like a teacher, as if she were telling Emme off.