Free Revenge of a Chalet Girl: by Lorraine Wilson Page A

it?”
    “The girl with pink streaks in her hair?” Josh asked.
    “Yes,” Amy replied defiantly. “I suppose you’ll say I put her up to it.”
    “I wouldn’t say anything,” Josh felt exasperated. “But she did help you with the chilli, didn’t she? You said ‘we’ earlier. You’ve got to see I can’t act without evidence.”
    Amy walked to the door, her hand on the knob, then turned and stared. He felt it, their old connection. Of course he did. The connection he’d assumed was simply what you always felt with your girlfriend, that he’d presumed he’d find again once he got over having to let Amy go.
    But he never had felt it again with anyone again.
    Amy had half opened the door to leave when she hesitated and turned again, her head held high and eyes suspiciously bright. “Just one thing Josh. Why did you break up with me?”
    He met her stare.
    “I thought I was doing the right thing,” he said. “We were too young to settle down. If you’d come to Saudi with me we would’ve had to marry because of the laws there. And abandon your teacher training and been stuck on an expat compound. Could you really have been happy sitting around doing nothing? You were so passionate about your teaching course, I couldn’t force you to give up your dreams. It would’ve been selfish.”
    Her face didn’t alter but her knuckles on the hand grasping the doorknob had turned white.
    “I couldn’t turn the job down Amy,” Josh softened his voice, desperately wanting her to understand, really understand. “There weren’t tonnes of jobs to go round then, you know that. For every good position there were twenty or thirty of us engineering graduates pursuing it. I had a student loan to pay off and I wanted to pay my parents back too, so they could go on the cruise they’d been talking about taking one day…”
    He gripped the edge of the bed, fighting the surge of emotion.
    “I see.” Amy’s eyes were downcast now, her head turned slightly away from him.
    “It doesn’t mean I didn’t regret…” The words choked in his throat and he couldn’t say anymore. It wasn’t wise to say more. The tension in the air was palpable, emotional vibrations rocking them both. Even though there was a physical gap between them he felt closer to Amy than he had to anyone in years.
    He knew she understood.
    Finally Amy looked up, her face anguished. “Josh, I can’t let you marry her, I can’t. I’ll get you your proof.”
    Amy stared out of the window at the dark, threatening sky. Chalet Repos was practically submerged in thick grey snow cloud; she could barely see down to the next chalet, never mind the valley below. Thick white flakes of snow fell steadily, silently to the ground, blanketing Verbier in yet more white gold.
    She stood with her back to the table where Josh’s group and the girls finished their breakfast. Scott and Holly had appeared to join them for coffee. Her own appetite was conspicuous by its absence. She didn’t know how to be near Josh in other company; it felt like a constant battle not to meet his eye or give herself away. As far as she knew, only Matt and the girls knew she and Josh had history.
    The knowledge she had to do something to stop the wedding felt like solidifying concrete in her stomach. She hugged her arms around her body, still staring at the steadily falling flakes of snow. It was all very well knowing she had to do it but at the moment she hadn’t the faintest idea how she could achieve it.
    “Hi there, how’s the groom this morning?” Holly’s question made Amy turn round despite herself.
    “Great thanks.” Josh replied politely enough but when Amy glanced at his face she saw the familiar twitch at the corner of his mouth that told her he was lying through his teeth.
    She perched on the back of a leather armchair, trying to appear disinterested.
    Scott looked up from his iPad. “Bad news I’m afraid guys, I just looked up the weather forecast and there’s a big