Page 99 of The Chalet Girl

‘Did you need me last night?’

‘Bella was sick.’

Emme’s heart sank.

‘Oh dear.’ Emme wracked her brains. She had eaten a lot of canapés at the party. ‘Is she OK?’

‘She is now.’

She had looked it just now, cheerily eating her breakfast.

Emme rubbed her temple.

‘Sorry, it won’t happen again.’

‘Apology accepted,’ Lexy said, turning on her heel. Then she stopped and looked back.

‘Oh and what’s all this about an expense from the iPad? I had a mystery hundred-franc bill from BUZZ, and someone bought a Netflix film.’

Emme ran her fingers through her hair. She just wanted a shower; to be alone.

‘Oh, sorry, I meant to say…’ Emme wracked her brains. ‘I don’t know about the Netflix one but Bella accidentally pressed something when she was playing on the iPad, I meant to follow it up…’

‘So she’s just using my credit card, and you’re not noticing?’

‘Do you not have a PIN to protect purchases?’ Emme asked.

They both knew it was probably 1212, which both children would know too. Lexy didn’t like being questioned. Her mouth shrunk to a lined circle.

‘You should be monitoring them better,’ she admonished.

Emme looked at her. She wanted to scream, but knew she was on a knife edge. Lexy was her bread and butter, her home. For now.

She stood up, rubbing mascara and sleep from the corner of her eye.

‘Sorry. I will.’

Lexy paused, a supercilious expression on her face as she looked Emme up and down, still wearing another man’s clothes. What was wrong with her?

‘Do you want me to do something with the kids today?’ Emme offered. She didn’t usually take them out on their own on a Sunday, but she had to do something to offer an olive branch, or this was going to be unbearable.

‘No,’ Lexy said swiftly. ‘We’re accompanying Bill to Zurich today. To see the Christmas decs. Bella is just about up to it. But I want you back on it, with a clear head from tomorrow. Do you understand?’

‘Crystal clear,’ Emme said, with her own, forced smile.

Chapter Fifty-Seven

‘Nice of you to meet me here on a Sunday, Günter,’ Walter said, his shirt open, while his physician listened to his heart through a stethoscope against his saggy chest.

There was a silence while measurements were taken and assumptions made.

‘Not at all Walter, anything for my patients.’

‘It’s just it’s… rather difficult to see you discreetly at the moment, and I wanted to see how things are looking.’

The head offices of the Steinherr group, on the fourth floor of the Alpenrose, were rarely used at the weekend. If Walter had business to attend to, he’d do it at his larger desk in his study at home, and Dimitri rarely worked weekends, unless there was an issue. Lexy Harrington used the tiny broom cupboard-sized office, but never at weekends.

‘How’s the bone pain been?’ Dr Blitzer asked. ‘I can see some bruising here on your back, I’m not sure if you were aware of it…?’