Chapter Sixteen
‘Fill your boots!’ Cat said with a wink.
A waitress with a name badge reading ‘Camilla’ came over and chatted to Tiago and Cat in English with a Scandinavian accent, and furnished all three glasses with white wine from a bottle labelled Du Kok Estate in a pretty scrawl.
‘They don’t mind us doing this?’ Emme asked Cat in a hushed voice.
‘No man, Tiago is the concierge/night manager here – he does the same for Camilla on her days off.’
From the way Camilla had fluttered her lashes at Tiago, Emme wondered what else he did for her.
As they tucked into their plates of hot meats and cold salads, Emme drank in a feeling of self-satisfaction as she took a large gulp of South African white.
She liked the camaraderie among the workers and this place was beautiful, even if it was a mindfuck.
She’d been in Kristalldorf precisely twenty-four hours and already she was dining for free with new friends.
She rose a little in her seat as she felt proud of herself for making the leap.
Perhaps she could get over Tom and Chrissy.
Three glasses of wine and two plates of dinner later, Cat threw her napkin on the table and made a declaration.
‘Let’s head to Down Mexico Way, the guys will be starting.’
At a small corner halfway between the train station and the church, the sound of Eagles covers spilled out onto the street. A man came outside to light a cigarette. Tiago greeted him with a firm handshake and the two started talking in Spanish or Portuguese, Emme couldn’t work out which.
‘Is there live music every Saturday night?’ Emme asked, as Cat held the door open for her.
‘There’s live music every night.’ Cat said proudly. ‘This is my friend Will’s band. He’s British.’ She said it as if that meant Emme might know him.
‘Oh, cool.’
Cat and Emme had to pass the band and a small dancefloor to get to the bar and the seating area, and the place was already half full.
The singer raised a hand to Cat between chords on his guitar and Cat waved back, and leaned over to kiss the keyboard player once on each cheek, then punched the drummer on the arm from his tiny spot squeezed in between the edge of the stage and the bar.
The venue looked like it didn’t know quite what it was.
It had a Mexican name but nothing about the interior looked Mexican.
It was all mirrored walls and elegant tables.
A group of men were sharing a bottle of Dom Perignon at the bar.
A bunch of tourists, still in their ski clothes, were downing pints raucously.
A group of young people in their early twenties were playing drinking games.
The clientele seemed pretty male-heavy, which Emme found odd.
‘You grab that table before those guys do and I’ll get us a drink. What you having?’ Cat asked cheerily.
Emme really didn’t care, she just needed another drink.
As she suggested wine, she took a remaining table and was relieved to spot a group of middle-aged women sitting with their husbands at a table near the back of the bar.
The women wore rollnecks and pearls, their helmet hair from the day replaced by coiffed bobs.
She settled into the plush banquette behind a round table, took off her garish coat and looked up.
Cat was stopping to chat to everyone she encountered on the short distance to the bar.
A happy happenstance to have befriended her, Emme thought, as she looked at Cat’s warm and animated expression. She’d hit the jackpot with this one.
Tiago slid in next to Emme.
‘Sorry, just chatting to my brother,’ he said in a thick accent.
‘Oh your brother lives here too?’
‘No man, all the Portuguese here are my family.’
He gave a sweet smile.
‘Ah that’s lovely.’
‘Well, we have to look out for each other, huh.’
He nodded over to the group of men drinking champagne by the band.
Their uniform wasn’t skiwear or cargos, it was neat shirts and V-neck jumpers.
Some of them wore their cashmere slung over their shoulders.
And then Emme saw him. The man from the balcony.
Tall and captivating with collar-length hair that ruffled around his face, he was unmissable.
From the conversation he was leading, Emme could tell he commanded any room he was in.
He had a rugged masculinity and an irresistible aura about him, which annoyed the hell out of Emme.
She thought about the hard-on in his boxers as he chatted with his comrades, just as the band struck up the opening chords of ‘Sex on Fire’ by Kings of Leon.
Emme could not take her eyes off him. His tanned jaw. His dazzling smile. That cock.
What a dog.
Cat came back with a bottle and three glasses.
‘Pedí vino,’ she said, and Tiago nodded but furrowed his brow. ‘You don’t want it, carino?’ she asked.
‘Nope, I fancy a beer …’
‘Sorry I took so long,’ Cat apologised. ‘My buddy Carla works behind the bar …’
‘No problem, I was just enjoying the view … You must know everyone in this place!’
‘Kristalldorf is a very small town, and everyone is coming back for the season at the moment, so there’s loads of people to catch up with. I’m in the minority of workers who stay year-round.’
Cat filled two of the glasses and placed the bottle down firmly.
‘So who is everyone?’ Emme asked, although there was only one person she wanted to know about.
She was intrigued by the man who looked like an Argentinian polo player but had a South African accent when he was appeasing his girlfriend.
It was as if his gravitational pull was so intense she could not take her eyes off him.
Surely Cat knew the guy. Did everyone feel like this about him, she wondered?
Two women definitely did, judging from this morning.
Cat pointed in the wrong direction for Emme’s liking.
‘They’re instructors. Ski and snowboard. They come from all over …’
It was hard for Emme to drag her gaze away from balcony man to a bunch of dishevelled twenty-somethings with matted hair and tan lines around their eyes.
‘Carla, Johann and Enno work behind the bar. The band are Will, Yannick and Lydia, she’s Aussie …’ Cat looked around. ‘Those guys at the next table are from out of
town – I’d say Emirati or Greek, I don’t know them … those guys, I don’t know … but the women look like they need a good fucking …’ Cat gave a mischievous laugh as she nodded to the coiffed women with the pearl necklaces.
‘I don’t know any of the rich tourists who come to town – apart from Elton John and the European royals – I only know the loaded locals, and I have to be a bit careful what I say, in case they’re friends with my bosses.
’ Annoyingly, Cat hadn’t touched on the circle of men drinking champagne at the end of the bar near the band, who had now been joined by a squat woman with smiley eyes.
‘Most of the workers come down later because they’re, well, working.’
‘How about those guys?’ Emme said, taking a sip of wine and nodding to the man from the balcony.
‘I don’t know about most of them, but the guy talking is TDK.’
‘TD what?’
‘TDK.’
Emme thought Cat might be talking in text speak and tried to think what Dominique’s teenage daughter might text her mother from exchanges she had been privy to.
Too damn kissable?
‘TDK! Everyone knows TDK, even the out-of-towners. He’s kind of … notorious,’ Cat said cryptically.
Emme winced internally. Notorious wasn’t good. But she already knew he wasn’t a good boy.
‘What does TDK stand for?’
It sounded like a virus. He looked as dangerous as one. His smile had the squat woman in a tizzy.
‘Tristan Du Kok. The son of …’ she trailed off. ‘Long story. He’s a wine importer. Owns the Vitreum hotel. Sort of. Although he knows cock-all – pardon the pun – as you English say, about the hotel industry. Biggest playboy in Kristalldorf.’
That much Emme did know.
‘Not so big that he’s at the fancy Italian wedding?’ Emme asked curiously.
‘Hmm … I’m not sure he’d be welcome. He’s ruffled a few feathers.’
‘Oh really?’
As if Emme wasn’t intrigued enough.
‘Are you single?’ Cat asked with one arched eyebrow.
Emme nodded.
‘Seriously, of all the guys in this bar, Tristan Du Kok is not the guy to go for. And he’s fucking one of the Steinherr sisters …’
Emme wanted to tell Cat about the balcony incident, but held back for some reason. Maybe she knew retelling it would reveal herself.
‘Who are the Steinherr sisters again?’ Emme probed.
Cat looked a little apprehensive suddenly.
‘Remember I said on the train, the guy who owns most of this town, my boss’s enemigo …’
‘Wasn’t that the name of the hotel we ate at?’
‘Yes. The Steinherrhof. It’s one of many.
Ernst Steinherr made this town. His grandson Walter is the biggest landowner in Kristalldorf today – owns five of the best hotels in this place.
His daughters Vivian and Anastasia …’ Cat looked around to see if they were in the bar, but of course they wouldn’t be; if they weren’t at the wedding in Italy they would be in one of their own hotels.
‘They help run this town, and one of them is fucking Tristan … more fool her.’
‘Oh right.’ Emme wanted to know more. This whole town seemed to have a story.
‘There are two sons too. One of them lives in New York, the youngest brother, he’s cool – but he bums around the world, he’s a surfer, surfs on Daddy’s money.’
‘Nice.’
‘I know, right? While the women keep the family business booming. Although I’m not actually sure what Anastasia does …’ Cat’s features hardened. ‘Doesn’t always talk nice to people; she has a knack of making people feel shit …’
Emme thought about Chrissy. Chrissy had a knack of doing that. Or was it just the way she talked to Emme? With polite disdain.
‘Vivian is cool, works hard. They’re one of the wealthiest families in Kristalldorf, and there are a few. Not wealthier than the Kivvis, but the Steinherrs are old money. They built this town – they didn’t buy their way into it.’