Page 97 of The Chalet Girl

Then Emme blurted it out.

‘Yeah, she seemed to have an opinion about your dad…’

Tristan backed off, looking at Emme cautiously, beforejumping up. He pulled his white boxers from the floor and put them on.

‘What did she say?’ he said, an angry flicker in his eye.

‘Not much…’ Emme half lied. She could tell these were tricky waters to navigate. ‘I know you said you and Lexy were friends, but–’

‘I didn’t say we were friends,’ Tristan said defensively.

Emme wrapped the feather duvet around her and sat up.

‘Erm, yeah you did. When we were skiing.’

‘No I didn’t,’ he said, with utter conviction. ‘I said everyone’s friends in this town.’

Why was he being so weird? He had gone from hot to cold in seconds.

‘Well, you’d better head back then. I need to shower anyway. Sort out my fucking face,’ he lamented. He left the bedroom and went to look in the bathroom mirror.

Emme sat up in the bed, feeling baffled.

Is that it?

Didn’t he want to know what Lexy had said?

She heard the hot water of the shower turn on.

Emme got up and walked around the apartment, looking for her underwear and Tiago’s clothes. She couldn’t find everything.

‘Tristan, have you seen the joggers I was wearing?’ she asked, as she poked her head around the doorway. He was holding them.

‘Whose are they anyway?’ he asked, as he almost flung them at her. A suppressed rage in his eyes.

Emme was startled– Tristan was obviously highly sensitive about his father, and she could understand why, but there was no need to be rude. She caught the joggers.

Jesus, she thought.

‘Thanks,’ she said sarcastically. As she got dressed, Tristan got under the shower and started humming– to shut out her noise perhaps– as she gathered her things and let herself out.

Chapter Fifty-Five

Lysander sauntered down the hallway of the Steinherr mansion, towel around his sweaty neck. He’d been running on an incline when the text from his sister came in. No apology for the shambles she’d caused at the party. Just a note to say she was taking off. Lysander had slowed the machine right down and wondered where she might be escaping to for her ‘reset’. The Diamandis family island? Too cold in December. Perhaps the Caribbean. Either way, it was probably for the best, and made him itch to get back to New York. Meg would never cause such a scene at a society event. She would never shoot off and leave Blake for weeks on end. Meg was like apple pie; the golden girl of New York, and Lysander was ready to get back to her. As he walked up the hall in his gym gear, he saw Kiki standing by the gold console table next to the front door. She was scribbling a note under the shadow of a huge vase of white hellebores.

Lysander looked to the pile of Louis Vuitton suitcases on the gold luggage trolley with a sense of relief.

‘Catching a train?’ he said, trying to sound neutral, but triumph bubbled out of every bead of perspiration. He dabbed the towel on his face, lest he reveal his glee.

‘Actually, Timo’s taking me to the heliport…’ Kikireplied, with a self-satisfied smile. ‘My luggage will follow in transit.’

Kiki wore a hat, a tuxedo dress and stilettos, as she placed earrings in her lobes and picked up her purse. She was certainly going out in style.

‘Where are you headed?’ Lysander asked.

‘Milan,’ she said tartly. ‘Then maybe Bel Air. Who knows?’

‘The world is your oyster,’ Lysander said, somewhat patronisingly, which irked Kiki.