PROLOGUE
PROLOGUE
Five years ago
M AYBE HER FATHER was right, Stella Sutter thought as she hurried to prepare more drinks. Maybe lying did send you to hell, because that’s where she had ended up.
It had only been a little fib!
Yes, I have worked in a bar before , she had told the chalet manager. Because she had. As an after-hours janitor.
She had also worked at other chalets. Those managers had only ever asked her to make up beds and scrub toilets or, at most, brew a cup of coffee. This was her first week working for this new resort, which seemed to target a younger crowd with ads showing après-ski parties and hot tubs big enough for groups.
Stella had been thrilled to get on with them. They provided accommodation as part of their compensation package, which was only a shared room with three other girls, but rent was outrageous in Zermatt. She was grateful for whatever she could get.
She wasn’t supposed to be here tonight, though. One of her new roommates had wanted to keep skiing with someone she’d met on the piste this afternoon and asked Stella to cover her evening shift. At other chalets, that meant tidying up after dinner and turning down beds, so Stella had agreed.
When Louis, the chalet manager, asked if she could stay longer to help pour drinks, what else would she say but yes? Her roommate had already bragged about how great her tips were.
They had better be. These people were hooligans.
At least a few of them must be famous, though. A photographer had tried to get her to talk about them when she’d been on her way in. She had said with all honesty that she didn’t know anything about any of them.
Louis had since told her the guests were a father and his two grown children from the UK. The brother and sister were models for the family clothing brand. The son had been out all day and the father had left for a dinner date. The daughter, whose name was Carmel, was the only one here, and she seemed eager for everyone to get wasted off their faces.
“Girl!” Carmel shouted from the terrace.
Louis had cranked up the pulsebeat of electronica and opened the doors to the terrace, letting in icy winter air and the giggles and whoops of the dozen drunks simmering in the bubbling hot tub.
“What’s her name again?” Carmel asked. “Sheila! Where’s our drinks?”
Carmel was English, so Stella replied in that language. “Coming.”
“She’s coming,” someone repeated, and they all laughed hysterically.
Stella didn’t get the joke, but suspected it was dirty. They were making a lot of remarks that were outside the bounds of good taste. She kept looking to Louis to settle them down, but he only seemed to encourage it.
“Sheila.” Louis padded in, leaving yet another trail of puddles for her to mop up. He wore only a small red bathing suit and his ponytail. He was at least ten years older than the group of twentysomethings. She had a feeling he got a commission on the bottles they opened, because he was not shy about ordering her to do it.
“Stella,” she reminded him.
“Whatever. You have to get the drinks out faster.” He was consuming alcohol as quickly as everyone else. “I thought you said you’d done this?”
She pointed to a tray. “These ones are ready.”
“Just bring those bottles and the corkscrew. They don’t care about clean glasses.”
They didn’t care about anything. They were trashing the place. Stella’s roommate was going to kill her when she arrived in the morning. That’s why she was trying to tidy behind these louts. They were impossible to keep up with, though. They were tracking water everywhere, spilling drinks and dropping food. She had a feeling one couple had gone into an empty bedroom. That bed would need stripping and remaking before she left.
She hurried outside to where the rectangular tub was set into the terrace, putting everyone’s chins and shoulders at the level of her ankles. All the women had lost their tops.
Carmel was standing in the waist-deep water so she could display her breasts for inspection. Stella averted her gaze only to crash it into a pair who appeared to be having sex in the corner of the tub.
“Nine-point-nine,” a man judged Carmel’s chest. “Want a ten? Put them here.” He lifted his splayed fingers with invitation.
Carmel laughed and pointed at Stella. “What about her?”
“Her?” The man turned his head to give Stella a bleary-eyed once-over. “She’s a two. Too tall. Too serious. Too many clothes.”
Gales of laughter followed.
Not for the first time, Stella questioned her wisdom in running away last year. Not that she’d been underage. She’d turned eighteen a week later. Technically that made her an adult here in Switzerland, but in her father’s eyes, eighteen had meant she was old enough to marry a man twice her age and start making babies.
Stella had already seen how much responsibility children were, and how they hemmed a woman’s choices. After their mother died, Stella had been the primary caregiver to her younger brother and sister until their father remarried. Even after Grettina joined them, Stella hadn’t had a life outside of school and helping at home, especially after Grettina had the twins.
Escaping in the dead of night hadn’t been her plan, but her father had forced her hand and she didn’t regret it. She was doing what she could to continue helping Grettina and her siblings, sending money home when she could, though. She needed this job.
So she kept an unbothered look on her face and served the drinks. In the last year of carving her own path, she’d had a lot of dodgy experiences. This might be the foulest behavior she’d had to tolerate, but it was only one night. A few hours more at most. She could stand it.
Or so she believed. Until it got worse.
“I bet she’s an eight under those clothes.” The man traced a curvy shape through the air while eyeing her chest in a way that made her deeply uncomfortable. “C’mon, love. Strip down and join us. Show us what you’ve got.”
Stella looked to Louis, who ought to be putting a stop to this harassment. He was settling back into the tub and Carmel was straddling his lap. They were kissing passionately.
“Someone has to get the drinks.” Stella forced a smile.
“Pour mine then.” The perv stood to hold out his filmy pint glass.
She had really hoped to see a tip by now—which she might if that man stood any taller in the water. This was dreadful, but she definitely wouldn’t be paid if she walked out.
She took the cap off a bottle of beer and leaned out to pour it into the man’s glass.
He dropped his glass into the water and, as she was reacting with astonishment to that, grabbed her wrist and yanked her into the tub.
Between the fall and the plunge beneath the hot, bubbling surface, and a very real fear that came from not knowing how to swim, Stella floundered in panic.
Within seconds, she was pulled up into the man’s arms amid gleeful shouts of laughter. He grabbed her backside to grind himself against her pelvis while he tried to get his mouth over hers.
“Stop it!” She was still sputtering for breath and blinking water out of her eyes. She thrust her hand over his mouth, turning her face away while trying to fight out of his hold.
It was all a big joke to everyone. They were cheering him on—
The music shut off abruptly and a man’s furious voice demanded, “What the hell is going on?”
Everyone fell silent in shock. For a moment, the only sound was the gurgle of the tub jets and snap of the bubbles while they all stared at him.
Stella’s first thought was that he was younger than she expected from someone with such a deep voice and forceful personality. He was only mid-twenties. He wore a cream-colored ski jacket with black piping and black ski pants. His hair was short on the sides, curly on top, but the curls were crushed from whatever hat he’d been wearing. His black brows sat in severe lines on his swarthy face. His long cheeks were hollowed, his mouth hard.
“It’s just Atlas,” Carmel said with disgust. “My brother. I thought you were out for the night?”
“It’s midnight. Are you all right?” His gaze met Stella’s, then swerved to the man who still had his arms locked around her. “Let her go.”
Stella was finally able to find the bottom of the tub with more than her toes and wade toward the steps. Her clammy clothes adhered to her skin and the icy air struck through them, making her shudder. She hunched her arms into her chest, teeth starting to chatter as the cold penetrated.
Behind her, Carmel mocked, “It’s midnight ? Who are you? Cinderella?”
“Where’s Oliver?” Atlas shook out one of the towels Stella had left in a stack on the covered shelf and handed it to Stella, continuing to glower at Carmel.
“He knew I was having friends over so he went out.” She shrugged.
“All of you get out. Now ,” he ordered.
“Ignore him.” Carmel flicked her hand before she re-straddled Louis.
Atlas cursed under his breath and noticed Stella huddled in the towel.
“Do you have anything to change into?”
She shook her head. Even if they did have spare uniforms here, nothing ever fit her. She was tall and busty and, despite the number of meals she’d been forced to skip in the last year, had a very round bottom.
“Come with me.” He shut the doors to the terrace as they walked inside, waved off her concern for the drips she was leaving on the floor, and led her down a flight of stairs into a bedroom.
She faltered at the door, never comfortable around male anger, even when it wasn’t directed at her.
Atlas dug into a drawer, pulling out a folded pair of dark green joggers and a matching hoodie. He dropped them on the bed.
“Have a shower. Warm up. I’ll get rid of them.” He brushed past her.
The shower at her rooming house was down the hall. It was always tepid, always in high demand and always looked moldy despite the fact that she had scrubbed it herself with bleach.
At the very least, she needed to quit dripping on these hardwood floors. She locked herself in the bathroom and stripped off clothes that had been a big purchase for her very thin wallet. She wrung them out as best she could and left them draped on the edge of the tub while she showered.
Until she’d hopped on a train and gotten herself a bed in a youth hostel here in Zermatt, then began taking any housekeeping work she could find, she had never seen anything like these shiny chrome fixtures or these roomy shower stalls with their elegant tile work and fragrant shampoos. She had certainly never used one.
It was such a pampering experience, she could have stayed there all night, but she made herself hurry through it, then dry off with one of the warm, fluffy towels from the heated rack.
The clothes Atlas had provided were very good quality, making her anxious about returning them. The drawstring pants were too long and the pullover hoodie was a size too big. The neckline drooped open across her collarbone and the cuffs fell to her knuckles.
They were soft against her skin, though. Cozy. The pullover held traces of a woodsy cologne filled with subtle notes of smoke and cedar and leather. Wearing his clothes was an intimate experience. It made her feel enveloped by him. Claimed.
She shook off a hot shiver and squeezed her hair with the towel. She didn’t have a comb and wouldn’t presume to use his to re-plait it. She wound the length into a bun that she secured with the pins she’d removed to wash it.
She would need a plastic bag to carry her damp clothes home. There should be one in the housekeeping closet.
She strode back into the bedroom with purpose and nearly ran straight into Atlas.
He had his back to her and wore only his briefs.
“Oh!” She blushed as though she’d never seen a man half-dressed in her life when she’d spent the evening confronted by bananas in hammocks.
Look away , she ordered herself. Retreat!
But she was frozen in shock. Awe, actually. He had broad shoulders and a long spine. All of him was long and lean and his skin held a natural olive tone that was much darker than his sister’s creamy complexion.
“They splashed me.” His voice was thick with fury. He shot his legs into jeans, pulling them up over his muscled buttocks. As he closed the fly with a terse zip, he turned to face her. “I told them to leave or I’ll call the police. They’re like crabs in a bucket, incapable of getting out. I’m calling them anyway, to report that man who was groping you.” He patted his jeans and looked around as though trying to locate his phone.
“No,” she squeaked with panic.
“No to the police? Why not?” He jerked his head toward the door. “Listen to them. They’re out of control. I saw him assault you. He needs to know he can’t get away with it.”
But the police would want her name. They might discover that her father had reported her for theft—which she was guilty of, even if it was a petty amount.
She looked past him toward the door, wanting to leave, but accosted by her strong work ethic. The place was a mess.
He misinterpreted her expression.
“Don’t worry. I won’t let him touch you again.” As a fresh round of cheers rose outside, he sent another look of disgust toward the closed door. He picked up a green Henley and tugged it over his head. “I’ll throw him out myself. I’m looking forward to it.”
Her stomach tightened with unfamiliar swirling sensations as she glimpsed the thatch of his armpit hair, then watched his muscled chest with his brown nipples disappear as the shirt dropped to finish hiding the path of hair that bisected his flat, six-pack abs.
She had never understood the mesmerized giddiness that other girls—grown women like those outside— exhibited around men. In this second, however, she had an inkling. Tendrils of admiration unfurled inside her, making her want to touch him. She actually licked her lips, confused by the intensity of the compulsion because it was so new. So strong.
“What’s your name?” The timbre of his voice changed. The simmering anger was gone, replaced by gruff curiosity and something else.
She lifted her gaze to find he had one thick brow quirked. His mouth held a curl of amusement.
Oh, no . He’d caught her ogling him. She hated when men did that to her. Now she was guilty of it.
“Um, Stella?” she replied in a voice that squeezed through her tight throat.
“Um, Atlas,” he mocked drily, and held out his hand.
Boiling in embarrassment, she took a nervous step forward.
The second his warm palm connected with hers and his fingers closed in a firm grip around her hand, she felt as though a jolt hit her heart, stalling it in her chest. A fresh flood of heat suffused her, this one vastly different from shyness. It had roots in the pit of her belly and moved outward through her limbs, leaving a sting in her nipples and between her thighs.
Which was mortifying. Nothing like that had ever happened to her. She only hoped he didn’t know, but the way his eyes narrowed made her fear that he did. Which caused her stomach to swirl and tighten and her body to swelter even more.
“How old are you?” He slowly released her hand. His gaze was traveling all over her face, leaving a sensation that felt as though he traced her features with his fingertips.
“N-nineteen. Next week.” She couldn’t fib with him, not when his dark gold irises were piercing into her soul.
“I’m twenty-six.” There was finality in his voice. Rejection? But he continued to study her face as though looking for answers to something. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking behind his inscrutable expression. That she was too young? Too obvious ?
She got distracted by his eyes again. She’d never noticed a man’s eyelashes before. His were long and thick with a hint of curl. They would have seemed feminine along with his full, sensual lips, but his sharp cheekbones and rugged jawline balanced them out. She had never really noticed a man’s lips either, but she found herself wondering how his would feel pressed to hers.
A fresh tingle of awareness made her start to smile shyly even though she didn’t know why.
His expression altered. He looked away briefly, as though undecided. When his attention came back to her, his features were stiff with conflict, his brows low with dismay.
“ Are you all right?” he asked. “I can take you home after I get rid of them.”
“I’m fine. I was more upset about having nothing to change into. Thank you for this.” She plucked at the front of the hoodie. “I’ll bring it back in the morning.”
“Keep it. It suits you.” Satisfaction lit his gaze as he centered the seams on her shoulders.
“I couldn’t.” She smoothed a hand down the front, loving the fleecy feel of it against her skin, but the movement revealed that her nipples were stiffly poking against the fabric.
She shot a look upward to see his nostrils flare. He swallowed and pressed his mouth flat while dragging his attention back to her face. His hands slid from her shoulders to clasp her upper arms, not pulling her in, but not holding her off either.
Stella was the least sophisticated woman she knew, but she’d spent a year watching people her age hook up. She understood the small signals, even if she had never participated.
Until now.
She moved forward, feeling as though she stepped into a bubble with him, one that floated in sunshine while the rest of the world turned to rainbows.
“Thank you for…” She wasn’t sure what she was thanking him for. The clothes? The rescue? This feeling of lightness and possibility?
She tilted up her face. She was too new to the mating dance to make more of a move, but it was enough for him to tighten his hands on her arms and draw her closer.
“Are you sure?” His thumbs moved restlessly, making the cotton shift against her arms.
She nodded, even though she wasn’t entirely sure what she was asking for, only that she wanted to know how it worked, this thing called sexual attraction. She wanted to know how to kiss.
He bent his head and touched his mouth to hers.
That’s all it was for three long seconds—a feathery contact that barely grazed her softened lips before she felt him start to retreat, leaving her stinging with disappointment.
A small sob of yearning panged in her throat. Her hands closed into the knit of his shirt. She pushed into her toes, seeking more .
His breath hitched, then his mouth opened with more hunger over hers. More command.
It was a fresh plunge into suffocating heat and blurred light and wild sensations that were panic-like, but also exhilarating. She didn’t know what to do, which was terrifying, but he did. With a sweep of his tongue, he encouraged her lips to part and the intimacy of it sent a spike of delight straight into her belly.
Moaning, she leaned into him, offering more of herself to be consumed. She didn’t realize she had pressed right up against him until his hard chest was crushing her breasts. His hands roamed down her back, ironing her tighter into him. She loved the strength and confidence in the way his hands moved over her, unhurried but thorough. She had the discomfiting urge to have her backside fondled, but she didn’t know how to tell him that without stopping the kiss and she never wanted to stop this kiss. It was a world unto itself, one that was velvety and dark and perfect.
She realized that waffle knit and denim were abrading her palms. She was cruising her hands over his back with discovery while her whole body undulated in an attempt to get closer to his. Her hand brushed the pocket of his jeans, intrigued by the abrasion of denim over flexed muscle.
A gruff noise resounded in his chest. The world tilted. The side of the bed hit the backs of her knees and the mattress arrived at her back. She gasped and opened her eyes to the sight of him on one elbow as he loomed over her.
“No?” His expression was stark, eyes hazed with the same sort of spell that had been cast over her.
“Yes,” she whispered, because she already missed the feel of him against her. She slid her hand into his hair and urged him to kiss her again.
He pressed his weight across her and plundered. It was glorious. Intoxicating. She met the dab of his tongue with her own, reveling in the sensation of falling in slow motion down a long, dark tunnel. She loved the feel of his hair! She sifted her fingers through the springy thickness and found the indent at the back of his neck and died a little death when his hand skated over her breast, then splayed to take firm possession and massage it.
A sharp, raw need combusted between her thighs. A dampening heat that ached . It was so intense, she heard herself whimper.
He rasped something against her mouth in a language she didn’t recognize and buried his mouth in her throat. The undeniable shape of his erection was against her thigh. Never had she thought she would find that enticing, but she wanted to touch it. To be under him. She wanted that there .
A caress arrived against the bare skin of her stomach and climbed to her naked breast. The cup of his palm made her breast swell and tingle.
He lifted his head to look into her eyes as he scraped his thumb across and around her nipple, sending more lightning strikes into her loins.
“Let me see. I want to suck it.”
The grit in his voice sent shivery prickles across her skin. The sheer audacity of what he was asking made her turn her face into his biceps and close her eyes. But her hand found the edge of the pullover where it was bunched against his wrist. She started to draw it upward.
As swirls of cool air crept across her torso, the door swung inward, letting in the noise of the party.
Atlas abruptly moved his hand to her back, rolling her protectively into his chest and cradling her there while his voice turned to a rusty knife blade. “Get out.”
“See?” Carmel said. “He’s right here, getting off with the maid.”
What? Stella twisted against the band of Atlas’s arms, craning her neck to see Carmel was sagged into the room, clinging to the door latch. She was dripping wet and clutched a towel to her naked breasts.
“Just like Daddy,” she pronounced with venom.
Atlas pushed into the mattress, springing away from her and off the bed, slashing Stella with a glare of blame.
Stella sat up, trying to get her bearings, only then noticing the man with iron-gray hair in the hall.
“Really, Atlas?” the man said.
Stella’s heart lurched from fresh shock to something more appalled. For once in her life she felt small, but in the worst possible way. Belittled. Looked down on.
“I told them I was calling the police. I’m doing it now.” Atlas yanked his ski jacket from beneath Stella’s hip.
She scrambled off the bed and tugged at the clothes she wore, ensuring she was fully covered.
“They’re on their way.” The older man sideswiped Stella with a lip curl of disgust. “Get rid of her. Then help me get rid of the rest.” He stalked away.
“Oh, no.” Carmel pouted with exaggerated sympathy while her eyes stayed bright with malicious laughter. “Daddy’s mad.”
“Get dressed.” Atlas caught his sister by the shoulder and steered her from the room, nudging her toward the end of the hall and pulling the door closed behind him without looking back at Stella.
She clutched her stomach, feeling sick and humiliated and scared. Had that man said the police were on their way?
She peered out the door and saw Atlas had his back to her as he stood in the doorway to another bedroom. “Sober up and grow up,” he ordered.
From another part of the house, there was a confusion of drunken giggles and terse responses.
Stella seized her chance to slip down the stairs and into the staff closet, where she jammed her feet into her boots and yanked on her coat. As she stepped outside, she could already see the flicker of blue lights bouncing off the snowcapped roofs below.
The photographer had been joined by another. They were smoking and one perked up when he saw her. “What’s going on in there, love? Big party?”
Thankfully, Stella’s hat was in her pocket. She jammed it on her head as she veered down a back lane to avoid those men and the approaching authorities.
It was a frigid walk home, one filled with shuddering cold, distress and disappointment and confusion. Would she have given herself up to Atlas if his sister hadn’t interrupted them? She hadn’t dreamed that kisses and sex could feel like that. She’d felt helpless, not against Atlas, but against herself.
This was how it happened. This was how women found themselves in the snare of child-rearing and dependence. She was lucky his father had put a stop to it, she supposed, but she still felt denied and humiliated.
As if that bitter walk home wasn’t punishment enough, she received another blow at dawn. Her roommate shook her awake and waggled her phone in front of her.
“What the hell happened last night? We’ve all been fired. We have to be out by nine.”