Secrets of a Chalet Girl: HarperImpulse Contemporary Romance Novella

by Lorraine Wilson

  Zac emerged from the house, his face blank of all emotion although his eyes were grim.

  I don’t know what to say…

  “I’m sorry,” she said simply, her eyes annoyingly deciding to choose that moment to fill with tears. “I’m so sorry.”

  What’s she sorry about? Sorry but she has to dash, has remembered she needs to be back at Chalet Repos? Sorry she can’t do this anymore…what?

  What had happened back at the house must have been awful for her. Worse than that, she’d seen him hit a man, an elderly man at that…she must think he was as bad as her ex.

  Maybe I am… What kind of a person must she think I am? But she has no idea what’s happened, the things he’s done to mum over the years, is still doing.

  How could he tell her all that stuff? He never talked about it and wasn’t sure he had the emotional vocabulary. It was much easier when he was trying to cheer Flora up, trying to help her… he didn’t feel comfortable with the situation reversed.

  He opened his mouth to speak but nothing came out. He put the key into the ignition, desperate to put some distance between the house and them, wishing he’d never brought Flora here. It might have worked if his dad had answered the door, he would’ve had time to assume his usual act. But when they hadn’t answered the door there’d been no choice, he’d had to use his old key.

  Zac put the Jeep in gear and drove off a little too fast, gravel crunching beneath the tyres, spraying up into the bushes.

  Should he tell Flora it had only been the second time he’d ever hit anyone in his life? The first time he’d hit his dad he’d been eighteen and he’d moved out straight away afterwards, paying his own way through university with as many part time jobs as he could manage on top of his studies.

  But if I had a franc for every time I wish I’d hit him I’d be far richer than he is. Doesn’t that make me just as bad as him?

  “Zac, are you okay there?” Flora placed a gentle hand on his thigh, bringing him back from the dark thoughts swirling round in his mind. He only realised he’d been holding his breath when he heard himself sigh at her touch.

  “I’ll be fine,” he replied shortly. He wasn’t fine, but he would be. He planned to be. That was how it usually worked. If you worked hard enough at it, nothing needed to keep you down forever. Flora didn’t need his crap dumped on her, however tempting it might be to just let go.

  He paused at the junction and turned to look at her. Actually she looked terrible, her face as pale as a ghost.

  “If you’d rather I took you back to Chalet Repos instead of to the Mirador I’ll understand. I could always bring your bags over…or…” Zac tried to keep all his emotions in check. He didn’t want her to go, he needed her right now, needed another human body to be close to. He needed someone who understood.

  He needed Flora but that was selfish. What about what she needed?

  His throat felt tight and painful, like he’d swallowed sandpaper.

  “No.” She lifted her hand from his thigh and he felt the loss of the contact. “Unless you wanted me to, you know, go? Did you want to be on your own?”

  Out of the corner of his eye Zac saw her lip tremble and he pulled over into a lay-by. He undid his seatbelt and took her in his arms. She burst into tears, burying her head against his shoulder.

  He stroked her back, feeling the pressure to contain his own emotions. She needed looking after, so he had to squash his own issues down. That was just how it went.

  It was how it had always been.

  “I need you to know Flora, what you saw… I would never hit a woman!” He whispered into her hair. “I had to stop him, I had to…”

  “Hey I understand, really I do.” She turned curious eyes up to his face, looking a little confused. “Sorry, I’m just a bit…stressed, you know?”

  “Yep, there’s a lot of it going around,” he replied.

  “I know. Look he wouldn’t come after us would he? He really didn’t seem to like me very much.” She glanced anxiously over his shoulder as though half expecting his father to drive up behind them.

  “He wouldn’t take me on now. Bullies only pick on those weaker than themselves, they don’t like a fair fight.” Zac’s tone was flat. It was as though someone had sucked all of the emotions out of him, leaving him cold as ice.

  For the umpteenth time he cursed himself for bringing Flora along. He’d ruined whatever they had going on and just as he was beginning to well, feel something.

  “Not exactly the best Christmas, eh?” he put the Jeep into gear again and indicated to pull out.

  “It never is as perfect as we hope, is it?” Flora stared out of the passenger window and didn’t replace her hand on his leg. He sensed the shift in her was more than physical.

  She might be sympathetic but she’d withdrawn from him and he felt the growing gap between them.

  Had he stuffed this up?

  “Tom hit me,” Flora blurted out and Zac fought to keep his concentration on the road, his natural instinct being to turn back to her.

  “Oh?” He glanced over, startled and then had to turn his attention back to the road when someone hooted their horn behind them.

  “Only once,” her eyes were downcast and her fingers twisting in her lap. “Well it was twice really. I should’ve left after the first time but you know…it’s never quite the same when you’re in the situation yourself. You know the advice you’d give your friends if anyone ever hit them and you think you know how you’d react…but real life is always so much messier and more complicated and Tom wasn’t all bad. If he had been all bad it would have been so much easier to go.”

  Her voice had dropped to a whisper and Zac regretted having pulled the car back out into the road, now there was nowhere to pull in. But maybe she needed him to be driving in the same way she’d need it to be dark in the bedroom before she’d open herself up to him.

  “You did the right thing.” The words left his lips instinctively. “There was no way you could have stayed and no way anyone in their right mind would expect you to. No one who cared about you would’ve wanted you to stay in that situation.”

  So why won’t mum leave? I really can’t understand it. I’ve said I’ll take care of her. We can manage without…him.

  Zac thought he might be choking with the pain of it. He took a deep breath to restore his calm and the crisis passed.

  “Do you think your mother will leave?” Flora asked, making him start. How had she done that? How had she read his mind?

  Zac took another deep breath. “At first they were staying together because of me, supposedly. Now there’s no other reason than that he’s become her world, her provider, her everything…”

  “Maybe she loves him,” Flora suggested tentatively. “Maybe she loves him despite everything. I know it must be really, really hard to stomach but it’s her choice and you can’t make her leave.”

  “I know,” he replied, his voice taut and his control cracking. But did he know? Really? Hadn’t he been trying to force his wishes on his mother for years? And if so then wasn’t that an indication that he liked to be in control too?

  He didn’t trust himself to say anymore. He put his foot on the accelerator and headed for the autoroute to take them back to Vevey and the Mirador. Maybe things would feel better when they were back there. Perhaps they could hit the rewind button and just take up where they’d left off, as though none of this had ever happened.

  Yeah right! And I’ll get a call to say mum has left dad and he’s really sorry for all the stuff he’s done wrong. Life simply doesn’t happen like that Zac, haven’t you figured that out yet?

  If he was like his dad then maybe it was a good thing he’d never committed to a relationship. Maybe this was why he’d been avoiding emotional entanglements. Had he been afraid a relationship might disintegrate into the kind of scenes he’d witnessed growing up? After all it was so much safer to be single, no one to argue with, no one he needed to protect.

  It wasn’t fair to
make Flora witness more scenes like that one this morning after all she’d been through. It’d clearly really shaken her. And he was never going to give up his mum, so… Flora didn’t need this kind of hassle. He was going to have to do the decent thing.

  Even though the decent thing stunk to high heaven.

  But the fear he might not be able to protect Flora hammered away in his chest. He couldn’t even protect his mum so how would he be able to shield Flora as well? His muscles were still taut with tension and although he tried to smile when they got back to their hotel suite he knew it wasn’t very convincing.

  Suddenly he was tired. So very, very tired.

  They ordered from room service and ate in silence. Zac thought he would’ve preferred the sounds of other diners around them compared to this pregnant silence. When Flora had finished she yawned widely, covering her mouth with her hand. “Do you mind if we just go to sleep? I’m shattered.”

  It looked like she was going to make things easy for him. His original plan had been to keep this thing with Flora as a holiday fling with a question mark ending.

  There was no question mark now.

  He’d end it after the wedding. It would be awkward to finish it before and then bump into each other and Christmas day had been bad enough already without adding to it.

  Not that he really wanted to end it at all. Still. An unutterable weariness weighed down his limbs with the knowledge of ‘The Right Thing’.

  I can’t put Flora through another scene like today.

  “Are you sure you’re okay, after, you know, everything?” Zac asked as they climbed into the pristine white bed that had been made up by housekeeping in their absence. He tossed the complimentary chocolate and weather forecast card from his pillow onto the bedside cabinet and sank gratefully into bed.

  “Yes, sure,” Flora replied, she snuggled up to him but felt tense in his arms. He ached to make love to her but he knew he had to back off. She’d practically told him to hadn’t she? Or maybe she was simply knackered? He knew he was.

  I’m too tired to read subtext. I wish women came with subtext subtitles or at the very least always said exactly what they mean. It would make life so much easier.

  It didn’t feel fair to make love to her now he’d decided to end it, anyway. For all her bravado, Flora clearly wasn’t used to casual sex and he really didn’t want to hurt her. He longed to protect her, not to add to the pain she’d already had to deal with.

  The best way you can protect Flora is to stay well away from her. If you stay around you’re going to be constantly opening up old wounds. What happens the next time you get a call from mum? Because there’s going to be a next time.

  There always was.

  “So, what time do you want me to drop you off at Chalet Repos in the morning?” he asked causally, wanting to take the words back as soon as they’d left his lips.

  But he couldn’t.

  And why delay the inevitable? It was like taking off a plaster – best to do it quick and get the pain over and done with.

  She tensed next to him. “Of course, if you’ve got stuff to do tomorrow, I should be getting back anyway, I promised Holly I’d help with wedding prep. Will I, er, see you at the wedding?”

  “Of course. We can go together if you like?” Zac knew he’d detonated a land mine. He’d chosen to press the self-destruct button on the best thing to happen to him in years.

  And only the sense he was doing the right thing stopped him pulling Flora to him and demonstrating exactly how special he thought she was.

  It was for the best.

  So why did it feel so utterly wrong?

  CHAPTER SIX

  Misery weighed Flora down as she lay at Zac’s side. She might be inexperienced but she knew a brush off when she saw one. She wasn’t stupid. Only now he was cutting her loose did she realise just how much she wanted him to go on being a part of her life.

  How could she blame him? She’d been the one to put a best-before date of New Year’s Eve on the relationship after all. Not that she’d told him about it, obviously.

  So she shouldn’t be angry to find out he’d done exactly the same thing and was calling time on the fling/shag/relationship, whatever it was. Delete as appropriate. Who knew what label he’d put on it?

  But she was – pissed off and miserable. This Christmas break had started out so perfectly she’d begun to dream about all sorts of things she’d promised herself she wouldn’t.

  It felt awful, unnatural even, to be so close to Zac and yet not be making love. Her body still tingled at the memory of how he’d last made her feel. She’d even let him go down on her and hadn’t felt stressed about the intimacy. That had to be a good sign, right?

  She sighed, turning over and pulling her legs up to her chest to lie in the foetal position. Zac’s hand lightly stroked her back and she tensed, hoping for more, even though she’d said she just wanted to sleep. She’d said that because she was stressed out, not because she hadn’t wanted Zac…

  Today had been emotion overload and she couldn’t handle any more right now.

  But then he withdrew his hand. She stared at the wall, longing for his touch but too proud to ask for it this time and convinced she’d never get to sleep.

  She must have been more exhausted than she realised from all the emotional fall out of the day because the next thing she knew sunlight was streaming through the windows, lighting the room with a pale golden glow.

  So, that was it. Christmas was over and so were she and Zac. At least they were as good as. A wedding date was just going through the motions, being polite. He was, if nothing else, a gentleman.

  Although, sod that, he was a hell of a lot more than a gentleman and after what she’d seen yesterday she admired him all the more for emerging from his home life as unscathed as he had.

  He was strong, one of life’s survivors, and something in her was drawn to that. She liked it when he held her, she felt safe.

  Oh God, she was going to cry again and she hadn’t even got out of bed yet. She pinched the bridge of her nose. If Zac could manage yesterday’s crap with such grace then she wasn’t going to let the side down again. It wasn’t fair of her to be constantly breaking down on him. She might not be a shrink but even she could see where Zac’s desire to care and protect came from.

  But who looks after him?

  A desire to be there for him mounted inside her, tears welling in her eyes again without warning. It was so sad to think of Zac as a boy, growing up with a dad like that and a mum who always put the dad first. She wanted to shout at his parents to bloody well appreciate the son they’d been given and get their messed up heads in order.

  It wouldn’t help the situation but it would make her feel a hell of a lot better.

  She rolled onto her back and blinked back the tears.

  Think happy thoughts, Flora. Think about the wedding, how happy Holly is and how good she and Scott have been to you. Think about hitting the slopes, drinking in mountain canteens and endless days of sunshine…

  For some reason that led her to thinking about sex with Zac – how alive and affirmed she’d felt by it. She’d miss the sex. She’d miss Zac.

  He didn’t look much better than she felt and they barely spoke as they dressed and packed their bags to check out. Flora took one last look at the perfect view over the lake to the Alps and swallowed down the bitter disappointment. She’d been so happy when they’d checked in. When had she last been that happy?

  She could barely look at Zac for fear she’d blurt out something really embarrassing or start crying or something. She managed a few lines about the wedding and what Scott and Holly were planning for the ceremony but beyond that the drive back to Verbier was a quiet one. Flora pretended to be looking out at the scenery every time tears threatened to leak out. She really hoped he hadn’t noticed. She had to act cool. That was what you were supposed to do in these situations, right? Well she was going to have to get used to it. She’d have to toughen up a bit. Or become
a recluse, which was always an option.

  Zac didn’t say much. She guessed he must still be upset about what had happened at his parents yesterday. If she’d needed a reminder of why she was doing this whole independence thing then the incident had been perfectly timed.

  So, this was the right thing. Being single. Protecting herself.

  For the right thing it sure hurt.

  She lurched over from the passenger seat to kiss Zac on the cheek as soon as they pulled up outside Chalet Repos, needing to get the goodbye over and done with quickly. That way she might just might manage to avoid making a twat of herself.

  “Thanks so much for the hotel and everything, you know…it’s been fun,” she said.

  It had been so much more than fun. She’d experienced the kind of connection she hadn’t even realised existed with Zac and yet still she was walking away.

  Life could be fricking complicated.

  And she had to remember he was the one giving her the brush off. So that meant, according to dating rules as she’d understood them from the safety of a long-term relationship, she had to act coolly and pretend that it was her idea.

  Which actually it kind of had been to start with.

  Oh hell!

  She had a tension headache from all the repressed tears. As soon as they’d mumbled a goodbye and awkwardly kissed cheeks like the friends they were now destined to be, she fled into Chalet Repos’ back entrance, unable to bear looking back at the car and Zac. Silent tears dripped down her cheeks as she stumbled to the bathroom, the only room in Chalet Repos with a lock and some privacy. But in the corridor she bumped into Holly.

  “Hello stranger!” Holly smiled and then her eyes widened as she saw Flora’s face. “Hey, what’s up?”

  “I…I…” Flora stammered, unable to form anything resembling a sentence. She glanced over Holly’s shoulder, aware that anyone might come down the corridor and overhear them.

  “Let’s go to the storeroom.” Holly took Flora’s elbow and steered her gently down to the basement. “Sometimes I go there for a bit of peace and quiet myself.”

  “Oh?” Flora choked back her sobs. “I’m…so…sorry Holly.”