Snowballs! Winter Fun on the Slopes, page 1
To Mum
(sorry about the naughty bits)
and Rupert
(you are the naughty bits)
Contents
Dedication
Title Page
Prologue
Saturday
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Sunday
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Monday
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Tuesday
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Wednesday
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Thursday
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Friday
Chapter 61
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Copyright
Prologue
From: Jenna Jenkins
Cc: Max, Angus Linklater, SalPal, Hugo, Bertie
Subject: Bon ski!
Guys – can’t believe we’re off tomorrow! Apparently, the snow is falling and I feel the vin chaud calling! Thanks again Bertie for inviting us all.
Get a good night’s sleep and see you all sparkly eyed at Gatwick at 10!
Bon ski!
Jenna Xxx
* * *
From: Max Finch
Cc: Jenksy, Gus, Sally Jones, Hdog, Berts
Subject: RE: Bon ski!
Sleeping’s cheating. Like the vin chaud idea though – might start early. Anyone out tonight? H-boss? Gus?
M
* * *
From: Hugo Portman
Cc: Finchy, Jenks, Sal, Big Gus, Roberta Mason-Hoare
Subject: RE: Bon ski!
Excellent notion old man. Rising Sun 8ish?
* * *
From: Sally Jones
Cc: Huggie Bear, Jenna, Angus, Bertie, Max
Subject: RE: Bon ski!
Excuse me Hugo! But YOU have packing to do and there’s no way I’m travelling next to a hungover grump all day tomorrow!
Ladies – back me up here! Also, I think I’m coming down with something, might not be the craziest week for me, soz.
xSx
* * *
From: Roberta Mason-Hoare
Cc: Maxie, Hugo P, Sally J, Jenna,
Angus L
Subject: RE: Bon ski!
Sorry darlings, have massive party tonight at Hix’s new place as otherwise would have loved to have joined you …
Sally, sweetie – if you can’t run with the big dogs stay on the porch ;o)
Bertie x
* * *
From: Sally Jones
To: Jenna
Subject: WTF??
I can’t believe her!!!! What a b1tch! What do you think she meant ‘run with the big dogs’? She’s such a man-grabber. Hoare by name, whore by nature! God – please save me – and Hugo – from her all holiday? Who bloody invited her anyway?? xxxxx
* * *
From: Jenna Jenkins
To: SalPal
Subject: RE: WTF??
Umm – I think she invited us, sweetie! Don’t let her worry you, Hugo totally loves YOU and wouldn’t spare her a thought. Max on the other hand …
Anyway, love you, can’t wait til tomo!! Eeks! Xxxxx
* * *
From: Angus Linklater
Cc: Jenna, Hugo, Max, Sal, Bertie
Subject: RE: Bon ski!
Can’t leave work before 9 guys, so see you tomorrow.
A
* * *
From: Jenna Jenks
Cc: Max, Angus Linklater, SalPal, Hugo, Bertie
Subject: RE: Bon ski!
I find it hard to leave work before ‘9 guys’ too … but then, that’s working in a private art gallery for you …
* * *
From: Roberta Mason-Hoare
Cc: Maxie, Hugo P, Sally J, Jenna J, Angus L
Subject: RE: Bon ski!
What time are we meeting again Jenna? And flight number? My Add Lee Exec app needs these things apparently, but like, who knows why!!!!!!?
And, purleease can we get some champagne at the airport? Will the first-class lounge be open do you think? Am so going bonkers for Bolly at the moment!
* * *
From: Max Finch
To: Berts
Subject: Dirty Bertie?
I bet you are, you dirty thing. Love it.
M
* * *
From: Roberta Mason-Hoare
To: Maxie
Subject: RE: Dirty Bertie?
I know you do handsome. I think it’s up to you and me to liven up these drears. I didn’t go down on Dubious Dominic to get his lush pad to just stay in and eat fondue all week!! Got to dash. Looking forward to seeing YOU though ;o)
Mwah!
* * *
From: Jenna Jenkins
Cc: Max, Angus Linklater, SalPal, Hugo, Bertie
Subject: RE: Bon ski!
10am!!!! At NORTH terminal! BA2719 to GVA. That’s Geneva by the way …
Sally’s right – have packing to do tonight after rather large week and not exactly expecting a calm and restful holiday ;o) – but see you guys tomo! Xx
* * *
From: Angus Linklater
To: Jenna
Subject: RE: Bon ski!
Thanks so much for organising us all Jenna. Hitting the slopes was definitely one of the reasons I came back from Singapore. Looking forward to it.
A.x.
Saturday
1
Jenna took a long sip from her mochafrappolattecino and appreciated the hot foamy liquid on her parched throat. As someone who was ridiculously early for everything, she had managed to get to Gatwick at 9.30 a.m., a good half an hour before the slightly-earlier-than-needed-anyway meeting time of 10 a.m. But she just knew Sally and Hugo would be pushing it to the last minute and she wanted to make sure she had enough time to mooch around the shops in Duty Free. Not that she could afford the Rolex watches and Mulberry handbags, even if they were tax free. Anyway, there was no point being in a rush and getting all hot and bothered and ruining her carefully planned outfit of skinny jeans, soft grey cashmere cardigan and Uggs. OK, she thought, not fashion’s wildest frontier exactly, but it was hard planning what to wear when you were invited to go skiing with London’s hardest, most label-wearing partygoer, especially when you weren’t exactly Kate Moss yourself. Jenna thought she would work the simple, casual look and anyway, leaving Clapham Junction this morning she would have looked bloody stupid dressed in what that girl over there was wearing …
It only took half a second, however, for Jenna to realise that ‘that girl over there’, swanning through the milling airport crowds towards her, was the label-wearing partygoer herself, Roberta – Bertie to her friends (last count, 2,358 on Facebook not to mention the 10,000+ Instagram followers) – and dear God, what was she wearing? Surely only the likes of Liz Hurley could pull off a Chanel ski suit, but no, here was living proof that ordinary folk, if you could call Bertie that, could do it too. The salopettes were skin tight, black and picked out with a white vertical line down the side seam. The ski jacket was tight, black and fitted, the hood rimmed with the realest of fur that perfectly set off her golden highlights. And of course, shielding her eyes from the fluorescent airport lights were the biggest sunglasses one could possibly fit on a face. Chanel, too, Jenna assumed – hoping her second-hand eBay ones would pass muster under Bertie’s scrutiny.
‘Darling!’ shouted Bertie, making that first syllable last for about three seconds. ‘Morning! Bet you didn’t think I would be first!’
‘Well, technically I was here first, but yes, well done! You look … um, amazing! Are you wearing that on the slopes too?’
‘Of course not, silly, this is just my après-ski outfit; I have the Dior down jacket for chillier days on the slopes and the lovely PRs at Selfridges practically forced some super-warm pink Versace salopettes onto me, so I am totally kitted out for the slopes of Val d’Argent!’
‘Wow – yeah, totally! Where’s your suitcase?’ Jenna said as she looked around, slightly bewildered as ever by Bertie, who was just starting to rattle off
‘Oh, the man is bringing it over. Limo driver, you know. Couldn’t lift it myself but he was so kind he said he’d bring it. Oh, there he is now.’
Looking beyond the growing queues of passengers checking in, craning their necks to read departure boards and leaning heavily on luggage trolleys, Jenna saw a small man coming towards them. Very slowly. He was obviously more used to sitting in a comfortable luxury saloon car for eight hours a day and was almost collapsing under the weight of – Jenna couldn’t believe it – a trunk. A Louis Vuitton trunk.
‘Oh. My. God …’ Jenna felt a little bit nauseated, fear of how this behemoth would fit on a mere passenger airliner almost overwhelming her, not to mention the damage it must be causing that poor man’s back.
‘I know,’ explained Bertie, furrowing her brow just the merest amount and nodding thoughtfully, ‘a little excessive.’ She paused, then obviously decided that this wasn’t worth risking wrinkles over. ‘But I just love the space it gives you for all your things, and it’s really practical because, like, nothing gets squashed.’ While she explained this to Jenna she slipped two crisp fifty pound notes into the driver’s shirt pocket and, with a wave of her hand, dismissed the almost-crippled man back to his car.
‘But you can’t actually carry it.’
‘No, but there are people to do this, yes?’
‘Will it get on the plane?’
‘Oh, yes, I think so,’ said Bertie as she indicated the bulging purse in her handbag. ‘Always pays to pay, as it were!’ At that she screeched at her own joke, only stopping when she paused suddenly to pout and admire herself in the reflective surface of the plate glass window next to them. She gave her hair an idle flick and started tapping away on her phone.
Jenna was unbelievably relieved when her old friend Max turned up. Years of playing rugby for the Cambridge blues had made Max strong and incredibly muscly, which he had worked into a leaner look during his years as a City banker. Six feet tall and with the sort of deep brown eyes you’d want to stare into and believe anything he said, Max was certainly a catch, and Jenna’s heart made a little leap as soon as she saw him. But Max was not a catch to be trusted. Flirting and flitting from one girl to the next, with conquests such as the impossibly glamorous and well-connected, not to mention well-endowed, Bertie behind him, Jenna knew Max was a super-charming bad boy … but boy, she would let him be bad and super-charming all over her any day.
Looking at him now in his casual but expensive designer jeans, Gant T-shirt and cashmere jumper under a Napapijri ski jacket, she allowed herself to remember what it had felt like to have him touch her – a memory she hardly needed to dredge up from the past, bearing in mind it was only a few months ago and it floated so close to the surface of her consciousness any passing net could snare it. She closed her eyes and was instantly there again, standing up against the wall of the nightclub, swaying along with the music, taking a pause from the dance floor while her heart still thudded along with the beat. He’d come towards her, drinks in hand, raising them out of her reach as he pressed his body against her. But with the lowering of his head – and the brushing of his lips against hers she’d had to allow in a tiny moment of doubt during her growing euphoria. The overpowering smell of booze on him told her one thing – and she was right the next morning when no text had come, no dinner invitation issued, nothing. She opened her eyes. Knowing that her love was as unrequited as ever, she put her little heart’s leap into the emotional box with all the other little leaps and closed the lid.
‘Morning, Jenksy.’ Max dropped his head down to kiss Jenna on each cheek. Almost instinctively Jenna inhaled – Max always smelt so good and his aftershave was like a memory stick of flashbacks: snapshots of college balls, evenings in the pub, days out together, picnics by the Cam, drinks in the City and late night dancing – that night from a couple of months ago. Breathing out as he pulled away, she saw Max look towards Bertie before conspiratorially saying to her, ‘You look, um, completely normal this morning.’
‘Oh, Max. She’s in Chanel, don’t you know – and the trunk … Louis Vuitton!’
‘Blimey, does she have Sherpa Tensing with her?’
‘Uh-uh, I think it might be you boys at the other end …’
‘Jeez.’ He paused, rolled his eyes slightly, then headed over to say hello to his old flame Bertie. Jenna looked at him as he strode over to the super-slim, super-rich and super-breastie Bertie, while a burning envy that had never quite been quashed rattled inside her. Jenna knew they had an off and sometimes very on relationship, and she hated how it made it her feel. Not for the first time, recently, she seriously questioned why she had agreed to come on this trip of Bertie’s – only last week she’d almost backed out. They’d all been drinking in the City after work – a glass of wine had become a bottle of wine and Jenna felt sure Max was flirting with her again. She’d almost melted when his hand had rested on her thigh. But when last orders came it was Jenna that was popped into a cab on her own – kiss on the cheek goodbye – as Max carefully handed Bertie into hers, following her in. To stop herself from cancelling the ski trip there and then she had dwelt instead on that lingering hand, the warmth of it on her thigh … The thought of it now zinged around her, sending electric pulses up her spine. Yes, she thought, maybe, just maybe, this would be her week, her shared cab home, her chance to finally get together with the man of her dreams.
Jenna was shaken from her reverie when Angus appeared in front of her. She didn’t know him that well, although they’d bumped into each other several times over the years at parties and nights out – and to Jenna’s shame, she might not have been entirely sober for most of those ‘bumps’. In fact, last time she saw him, didn’t she burst into tears after too many white wine spritzers? Well, he had seemed a good shoulder to cry on at the time. He was Max’s old friend from school, so he’d been up to see them all at Cambridge once or twice during their years there while he had studied architecture in London. After graduating he’d worked abroad for a few years but was now back in town, working long hours and putting his heart into his designs at his London-based firm. Blond and fair-skinned, he had the physique of an ex-rower and the height of, well, a near giant. His Atlantic-blue eyes had found Jenna in the general melee of the checking-in area and, as he loped towards her, his naturally serious-looking face broke into a wide smile. Jenna noticed that his collar was half sticking up, escaping from his highly technical ski jacket, which along with his rather bushy gingery beard made him look like a Cornish fisherman. Jenna returned his smile, her mind racing back to their last encounter, trying desperately to remember if Angus had been at all judgemental about either her drunkenness or her desperate crush on Max. But no, her mind was blank (damn those spritzers!) and she just had to hope for the best as the bristly ginger beard came down towards her, scratching against her face as Angus planted a perfunctory peck on her cheek.
As Angus and Jenna said their hellos, Max came and joined them, leaving Bertie to speak very loudly into her diamante iPhone to someone called Sebastian, who was obviously not playing ball.
‘I see the hipster beard is still a “thing”, mate.’ Max stood back and pretended to admire the bushiness of Angus’s facial fuzz. ‘Couldn’t get away with that in a proper job, you know …’ He winked as he said it and then joshed his friend with a play-fighting fist into his chest.
‘Helps me fit in with my new tribe – I couldn’t be an architect, work in Old Street, and rock a Savile Row suit now, could I?’ Angus, however, sub-consciously rubbed a hand along his bearded left cheek and Jenna noticed for the first time the very old school, and not at all hipster, gold signet ring on his little finger.
Leaving the men to catch up, Jenna looked up at the departure board. Flights to St Lucia, Barbados, Grenada and other dream Caribbean locations filled the screens and Jenna imagined what it would be like to be here just with Max, the two of them in executive style passing through the hordes to the First Class lounge on their way to some glamorous tropical island. She’d be thinner, of course, by this point, and still be tanned from their last jaunt, and sporting something very shiny on her left hand …
