A Slippery Slope by Emily Harvale Page B

you seem to have conveniently
forgotten it!’
    ‘I have not forgotten it, I assure you,’ he almost growled.
    Mistral barked and got to her feet as if she wasn’t sure what to
do.
    ‘Don’t upset her!’
    ‘Oh forgive me! Perhaps I should just leave and let you get on
with it.’
    ‘That would be wonderful, but I don’t suppose you’d do that, would
you?’
    ‘No. I won’t. This is my chalet, Verity!’
    ‘So you constantly remind me. Fine. We’ll go.’
    ‘I’m ... I’m coming with you,’ Lucy said.
    They turned and marched towards the bedroom and Mistral followed
at their heels.
    ‘Where do you think you’re going?’ Josh yelled.
    ‘To pack, obviously,’ Verity said without a backward glance.
    ‘Fucking hell! Stop!’ he demanded.
    Verity turned to face him. ‘I think you mean, ‘Stop please ,
don’t you?’
    ‘Verity, I am very close to considering murdering you right now.
Be careful what you say. I can only take so much.’
    ‘As can I,’ she said. ‘From the moment we arrived you have treated
me as if you owned me. You walk in and out of here – even coming into our
bedroom on our first day, sorry, your bedroom – and you never consider
that we may be ... well, you never consider us. You think just because you own
this chalet, you own us. You even thought you could kiss me and walk away
because you wanted to.’
    ‘He kissed you!’ Lucy said, her mouth dropping open and her eyes
bulging. ‘When?’
    Both Josh and Verity glanced at Lucy.
    ‘It doesn’t matter, darling. Nothing happened.’
    ‘It was a mistake,’ Josh snapped.
    ‘Believe me!’ Verity snapped back.
    Lucy looked from one to the other before disappearing into the
bedroom.
    ‘Now look what you’ve done!’ Verity said. ‘Are you happy?’
    ‘What I’ve done? You’re the one who brought up that
unfortunate kiss. Not me.’
    Verity sucked in her breath. ‘We’ll be gone in half an hour.’
    She turned away but he grabbed her arm and pulled her back.
Mistral barked and growled.
    ‘Stop this! Please.’ He let her go and raked his hand through his
hair. ‘I don’t know how this got so out of hand,’ he said, calmer now. ‘I can’t
have a dog in my chalet, Verity. Can’t you understand that? There are all sorts
of health and safety implications. What if it ... she... bites someone, apart
from anything else? You must see that this is impossible.’
    Verity calmed down too. ‘I .can see that it’s ... awkward, but she
doesn’t bite and where else can she go?’
    ‘She looked as if she was going to bite me just now.’
    ‘That’s because she was protecting me. We ... we have become quite
close, Mistral and I.’ Verity shrugged. ‘I can’t let her go to a pound. Surely
you can see that? Now I really must go to Lucy. She’s ... she’s clearly upset.’
    ‘She’s not the only one,’ Josh said. He let out a long, loud sigh.
‘This is impossible. Absolutely, bloody impossible! Look, I’m going for a walk.
You talk to Lucy and I’ll come back in half an hour. We’ll ... we’ll see what
can be done then.’
    ‘What do you mean by “what can be done”?’
    ‘Frankly, Verity, I have absolutely no idea. But clearly I’ll have
to think of something. Just ... just don’t ... go.’
    Josh turned on his heel and stormed from the room.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
     
     
    ‘So
you can see why I’m annoyed, Etienne,’ Josh said, gulping down a very large
whisky.
    They were sitting beside the fire at Josh’s home on the evening of
his row with Verity.
    Etienne sniggered and shook his head in disbelief. ‘Look, Josh,
I’m really sorry about the part I played in this. Mistral was already at the
chalet when I got there and it was obvious there was no way that Verity or Lucy
– or even that vet guy, Peter – were going to let her go to a pound. Not that I
actually know where there is one.’
    ‘Neither do I as it happens.’
    ‘Well, what could I say? They told me they’d already asked around,
and they were