CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER ONE

A LICE WAS BEGINNING to wonder whether this was going to be the day she finally met The Big Guy Up There—the very one her dad preached about in his sermons every Sunday.

The cold on her face stung, and even through the layers of protective ski-gear she could feel the whip of the freezing blizzard doing its best to turn her into an ice sculpture. She could barely see in front of her.

She had no idea how much time had gone by since she’d left the chalet where she and her three friends were staying: an hour? Three hours? Fifteen minutes? A year and a half? She’d forgotten her fitness watch in her hurry to leave and her phone was embedded so deeply into one of the pockets of her under-layers that to stop and unearth it would risk instant hypothermia.

Of course, she should never have ventured out, but hindsight was a wonderful thing, and at the time she’d just had to get some air: it had felt like the most straightforward decision in the world.

Bea had been proudly showing off her engagement ring, a surprise revelation she had been keeping up her sleeve for the right ‘Ta da!’ moment. Out had come the champagne; the popping of the cork had been punctuated by lots of squeals of delight, a flood of eager questions and excited talk about bridesmaids’ dresses. Just like that, Alice had felt the world closing in on her.

She’d sat there, smiling and twirling the champagne flute between her fingers, thinking back to her own broken engagement eight months ago. Everything had been ticked on her ‘ideal for permanent partner’ checklist...and yet, Simon had just not been right, had just not been enough , had just not been what she’d wanted after all. Everything about him had made sense yet, in the end, none of it had made any sense at all.

So what if she’d been the one to screw up the courage to do the breaking off? She still had scars left from the whole sorry business, and those scars had suddenly flared up, raw and painful, as she’d listened to her friends blown away by the thrill of an upcoming wedding.

She’d just had to escape, and hadn’t been able to stay put, pretending that she wasn’t tearing up inside, so she’d stood up and announced that she needed to have a breather. The fact that they had all instantly seen her upset and rushed to apologise for being thoughtless had only made the whole situation worse.

So here she was now, no longer skiing but moving clumsily at a snail’s pace, because she couldn’t see what was in front of her with thoughts of hypothermia and meeting her maker uppermost in her mind.

She was scared witless.

An hour, three hours, a lifetime ago there had been fellow skiers on the slopes, but now the vast stretch of white was empty. She had skied away from the buzz of people, wanting the peace of solitude on the more dangerous pistes, and when the blizzard had roared in as sudden as a clap of thunder she had been alone.

Now she was desperately hunting for any signpost or landmark to orient her and show her a way back to civilisation, but the driving force of the snow was making it impossible. Panic was rising, but Alice knew that was something she had to block out, because panic in a situation like this equalled certain death. She was too experienced to go down that road.

A blizzard was the most dangerous condition on a mountain: people couldn’t see and the snow and moisture in the air made them lose heat very quickly. Those were basic ‘fun facts’ that had been drummed into all of her class as school kids over a decade ago before they’d gone on their first ever school holiday to Mont Blanc. They were also the very same fun facts she had drummed into her newbies when she had done six months of ski instruction during her gap year, on the very same slopes, less than four years ago.

Basically, no one in their right mind wanted to be out on a mountain in a blizzard—yet here she was. She stopped, tilted up her ski goggles and surveyed a scene of endless, driving snow, blowing this way and that as though driven by a giant, high-speed fan somewhere up in the sky. She was gripped by a momentary wave of sickening fear because the wilderness of white was so menacing, so alien. She could have been on another planet.

Keep making your way down and you’ll get to safety—law of averages and basic rule of thumb.

But, when it came to lessons learnt from this whole adventure, sudden attacks of emotion were only ever going to be given airtime in the comfort and safety of her living room, preferably with a tub of ice-cream to hand.

She breathed in deeply and propelled her way onward with the speed of someone with weights strapped to their ankles swimming in treacle.

She had no idea how long it was before, at last, she saw something : a light, just a flicker penetrating the wall of snow. It was barely visible, and it might have just been an illusion, her fevered brain playing tricks on her, but at this point Alice didn’t really care. What were her choices? Illusion or no illusion, she was just going to have to go in that direction. There was no room for hesitation or fear because she was flat out of options.

Mateo was in the middle of preparing his evening meal when he heard something: the vaguest hint of something which was barely audible over the jazz music playing softly in the background. The angry howls of the blizzard outside had been reduced to murmurs because his chalet was triple-glazed to within an inch of its life. He stilled, turned off the music and tilted his head, every one of his senses on full alert.

Here on this gloriously isolated and tucked-away side of Mont Blanc, the chances of skiers dropping by for a cup of coffee were non-existent. This part of the mountain, with its treacherous slopes, was suitable only for experts and was usually so empty that it could have been his own private playground.

It had been a definite selling point when he had bought the place several years ago. He had no problem with the jolly troops of revellers who had fun in the many chic resorts on the mountain...just as long as they didn’t come near him.

So he was banking on whatever he’d heard producing the thump against his front door being the whipping snowstorm outside. Some idiot lost in this treacherous blizzard would test his patience to the limit and Mateo really didn’t want his patience being tested to the limit right now. Any other time, maybe, but here, now—no.

He was here for a week, seven snatched days. This was his one and only pure time-out from the gruelling business of running his network of companies and living life in the fast lane. He’d been here for two days and the last thing he wanted was any of the remaining five to be interrupted by a risk-taking fool.

Here, and only here, did Mateo come close to reconnecting with a past he had long since left behind, a past that contained none of the often tiresome trappings that went with the sort of wealth he had accumulated. It was important to him that he never forget his beginnings. He had grown up in this part of the world—not on this side of the mountain but in a village close to one of the cheaper resorts—in a small house with struggling young parents, both of whom had worked at a low-end resort for minimum pay. In the high season they’d depended on tips to top up the coffers and, in the low season, they’d taken summer work wherever they could find it. They hadn’t been proud.

Lord knew, things would have remained that way for ever had his mother not died when Mateo was twelve. After that, his memories were a blur of sadness, confusion, grief and then, as one year had turned into two and then three, the dawning realisation that he was growing up on his own because his still-young father just hadn’t been able to cope without his wife as his rock, by his side.

Mateo had watched from the side lines as his dad had managed to hold down a job at the resort for a couple more seasons. It had been a struggle, because drinking and drugs had begun to make twin inroads into his ability to work, and then eventually his ability to do anything at all—including his ability to look after himself, never mind his precociously bright teenaged son who had been left on his own to cope.

Mateo had quit school at sixteen to begin the process of earning money because his father hadn’t been able to keep his head above water. He’d had to balance earning money to pay the bills, because no one else had been around to do it, with studying to make sure he never ended up poor and dependent on the goodwill of others to pick up the slack. Keeping his education on track outside of the school system had became the ultimate goal. He’d known he had a good brain—better than good. He hadn’t intended to waste it, or to flush his future down the drain side by side with his father.

He’d begun working at a local boxing gym. For fun, he’d boxed as an amateur and had challenged himself to win every match he’d played but mostly he’d fallen into a routine of working by day and studying by night. He’d been smart—too smart for the online courses, too smart for the problems posed in exams, but smart enough to see where his talents lay and to take advantage of his gift for maths by entering the complex world of coding.

And from there to where he was now. From a seventeen-year-old kid developing a website for his coach, to the eighteen-year-old being paid to design for someone else, and then wanting more than just working for other people; wanting more than just standing still.

He’d saved and become a hunter, the guy who knew just where to find the next big start-up. The guy who turned everything he touched to gold. By his late twenties, he’d been invincible. Winning had become his goal and winning had got him the sort of wealth most people could only dream of.

That said, Mateo knew that it was easy to forget the road that had taken a person from rags to riches, and to forget that road was to risk forgetting lessons learnt along the way. Rags to riches could end up as rags again in the blink of an eye. All that was needed was a little too much laziness and a little too much complacency.

Being here on the mountain was a reminder. His father no longer lived here. Mateo himself lived in London, with places in New York, Hong Kong and Dubai, but this quiet corner on the slopes was a sliver of a distant past.

The merest hint that some clown might now invade his sanctuary filled Mateo with grim rage. Quite still, and ear cocked, he heard the bang on the door with a sinking heart, well aware that he could hardly turn away whatever dope might be shivering outside. Dope or dopes : lads who’d decided to play fast and loose with their own lives, safe in the misguided juvenile delusion that someone would magically materialise to save their sorry skins.

He switched off the stove and padded barefoot to open the door.

Alice was about to bang on the door for the third time when it was pulled open without warning and she stumbled forward, clattering clumsily on her skis, sagging with exhaustion and relief. She hadn’t had time to clock who exactly had opened the door. She just felt herself being caught as she began toppling to the ground. Arms around her waist grabbed her, tugging her straight and then holding her upright, at which point she did take notice of the guy who was now supporting her.

Cold, narrowed eyes were staring down at her from a towering height. She was an unimpressive five-three and this guy was well over six feet. She blinked and the breath caught in her throat, because she was staring up at a man who was sinfully beautiful with perfectly chiselled features, sharp cheekbones, the oddest colour of green eyes and very dark, shortly cropped hair. He was wearing worn, faded jogging bottoms, an equally worn sweater and an expression of barely suppressed annoyance.

‘What the hell are you doing here?’

‘I...’

‘You’d better come in, but only because I can’t have you collapsing in a blizzard outside my front door!’

‘I...’

‘And you might as well bring the skis in too. Leave them out there and they’ll be buried under the snow and, before you apologise for landing on my doorstep, I’ll tell you straight away that the last thing I need is a complete stranger invading my privacy!’

Hard, green eyes bored into her and Alice, normally the sunniest of people, felt a quiver of anger. Today was definitely not her day when it came to letting her emotions get the better of her. She stood back, folded her arms and tried to ignore the bitter cold settling on her now that she was standing still.

‘Well?’ he demanded, scowling. ‘You’re letting the cold in.’

‘I’m not sure I want to come in!’ Alice shivered, her arms folded.

‘What the hell are you going on about?’

‘I don’t like your attitude. I can’t be too far from...from...civilisation, if you have a place here, and I’ll take my chances if you point me in the right direction!’

‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ He looked at her with even more narrow-eyed displeasure, then stared straight past her shoulder to the swirling snow now being consumed in darkness. ‘Although...if you really want to take your chances? Approximately five miles south-east you might just stumble to the nearest very small town. Miss it, though, and you’ll be spending a very cold night on the slopes and, despite your idiocy in being out here in the first place, my conscience won’t let me send you on your way. So, if you still refuse to come in then I’ll be forced to carry you in over my shoulder.’

‘You wouldn’t dare!’

‘Care to try me?’

He spun round on his heels. Alice detached herself from her skis and tripped along hurriedly behind him, slamming the door behind her and breathing a sigh of blessed relief at the warmth that had replaced the biting cold.

She took a few seconds to glance around her. The place was cosy but utterly luxurious in an understated way. Wooden panelling and stained-glass windows splintered the fading light and the rug that covered the parquet floor was soft, faded and clearly silk. Two black-and-white photographs on the wall were signed by the photographer and looked vaguely familiar. She was ridding herself of her outer layers as he vanished into one of the rooms off to the right and, when she entered behind him, it was to find herself in a superbly fitted kitchen rich with smells that made her mouth water.

She cleared her throat and then reddened as he swung round to face her. The lighting in the hallway hadn’t done him justice. Her mouth went dry as she took in his truly spectacular good looks. Her heart picked up speed and she frantically tried to get herself back to a place of righteous anger at his high-handed arrogance. Was she here on her own with him? she thought belatedly. Should she be concerned? What if he was dangerous? Strangely, she wasn’t scared, but then again she was half-crazy with exhaustion, so her brain was probably not functioning properly.

‘You’re wet.’

His dark, cutting voice interrupted her wandering train of thought.

‘That’s because I’ve been out in a blizzard for hours. Okay, maybe not hours , but long enough.’

‘Which is something I’ll get to just as soon as you get out of those clothes.’

‘I can’t. I have nothing to put on. I forgot to travel with my suitcase.’

‘You think this situation is funny?’

‘No.’ Alice had no idea what had come over her, because it wasn’t like her to be sarcastic, and it certainly wasn’t like her to be rude. ‘And... I suppose I ought to thank you for letting me in to your house.’

‘I had no choice.’

‘Are you here...er...on your own?’

She blushed as his eyebrows winged upwards and he shot her a slow smile of cool amusement that transformed the sharp, arrogant edges of his face so that he went from drop-dead gorgeous to stupidly sexy.

‘I’m afraid so,’ he drawled. ‘Absolutely no handy chaperones in the form of wife and kids but, before you have a fainting fit, I can assure you that you’re one hundred percent safe with me. I couldn’t be less interested in some fool who’s ventured out in a blizzard thinking that it might be a bit of a challenge. Follow me.’

‘Follow you?’

‘You’ll have to borrow some of my clothes.’

Alice laughed incredulously. She couldn’t help it. ‘You really think I’m going to fit into anything you have here?’

‘You’ll have to use your ingenuity,’ he said, pausing right in front of her, close enough for her pick up the clean, woody masculine scent of whatever aftershave he was wearing. ‘Spending more time in wet clothes isn’t an option.’

‘No,’ Alice replied, hackles rising again. ‘I suppose getting a bout of flu and ending up bedridden is only slightly less troublesome for you than me getting lost in a blizzard in search of a small town somewhere further down the slopes.’

‘You said it.’

‘That’s not very nice!’

‘I do “honest” over “nice”.’

‘I’d never have guessed.’ She met his impassive stare and then sighed. ‘I’m sorry. I’m being very rude, and that’s not like me. Of course I’ll borrow some of your clothes. I don’t want to get ill because I’m too proud to accept your help.’

She smiled with genuine, tentative warmth. Why was she reacting to him like this—as though he had reached deep into part of her she hadn’t known existed and turned on a switch that had sent her emotions into some weird, puzzling place? He was a perfect stranger, for heaven’s sake!

Even when she had broken up with Simon, she had done so in a calm, measured way. They had talked. She had been upset, but she hadn’t felt out of control; feeling out of control just wasn’t in her DNA. She wasn’t cutting or sarcastic by nature. She had grown up in a vicarage and had learnt from a young age to be thoughtful of other people.

Over the years there had been many, many broken people who had dropped in to see her father, who was the kindest man on the planet. She had learnt to be patient and to listen to whatever they wanted to say if her father happened to be busy at the time and hadn’t been able to see them straightaway. She had sat serenely though more gossip about who was doing what to the flower arrangements than she could shake a stick at.

She was equable by nature. Escaping from the chalet to think had been impulsive for her, but maybe the conversation about engagements had tapped into a depth of regret she really hadn’t known was there.

At any rate, the way she was reacting to this guy was a completely alien to her. Was it because he was so good-looking, so arrogant? So unlike any guy she had ever met in her life before? Had she surrounded herself so much with ordinary that this guy, so far away from ordinary, unsettled her in ways she couldn’t deal with?

‘I think it’s time for introductions,’ Mateo said gruffly. He shoved his hands in the pockets of the joggers, dragging them down just a bit so that now they rode low on his hips, and tilted his head to the side.

A woman, banging on his front door, criticising his attitude even though he’d rescued her from a blizzard by letting her in in the first place? Not at all what he had been expecting. He was so accustomed to obedience, and so tuned in to women who were always eager to please, that he had been lost for words at the sheer nerve of this unexpected intruder blown in on the wind.

Even more annoying for Mateo was the fact that there was an appeal to her that bypassed his justifiable displeasure at her presence in his chalet, in his sanctuary . She’d followed him into the kitchen and he turned around to a curvy little sex kitten who had stripped down to her thermal layers, none of which could quite conceal the fullness of her breasts or the narrow hand-span of her waist. She’d also dragged off the woolly hat to reveal a spill of long copper curls that tangled over her shoulders and made the breath catch in his throat.

He was in danger of staring, and that was a reaction that was both foreign and unacceptable to him. Mateo’s life was highly controlled. As far as he was concerned, surprises were rarely welcome, particularly when it came to the opposite sex. No surprises at all really worked for him. He went for women who fitted a mould: leggy blondes who enjoyed all the things that money could buy and, even more, all the doors that a powerful guy like him could open: doors to a social scene that tended to bore him but usually thrilled them to death. They demanded no more than he was willing to provide: fun without commitment.

Right now, Mateo was taking a breather from relationships of any kind, so it was intensely irritating to find his eyes being drawn to a woman who wasn’t even anything like the ones he usually invited into his life. Said woman was currently looking at him with guarded eyes, waiting for him to introduce himself, as opposed to standing and staring like an idiot.

‘I’m Mateo. And you are...?’

‘Alice. Alice Reynolds.’

‘Right. Now that we’ve covered that, I’ll get some clothes for you and show you to the bathroom...’ He paused and raked his fingers through his hair as she continued to look at him with huge, almond-shaped hazel eyes that somehow managed to dredge up something inside him that had no place in his tough, aggressive personality.

‘Look, I get that you might be a little alarmed at being in a strange place with a guy you don’t know, and I don’t want to be flippant about that—you’re perfectly safe here. There’s not much I can add to that; you’ll just have to trust me on that front. You haven’t told me what you’re doing in this part of the world, or who you’ve come with, but I have excellent connectivity here, and if you let me have your phone I can connect you so you can get in touch with whoever’s out there rustling up a search party to hunt you down.’

‘Oh! Would you believe that hadn’t even crossed my mind? Yes, please, that would be great.’

She smiled a smile of such open radiance that Mateo was temporarily knocked off his feet but he concealed it well. She was fumbling to fetch her phone and he deliberately didn’t spare her a distracted sideways glance as he connected her to his Wi-Fi and then brushed past her to his suite, sensing her light tread behind him and trying hard not to conjure up her image in his head.

‘I just want to say...’

He paused and glanced round to find her standing inches away from him, face upturned and still smiling.

‘Yes?’ he muttered gruffly.

‘I just want to say that I know you don’t want me here.’ She grimaced and rolled her eyes, laughing at herself. ‘Even if you hadn’t said so yourself, I can tell that I’ve interrupted whatever down time you had planned, and I’m sorry about that. I’m afraid I was a little rude when I first...well...fell headlong into your chalet but I honestly had no idea the weather was going to turn when I set off earlier. I was so scared out there... I guess my head was all over the place!’

‘That’s...fine.’

‘And then I made it here and I was just so relieved that I wasn’t going to die out there on the slopes that I didn’t even stop to consider that...that... I mean, you could have been anyone !’

‘I... Yes, I suppose I could have been.’ Mateo was fascinated by this long, meandering explanation which wasn’t designed to grab his attention or capture his interest. He was so accustomed to coy advances that her open honesty was a little disorienting.

‘You read about these things. And then there are all the movies...’

‘You do read about those things and, yes, I suppose there are movies out there as well, although I don’t do them. Look, I’ll fetch some stuff for you. You can choose whatever you want, and if you leave your wet things on the floor of the bathroom I’ll stick them in the machine.’

‘That’s very kind. I can’t believe I ever thought you might have been an axe-murderer.’

‘You thought I might have been an axe-murderer ?’ Mateo stared at her and she smiled back, blushing and sheepish.

‘Like I said, I’ve seen enough movies in my time, although I guess the typical axe-murderer wouldn’t rent a chalet like this...although, in fairness, perhaps I’m stereotyping axe-murderers.’

‘I happen to own this!’

‘Which makes the axe-murderer scenario even more implausible. And yet...did you say that you don’t do movies ? I didn’t know there was anyone who didn’t do movies.’

‘We should continue this conversation...eh...later. Now, there are three suites here so you can use either of the two spare and you can take your time...eh...freshening up. No need to join me for dinner if you’d rather go to sleep. I imagine your nerves are frayed.’

‘Actually, I’m quite hungry.’ She cast her eyes downward and then glanced back up at him and blushed. ‘I keep meaning to go on a diet but somehow that never really gets off the ground.’

Mateo backed away as the silence thickened. She’d brought his attention bounding back to her shapely little body and he was perspiring as he reached the door and nodded in the direction of the bedroom suites off the broad landing.

His eyes flicked to her semi-damp layer that stretched lovingly over her generous breasts and sexy curves. He swallowed...and scowled.

‘Right. I’ll be in the kitchen.’

He left without further pointless pleasantries. He wished he could summon up the suffocating impatience he had felt when he had pulled that door open. Instead, the woman seemed to have distracted him, and as he stalked back to the kitchen, glowering at his momentary lapse in focus, the reality of the situation sank in.

His peace had been invaded. God only knew when the blizzard would stop but certainly he would be stuck with her for the next day, possibly more. And, instead of trying to think of ways in which he could somehow confine her to safe quarters so that they weren’t actually sharing space, he was already resigning himself to the fact that that was going to be impossible. Worse, he wasn’t quite sure whether that was a problem for him or not.

He returned to the business of cooking but his solitude had been interrupted. Images of her filled his head and he loathed that. Truth was, there were things that were contained within him, experiences best left buried. They’d remain buried just so long as his life didn’t derail, but the appearance of one Alice Reynolds had derailed him completely. As he stirred the sauce, his disobedient mind wandered back to his youth and to memories usually kept under lock and key.

Mateo had been nineteen when he’d met Bianca. He’d been within touching distance of getting his degree a year and a half ahead of schedule. She’d shown up at one of his boxing matches and had knocked him sideways with her beauty. What red-blooded teenager could have resisted all that long, dark hair, flashing dark eyes and a mouth that had invited a world of sexual adventure?

He’d fallen hook, line and sinker...for about six months, before realising that no amount of hot sex could detract from the cold reality that the two of them were not suited. He’d had ambitions; he’d wanted to move on from website designing for other people to ruling the world single-handedly. He’d known it would take time but that he would get there. He’d been young, ambitious and insanely clever.

She’d wanted the fast riches to be made if he turned professional as a boxer. She’d craved the adrenaline that would have come with the limelight and the lifestyles of the crowd that might hang around him. She’d been impatient, and contemptuous when it had come to looking at the bigger picture and thinking long-term.

The body he’d lusted after had begun to bore him and his eyes had begun to wander. The happiness he’d felt when she walked through the door had turned to irritation and impatience.

On the brink of breaking up, she’d fallen pregnant and everything then had changed. Mateo had married her. He’d been just twenty with a baby on the way and all his dreams of making it big in the world of start-ups and finance had started to dissolve, like dew on a summer’s morning. Money had had to be made there and then and turning professional would have paid all the bills and more. Bianca might not have been right for him but he’d been determined to put his all into a baby he’d found himself secretly thrilled to have fathered.

He’d never know how that adventure might have turned out because a miscarriage at a little over three months into the pregnancy had thrown everything up in the air. They’d stayed together for another eight months. He, because he’d felt sorry for her, had seen it as his duty to stand by her at a time when she’d needed him, whatever his personal feelings; and because, for a while, he’d been crippled by a sadness he hadn’t expected, adrift and unable to think straight. And Bianca, yes: she’d been upset, and had clung just for a while, but she was tough and essentially narcissistic.

‘We can always have another; we’re young,’ she’d told him with casual insouciance. The thought of a lifestyle being married to a professional boxer still glittered for her like a treasure chest waiting to be opened. Not for a single moment had she doubted that he would continue on that track. It wasn’t to be, and he’d been relieved when she’d finally walked out on him because he’d told her to forget it if she thought he was going to launch into a career in which he had no interest.

Mateo frowned now and resigned himself to the fact that his wayward mind was just going to carry on travelling down memory lane. Maybe releasing pent-up thoughts wasn’t such a bad thing. Maybe every so often he needed to pull them out from whatever vault he’d stashed them in and examine them, remind himself why he was the person he was—someone who would never take on commitment again or think that love was something that actually existed.

Maybe it paid sometimes, such as when a perfect stranger somehow put him on the back foot, to remember the ex-wife who had resurfaced five years after their divorce to try and squeeze money out of him. He’d been on the up and she’d been pregnant with another man’s baby but that hadn’t stopped her from trying to emotionally blackmail him into handing over money to her.

He was just managing to get back in control, and beginning to be just a little amused by his own temporary bout of introspection, when he heard Alice clear her throat from behind him. He turned round to see her standing in the doorway and this time she wasn’t in tight, wet ski gear. No snug thermals were lovingly stretched across a body that was sex on legs.

She was wearing his clothes and it felt incredibly intimate. He felt a rush of blood to his head as he looked at her from under lowered lashes. She wore black joggers, and a striped jumper, everything rolled, cuffed and tugged tight, yet still swamping her.

Jesus.

He felt faint.

‘Smells delicious...and thank you for the clothes. Not quite my size but I actually feel like a human being again.’

Mateo watched as she smiled and edged into the kitchen, all tension from earlier gone as a naturally upbeat nature was revealed. He was lost for words.

‘Sit.’ It was more of a command than he’d intended and he flushed darkly. ‘Make yourself at home,’ he countered roughly. ‘And then you can begin to tell me what brings you to this part of the world—by which I mean the wrong side of the mountain.’

He reminded himself that this wasn’t a social visit and he wasn’t playing the part of Prince Charming looking for the owner of a glass slipper. She’d landed on his doorstep through her own foolish risk-taking, and in so doing had interrupted his very much anticipated time-out here.

‘Because, just in case you didn’t know,’ he went on, ‘This part of Mont Blanc takes no prisoners. For future reference, it’s easy to end up a casualty of nature here unless you happen to be an experienced skier.’

‘And I will duly remember your words of warning.’ She gave that smile again, this time pretending and failing to be contrite. Mateo frowned, irritated to be taken off-guard once again.

‘I promise: Scout’s honour. And now, before I explain why I ended up banging on your door, let me help you do something. I may not be the best cook in the world but I’m a dab hand when it comes to chopping stuff.’

She walked towards him and Mateo looked at her narrowly, taking in everything and finding it difficult to drag his gaze away.