Christmas in the Snow (36 page)

Massi rolled his eyes, looking suddenly – scarily – serious. ‘
Sì
. Mafia. They like guns, not the cakes.’

Allegra immediately stopped laughing. ‘Shit, really?’

Massi’s face broke into another infectious grin. ‘No! But you know, as I said to him, the first thing they teach you at Harvard Business School is that eighty-four per cent of all
buying decisions are based on emotion, not thought. And a hundred per cent of my cupcake sales are based on emotion. Each one is a little pot of happiness. It is why I now have seventeen branches
throughout the United States, with annual turnover of thirty-four million dollars.’

Allegra’s smile faded. ‘I’m sorry, how much?’

‘That is exactly what my father said when I showed him my accountings!’ Massi grinned.

‘It’s still peanuts compared to my fortune, of course,’ Zhou said waspishly.

‘Your father’s fortune,’ Massi clarified. ‘It’s just as well for you there’s a one-child policy in China. At least there’s no one else for your father
to give the money to instead.’

Allegra watched as they laughed, two multi-millionaires teasing each other like teenagers, throwing barbs back and forth like it was a basketball. They were all old friends, the three of them,
far closer than she’d supposed. Would Zhou really encourage his father to choose her over Sam?

‘So you’re based in the States, then, Massi?’ she asked, wrapping her hands round her warm glass.

‘Boston.’

She nodded, wondering how his English could still be so lousy. ‘You all seem very close. Do you get to see each other regularly?’

‘This man here, he is my brother,’ Massi said, gripping Sam’s arm and jolting him out of his faux sleep. ‘We used to see each other most weeks, but Sam moving to London
has erupted our routine. We would play every week in the racquets and tennis club. I would catch the shuttle down especially for it.’ He reached over and patted Sam on the arm. ‘I hope
it was worth it, buddy.’

Sam, forced to contribute to the conversation, shrugged. ‘Gotta go where the work is.’

‘Or where the ex
isn’t
, huh? You know Amy called me—’

Sam tipped his chair violently back. ‘Stop right there.’

Amy? That was the name of his wife? Allegra’s eyes slid between the two of them.

‘But she just wanted to—’ Massi protested.

‘I said stop. You don’t go there.’

Allegra watched as he drained his beer and immediately raised his arm, indicating a fresh round for the table. What had Amy done that was so bad he wouldn’t even let her name be brought
up?

She looked across at Zhou, surprised to find his eyes already on her. ‘We fight like brothers too.’

‘Fair enough. Who’s the boss?’ By anyone’s definition they were alpha males, the lot of them.

Massi, shaken by Sam’s warning, rallied quickly. ‘Well,’ he said, leaning in closer across the table, ‘these two are the jokers of the pack. I am . . . I am . .
.’

‘The knave?’ Zhou quipped, one eyebrow slightly lifted.

‘No. I am the ace.’

‘Huh?’ Zhou frowned, confused and no doubt concerned at the prospect of Massi swerving into metaphorical territory.

‘You know – I can be high
or
low.’

‘And don’t we know it!’ Zhou quipped.

Massi shot his friend a tart look. ‘I am the bridge man. I have to’ – he looked up to the sky, straining for the word – ‘negotiate between these two.’ He
thumbed towards Sam and Zhou. ‘Like for hostages.’

There was a puzzled silence.

‘
Really?
’ she smiled, pretending to understand.

‘Oh yes.’ Massi lowered his chin, speaking in sombre tones. ‘They are just so jealous of each other: Sam because Zhou is so rich; Zhou because Sam is so
good-looking.’

‘Oh jeez,’ Sam groaned under his breath, not looking remotely amused.

‘What? You think that is not true?’ Massi asked, looking over. ‘Would you be his friend if he did not have all his money? I mean, really, what else is there to like about
him?’

‘Massi!’ Allegra shrieked, laughing.

‘As you pointed out, it’s his father’s money,’ Sam corrected drily.

‘Ouch!’ Zhou winced at the double punch, eyes gleaming with amusement.

‘So you were listening,’ Massi grinned, stretching further on the table and resting his head on his hand. ‘Well, you love him but hate him too for being so rich,’ he said
provocatively.

‘Is that so?’ Sam asked laconically, drumming his fingers on the table.

‘Allegra, do you think there is more to Zhou than his money?’

‘Of course!’

‘Thank you,’ Zhou said with an appreciative smile.

‘And what about Sam?’ Massi asked.

She frowned, unsure what he meant. ‘What about him?’

‘Is there more to him than just a pretty face?’

Allegra stiffened. ‘Well, strictly speaking,
I
never said he had a pretty face.’

Massi’s mouth dropped open and he slapped Sam hard on the thigh. ‘I don’t believe it! Never did I think I would see the day. A woman who is impossible to your charms!

‘Tell me, then, Allegra,’ Massi said, drawing back to her. ‘If Sam isn’t a pretty face, what is he?’

‘Well, I never said that either,’ she pushed back. ‘And besides, we’re talking about you three, not me.’

‘But a conversation is a two-way road. Tell me. What is Sam? In five words?’

Both Massi and Zhou were watching her intently. Sam had fixed a stony stare on the floor, but she knew from his straining stillness that he was listening. ‘Well, he’s Canadian,
divorced,’ she said, aiming for benign. Handsome, funny, good in bed, stylish, successful . . .

‘That’s two,’ Massi prompted, and she looked back at him from far-off eyes.

Heart-broken, recovering . . . ‘Ambitious, unscrupulous.’

‘Four. I thought you were better at maths than that, Allegra,’ Zhou teased.

Imaginative, persistent . . . ‘A thief.’

She watched as Sam’s eyes blazed, his mouth falling open a little in shock at the word as it resounded around the table. Massi’s eyes were positively dancing with delight.

‘Oh! That is . . . that is . . .’ He exhaled loudly. ‘Sam? That is a
beeg
accusation. What have you to say to that?’

The waitress set down his fresh drink, appraising him with eyes that suggested she would blatantly disagree with Allegra’s synopsis.

‘What? You expect me to dignify it with a comment?’

Massi clasped his hands together like he was chairing a panel. ‘OK, then. How would you describe Allegra in five?’

He didn’t even blink. ‘Simple: single, beautiful, successful, lonely, bitter.’ The words tripped off so quickly, no hesitation, no pause, like it was something he’d been
musing on for days.

She looked away quickly, reaching for something pithy to say, but her mind had gone blank, all the blood rushing to her heart, and she forced herself to take another sip of her drink instead as
a clunky silence descended like an iron cloak.

‘Oh no! No, no!’ Massi said, rushing to her rescue this time, like a Labrador whose loyalty was being tested. ‘I cannot allow that. It is ingallant.’

Their food arrived, trailing steam ribbons in the air, and they all concentrated, even Massi, on the black pepper as it was twisted onto their plates with lavish ceremony, asking for extra
parmigiano
, some more water – anything to distract from the joke that had started off funny but fallen horribly flat.

‘Just what exactly are you looking for down there?’ Zhou shouted, barely audible above the engines.

‘Nothing!’

‘Doesn’t look like nothing!’

She looked over at him, her bright eyes reflected back to her in his rainbow-tinted oil-slick goggles. He looked menacing and lean in his ninja-style all-black kit -unlike Massi, who, in baggy
green and yellow, looked more like a giant jelly baby.

‘You may be in line to inherit a mining company, Zhou, but see down there? One day, all that down there’s going to be mine!’ she laughed.

Zhou roared with laughter, but her joke wasn’t as unfeasible as it sounded. Her family’s old pastures were somewhere here, below them, below the snow, and had they not been sold
almost sixty years earlier, she may well have stood to one day inherit her own corner of a mountain.

But it mattered not. Even without the deeds to some acres of grass, she felt connected to this place now, like a balloon tied to a rock.

She pressed her face to the window again, her breath fogging the glass. The hamlet of snow-capped huts was almost invisible from the sky. Clustered together like windblown cattle, it was only
the flashes of blackened walls as the helicopter swooped past below them that betrayed their presence at all.

‘This is a good choice, no?’ Massi shouted with a buoyant grin. Only his white teeth were visible with his goggles on, but his curls easily escaped the helmet, wrapping round its
edges like a climbing rose. Sam was checking his bindings behind them.

The slopes on this side of the resort were untouched and still boasting pristine powder. They circled a small plateau in ever-decreasing circles, the helicopter lowering slowly, and snow whirled
up like a sandstorm in the desert. Sprays of snow particles blew past the windows as Zhou slid open the door, ready to jump first.

She watched him leap, arms wide, the ski poles extended like an eagle’s wing tips . . . Then it was Massi’s turn. He jumped almost without looking, hurling himself out with a
kamikaze ebullience that was to be expected.

She was up next and she took a breath. She had helied before, but she’d never liked this bit, the pop – or the jump.

‘After you!’ Sam shouted after a moment, and she glanced back at him, half wondering whether he was lining up to push her out. It was the spur she needed – just in case and
before he could, she leaped unaided, Sam following a few seconds after. Zhou had already taken off down the slope, with Massi in hot pursuit, both wanting to be first to make tracks in the snow,
and she didn’t bother this time to turn round to see exactly where Sam might be. He was breathing down her neck, she knew, and she waited for the moment he shot past her, determined to beat
her and catch them up. They could hear Massi ahead, whooping with delight, and she suspected that meant he had taken the lead.

Behind them, the helicopter rose into the sky again, the drone of its blades like a jungle drumbeat. The snow was in the sun up here, and the glare coming off it was blinding even with a
high-light ski mask on. Zhou and Massi’s tracks snaked in front of her – like a bread trail showing her where to go – but still Sam didn’t overtake. She began to slow,
easing into wider, more languid turns, almost forcing him into passing her, but he remained resolutely behind.

Dammit! She wanted to stop and look around. The curiosity was killing her. Somewhere in this expanse – beneath the glacier, wedged in a crevasse – was the hut that had hidden
Valentina all these years. She glanced around, trying to see anything that might indicate a hut – a sign, itinerary poles highlighting a path – but the snow lay thick and smooth,
unbroken across the landscape for miles in every direction. Rocks were deeply buried, the trees sagging from the weight on their branches, and there was no evidence of human presence here apart
from their own.

She went slower still.

‘What are you doing?’ he shouted, from behind her.

She waved with her pole, indicating for him to overtake, but to her frustration, he slowed up, matching her tracks like a ski-school kid to their instructor.

‘Just go ahead. I’ll catch you up!’ she shouted, sweeping in ever wider, slower arcs.

‘Are you nuts? The others are long gone!’ he shouted back.

‘So then catch them!’ she shouted again, easing into a lazy turn, her eyes on the distant shadows.

He dropped down onto the fall line, picking up speed quickly, and she thought he was going to do as she’d asked. Instead, he overtook her as she made a right turn, coming to an abrupt stop
in her path.

‘You idiot!’ she shrieked, almost skiing straight into him. She braked hard and he caught her hand to steady her. ‘What did you do that for?’ she demanded crossly,
jamming her poles in the snow.

‘We can’t split up here. There are no patrols. The snow hasn’t been bashed.’ He shrugged. ‘And the others are too far ahead now. We’re going to have to stick
together.’

‘Jesus,’ she muttered angrily, looking away. Was it too much to ask for a little solitude on a mountain? She scanned the landscape again – anything? Connor had said he’d
seen the hut’s roof from a walking path, but there was nothing to suggest they were near one here. They were too far from the crease of the valley; that was the problem. The helicopter had
dropped them on the beautiful smooth face instead, and if she was going to have any hope of finding the crevasse, she would have to traverse the slope, away from the others.

‘
What
are you looking for?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Nothing?’ She couldn’t see his eyes behind his mask – just like he couldn’t see hers – but she knew he didn’t buy her denial. ‘You seriously want
me to believe you’re not trying to scope out that mountain hut where your grandmother was found?’ he asked.

Her lips parted with surprise. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she muttered.

‘No? So it’s just coincidence that you’re skiing horizontally in the very valley she was found?’

Allegra glowered at him. What exactly had Isobel told him? ‘What bloody business is it of yours?’

‘It isn’t,’ he shrugged. ‘But if you’d at least have the courtesy to tell me, I could try to help.’

‘You?’ she scoffed. ‘Help? Don’t make me laugh.’

Her phone rang and she reached for it quickly, hoping it wasn’t Barry.

It wasn’t, but her eyes widened at the name on the caller ID. Side-slipping down the slope a little way, pointedly making a show of wanting privacy, she pressed ‘connect’.

‘Bob,’ she said in a low voice. ‘Thanks so much for your messages. I really appreciate your support. It’s been a rough few days, but I was going to call y—’
She straightened up. ‘Oh!’ She frowned. ‘Oh, I see. Yes, he’s right here.’ She held out the phone towards Sam, still fifty metres uphill. ‘It’s for
you.’