Chapter Fifty-Three
At the car port at the edge of Kristalldorf, she met a waiting limo.
‘Where to, Mrs Diamandis?’ asked the driver.
‘The Black Forest.’
The six-hour journey to the luxury spa facility would give her enough time to send all the messages of regret and apology she needed to, and explain that she would be away for a while for some ‘rehab’.
She sent the first one to Dimitri, who had made such a buffoon of himself, he almost didn’t warrant an apology.
Fancy creating a scene like that! But she messaged him a few words to say sorry for the duplicity, and that she was going away for a while to work on herself.
As the driver wound through mountains and tunnels, past lakes and medieval turrets, Anastasia sent a message to Nanny Iris to tell her to give the children her love and tell them she kissed them while they were sleeping (not true), and that she would write to them at school (which was true – handwritten letters were Anastasia’s favourite form of communication).
She didn’t make any pledges about being back in time for Christmas, although she knew it would be on Nanny Iris’s mind.
She didn’t owe her father or sister an explanation right now – their treachery had been too much – but she sent Lysander a message, saying she was going away for a reset, and that perhaps with space in New York he could reflect and see things from her viewpoint.
She pondered Walter. What was going on with her father?
He was making all these erratic decisions lately.
From marrying Kiki, to now having chosen Vivian to run the empire over her.
It felt like a dagger to the heart. He was probably about to have a baby with Kiki, he was behaving so wildly.
Why wasn’t she at the Kivvi Christingle anyway? The migraine seemed a little unlikely.
The thought of Walter and Kiki having a child repulsed her, as the car skirted Lake Constance.
Perhaps that’s what this was all about, although Anastasia had been intrigued to see a vast pile of Kiki’s Louis Vuitton suitcases on the luggage rack by the front door as she left the Steinherr mansion in the dark.
She didn’t feel any sympathy for Tristan Du Kok, although he had been an exceptional lay, on several blistering occasions. She thought about texting him, but decided he could wait.
As she looked at the sorry grey clouds gathering over the long lake, she thought about one person she did perhaps owe an apology to.
Anastasia opened her messages to Cat and paused her thumb over the text box as she looked at the photo.
A smiling face in ski gear. Wild black curls.
A terribly sexy mouth that had done wonderful things to Anastasia’s body.
But what was the point now, Anastasia pondered.
She had only pursued Cat last New Year’s Eve because she could be a key to Seven Summits.
If her father was selling the apartments, then Anastasia and Cat were done.