WINTER WONDERLAND

by Belinda Jones

  PRAISE FOR BELINDA JONES BOOKS

  'Fast-paced, enthusiastic, good-hearted... a wise & witty read about the secret desires deep within us.' Marie Claire

  'Definitely worth cramming in your suitcase.' Cosmopolitan

  ‘Great gags undercut with genuinely moving emotion, this is a cut above most romantic comedies. A gem.’ Woman's Own

  ‘You’ll be laughing out loud from your sunbed.’ Wedding & Home

  'More twists than a bowl of fusilli and as essential as your SPF.' New Woman

  ‘A glitterball romp.’ Glamour

  'Essential for that girls-only summer trip.' Company

  'A deliciously entertaining beach read.' Heat

  'Fun, romantic and set in various exotic locations, it's the perfect escapist read for summer days.' Closer

  'Great fun from start to finish.' Sunday Express

  'A perfect, sunny read.' B magazine

  'A sparkling read.’ OK!

  'Perfect summer reading.' News of the World

  ALSO BY BELINDA JONES

  FICTION

  Divas Las Vegas

  I Love Capri

  The California Club

  The Paradise Room

  Café Tropicana

  The Love Academy

  Out of the Blue

  Living La Vida Loca

  Kiss & Make Up (formerly California Dreamers)

  Winter Wonderland

  The Travelling Tea Shop

  NON-FICTION

  On The Road To Mr Right (A Search for the American Dream Guy)

  Bodie On The Road (A Dog-themed Road Trip across the USA)

  WINTER WONDERLAND

  by

  BELINDA JONES

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  PRAISE FOR BELINDA JONES BOOKS

  ALSO BY BELINDA JONES

  TITLE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  KRISTA’S TOP 10 TRAVEL DOs & DON’Ts

  KRISTA’S BEST OF THE WORLD

  OTHER BOOKS BY BELINDA JONES

  COPYRIGHT

  CONTACT INFORMATION

  CHAPTER ONE

  I’m lying on a bed of ice. Literally a huge block of king-size ice, sculpted into the form of a hefty four-poster and polished to such a gloss and gleam it more closely resembles glass.

  The ceiling and walls that curve around me are made of compacted snow, creating a snug hush, the like of which I have never known. I expel white-breathed awe. This place is magical – even the path to my hideaway had me passing beneath tinkling ice chandeliers, and scroll-topped archways, down corridors seemingly burrowed by polar bears.

  I do have to slightly ruin the Ice Princess illusion by revealing that this bed has a conventional mattress but, before you get too comfy-cosy, consider that it’s been in the equivalent of a deep-freezer for weeks. Those luxurious-looking faux furs splayed on top – the kind that look as if they’ve been singed on the barbecue – are just for show. My actual bedcovers are a bright orange North Face sleeping bag and a synthetic blanket made of the kind of material typically used to clean sunglasses.

  It could be worse. I could be naked, my skin freezer-burned to the bed in a frosty, everlasting kiss. Like some new kind of Bond girl way to die.

  The weirdest thing is that I am working right now. This is me in research mode. Albeit horizontal, shivering, what-was-I-thinking? research mode.

  I’m in Canada, specifically the French-speaking province of Quebec, here to review their annual Winter Carnival. It’s the world’s largest and repeatedly voted the best. And prettiest. That’s all I really know for sure – typically I plan my trips months in advance and get so genned up I could double as a tour guide, but this time we’ve had to hire a local one for the week because we had a last-minute switch (deciding to save the retro-glamorous ski resort of Cortina d’Ampezzo for next year so we can tie in with the fiftieth anniversary of The Pink Panther movie that was filmed there). I literally found out I was coming on this jaunt twenty-four hours ago and, until I checked in, I thought the Hôtel de Glace was going to be a giant ice-cream emporium. You can imagine my disappointment.

  If only I’d packed an ice-pick and a bottle of blue curaçao I could be making my own Slushies right now.

  Or engraving Krista Carter Woz Here in the headboard.

  Not that my scrapings could compare to the exquisite etchings that run throughout the hotel. This year’s theme is ‘First Nation’, which is the Canadian equivalent of ‘Native American’. My room is called La Coiffe, which roughly translates as The Hairdo, on account of the strong-nosed chief rocking a cockatoo flourish of feathers. There’s also a beautiful snow-white (literally!) dove, wings splaying mid-flight.

  When I first entered this room I just sat in the perfect stillness and stared at these wall carvings by flickering yellow candlelight.

  I may be feeling the cold now but it’s nothing compared to the excitement of experiencing something so nerve-tinglingly new. I can’t wait to tell our readers all about it.

  I write for Va-Va-Vacation!, which is undoubtedly the best, most personally attentive online travel planner in the world. I can say that with utter assurance because I am one of the co-founders, along with Danielle Mitchell who does the design (we used to work on the same magazine back in the day) and Laurie Davis who is one of the few former high-street travel agents who found a way to salvage her career.

  We chose the name Va-Va-Vacation! because of its nod to Va-Va-Voom – all sassy-flirty energy with a Fifties flair reflected in our logo. But it wasn’t our first choice. Originally we wanted Go Girl! but it was already taken – by a company selling urination devices that allow women to pee while standing up. So good luck to them.

  I do the majority of the location guides for the website and make ground level contacts for Laurie to follow up on to arrange discounts for our readers. (Airfares are so scandalously high these days we have to try and recoup everywhere we can – not just at the hotels and restaurants but at neighbouring boutiques, cocktail bars, art galleries, even nail parlours … ) We pitch ourselves as the Match.com of the travel industry because all our itineraries are custom-made according to a detailed member profile. Better yet, you always get to speak to a real person (me or Laurie) before the trip (and during if necessary). Our attitude is: Life is too short and travel too expensive to waste a single coffee-stop in a strip-lit chain when you could be basking in a secret courtyard with a waiter who’s going to slip you a complimentary macaroon.

  Now ordinarily I would go on about our treasure-trove services and all that makes us the ultimate travel companion until you hopped on a train, plane or automobile just to get away from me, but I’m in a bit of a daze. Is it really possible that this morning I was at Heathrow and now I’m in, well, Narnia
?

  I did have a rather different impression on arrival – it honestly felt as if I’d been deposited at the base station for some Arctic expedition. The second I stepped out of the airport taxi I was engulfed in a swirling snowstorm – spiky flakes flying every which way, whisking into my eyes and mouth, up my nose, aggravating me to such a degree I wanted to yell, ‘Stop shaking the snowglobe!’

  I signed in at the welcome desk and then went for my introductory talk at the Celsius Pavilion. This wasn’t so bad. It was warm, weather-free and they had one of those cool Keurig coffee machines where you slot a little tub into the lid and press down the lever … Hot choc for me! Fun!

  About twenty-five minutes into the briefing on ‘How to sleep at an ice hotel’, I started to sense the gravity of this undertaking. Cotton, I learned, is the devil’s work. If you sweat it will stay wet and then freeze. As will you. Fortunately I had the presence of mind to pack my highly synthetic thermals and had intended on sleeping fully clothed – coat and all – until the guide insisted I would overheat. That didn’t strike me as a pressing concern. He also advised soaking in the hot tubs prior to sleep – the idea being that you raise your body temperature to a steady simmer because, ‘The sleeping bag will hold you at the temperature you enter, it will not warm you up.’

  The only snag is, I didn’t bring a swimsuit. Not the obvious thing to throw in the suitcase alongside your fluffy earmuffs. For a moment I considered substituting my undies, then I saw that a) you have to make a mad dash from the pavilion across the knee-deep snow to get to the tubs which, I should make clear, are alfresco and b) if you forget your hat or let a stray strand dangle, your hair will freeze into icicle fronds.

  The bar seemed a much better bet.

  Especially since it was home to a blazing, freestanding fireplace. I rushed to its side and held my palms up against the glass casing. Nothing.

  ‘The fire is real but the glass is treated to withhold the heat.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s just for effect,’ my fellow guests explained.

  ‘What a swizz!’ I wailed.

  ‘Well, you do realise that if it was real this place would melt.’

  ‘Oh. Yes.’

  Even I have to admit, you wouldn’t want that.

  It is way too miraculous.

  Five minutes ago I was in a white wilderness – I walk into the bar and there are lights disco-switching from neon pink to turquoise to emerald green and club music pumping. I couldn’t resist giving a rhythmical strut to ‘Moves Like Jagger’. It was just so strange to be in a setting where people would normally be in their skimpiest, sleekest outfits and find them bulked up to the max – not one un-hooded head in the place.

  Many people were drinking tropical mango cocktails but that seemed too much of a stretch for me. We’re not in the Caribbean now, folks! So, leaning on the blue-glowing ice bar, I ordered the house specialty – a mix of vodka and Domaine Pinnacle ice cider (a local speciality made from apples picked after the first frost), served in a solid, hand-sized ice cube with a drilled-out middle. Now if I could just get that alcohol to transfer to my lips …

  ‘Sip from the narrowest edge,’ the barman advised me.

  It still felt bizarre and, long after the sweet-tasting alcohol was drained, I couldn’t stop sucking on the glass like it was a chunky ice-lolly.

  From the bar I went on to check out the hotel chapel, scooched down the ice slide, tried to look purposeful as I passed big groups of giggling revellers and then had to admit that, being by myself, I was slightly at a loss for what to do. If only Laurie was here. Danielle is fine, a really fantastic designer, but Laurie is my everything – my best friend, the sister I never had, substitute mum even …

  When I turned eighteen my real mum pretty much told me, ‘I’ve done my bit, now you’re on your own.’ She wanted her life back. Apparently I had been cramping her style for too long. Since impregnation, basically.

  She gave me a little folder with my birth certificate and a few other documents she thought I might need and I’ve hardly seen her since.

  Which is actually a good thing. It doesn’t do much for one’s self-esteem to feel like like you’re an inconvenience or some kind of never-ending chore.

  I don’t feel that way with Laurie. She loves to hear every detail of my every day when I’m away on a trip. And when I’m home for that matter. She’s a great listener and a great advisor. Mostly because she’s done so much emotional ‘work’ on herself. When she separated from her last ‘I’m only trying to control you because I want the best for you’ boyfriend, she decided she wasn’t going to get caught out again – no more turning a blind eye to the red flags, no more lessons to learn, no more same issues/different pair of jeans… And so she began methodically working her way through the self-help section at her local Waterstones and she’s not stopping until she cracks the code – in essence, how to become one of those rare and fortunate people in a genuinely happy relationship.

  ‘I feel like I’ve got one more shot to get it right,’ she told me the last time we had a heart-to-heart over pad thai and lychee martinis. ‘I simply can’t risk getting into another bad relationship because it’s just too darn hard to get out again. I haven’t got any more escape acts in me.’

  In the meantime she has something better than a mere man – she has Manhattan.

  New York City, that is her true passion. And because it’s such a popular destination for our readers she does bimonthly updates, using up all her holidays to visit and keep current with club, restaurant and shopping trends. I’m telling you, she could give the concierge at The Gramercy Park Hotel a run for his money.

  She also has a particular knack for finding great subjects for our ‘Man of the World’ slot, which is basically some local hottie quizzed about the highlights of his native city. Laurie adds a different Big Apple Boy on every trip. She says that’s all she needs right now – a five-minute street flirtation to put a spring in her step and keep her in the game.

  But for me, she wants more.

  ‘We can’t let another year go by in which Andrew is the last person you kissed. This has to change. And I think Canada is just the place.’

  ‘You do?’

  ‘Well, they are so famously nice, aren’t they? I think it’s time you kissed a nice man, Krista.’

  It would certainly be a novelty.

  Let’s just say this isn’t the coldest bed I’ve ever lain in. Even before Andrew left there was a palpable chill between us. He used to lie so far over on his side you’d think the phrase ‘If you’re not living on the edge you’re taking up too much room’ was his new motto. I would lie there on my back, letting the tears slide down the side of my face and seep into the pillow, wondering how it came to be that my life hurt so much.

  The worst of it was remembering how it used to be. In the beginning he was so warm and yielding, wrapping himself around me, holding me so tight, telling me I had given his life purpose. I was precious to him then. His ‘only love’. Now he was switched off, shut down and armour-plated.

  In some ways I don’t blame him for leaving. Technically it was my fault, if beyond my control. There’s only one other person who knows the real reason, and that’s Laurie. Mostly because I’m still trying to come to terms with it myself. But also because it turns out to be quite the taboo – if you say it out loud in conversation the other person immediately feels wrong-footed and awkward. I guess that’s why they invented the phrase ‘irreconcilable differences’. What a neat little blanket statement that is.

  Blankets! I remember blankets! I start to fidget. At least my feet are toasty – the £28 I blew on mohair socks turns out to be the best money I ever spent. If I could just pull one of them up and over my entire body, I’d be fine.

  What is bothering me the most right now is my nose. It’s as if all the cold in all of Quebec is concentrated in that small pink triangle. I keep pinching at it, afraid I’m getting frostbite.

  Okay. It’s time to sl
eep. Just relax. Hands back down by my sides. Surrender to it…

  And then something changes. I feel a warm breath pass over my face. A distinct aroma of men’s cologne – classic, expensive, with a top note of bergamot. I open my eyes to find a stunning man – seemingly direct from the catwalk of Christian Dior’s Winter Collection – looming over me.

  I’d say I freeze but that’s a given.

  ‘Allow me.’ He eases back the hood of my sleeping bag and then begins to gently fan my hair onto the pillow.

  Is this room service? Because right now I’d rather have the chocolate on the pillow and the little card with tomorrow’s weather report.

  He’s speaking to me in French which, though profoundly alluring, means I should probably get a translation before Heat-Generating Male Escort shows up on my hotel bill. Especially since he is now reaching under his coat, foraging at groin level.

  ‘Excusez -moi,’ I jump in.

  ‘Oui?’ He raises a brow.

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Gilles.’ He says with a sense of ‘But of course you know me – everyone knows Gilles.’

  ‘Gilles … ?’

  ‘Gilles Pelois.’

  Helpful.

  He gives me a slightly impatient, ‘So now can we get down to it?’ look and reaches down his waistband. I try to tear my eyes away but I can’t. I’m mildly disappointed to see him pull out a camera.

  ‘You’re the photographer?’

  ‘Evidemment!’

  ‘I wasn’t expecting you until the morning.’

  ‘You didn’t get my message?’

  ‘You keep your camera down your trousers?’ I counter.

  ‘To keep it warm, so the lens doesn’t fog up.’

  ‘Oh,’ I say. ‘And no, I didn’t get any messages. Possibly because I didn’t charge my phone …’

  I hook it up from the base of my sleeping bag and he takes it directly from my hands, pulls off the sleek battery life-extender from his phone and slots mine in. It dings to life.

  ‘Now you can check.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ I squirm. ‘I believe you.’ (I know we really wanted this shot – it’s the thing everyone wants to know, ‘How the hell can you sleep in a hotel made of ice?’) ‘I just wish you could’ve knocked first.’