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The Chalet Girl

victoria prince

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For Jackie

Chapter One

As Emmeline Eversley thanked the crew and exited the budget aircraft, she paused at the top of a rickety staircase overlooking the tarmac and inhaled. The air felt crisp, clean and fresh, despite all the jet fuel in the vicinity. The snowcapped mountains in the distance called to her. Zurich was spelled out in huge, pristine letters above the terminal building. She truly opened her eyes for what felt like the first time in a long time. And felt invigorated.

Inside the terminal, passengers gathered at a set of double doors while they waited for a shuttle to take them to the arrivals hall, immigration, and their baggage. As Emme idly waited, she became aware of a presence, amongst all the people gathering around her, waiting for that same shuttle train; a powerful one. She knew just from the way the man, tall and strapping and smelling of bergamot and sage, looked at his Patek Phillipe watch on his tanned wrist that he had come from the private jet that had parked up next to her plane. Emme deliberately didn’t look at him, despite his immense allure. This kind of man was infuriatingly used to people looking at him, and she didn’t want to give him the satisfaction, so she kept her gaze firmly fixed on the countdown clock. The terminal train would be arriving in two minutes.

As Emme waited, she rewound her mental clock to one week ago. A Halloween wedding. A monstrosity of a dress. Always the bridesmaid, she thought. Her peach satin gown (verging on orange) was a shade that very few people could pull off, and it had done nothing for Emmeline with her warm apricot cheeks and gilded chestnut shoulder-length bob. And it drowned all 5ft 2in of her. Had Chrissy done it on purpose? As Emme looked at the other bridesmaids in shades of sorbet, buff and blush, in shapes that suited their figures, she considered her own: off-the-shoulder, puffball and drop-waist. It might be Halloween but did she have to look like a pumpkin?

It was obvious the bride didn’t like her. If Emme was honest, the feeling was mutual. Not dislike, more like polite disdain. She knew Chrissy only asked her to be in her bridal party because she felt obliged to. And the truth that was worse than the dress: Chrissy was marrying the love of Emme’s life, and Emme was the one who had set them up.

Three years ago Emme and Tom had been drinking after work in one of their favourite City haunts, as they often did, even on a school night, when a goddess with black hair tied back like a show pony put a coin on the pool table and gave Tom a wink. Emme took umbrage with this. Not because she and Tom were a couple, they weren’t. Even though they’d been for tapas and rioja before hitting the bar, like couples do. Even though they’d been to the cinema the weekend before and watched a film so gory, Emme had curled into Tom’s arm. Like girlfriends do. Everyone always said they looked like a couple. Emme hankered for them to be a couple, conflicted by the fact that Tom was her best

friend. He had been her best friend since they were paired up on a trip to London Zoo in primary school and they held hands in hi-vis bibs. The woman, who introduced herself as Chrissy, was dazzling. So dazzling, in jeans, a blazer and YSL heels, that Emme foolishly encouraged Tom to get her number as their dismal game went on. Tom’s happiness meant more to Emme than her own. And when he didn’t dare, Emme handed Chrissy her cue and said to her, ‘Winner stays on.’ Leaving them to play pool, while she headed home to her flat in Balham. Boy did Chrissy stay on.

One week ago, a murder ballad played as Emme walked down an aisle illuminated by squash and pumpkin lanterns behind the bride sheathed in Vivienne Westwood. As they reached the altar, Emme saw Tom glance away from his wife-to-be for just a second, to wink at Emme. A wink of friendship, a wink of love, a wink of pity given her regretful outburst – before he looked back at his bride and welled up.

As Emme waited now for the train, still aware of the man with aviator shades and a Prada holdall, she rolled back to the excruciating night before the wedding, when Tom knocked on her hotel room door after the rehearsal dinner and asked why she was thinking of leaving her job.

‘My sister told me,’ he said, blindsided. ‘Why would you give up your brilliant job, your flat, your life in London –your friends . . .’ Tom stopped himself from saying the word us. ‘Why would you give up all this to be a nanny? Anywhere in the world? At a moment’s notice?’

Emme had been the trusty executive assistant to Dominique Henry, chief financial officer and leader of the

board at ConCore Consulting for six years. Tom had sent her the job alert from the HR department when it came up two months after he’d started on the graduate training programme to become an auditor. They thought it would be fun working together. It had been fun working together.

Tom looked at her pleadingly. Emme had tried to bite her tongue but that wicked cocktail of champagne and heartache finally made her blurt it out it.

‘Because of you, Tom,’ Emme had replied with a desperate sigh. A tension hung between them; they both knew she was teetering on a precipice. ‘I’m in love with you.’

As Tom looked aghast, Emme whizzed through all the almost-moments in the zoetrope of her mind: the times she and Tom snuggled on the sofa lost in a movie and she wanted to caress his face; or dancing in a nightclub, high on beats per minute and she wished he didn’t look at her like a sister; or the time she saw him cry when his mother died and she felt such immense love for him. If only she had declared it then.

Tom was so shocked he needed the doorframe to hold him up. He shook his head.

‘I don’t think you are Em. You know me too well to be in love with me. It’s all got blurred in the lead-up to the wedding, emotions are heightened – Christ, do you think I haven’t had my doubts?’ He looked up and down the corridor.

Emme was taken aback. Did he mean doubts about Chrissy, or what-ifs about her?

‘Have you?’ she asked, trying not to sound hopeful.

They were interrupted by Tom’s father-in-law, thundering down the corridor sloshing a large glass of red in his hand.

‘Come here Larner! Important men’s talk to be had . . .’ he said, as he commandeered him away. Tom looked back, but Emme had already closed the door and slunk down the other side of it, knowing that either way, it was too late.

Shaking off her regret Emme snapped back to Zurich as a slick futuristic train pulled in exactly on time and the thick double glass doors opened in a whoosh. Passengers spilled on, keen to collect their baggage and start their adventures or return to their beautiful homes. The man, who was so well-dressed he looked like Switzerland might be his home, held back to let Emme on first and she found a corner to stand in, an internal thrill quashing the simmering nerves. Love and regret could be left in London. Nannying in Switzerland was not going to be forever, but here, on this train, surrounded by hot strangers and wholesome-looking families as she careered to a new future, Emme realised she could be anyone. Tom might have been right, she might have been mad to give up her brilliant job, at the brilliant company she worked at with him, to be a nanny, but possibilities outweighed fear right now.

As the train glided through a tunnel, the carriage lights dimmed and the tunnel walls became illuminated with a kaleidoscope of Swiss scenes. Cows pasturing on lush meadows with spring flowers. Medieval turrets and crystal lakes. Snowy peaks and picturesque mountain villages.

‘Hi, I’m Heidi . . .’ said a voiceover. ‘Welcome to Switzerland!’ Children and adults alike looked around at the screens illuminating the tunnel, enchanted. Strangers

smiled at each other. The man from the private jet looked at his phone, sunglasses still firmly on despite it being dark, and Emme wondered if she would ever be as blasé about being in such a hilariously brilliant place as he was.

Chapter Two

At Bloch railway station a guard with an elaborate moustache straightened his cap and blew his whistle so loud, it made Emme jump from inside the train. She looked out of the window and watched as a woman with a snowboard tied to her backpack rushed towards the door.

As the doors beeped to a close, she managed to squeeze in, just in time, the doors almost catching the board.

‘Hijo de puta,’ the woman muttered to herself, before turning sideways and hitting an unsuspecting man on the arm with it.

‘Ah, sorry,’ she said, in accented English. He gave a forgiving nod. The woman looked up and down the packed carriage for a seat, and saw one opposite Emme, next to a mother with a son on her lap.

‘This seat, is it taken?’ she asked the mother.

‘Nein, nein.’

The woman was more careful with her snowboard now as she eased herself in past the child, nodding gratefully at the mother. She gave a relieved and theatrical, ‘Oomph!’, as she placed her backpack and snowboard clumsily on the floor between her snow boots.

Emme had made it from the airport to the mountain train at Bloch with fifteen minutes to spare. The recruitment

agent who had fixed Emme up with the job assured her that it would be enough time.

‘It’s Switzerland, trains run like clockwork,’ she said, when she talked Emme through the route from SW12 to the remote mountain village of Kristalldorf, nestled high in the Swiss Alps.

Emme looked at the screen at the end of the carriage and panicked to see the destination saying Alpentor and not Kristalldorf. As the train pulled out of the station, she realised it was too late. She stared at the screen, hoping that she hadn’t got on the wrong efficient train. She absolutely didn’t want to be late – or worse, end up on the other side of the country and be late. Emme started to panic and wondered whether she should message the mother of the family.

Shit.

The Harringtons were meant to be meeting Emme off the mountain train at Kristalldorf and Emmeline Eversley was never late for anything. In all the years she had been Dominique’s PA she had never missed or mis-scheduled an appointment. She did not want to give the wrong impression when she was so nervous and keen to make a great first one.

Dammit.

There was low chatter in the carriage. Polite conversation in French, German, Italian, Spanish and English. Shit shit shit.

She imagined the children’s faces, remembering them from their hastily arranged Zoom call earlier in the week. A boy of nine with auburn hair and big brown eyes; his younger sister, seven years old, whose hair was redder, her freckles brighter. Their mother and father had flanked them on the screen, smiling hopefully, backs as straight as rods, as

if they were both willing Emme to be the right fit. Emme had smiled warmly and taken diligent notes while the mother told her the expectations of the job: getting the kids their breakfast, doing the school run, taking them to ski lessons, clubs and playdates, overseeing their piano practice and the bedtime routine. She said most of the work would be during the week while the father worked in Zurich, although she would be expected to cover some evening babysitting. It all seemed so manageable, Emme had tried not to look as desperate as the family to make it work.

Emme cleared her throat.

‘Excuse me please,’ she asked the woman with the snowboard. Her wayward hair and well-worn baggage told tales of someone who knew the mountains. ‘Is this train going to Kristalldorf? It’s just it says Alpentor on the screen . . .’ Emme nodded and swallowed hard.

‘I hope so!’ the woman said. ‘I’m working there tonight!’ She let out a loud and husky laugh and looked over her shoulder at the monitor at the end of the carriage.

‘There are about five stops until Alpentor and then another three to Kristalldorf. The screen must have got stuck. The mountain train always goes to Kristalldorf, unless it’s snowed in. It’s the end of the line.’

The end of the line.

Suddenly Emme was hit with a sense of doom. What had she done? Her dad, mum and sister had all looked at her with sorrow when she announced over lunch last Sunday that she was moving to the Swiss Alps for a season. They had known about her hairbrained scheme to maybe one day take a sabbatical and sublet her flat, but they didn’t think she was suddenly going to become a nanny in Switzerland.

‘Why would you do that, love?’ her mum Marian had asked.

Her sister Lucille was holding one of her five-yearold twins to her chest, while her brother-in-law Ryan had taken the other one into the garden to run around before pudding. It seemed like the right moment to drop the bombshell.

Because I’m too fucking embarrassed to take my lunch break with the love of my life when he’s married to someone else?

She couldn’t tell them that.

‘A change of scene and some fresh air!’ Emme had said with a forced smile.

‘But what will Ms Henry do without you?’ her dad lamented. Geoff Eversley always puffed with pride when he saw Dominique Henry on Newsnight or Business Daily.

‘She said I could take a sabbatical. For the season.’

‘But you’ve never skied!’

‘I did once actually,’ she said guardedly. ‘In Colorado. With Tom.’

Lucille furnished her sister with a worried glance.

‘You know I’ve been thinking about a change of scene. Tayla will look after the flat. The agency I’ve registered with called me yesterday morning, about a very short-notice placement with a family in the Swiss Alps. I’ll head out later in the week.’

‘You’re going to be an au pair?’ Marian looked mystified. ‘You’re twenty-eight!’

Emme looked at her sister for solidarity, but she was comforting her niece Zara.

‘A nanny. Not an au pair. And it’s just for a season.’

Emme wasn’t lying, a change of scene was just what she needed. And although it seemed sudden to her family, she had trained to be a nanny in her teens and spent the summer after her A levels with a family in the United States while Tom was teaching a football camp out there. She hadn’t loved nannying, but she’d been pondering this idea since she received her Save The Date last spring. It seemed her only way out.

So Emme spent months scrolling websites for international jobs, and kept landing on Nomad Nannies, an agency that paired young British women with British families around the world. Emme had interviews with the agency, and candid chats with Dominique, who was the only person Emme confided the real reason for wanting to get out of the country. Dominique said she’d support Emme and would give her a reference, keep her job open, but for six months max.

Emme understood.

‘Six months is all I need Dominique. Promise.’

The snowboarder noticed the ambivalence on Emme’s face.

‘Don’t look so worried about it! There isn’t anywhere more beautiful to get snowed in.’ She winked.

Emme smiled unconvincingly.

‘And I should know because I am from the second most beautiful place on earth.’

‘Where’s that?’ Emme asked, looking down the carriage to check her suitcase was still teetering on the luggage rack. Of course it was, she was in Switzerland. Surely no one would steal luggage.

She looked back at the woman with the gypsy curls; glad to shift the focus.

‘Patagonia, southern Argentina. The scenery is not so different to this,’ she said, nodding out the window.

That’s not what Emme had expected, at all.

‘Really?’

‘Yes. I live on the edge of a glacier: beautiful blues and whites everywhere. Kristalldorf is much more accessible –even if it doesn’t seem it to you.’

Emme gazed out of the window as the train started snaking up the mountain.

‘I’m Catalina, Cat,’ she said, thrusting a hand forward. Emme was taken aback, but took off her mitten and returned her hand. ‘Emmeline, but people call me Emme.’

‘Emme. Mucho gusto,’ Cat said, shaking her hand effusively. ‘First time in Kristalldorf I guess?’

‘Yes, I’m starting a new job.’

Cat’s eyes widened, as if to say tell me more. ‘I’m nannying. For an English family who live there.’

It was Cat’s turn to look surprised.

‘Interesting, I know everyone in Kristalldorf. Who?’

Emme lowered her voice.

‘The Harringtons.’

Cat widened her eyes, ringed with kohl and mischief, and said, ‘Ooooh, right . . .’

Emme looked nervous at this response.

‘What?’

Cat waved her hand.

‘Nothing . . .’ Her smile didn’t wane. Shit.

‘They come to parties at my family’s home, where I chef. I didn’t know Jenny that well.’ Cat had wide, gossipy eyes as if there was some salacious tea to be spilled.

‘Jenny?’

‘Their niñera – their nanny – but I’ve been in Argentina for a few weeks so I don’t know what the story is with that . . .’

‘Story?’ Emme pushed.

‘Oh doesn’t matter, you’ll be great.’ The smile was still there, but it definitely faltered for a second.

Emme looked up and down the carriage as the train rolled to its first stop. On one side of the track stood a pretty pale-yellow building with lilac shutters and a pitched roof. The word Gesundheitzentrum was painted in an ornate font on the façade. On the other side was a basketball court, with children in down coats playing in the last of the day’s sunshine. Some of the buildings around the station had onion-shaped domes on their spires – beautifully preserved medieval architecture spaced out on flat rectangles of grass at the base of the mountain.

‘What’s the family like?’ Emme asked cautiously.

Cat’s voice was loud, which made Emme immediately regret asking.

‘Mama’s uptight. Very British. Sorry.’

Emme shrugged as if to say that’s OK, I am too.

‘The kids seem OK, bit whingy. Jenny was close to them, I think. Very dedicated.’

Emme already felt inadequate.

‘As for Beeel . . .’

Cat looked up and down the carriage as if she had some very interesting intel on him, but stopped herself. ‘Actually he works in Zurich in the week, he might be on the train.’ She flirtatiously put a finger to her mouth.

‘I’ll tell you later,’ she said with a wink.

As the train continued to ascend, the lush lake-level meadows dotted with grazing cows gave way to pine trees and the green hues faded to a colder palette of greys and white. The clickety clack of the track was peppered with the occasional sound of a cow bell in the distance, as the train stopped at each station, and fresh Alpine scents permeated the carriage.

‘So you said you’re a chef?’ Emme asked, glad to be shifting the focus from the nerves she felt about meeting her host family.

‘Sí. For a family.’ Cat said the word family as if it were loaded. They probably were if they lived in the most expensive ski resort in Europe and had a private chef among their staff. ‘The Kivvis,’ she said, as if that explained everything. Emme looked blank.

‘You haven’t heard of them?’

She shook her head.

‘Viktor Kivvi, richest man in Europe? Born penniless, made his money in escalators and elevators.’

‘Wow. He really went up in the world!’ Emme couldn’t help but release a giggle at her own joke.

‘The Kivvis own the prime real estate in Kristalldorf. He built Seven Summits, where I live with the family,’ Cat said proudly.

Seeing Emme’s blank face, she went on to explain: ‘Seven “chalets”. Swiss engineering, very cleverly built into the mountain.’

Emme nodded.

‘The Kivvis own four of them. They rent three out – you know Abishek Joshi?’ Cat asked excitedly.

‘Sorry,’ Emme replied, feeling terribly unworldly.

‘Bollywood royalty!’ Cat exclaimed. ‘He and his wife Priya are my neighbours.’

She didn’t get round to telling Emme that a British Formula 1 driver and his Iranian model girlfriend lived in another, and a Danish songwriter and his husband in the other. There was plenty of time for that.

‘Who owns the other three out of the seven?’ Emme asked.

‘Well it’s a funny story – Viktor’s nemesis, Walter Steinherr, who owns most of the town, bought the other three, just to spite Viktor I think.’

‘Sounds a bit mean.’

‘That’s rich white men for you!’ Cat joked.

‘Isn’t it your boss’s choice who he sells to if he built them?’

‘Well, he co-built them with a Russian billionaire . . . but that’s another story for another time,’ Cat added and quietened down. Gossip on the mountain train was ill advised because there was often a Kivvi, Steinherr, Sommar or worse, a Stognev, on the train. Or one of their staff, and the staff always knew way too much. ‘We need to go out. When you’re settled in, every night is party night. Give me your number.’ Cat thrust her mobile into Emme’s hand for Emme to type her number into. Emme happily obliged.

‘Don’t you have to work evenings?’

‘Well, maybe not every night. But when I’ve cleaned up dinner and prepped breakfast; when my friends have wiped down their restaurants, we meet up. The nannies not so much, you often have to babysit while Mr and Mrs go out, although I don’t see Los Harrington out much . . . Even Tiago gets one night off a week . . .’

‘Tiago?’

‘My guy Tiago – poor dude, he works the supermarket by day and is the night manager in the Steinherrhof six nights a week.’

Cat made a pitiful face that showed she had it good, then did a sudden double take as she looked up. Emme turned to see what had caught her attention. She saw the back of a silver-haired man carrying an attaché case in one hand and a wool coat slung over his arm, walking hastily up the carriage.

‘That’s your boss!’ Cat mouthed. ‘Best I . . .’ she drew a zip across her mouth, and Emme didn’t know if it was for her benefit or Cat’s.

After almost an hour of further chatter, about Cat’s life in Argentina – her grandmother’s funeral she had just been home for – and happily not much about Emme, the train pulled into Kristalldorf station, where a beautiful gold and cream clock lit the darkened platform like a bejewelled moon.

All the remaining passengers – commuters, families, holidaymakers and thrill seekers – gathered their coats, scarves, ski paraphernalia and suitcases; as this was the last stop, Emme took her time. Cat looked at her colourful Swatch watch with the energy of someone who was always in a hurry and Emme didn’t know whether she felt invigorated or exhausted by her. She’d left her flat for Gatwick at 6am and now the sun had just set.

‘Gotta fly, catch up soon yeah?’ Cat said. She fistbumped Emme on the shoulder, hauled her backpack and her board over her shoulders, and weaved off the train.

Emme wondered if Catalina would ever bother – why would she? She was the chef for a super-rich family and always had friends to party with. But she already knew Kristalldorf wasn’t big enough to avoid anyone. Not that she wanted to. Cat had a warmth and a sparkle about her that had helped calm Emme’s nerves.

Chapter Three

‘Happy birthday, Daddy!’ gushed doe-eyed Vivian Steinherr, youngest daughter of Kristalldorf’s most powerful hotelier, as she raised her champagne glass and looked adoringly at her father, sitting at the head of the table next to her. His two sons were out of town but Walter was celebrating turning seventy with his beloved daughters, Vivian and Anastasia, Anastasia’s husband Dimitri, and their three children, Orfeas, Ophelia and Olympia, named after their father’s Greek ancestors, who were home from boarding school for the occasion. On Walter’s other side was his wife, Kiki, who trailed a pointed fingernail in figures of eight on her husband’s arm.

‘Thank you, Vivi,’ Walter said, raising his Baccarat glassware and chinking it against Vivian’s. He wasn’t in a celebratory mood, but he put a good face on it. He had been particularly grumpy since repeat mystery infections had led to his recent cancer diagnosis, which he was keeping from everyone except his physician, Dr Blitzer, who he spoke to about the cancer almost in code.

Walter wasn’t particularly frightened of his cancer – he was not a young man – he was more inconvenienced by the myeloma, because it was causing increasing pain in his bones, and by the increasing amount of appointments

he didn’t really have time for. He didn’t want aggressive treatment either; at his age it felt rather pointless. For now, Dr Blitzer recommended a ‘watch and wait’ strategy, and Walter decided not to tell a soul. Not his wife. Not his children.

Vivian was thirty-one, as charming as she was composed, and had the most luminous complexion in Kristalldorf. Walter was an imposing man with pale-blue eyes like his daughter, white hair and a bushy moustache. He wore a shirt and a cardigan with thick gold buttons.

Despite his devoted daughters insisting he have a party for his birthday, he insisted not. There were always parties in Kristalldorf: hotel launches, restaurants celebrating their Michelin stars, the Kivvis’ annual Christingle, The Kristall Ball, the spring music festival, the list felt endless. So the last thing Walter Steinherr wanted to do was attend another damn party.

He might have had his pick of venues, seeing as he owned most of the town, from the restaurant at the Steinherrhof to the terrace at the Alpenrose. Sometimes, when Walter was feeling mischievous, he hosted private dinners in one of the three vacant and enormous chalets he owned at Seven Summits. Each of the seven chalets had at least five bedrooms (all with ensuites with rain showers and mountain-view balconies), private ski rooms, wellness areas, a hammam and elevators. Finnish tycoon Viktor Kivvi had worked closely with Russian developer Alexey Stognev, and world-renowned architect Ludwig Smythson, to the highest spec, with his own Kivvi elevators installed into each premises, of course.

No one else in Kristalldorf had the money or the inclination to do what Walter did: cut a private deal with Stognev behind Kivvi’s back to buy three of the villas just to spite him – and then leave them mostly unoccupied.

The small consolation for Viktor was that he and his family lived in the largest of the chalets, which was the only one of the properties to have its own cinema, card room and bar.

The wasted income on Seven Summits was something that irked Walter’s children, especially his eldest daughter Anastasia, who was sitting at the opposite end of the long table to her father. Anastasia had ideas, if only she could have a closer look inside the empty properties. Walter was very guarded about them. He was becoming more guarded, more private in general lately.

Tonight Walter wanted an early dinner – he had always liked to eat early – in his mansion at the foot of the mountain; a mansion that looked more like a Snow Queen’s palace, its turrets and gables giving it a Disney-like charm. Inside was a sturdy sweeping staircase, elaborate tiled floors adorned in ornate rugs, crystal chandeliers and crackling fireplaces.

Anastasia had tied scores of gold balloons to her father’s chair, which made him look a little ridiculous – as if this serious stalwart of a man might just take off and float out of the mansion towards the mountains.

Walter didn’t like to be made to look ridiculous. He had expensive but demure tastes, which is why it was such a shock to everyone when he married Kiki five years ago. American Kiki had white-blonde hair, a baby-smooth forehead, pneumatic tits and lip fillers that made her look

older than her thirty-five years. Vivian did a better job of disguising her disdain for Kiki than Anastasia did; Vivian was good at making polite chat, asking Kiki how her day had been, even though the answer would predictably involve shopping or a spa. Vivian was partly relieved that her father had a companion. Anastasia, however, loathed their stepmother, who was two years younger than her and a money grabber as far as Anastasia could see. But then Anastasia had loathed all her former stepmothers. In her eyes no woman would ever live up to the saintly and distant memory of their dead mother. No woman would be good enough for their father. No woman would not be a perceived threat to her inheritance.

Next to Kiki sat Anastasia’s two daughters, Olympia and Ophelia, who were ten and eight and had hooded eyes like their father, Dimitri, a lawyer for his father-in-law’s businesses. Anastasia, with her dark locks and perfectly symmetrical face, was at the other end of the table next to their twelve-year-old son Orfeas, who had impeccable manners and wore a blazer as sharp as his bowl cut.

Walter’s butler entered the ornate dining room and silently furnished glasses with wine while two maids brought plates of smoked salmon, chateaubriand, escargots and river trout garnished with dill. The adults raised their wine glasses; the children drank apfelsaft.

‘Yes, happy birthday, Papa,’ oozed Anastasia, not to be outdone by her sister. ‘To the strongest seventy-year-old man on the planet! We adore you.’

Walter smiled wanly. He felt a pang of guilt, but he raised his glass and drank to that. He squeezed Vivian’s hand as his eyes filled a little.

He was a tough man with a ridiculous work ethic, but when it came to his family, he was mush.

Walter’s grandfather, Ernst, had been a sheep farmer in Kristalldorf at the turn of the twentieth century, when he saw an opportunity with the mountain train opening up from the settlement of Bloch down the valley. Ernst had the foresight to turn arable land into tourism and he opened a guesthouse at the foot of the mighty Silberschnee, the majestic mountain that overlooked the village, then three more as tourism started to grow. Ernst’s son, Walter’s father Gerhard, bought more land along the banks of the Glanzfluss river, and turned guesthouses into luxurious hotels when Kristalldorf started becoming as popular in the winter months as it was in summer. In the 1940s, the Steinherr family joined forces with the Sommars and the Kochs, two other founding families, to fund the first chairlift from the village up to the mountains, which by now were being fashioned into ski runs.

Despite war raging in Europe, Kristalldorf was booming with Swiss visitors, or Paris’s exiled elite, all looking for an escape. When Walter was born in the 1950s, he had his grandfather’s foresight and his father’s taste for grandeur, and over the decades he expanded his portfolio of hotels, with the Steinherrhof, the Alpenrose, the Kristall Palace, the Silberblick and, in the 1990s, Vitreum – the most luxurious, modern and exclusive hotel he’d built yet, perched high on a ledge overlooking the town. With his growing fortune, Walter alone funded a superfast train from the north bank of the Glanzfluss up to the slopes. The mountain train enabled skiers to get from the village to the slopes

in three fast minutes, which brought a bigger boom and cemented Kristalldorf’s reputation as the finest – and most exclusive – ski resort in the world.

For the past five years he’d focused on building the lofty glass box by the river, a beauty to rival Vitreum, which he’d carelessly lost in a bet at a casino in Monte Carlo. When it was finished, Walter gifted the Anna Maria hotel, a tribute to his late first wife, to their daughters for Christmas, to see if the sisters could come together in business. A test to help Walter identify an heir to take over the Steinherr empire.

Anna Maria Steinherr had died of ovarian cancer at home, opposite the site of the hotel that would one day be named after her. She was only thirty-four. Her daughters and two sons were all aged ten and under. Vivian was just a baby, she never knew her mother. She didn’t remember wife number two, Mechthild, who took on the heartbroken billionaire and his four young children with matronly gusto, but Walter was too grief-stricken to let her in and the marriage was over within three years.

Wife number three was wicked stepmother Susan, an Englishwoman whose own husband had died in a car accident. Susan endured the teen and young adult years, a tricky time as eldest brother Lysander and Anastasia were particularly combative. Susan stayed in Kristalldorf long enough to receive a tidy divorce settlement for her fifteen years of service. Before them there was a nurse Walter alluded to if he was misty-eyed or tipsy, but he shut down the conversation when his children ever asked more. And there was Kiki. Wife number four who Walter met when he was playing

blackjack in Monte Carlo five years ago. Half Walter’s age with absolutely no shared interests apart from poker.

‘ Proscht ,’ Walter conceded. ‘Anna Maria would have loved to watch you all grow up,’ he said sentimentally. ‘To see what beautiful children you bore Anni.’

Anastasia looked proud. She loved it when her children got her compliments.

‘And I’m sure you will too, Vivi.’

Vivian looked solemn for a second. Her honey-blonde hair was tied back in an elegant ponytail and her huge brightblue eyes were spaced far apart. Pale and ethereal looking, she was totally different to her darker, sharper, more sinewy elder sister, who had brown eyes like their mother. It made Vivian feel even sadder. She couldn’t remember the woman Anastasia was always told she looked like. Vivian gripped her father’s hand, grateful she was here next to him.

‘Thank you,’ she almost whispered, as she gave his hand a squeeze.

‘Why don’t you bring this mystery man of yours over?’ Walter asked. ‘It would be nice to meet him.’

‘A man?’ scoffed Anastasia. ‘I thought darling Vivian was too busy for romance.’ The thought of her sister finally having a boyfriend and no longer pining over the Joubert boy piqued Anastasia’s interest and she raised an eyebrow. Walter waved a hand.

The huge doorbell chimed and Vivian’s heart raced, full of hope. Perhaps he was coming. Perhaps he was finally ready to officially stand by her side.

‘I don’t know why you’re so coy, Vivi,’ Walter interjected. ‘I take each person at their own value, I don’t judge based on their name or background.’ As he said this, he knew it

not to be true. If Vivian were dating a Kivvi, perhaps, Walter imagined it might be problematic. ‘Nor should people judge you or your brothers for being Steinherrs,’ Walter said, somewhat unsurely. They all knew the Steinherr name could carry as much contempt as it could kudos.

A man in a suit, tie undone, clutching a bunch of flowers, walked into the dining room.

‘Hey, who’s judging?’ he said with a shit-eating grin.

Chapter Four

Emme eked out every step towards the doors, nervous about the upcoming introduction. Further down the platform she saw a woman reprimanding her children for something. Or was it her husband she was telling off as he approached the group and crouched down to greet his children? Either way, she looked pissed off.

Oh dear, Emme thought, recognising the man Cat had pointed out on the train from the Zoom call. And as she looked at the woman properly, she recognised her auburn hair and alabaster skin, that had shone so perfectly under the ring light of their video call. She was Alexia Harrington, Emme’s new boss.

Oh dear, Emme thought again, as the woman noticed her approaching. Her tense face morphed into a forced showbiz smile with prim red lips. She had the look of a faded Hollywood star, her Rita Hayworth waves pinned perfectly off her face; telltale creases where her Botox stopped at her nose. She looked like she was going to either burst into tears or burst into song.

‘Emmeline!’ She outstretched her arms awkwardly. ‘Welcome to Kristalldorf! How was your journey?’

The two little redheaded children stood either side of their mother, expectant to meet the woman who had the nerve to be replacing their adored Jenny.

‘Mrs Harrington, Alexia, lovely to meet you,’ Emme said as she went to shake her hand. Alexia was so fragrantlooking, Emme wondered if she should curtsey, but she took the outstretched gloved hands and let Alexia squeeze hers.

‘Lexy, please. Did you meet Bill on the train?’ She nodded towards her husband.

‘Bill,’ he said, outstretching his gloved leather hand. They both shook their heads and Emme smiled affably.

‘Nice to meet you,’ she said.

‘This is Harry, and this is Bella. Our munchkins. Darlings, give Emmeline a big Kristalldorf welcome.’

Lexy pushed her children with a palm on each back as they shuffled nervously forward and Emme got down to her haunches.

‘It’s so wonderful to meet you two in real life,’ she said, looking each of them in the eye. ‘Aren’t you both gorgeous?’

Despite her childcare qualification, and that brief stint in the States, Emme hadn’t had much experience in the past ten years, apart from her five-year-old nephew and niece, Zack and Zara, who she loved enormously. But what she lacked in experience she tried to make up for in planning. In the Zoom call earlier in the week Emme had gleaned all manner of clues about the children. Bella had a Paddington 2 film poster on her bedroom wall when Lexy gave a brief video tour. So now she opened her bag and pulled out two cuddly bears.

‘These are for you,’ she said. ‘I got them from actual Paddington station.’

Bella gasped as she took hers, clutched it and beamed. Harry looked a little disappointed.

‘What do you say to Emmeline, Harry? Bella?’

Lexy waited for her children to say something charming and grateful, but it was taking longer than any of the adults found comfortable.

‘You can call me Emme actually, no one calls me Emmeline,’ she whispered mischievously to them, pretending to let them in on her secret.

‘Thank you,’ Bella mumbled shyly.

‘Paddington’s lame,’ Harry said, so quietly, it appeared no one else seemed to notice, but Emme did a double-take.

‘That’s quite some suitcase!’ Bill Harrington said, deftly changing the subject. Perhaps he had heard too.

‘Grab a yumbo out the front and go ahead,’ instructed Lexy.

Bill nodded.

‘I’ll follow on foot with Emmeline – Emme – and the kids.’

‘Ooh, what’s a yumbo?’ Emme asked, perhaps overplaying her excitement.

‘Oh, they’re little electric cars that zip around town. Kristalldorf is carless, don’t you know?’

‘It keeps the air clean,’ Harry said, flatly.

Bill looked like he had quite fancied the walk after sitting on two trains for hours from Zurich to Bloch, and then to Kristalldorf. But he clearly knew better than to argue with his wife right now.

‘Can we get the yumbo with Papa?’ Bella asked her mother, through lispy lips.

‘No,’ her mother said firmly. And that was the end of that.

The first fulsome snowflakes of winter were falling on the town, now shrouded by an inky navy sky.

‘Perfect timing!’ Lexy Harrington said, as if she had just pulled a giant lever and switched them on herself.

As Lexy, Emme and the kids walked from the train station, Kristalldorf unveiled itself like a hidden gem. The glow from the street lamps gave the town a timeless warmth as the peaks at the head of the valley turned from white to silver in the moonlight. The most iconic of them all –the Silberschnee – was obscured by cloud as Lexy, Harry and Bella led the way past wooden-fronted shops selling expensive watches, skiwear, tourist trinkets and chocolate. Most of them were closing, although the restaurants that peppered the centre of town were open, with staff setting tables and furnishing chairs with sheepskin blankets. In the distance, a centuries-old church chimed 6pm.

Tucked behind the shopping street was a warren of wooden huts and chalets, their sloping roofs bearing the weight of the first rising snow. Window boxes were tightly packed with geraniums, gamely fighting the chill to reveal their distorted colours to the twilight. Nestled between these were antique wooden storage barns, that looked as if sheep might be asleep inside as they had for centuries. Emme wondered how these structures endured, neighbouring such smart glass-and-wood shops and boutique hotels.

Past the church, they crossed one of several footbridges that linked the two sides of the town over the wide and flowing river, its roar drowning out Lexy’s wittering. Emme could almost smell how pristine the water was, as she tucked her hands in her pockets. Passers-by heading towards the centre all nodded and smiled at Lexy and the children in their featherdown coats, snow boots

and bobble hats. Emme felt woefully underdressed and cold in her decade-old hiking boots and the ski jacket she had borrowed from Lucille. She already knew it wouldn’t cut the mustard.

Emme had winced at the fluoro orange and turquoise monstrosity and wondered how her sister had ever worn such a thing. Now she felt self-conscious walking alongside the very polished Lexy, bucking the local trend for featherdown in a Victoriana wool coat.

As they walked, Lexy pointed out the children’s favourite bakery, the closed ski train station that took villagers to the slopes in three minutes, the riverbank path to the school and the direction of the town’s best pizza restaurant.

‘Obviously Kristalldorf looks much more spectacular in the daylight . . .’ she said, almost defensively.

‘I think it looks beautiful now,’ Emme replied, trying to soothe Lexy’s nerves, as well as her own.

The wealth in Kristalldorf was immense but understated. And it was quiet, save for the odd electric bike whizzing past, or the sounds of a distant après-ski bar, where a chorus of ‘Take on Me’ was muffled by all the wood and the weather in between. Cowbells rang on the hills behind the buildings, which were hardly high-rise.

Nestled between a pretty chalet and a small woodfronted hotel was a set of wide but winding steps, where Emme could already see Bill up ahead at the top, the yumbo having dropped him at the base of the steps, her enormous case over his shoulders like he were participating in a survival challenge on a game show. A strategically placed light at the top of the steps illuminated him, as if he had won first

place, and the children raced each other to see who would take silver and get to their father first.

‘Careful!’ Lexy called after them.

Emme breathed heavily. The thin Alpine air teamed with the ferociousness at which these steps were coming at her caused her to pant slightly.

‘Quite the thigh workout living here,’ Lexy said, glancing back at Emme, who was embarrassed by her lack of fitness. ‘You’ll have glutes of steel by Christmas,’ she said.

Emme could almost hear the woman clench her pert buttocks as she kept an eye on her footing in the dark, while Harry and Bella chatted to their dad.

‘I got the part of the Sugar Plum Fairy, Daddy!’ Bella declared.

‘That’s wonderful, darling . . .’

‘I scored two hoops – that’s like goals – in basketball today.’

‘Well done, buster.’

Emme reached the top step out of breath and took off her coat.

‘Won’t miss you in the dark!’ Bill quipped, flatly, as he leaned on the handle of Emme’s suitcase, a bead of sweat glistening on his jaw in the light of the building. Their building by all accounts. It had Chalet Stern hand-painted on the side in an elegant script.

‘Gosh, thank you, sorry my case is so heavy . . .’

Bill leaned casually and waved, as if to say don’t worry.

‘You can carry it down when you leave!’ Lexy said with a laugh.

Bill looked at his wife pointedly and the laughter stopped. Emme smiled a little awkwardly.

Lexy tapped some digits into a keypad next to the door before a heavy-sounding lock was released and the front door pushed open with ease. ‘I’ll give you all the codes you’ll need,’ she assured Emme. ‘We share this door with three other families, although two of them are away at the moment, and Mr and Mrs Muller keep themselves to themselves.’

They walked into the building entrance, which had stone heated floors and smelled of clean laundry. A tumble drier whirred in a low hum off an adjoining room.

Bill rolled Emme’s case to the elevator and fluffed Harry’s hair in the reflection of the lift’s shiny doors.

‘What’s this then?’ he said playfully, ruffling up his son’s fringe. Harry batted him away affectionately.

‘We’ll all fit . . .’ Lexy assured Emme, jabbing a button by the doors, which opened straight away. ‘Top floor,’ she said, trying to conceal her pride.

Of course.

Chapter Five

‘Son!’ Walter beamed. ‘I wasn’t expecting you!’

He threw down his white linen napkin, stood up and opened his arms for a wide embrace.

‘I’d have made it in time for dinner if you didn’t insist on eating at this ridiculous hour,’ Lysander replied, hugging his father.

‘Happy birthday, Dad,’ he said, patting his father on the back, then handing him the bunch of flowers.

Anastasia and Vivian exchanged a look as if to gauge whether the other had known about their brother’s surprise visit. Neither clearly did. Anastasia’s children looked up and beamed at their uncle. Dimitri cleared his throat, stood up, and shook his brother-in-law’s hand.

‘Zander!’ Vivian smiled, as she stood and wrapped her long arms around her brother’s shoulders.

He squeezed her back. Anastasia stayed seated, almost bemused by the entrance.

‘Kiki,’ Lysander nodded.

‘Hi, honey,’ she said, blowing her stepson a kiss.

Lysander was tall, with salt and pepper hair and greyblue eyes, and he spoke with an American accent, after two decades in the United States as a top-brass lawyer, living in a very gorgeous pied à terre overlooking Central

Park. At weekends he retreated to an oceanfront house on Fire Island with his wife and son. He was rarely ever in Switzerland any more.

‘Is Blake coming?’ Orfeas asked keenly.

‘No, Meg and Blakey couldn’t make it, buddy – Blake has school and Meg is snowed.’

I bet, thought Anastasia. Her sister-in-law was always overwhelmed by the latest gala event or fundraiser she was planning. She seemed to live for charity. Whether it was for botanical research, music therapy, Haiti or Gaza, she was often at The Pierre or The Plaza, hosting or speaking at a dinner or a black-tie ball. Fundraising was a full-time job for that Real Housewife of New York City.

‘What a surprise!’ Walter seemed to visibly relax for the first time that evening. What a timely visit. He really could use his son’s counsel right now.

‘Well I wouldn’t miss Pop’s seventieth, not for the world,’ he said.

Lysander turned to his baby sister.

‘What’s this I hear about you having a new fancy man, sis? Are you finally over the Joubert boy?’ he teased her.

Vivian smiled sweetly to conceal her annoyance and sat back down. She wasn’t being coy. In fact, tonight she had been hoping to reveal him as her new boyfriend. After years of cat and mouse, lingering and longing, she felt that perhaps they might be able to make it official with his appearance at dinner.

Anastasia finally stood up to kiss her brother on each cheek.

A reverent butler entered the dining room, already carrying a spare chair, followed by maids carrying china. They

set a place between Vivian and her father, and Lysander sat down seamlessly as the chair was put in place.

‘This is such a wonderful surprise, you’ll come with me to the Borromeo wedding tomorrow!’ Walter declared, as if it was his best idea ever. ‘You don’t mind, do you my love?’ He said it with barely a glance in Kiki’s direction, and didn’t notice her looking affronted. Anastasia and Vivian both bristled internally. They knew about the Italian society wedding of the year, and were rather surprised not to have been invited. Vivian was less bothered than Anastasia: she had a busy weekend with all the people in town for the mountain marathon and most of the hotels were at full occupancy. Anastasia would have quite liked to have gone. It would have given her a reason to escape the dreadful drudgery of a weekend with Dimitri and their children.

Anastasia and Vivian both knew Walter was invited alongside a plus one, for Kiki. Now their father was giving up Kiki’s spot for their brother.

‘Sounds like a hoot,’ Lysander said, with a broad smile.

Chapter Six

‘Welcome back to Chalet Edelweiss, Catalina.’

Cat was unpacking in the smallest bedroom, a cosy single room in the loft that had a skylight view of the Silberschnee’s peak. Lumi Kivvi was leaning on the frame of Cat’s bedroom door. She didn’t often mix with the help, but she did look after them, and she had been devastated for Cat when her beloved grandmother had passed away suddenly, insisting she fly straight home for the funeral and paying for her ticket.

‘How was it?’ she asked, her blue eyes jumping out from the soft edges of an elegant silver-blonde bob.

Cat smiled wanly. Despite the hideousness of having to say goodbye to Abuela , she had caught up with cousins, seen friends she studied with at culinary arts school in Buenos Aires, and sought inspiration in the new restaurants of Palermo, San Telmo and Recoleta, getting fine dining ideas she could serve to the Kivvis (Lumi would appreciate them, even if Viktor and Mika didn’t). The trip had also been a circuit breaker for Cat. A chance to draw a line under a toxic affair that had gripped her for most of the past year. Cat had been thinking of her ex-lover as she idly folded her underwear away.

‘It was OK, thank you,’ Cat was grateful, both for the concern and for the interruption.

‘How’s your mother coping?’

Lumi was a thoughtful boss and a thoughtful mother. She had been a nurse when she met Viktor in Helsinki twenty-five years ago, and had had three children with him: Aapo was twenty-four and an Olympic fencer who lived and trained in Paris. Mika was nineteen, and could mostly be found bumming around the chalet getting stoned. And young Stella, at fourteen, was still boarding at a very exclusive private school on the banks of Lake Geneva. Three children, all born five years apart. Lumi had given the past quarter of a century to her family, getting back into the difficult baby years each time just as she thought she was coming out of them. It was only in the past few years that she had spent more time on philanthropy, putting the interest on her husband’s billions to good use while he continued to take over the planet, one elevator and escalator at a time.

‘My mother is coping well, thank you, ma’am. She was glad to have me home.’

‘Well, it’s good to see you looking so well. Take your time easing back into things here, although we did miss your summer rolls – oh those rolls!’ Lumi rolled her eyes heavenwards. Cat was excellent at fusing any cuisine. Argentinian steak sliced into Vietnamese summer rolls and flavoured with mint and holy basil. Hearty pork knuckle and cider stews from central Europe given a North African twist with apricots and cinnamon. French stews and fish soups served with homemade American-style corn breads. Cat dreamed of food, when she wasn’t dreaming about her lover. Fortunately, she’d returned to a kitchen that the maid had fully stocked.

‘Is it just you and Mika for dinner tonight, ma’am?’

‘Yes, Viktor’s in Helsinki but he’s flying in late tonight for the Borromeo wedding tomorrow.’

‘Of course.’ Cat folded the remainder of her clothes. ‘I was thinking perhaps steak with salsa verde and trufflecooked chips. Is that good for you? Or would you like something lighter tonight?’

‘Cat that sounds wonderful – it’s good to have you home,’ Lumi said, as she smiled and breezed away.