Читать книгу Revenge of a Chalet Girl: - Lorraine Wilson - Страница 5

No, no, no!

Amy’s heart leapt wildly about her chest, pounding even harder than it had the time she’d tried a spinning class.

It has to be a different Josh Carter. It has to be!

Despite the crackling fire in the fireplace and cosy underfloor heating, Amy shivered.

“Are you okay there, Amy? Have you got those tree decorations? We’re running out of time, especially if Scott and Holly have a clear run back from Geneva Airport,” Sophie called out from the open plan living area.

“Er, yes.” Amy hastily put the bookings print out back by the telephone. That would teach her for being nosy. She picked up the cardboard box full of Christmas lights, glass icicles and shiny red baubles and walked into the room, taking it over to Sophie.

It’s not my Josh, it can’t be…

“Great.” Sophie twisted her caramel-blonde hair up into a ponytail and got up from the cowhide sofa to take the box from her. “I think we’ll have enough now.”

They both looked at the non-drop Christmas tree that soared up to the double height ceiling in the corner opposite the fireplace. They’d already put two boxes worth of decorations onto the tree and were fast running out of time before a minibus full of guests descended on them.

Tash and Amelia walked in, carrying four mugs of hot chocolate between them.

“Drink up, I’ve made them Irish.” Tash winked at Amy who attempted a weak smile but it felt forced and unnatural. A reflection on how she was feeling - disconnected from her surroundings.

If it was her Josh Carter she needed the alcohol. And the chocolate. In fact she’d need a shedload more of both…

“Thanks.” Amy took her mug and tried to let the Michael Buble tracks playing softly in the background get her into the Christmas mood. Candles flickered on the windowsill and thick flakes of snow fell steadily outside, the sky so white it felt like they were immersed in the snow cloud.

It should be perfect. She had been looking forward to Christmas, even though she’d be working. There’d be parties, skiing and snow…

But now her mind was full of Josh, the thoughts had latched on, unshakeable. Memories of the last Christmas they’d shared together at his parents’ house in Devon taunted her. Josh had saved up to buy her a silver hare brooch, he’d always joked she was like a hare, full of bounce and a bit wild. If anyone had suggested it was going to be the last time she’d celebrate it with him she’d have laughed.

Unthinkable.

She lifted the mug to her lips and swallowed a lump of pain down with the warm chocolate. The instant rush of sugar helped to take the sting away a little. She was used to swallowing down pain when it came to Josh. She’d had a lot of practice.

Christmas in Verbier had sounded such fun. Far better than going home to her parents and being asked if she’d met any nice boys yet, or when was she was going to settle to a ‘proper’ job?

“Anyone know anything about the guests coming today?” She tried to sound casual, getting down on her knees on the cowskin rug to sort out the Christmas lights, testing the bulbs so she wouldn’t have to look any of the girls in the eye. Sharing a dorm room meant they all knew each other pretty well.

Sometimes too well.

Tash was only too happy to share the gory details of her latest sexual conquests. How she got away with the things she got up to Amy didn’t know. Luckily for Tash, Scott and Holly were great to work for and made it clear that what their staff got up to in their own time was their own business.

“I think it’s a stag party.” Sophie flopped back on the sofa with her mug and a packet of silver strands to untangle.

Amy and Amelia groaned but Tash whistled. “Just think of the tips, girls.”

“But what will they expect us to do for those tips?” Amelia pulled a face. “Don’t you remember the time that stag group made us have a drinking competition to compete for our tips?”

“Hey, you might enjoy it. Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.” Tash retorted. “Anyone’d think you were forty-six, not twenty-six.”

“Where are they from? Oh crappitty, crap, crap…” Amy cursed as the plastic casing of one of the lights snapped in her fingers. She’d have to make sure that one went around the back of the tree.

“Who?” Tash stared at her curiously.

Really, that girl had the attention span of a gnat. Either that or she was being uncannily perceptive.

“The stag party of course.” Amy’s jaw clenched with the effort of trying to sound casual. Really, she wanted to grab hold of Sophie and shake the details out of her.

“Not sure,” Sophie replied, sipping at her chocolate, fixing her hazel eyes on Amy. “Why?”

Why indeed?

Amy couldn’t think of a reasonable answer. Not one she wanted to give, anyway. She shrugged, “Just wondering.”

“Fancy your chances with one of them do you?” Tash asked. “Decided to stop being so choosy?”

“Leave her alone Tash.” Sophie got to her feet and came over to the box of decorations, emptying and sorting it with her usual efficiency. “Don’t you want the field left clear for yourself?”

“There’s plenty to go around and you’ve got to be generous at Christmas, haven’t you?” Tash replied, grinning.

Amy fumbled with the lights, almost dropping them as she passed the string up to Amelia, now up on the stepladder next to the tree. Every muscle in Amy’s body tensed and a familiar tight sensation had gripped her chest. She tried to reassure herself.

There were other Joshua Carters. There was absolutely no reason why it should be him. She’s never heard him express an interest in skiing when they’d been together.

No, but you can bet he has the kind of friends who ski…who might invite him on their stag weekend.

She glanced at the clock on the wall, feeling positively twitchy. If the flight had arrived on time she’d find out soon enough. Her stomach lurched and when a wave of nausea washed over her, she dropped the end of the string of lights.

“What’s up?” Amelia called down, flicking her straight blonde hair over her shoulder and fixing cool blue eyes on her.

“Sorry, I need the loo,” Amy practically raced out of the room, ignoring the curious looks of the others and not waiting for a reply.

Instead of heading for the bathroom, she raced outside, desperate for fresh air, needing to breathe again. This hadn’t happened to her for years. She’d never had panic attacks before, well, before her life had imploded, leaving her crushed under the debris.

But she’d moved on from that bleak time, hadn’t she? Had been depression-free for years, yet now it seemed to hover like a dark cloud on the horizon.

She focused on the view, on the dramatic plunge down into the valley, the alpine range soaring into the sky and the miles upon miles of pristine, powder snow. If she didn’t anchor herself in the here and now she feared the past would catch up with her and sweep her away.

I should be over this…

The sunshine was warm on her face, despite the chilly wind. She inhaled the fresh mountain air, slowly deepening her breathing and trying to employ the special yoga techniques she’d learnt in class.

So many gym classes. So many attempts to keep busy, to keep moving so she wouldn’t have to think. Now she’d been casually shoved off the precipice she’d painstakingly clawed her way up. Just by seeing his name on a list.

Great progress Amy. You thought you were doing so well but look at you!

She persevered with the breathing and located her backbone.

Get it together.

She wouldn’t let it get to her.

“It isn’t Josh,” she whispered fiercely to the mountains as though speaking it aloud could make it true. If only she were free to go skiing this afternoon, that would’ve made her feel better. She needed a nice endorphin rush to flush the negative feelings out of her system.

And if it is Josh I’m going to give him hell. He won’t get the satisfaction of seeing me looking defeated. He needs to see I’m over him.

Even if it isn’t true.

The sun, now low in the sky, disappeared behind a lone dark-grey cloud and she shivered, wrapping her arms around her body.

I can do this.

Back in the chalet, she found Sophie and Amelia had gone into overdrive. The tree was decorated and it sparkled silver and red, reflecting the light of the candles they’d lit and placed around the room. All the decorations were tasteful. No gaudy tinsel here.

Yet a bit of her felt nostalgic for her tacky childhood Christmases. Mum would be bustling around at home now wearing her special Christmas apron, listening to carols on the radio and making mince pies. The house would be adorned with decorations they’d had for twenty or more years, including the angel Amy had made when she was six.

Amy grabbed her unfinished hot chocolate and gulped it down, trying hard to focus on all the skiing she’d be able to do this winter. Not to mention the parties. She’d be able to keep busy, so busy she wouldn’t have to think.

“Could you go and check the cakes?” Tash asked, standing in her socks on the back of a dark leather chair and fastening what looked suspiciously like mistletoe to one of the beams. The pink streaks in her hair looked pretty cool in the candlelight. She’d been experimenting again.

“Okay.” Amy turned back round again to go to the kitchen. “You know, I’m pretty sure Holly didn’t ask for mistletoe.”

“You’ve got to make your own opportunities girl. You have so much to learn.” Tash called out after her.

Hmm, maybe I should. It might be nice to meet someone.

Amy mentally pulled down the shutters on the past. It was time to move on; maybe a guy could help her do that?

As she pulled the trays from the oven she heard the crunch of tyres on the gravel outside, followed by voices. She quickly turned the first cake out onto a wire tray to cool and had picked up the second when the group spilled chaotically from the hallway into the kitchen.

“That smells amazing! I’m bloody starving, the food on the plane was crap.” A large man with a thatch of blonde hair, the build of a rugby player and the face of an eager puppy advanced towards her, hand outstretched as though to grab the cake, tray and all.

The kitchen was so chaotic she couldn’t properly scan the group for Josh.

She caught Holly’s eye and Holly shrugged apologetically, surreptitiously raising her eyes to the ceiling.

“If you could all come this way there’s a welcome drink for you by the fire,” Holly announced to the group, attempting to shepherd them away from the kitchen. At the word ‘drink’ they instantly obeyed. “Amy will bring the cakes through once they’ve cooled.”

Amy anxiously trailed her gaze over every member of the group as the kitchen emptied. Even though, deep down, she was expecting Josh, it was still a shock when he turned to face her. She met his eyes – dark eyes the colour of bitter coffee, fixed on her, mirroring her shock. His mouth opened as though he were going to speak but he abruptly closed it again.

He was just the same, but not, somehow. A little broader in the chest perhaps, his complexion tanned and sun-kissed, his dark hair cropped closer to his head than she was used to. Stubble on his face too.

But still him. Oh God, it was still Josh.

The second cake tin slipped out of her hand and crashed to the slate floor taking the oven mitt with it. It landed cake-side down. She scrambled down onto the floor to grab it, glad of an excuse not to have to speak to Josh, not to have to look. Stupidly, not thinking, she grabbed the tin with her now bare hand and cursed when it burnt her hand in the process.

“Ow, shit…shhhugar,” she squeaked, catching Holly’s eye and putting her hand to her mouth, her own eyes widening in horror. “Sorry, I’m so sorry.”

She kept her eyes on the broken cake on the tiles, not daring to lock eyes with Josh again. She felt…she wasn’t sure.

Overwhelmed might just about cover it.

“It doesn’t matter. We’ve all done it.” Holly replied briskly, ushering the last of the group, including Josh, firmly out of the kitchen. She then grabbed the mitt and retrieved the cake from the floor. “Run your hand under a cold tap. It’s a shame they saw it happen, otherwise we could’ve brushed it off or cut the top off and iced it. The floor is clean after all.”

“Really?” Amy went to the sink and turned on the cold tap, her cheeks hot. The pain helped somehow, it gave her something physical to focus on. Even the numbing cold water felt good. The numbness seemed to spread, creeping through her body and clinging to her mind, freezing her thoughts.

“Yes, you’re not the first person to drop a cake and you won’t be the last. That’s why I’ve got a secret weapon stashed away where no one will find it.” Holly went to a cupboard and pulled out Tupperware containers of dried lentils, retrieving a tin of luxury chocolate biscuits from behind them. “I have to hide the biscuits from Scott or he’d snaffle them. They’ll do to go with the apple cake. Everyone likes a chocolate biscuit.”

Holly then walked over to examine Amy’s burn. “Are you okay?”

“I’m not, um, feeling that great. A bit sick ,” Amy replied, gazing down at the sink. It wasn’t a lie. She felt like she might throw up.

“Go and have a lie down then, that’s an order,” Holly said kindly. “We can manage the welcome bit and it’s not your turn to do dinner tonight is it?”

“Er, thanks. If you’re sure.” Heat crept up Amy’s neck. “I think I could do with a lie down.”

A lie down. A stiff drink. And a fast car to get me out of here to Geneva Airport.

What the hell was she going to do now?

“I’ve missed you,” Josh murmured in her ear, so close she could smell his aftershave and taste his skin. The recognition jolted her body as violently as an electric shock.

She moaned, pressing herself closer, willing him to touch her.

Thankfully she didn’t have long to wait. Without any preamble, Josh kissed her as though they’d never been apart, his hands sliding up beneath her nightdress and squeezing her bottom.

His tongue probed into her mouth and she welcomed it enthusiastically, wanting him deeper and deeper.

She parted her legs, wet for him as she pressed hard up against him, wanting his hands and lips on her breasts, and his tongue between her legs. Wanting him with a ferocity that took her breath away.

Wanting him more than she’d ever wanted anything.

It felt so delicious, and utterly exquisite being with him again. It felt completely right. Like coming home.

Her body remembered his, remembered how well they fitted together, like two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Hungrily, fervently she explored his firm flesh, her hands running up under the fabric of his t-shirt and snaking down to feel the hard bulge in his jeans.

“Josh,” she gasped, wanting his clothes off, needing him to take her. “Josh, I need you.”

“Amy,” he whispered into her hair. “Amy, I…”

Then, with a sickening lurch she heard someone calling her name and she woke up, disoriented. She was not in Josh’s arms after all but in the dorm room, in her bunk bed. Alone.

“Keep it down will you? Some of us are trying to sleep!” Amelia called out from the bunk below.

Blinking in confusion, Amy tried to adjust to cold reality as her dream faded. But her body throbbed as though he’d really been touching her and for a few moments she wanted to hold onto the sensation, wanted to stay in the dream where everything had magically been okay again.

“Not so fast,” Tash said. In the dim light provided by the moonlight she was just visible in the bunk opposite. She’d turned on her side and was facing Amy. “So, who were you dreaming about?”

“Why? Oh no, was I talking in my sleep?” Amy groaned and shifted on her bunk. “Really?”

“Not exactly talking, I’d call it moaning.” Sophie called out.

“And writhing, you were making the bed frame creak,” Amelia added, clearly disgruntled. Amy wished she could melt away.

“Um, sorry.” She wanted to shrink back under her bedclothes.

“Who’s Josh?” Tash asked.

“Oh God, this is hideously embarrassing.” Amy pulled the duvet up over her head.

“It’s only sex,” said Tash.

“Hmm.” Amy winced beneath the covers. “I’m not really sure…”

Only sex? There was nothing ‘only’ about sex with Josh. It had been fantastic.

It had meant something.

“There’s nothing to be embarrassed about. Go on, dish the dirt – Have you met someone? If so it’s about time.” Tash’s voice was matter of fact, as though it were a perfectly normal conversation. Her attitude reassured Amy a little.

She poked her head out of the duvet. “I suppose I may as well tell you, I’ve got as much chance keeping a secret from you as from the Spanish Inquisition.”

“Less chance,” Sophie called out. “Go on, you can tell us. If you don’t, you know Tash will only find out anyway.”

“The Josh who arrived with the group today is, well, my ex…”

“Really?” Tash sounded very alert all of a sudden.

“Things didn’t end well. He was the love of my life. I thought we’d get married and…” Amy’s voice caught and she swallowed down the lump in her throat before continuing. “He dumped me, without any warning. We were getting on really well, there were no warning signs, nothing. It was a horrible shock and I um, didn’t take it very well.”

Big understatement.

She opened her mouth but no words came out. How could she describe how depressed she’d felt when Josh had left for his job in Saudi? Then she’d got the news about Grandad’s heart attack from mum. She’d been so close to him growing up and she’d not even got the chance to say goodbye.

No warnings, just gone.

She’d slid into a horrific black hole the GP had diagnosed as clinical depression, once her mum had frogmarched her to the surgery. It was very common, the matter of fact doctor had briskly told her as she handed over a prescription for anti-depressants.

As though tablets could’ve brought either Josh or Grandad back.

As it was, the tablets seemed to increase the fog in her brain. She cried less but she no longer felt like herself.

She didn’t feel up to talking about the long months of depression, the aborted teacher-training course and the worried parents. Would they even understand, or were they from the ‘pull yourself together’ school of thought?

Anyway, she’d moved on from all that.

Josh didn’t check on me once. He moved abroad and never looked back.

Stirrings of the old anger at his unrelenting silence simmered inside her, threatening to come to the boil. It hadn’t helped that he hadn’t been there to talk about Grandad. Josh had been her best friend as well as her boyfriend. They talked about everything. How did you just turn that off? Did it mean those years had never really meant anything?

Her eyes hurt from holding back the tears. Anger and pain mingling to create a deadly mixture that ate away at her insides.

For a moment, there was silence in the room but Amy didn’t trust herself to fill it.

“The bastard,” Tash proclaimed. “So, it’s time for revenge.”

“Revenge? I don’t know…” Amy wriggled uncomfortably in her bed. “I was thinking more along the lines of running away.”

An indignant chorus filled the room.

“You can’t run away. What are you, woman or wimp?” Tash asked.

Um, I’m a wimp probably. If I’m being honest.

“Woman,” Amy replied reluctantly when it became obvious Tash expected an answer.

“This guy broke your heart, right?” Tash’s sharp features looked fierce in the moonlight, like an alley cat about to pounce. “He trampled all over your emotions. Led you on and then dumped you.”

“Well yes, I suppose so,” Amy admitted, fighting the surging waves of emotion pressing against her eyelids.

I won’t cry.

If she did, Tash would probably disown her for crimes against feminism. But could she ever forgive Josh for leaving her to deal with her first bereavement alone? For just switching their relationship off as though it meant nothing?

He had pulled the plug and watched the light and power fade out of her life and then he’s walked away.

That had felt like a bereavement too. That too had been a shock, the strike of lightning from a clear blue sky.

Amy curled up on the bunk, drawing her knees up against her chest.

“So, you get revenge and you get the upper hand.” Tash cut into her thoughts, warming to her theme. “We can put chilli in his food and itching powder on his sheets.”

“You’ll get her fired,” Amelia broke in, scornfully. “The best way to get revenge is to show him what he’s missing and can never have again. Look gorgeous, flirt with his friends but be offhand and distant with him. Show him you are so over him. It will drive him insane. Trust me. And if he tries to get your attention, which trust me, he will, you blank him. That’s the best revenge of all.”

“That sounds kind of tempting. What do you think Sophie?” Amy asked.

“Do whatever you need to do to feel okay, sweetheart. You certainly can’t hide in your room all Christmas and it’s not fair on Scott and Holly to run away at their busiest time of the year.” Sophie’s voice was softer, kinder than the others. Amy trusted her advice.

“I suppose you’re right,” Amy sighed. Holly had been really good to her and why should Josh get to ruin her plans yet again? She could just imagine her parents’ anxious expressions if they heard she’d thrown her job in, and even worse if they found out it’d been because of Josh.

She couldn’t do that to them. She couldn’t do it to herself.

“Getting revenge will make you feel much better, trust me,” Tash said, yawning. And then maybe you won’t dream about him and wake us all up.”

“I’d certainly hate to be your enemy Tash,” Sophie laughed and turned over, making her bunk creak. “Now before we have the guy hung, drawn and quartered shall we all try and get some sleep?”

Amy listened to the rustling of bed clothes and tried to process everything – Josh turning up, the dream, the girls’ advice… her head hurt with the effort of repressing the newly awoken emotions. Not to mention the carnal stirrings provoked by the dream and welcomed by her traitorous body.

She’d done such a good job of burying her desires, of picking herself up off the floor and getting on with life. It was gutting that by simply turning up, in one swift move Josh had brought all the balls she worked so hard to keep in the air crashing down to the ground, along with Tash’s lemon drizzle cake.

She couldn’t be a victim. Taking control of the situation was the way to go. He hadn’t sought her out to speak to her since he’d arrived, had he? Was he worried she might make a scene? Perhaps he was horrified and wondering how he would avoid her all holiday.

She’d give him a scene all right – but not the kind he might expect.

This time she’d be totally in control and she’d show him an Amy who was over him and doing damn well, thank you. Maybe she would flirt with his friends, and show him what he’d missed out on. She could wear that bikini Tash had talked her into buying to wear in the Jacuzzi.

Time to woman up and go on the offensive.