Confessions of a Chalet Girl:

He liked that she was taking the mickey.

‘Actually I think the rug under that table over there is goatskin. I know, it's a bit of a cliché but it's what the guests expect. Chalet chic. Looks simple and rustic but costs the earth.’

‘I think it’s fab. And so lovely to have a real fire too.’ She walked towards the hearth, stretching out her hands.

He imagined Holly lying on the rug in front of the fire, her curves highlighted by the soft light.

Clearing his throat, he wrenched his eyes away. ‘Do you need to make your phone call or can it wait?’

‘It can wait.’

‘Follow me.’ He led her to the guest suites, striding ahead to make sure she didn't come too close. He wasn't sure how long his resolve might hold. The client accommodation reminded him of his earlier suspicion. He turned to face her.

‘You still haven’t answered my question. If it wasn’t yours, where did the bra come from?’

He couldn’t help himself. The question slipped out before he could stop it.

Like steak and chips when you were on a diet, teasing Holly was just too tempting.

‘Chalet Repos' lost property.’ Her confident stare radiated defiance.

‘So our guests pay for the luxury experience and you choose to drape their underwear in public for the whole of Verbier to see?’

‘But it's okay to let your staff face some initiation where they have to flash their underwear to the entire resort? I’m quite sure it contravenes some employment law or other.’

Checkmate.

‘Why do you want this job?’ Genuine curiosity prompted the question.

‘Why spend the winter temping in a London office and cramming yourself onto the tube when you can ski all day and hit the town at night?’

He'd heard this argument many times. Gut instinct said she was parroting what she’d heard someone else say. Holly wasn't a party animal. Was she going to give him a straight answer to any question he asked?

‘Right.’ He remained unconvinced. ‘Well, it's part of your job to make sure our guests have their every whim met. Whatever the guest wants, from fireworks to an off-piste expedition, we organise it. That's what we do; help them experience life to the max.’

Great, now he sounded like a cola commercial.

‘Err, when you say every whim…’

‘Every whim within reason that is,’ he replied, trying very hard to suppress all the whims he’d like Holly to satisfy. ‘Nothing dodgy obviously. Don’t worry. Come to me if you have any problems with … ahem, sexual harassment.’

‘Like people asking me questions about my underwear for example?’ She smiled sweetly.

This girl was trouble.

He grinned. ‘Yes…something like that. Right, I’d better dash and let you make that phone call. I’ve got a date with some paperwork. And another thing - do you mind if I leave your ski pass ‘til the morning? I expect you can’t wait to hit the slopes.’

‘Err, no that will be fine. Well, um, goodnight.’ Her eyes searched his for a few seconds before she averted her gaze. Was she looking for something? Hoping for something?

‘Goodnight.’ He turned away. Walking to his office was one of the strongest tests of self-control he’d ever known.

***

Holly paced the room clasping her iPhone. As it was more of a broom cupboard with bunk beds than a real bedroom this was difficult. She thought about the banter with Scott and smiled. She'd won that last point nicely. Although, what if he now thought she didn't want him to flirt?

Well then, that would be good because she didn't want him to. Did she?

She stared out of the window. The snow fell in thick, heavy flakes as large as her palm. The view of the valley with its snow-laden pine trees and picturesque chalets bathed in the moonlight soothed her.

She scrolled through her contacts list, maybe it was a bit late to ring. She’d text Pippa instead.

Hi Pips. Am in Verbier now at Chalet. Was forced to strip in bar tonight. All your frickin’ fault! Can’t believe you got me into this!!! Hope things are okay hun xx

A beep signalled a reply.

Hey! Fast work there grasshopper ;-) Landed a zillionaire yet? xx

Hmm, I met a rather interesting guy who kept going on about my underwear… Well, maybe she wouldn’t send that reply. Instead she typed:

Get real – I’ve got to be up at stupid o’clock to clean toilets, no time for zillionaires! Snow is lush though. Wish you were here H xx

Pippa’s reply appeared on her screen as she watched.

Put your big girl pants on and go get yourself a man ;-) P xx

Great, why did Pippa insist on assuming all Holly needed was a man? It did Holly's head in. She’d told her often enough she wasn't bothered. What she needed was to be as far away from home as possible and to be left alone. She looked around at the four bunks squeezed tightly into the cramped space.

Alone was something she was going to struggle to be.

***

‘Give us a snog love.’ One of the guests leered towards Holly, red-faced and with a paunch that bulged over his waistband, shirt buttons straining.

She reeled back from the alcohol fumes on his breath, almost gagging. The chimes of the church clock rang out the New Year, sounding sharp and clear on the alpine air.

Holly cursed the enforced jollity of New Year and drunken morons … sorry, 'paying guests', to whom she had to be polite and not knee in a sensitive area, no matter how provoked she was.

She’d slip away for a bit. The others could cover for her. If they took cigarette breaks then why shouldn’t she have a little nervous breakdown break? She raced down the steps.

The path to Chalet Repos’ terrace lay shrouded in darkness, illuminated only by flashes of fireworks. Most of the guests were up on the balcony or inside. The firework display would keep everyone busy for a while.

She inhaled the fresh air deeply, enjoying the relative peace so much that she didn't care about the cold. You'd think a ski resort in the Swiss Alps would have plenty of peace but no such luck. The small dormitory had proved as suffocating as she'd feared.

‘Who or what are you escaping from?’ A low male voice asked from the shadows.

She jumped up from her slouched position next to a pile of crates, muscles tensed. If anyone tried it on she was using her self-defence moves, guest or no guest.

‘Hey, it's okay, don't panic,’ he added, the kindness in the tone sounding familiar. Her fists unclenched and she peered at the man more closely, her eyes becoming accustomed to the dim light and recognising Scott.

His eyes gleamed in the darkness, appraising her with an intensity that made her shiver. Frying pans and fires came to mind.

‘Hello again.’ His mouth widened into a warm, confident smile.

‘Hello,’ she replied shyly, hoping the darkness partially obscured her thousand-watt smile reaction to seeing him again.

Avoiding tackling her confused emotions for him had been fairly easy since her first night, as he'd flown home to London for Christmas. She’d been up to her armpits with guests' children needing babysitting while their parents skied. Not that she minded being busy but her ski pass lay untouched in her rucksack and she never got round to organising a lesson.

‘What brings you down here?’

‘I don't want to be kissed.’ She blurted the words before her internal censor had time to react.

His handsome face creased with amusement. ‘I wasn't planning on kissing you, but now you mention it … ’

She could feel her face flaming, even in the freezing night air. Snowflakes stung on her overheated skin. She hated Scott's knack of making her blush like a teenager.

‘Come into my office, it's more comfortable than out here. Warmer too.’

‘Come into my parlour’ said the spider to the fly …

He took her hand, tugging her through the back door and she ignored her reservations, too intrigued to pull back. He exuded a no nonsense air of authority that was hard to resist and seemed infinitely more grown up than the lairy city boys staying at the chalet for New Year. Sure, he was older than them by a few years, maybe about thirty or late twenties, but she didn’t think it was just age that set him apart.

‘I meant I don't want to be kissed by one of the guests, they’ve had a bit too much to drink.’ It was a huge understatement. They'd been downing champagne at a staggering rate.

She stood awkwardly in his office, aware of her hand still resting in his, skin on skin. The odd sensation they were the only two sober people in the world at that moment made her skin prickle with anticipation.

‘But you would like to be kissed by me?’ He stroked the palm of her hand with his thumb, a tiny movement but one that set her senses on fire.

Up close the manliness of him overwhelmed her. The attraction drawing her to Scott was so visceral it scared her. He was fit and rugged. His thick, dark hair flopped wherever it pleased and a hint of stubble shadowing his strong jawline. She imagined how that stubble would feel if he kissed her.

‘I … ’

Kiss me. Please kiss me!

It was no good. She couldn't say the words aloud. But the hot rush of desire was there nevertheless. She tried to remind herself she wasn’t here in Verbier for this. The terrifying sense he could see right through her to the Holly hardly anyone knew unnerved her. Fear fought attraction and she felt like the Pushmi-pullyu from Dr Doolittle, not knowing which way she wanted to run.

‘Did you have a good Christmas?’ She tried to steer the conversation into safer waters.

He shrugged, eyes briefly clouded and his features taking on a harder edge. ‘You know families.’

Indeed she did.

‘No murders then?’ She smiled, hoping to lighten the atmosphere.

‘Not yet, I managed to restrain myself.’ The corner of his mouth twitched.

‘Hey, why do you think I came here for Christmas?’ she joked and then instantly regretted it. Kissing would be preferable to questions.

Infinitely more preferable. Was it too late to press the rewind button?

‘Running away from guests wanting to kiss you was the better option?’

Actually it was.

‘I'm not one of those chalet girls,’ she murmured, shifting uncomfortably and avoiding his quizzical stare. ‘You know, you must know what everyone gets up to?’

‘Unofficially yes, officially no.’ He regarded her with amused interest. ‘As long as everyone involved is over eighteen I don’t see I've any business stopping it if two people want to sleep together.’

Sleep together.

The phrase stuck in Holly’s mind and her cheeks burned again. Great, how did this guy have the ability to make her blush so easily? She hadn’t been like this since her first crush at sixteen.

‘So, what sort of chalet girl are you?’ He quirked a thick, dark eyebrow. Knowing amusement danced in his eyes and his thumb rhythmically stroked the inside of her palm. The movement started a gentle tingling that spread all over her body.

She had to say something, needed to make it clear bed hopping wasn’t her thing. The only one-night-stand she’d had, against her better judgement, left her feeling miserable, not liberated.

‘I know it’s not fashionable to admit it but I'm not interested in sleeping around.’ She tried to tug her hand away but he wouldn’t let go.

A steady humming of arousal tickled her skin, spreading up from the rhythmic circles Scott was tracing on her palm.

‘That’s okay Holly, I don’t want you to sleep around. I just want you to sleep with me.’

’‘Are you teasing me?’ she asked.

‘Oh, you'll know when I'm teasing you.’ He grinned.

She sensed he knew sex, knew it very well and knew how to make it good for her. Suddenly she wanted very much to be teased by him. Heck it was tempting but at the same time bloody scary too.

Turned on beyond the point of no return she couldn’t pull away.

‘I just want to sit away from the kiss danger zone up there. At least until after everyone's done that midnight, New Year kissing thing. I want to avoid leery, beery idiots and get to bed. Alone that is.’ She tried to look like she believed it, as though he wasn’t turning her on by what he was doing to her hand.

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