Secrets of a Chalet Girl by Lorraine Wilson

possible.
    Once dressed again, finally managing the zip on her dress without asking Zac for help, she bumped into him in the hallway.
    “Hey, you forgot these.” He handed her the papers, now fastened together with treasury tags.
    “Oh, thanks,” Flora flushed again, feeling the heat creeping up her neck, her body reacting to their close proximity. How did you say goodbye in these situations? A peck on the cheek? An awkward ‘bye then?’
    Zac solved the question for her by leaning in to kiss her. Desire responded inside her but she was determined to ignore it this time. She had to be alone. She needed time to think. This was how Tom had worked, confusing her with kisses and kindnesses until she almost doubted her recollections of his other behaviour.
    Zac isn’t Tom.
    She knew that was true, but still… making her feelings subject to logic and reason wasn’t something she’d mastered yet.
    “I need to go.” She headed to the front door, ignoring the spasm of longing surging deep inside her.
    “Later?” He quirked an eyebrow, intense blue eyes searching her face as though hoping to read subtitles explaining what was happening between them.
    “Perhaps.” She smiled and half raised her right arm in an awkward wave. “I’ll, er, text you.”
    “Are you going to be alright walking back?” He eyed her knee-high boots dubiously.
    “I’ll be fine, it looks like they’ve cleared the pavements of ice.” She smiled and edged away, trying not to meet his eye. “Bye then.”
    It was a relief to finally stop smiling once she was out of his sight. When she’d been putting Zac’s number into her phone she’d noticed a new email alert from Cathy and wanted some privacy to read it. Tom’s sister hadn’t contacted her in months.
    Maybe it’s a peace offering at last?
    She was glad her coat covered up what was obviously an evening dress. Other seasonaires might call this the ‘walk of pride,’ but to Flora it felt like a walk of shame.
    Today was supposed to be my wedding day. I would’ve been wearing my wedding dress…
    But how could she have married Tom? She stepped carefully over a pile of snow not yet cleared and made herself think about Zac instead.
    He had only been trying to help.
    You were rude.
    But whatever happened next in her life had to be her decision, her plan, her actions…
    One hundred per cent independence might be lonely but it was the only way to go. She had to stick to it, not be swayed by the first man to show an interest in her. A non-sexual interest as well as fancying her, that was. Plenty of men had tried to induce her to join in with the bed hopping, or some cringey ‘fondle-her-in-a-gondola.’ She hated that phrase and she’d also refused invitations to the ‘nearly naked’ Sunday evening bar sessions - just a blatant excuse for all the cocky exhibitionists in Verbier to take their clothes off.
    At least she only stripped in private!
    Neither did she sneak over the fence to get into the Hotel Royale’s Jacuzzi -the place to be in the evening if you fancied getting it on with other like-minded seasonaires.
    Somehow she didn’t think last night had changed all that for her. She was never going to be
that
girl. Intimacy was hard enough without the risk that among all those strangers she might accidentally pick someone like Tom.
    Flora rubbed her hands together to keep them warm. The sky was blue but the sun hadn’t reached this part of town yet. It would be lovely up on the slopes today, maybe she should hit the pistes instead of moping. It would take her mind off everything. Since when had feeling sorry for yourself ever solved anything?
    She wished she hadn’t let her herself think about Tom last night. Thinking about
that night
, the most awful of her entire life, was like a car crash - you wanted to look away but found yourself staring over the crash barriers nonetheless. She could understand the reasons why Tom had acted as he did but she’d never be able to excuse him.