Page 6 of Mountain Impact

Puffy, frumpy, and exhausted.

Make-up might fix some of those issues.

Probably not all.

She took off her nightgown and dropped it in the laundry hamper sitting in a corner of her bathroom, then stepped into her large walk-in shower. The shower was enormous―it took up half of the bathroom, and that was after she’d renovated the bathroom and made it bigger, taking over part of the spare bedroom to do so.

She’d had to fight the architect every step of the way during her apartment’s renovation a couple years earlier—the man simply refused to believe that a woman in her early thirties wouldn’t be saving that second bedroom for her future family. But Isolde had been adamant. She was an independent, professional woman who knew what she wanted—and what she’d wanted was a large master suite, with an ample walk-in closet and a luxurious bathroom.

To complete the renovation, she’d closed off the small terrace off the living room and turned it into a home office. That way, she could work from home while staring at Mont Blanc and the surrounding peaks. It was a view that never failed to take her breath away.

The architect had balked at her requests but had done everything she asked—and finally, even he’d had to admit, the end result was fantastic.

Isolde turned the rainfall shower on. She didn’t need to fiddle with the temperature knob, as it was always adjusted to almost-too-hot, just the way she liked it. She scrubbed her body briskly. She usually didn’t pay much attention to her body—it worked well, allowed her to do everything she wanted to do, and that was usually enough for her. If her stomach was too flabby, her breasts too soft, or her thighs too large—that was a secret between her and the bathroom mirror.

She finished her shower and grabbed one of the large towels hanging from a hook right outside the shower door, wrapping herself tightly inside.

Next, she lathered herself in her favorite bergamot-scented body cream. From the time she was a little girl, her mother had drilled into her the importance of using body moisturizer to keep her skin smooth. As a child she’d hated it, gone to great lengths to avoid the process, but over time it’d become second nature to her.

She checked the time on her phone—still doing okay, but she had to get moving or she wouldn’t have time to grab a cup of coffee on her way to the office.

And that would be a very bad thing.

She put on a supposedly skin-colored balcony bra—not that its pinkish shade looked much like her own skin, which had always been pale with golden undertones—hooking it behind her back in an easy, practiced move and hefting her breasts to get them to sit in the right place. After rummaging in her drawer for a while, she finally pulled out the matching panties.

Next, she picked a freshly dry-cleaned black pant suit out of her closet. There were five others hanging beside it, all very similar in fit and style. That didn’t bother her in the least. The tailored pants and jacket, which combined the structure of tailoring with a bit of added stretch for her ample curves, worked for her body shape.

In winter she might pair the suit with a sleek turtleneck but, for now, she chose a cream-colored boat neck blouse that fell cleanly to her hips.

It might not be an adventurous style but she’d read somewhere that comfort created confidence, and the saying certainly seemed to be true for her.

She walked back towards her bathroom, glad to see her skin no longer looked as puffy. Her make-up routine, consisting of under-eye concealer, a hydrating foundation, light blush, mascara and a lip-colored lip gloss, took all of sixty seconds.

Armed in her professional garb, she felt better—she might not be looking forward to the day ahead, but she was now ready to face it, at least.

She finally allowed herself to think of the name that’d been hovering in the back of her mind since she first opened her eyes.

Drake Jacobs.

She was going to have to see him again, to discuss yesterday’s incident. Of course, she shouldn’t be the one to work with him. Their history together was not conducive to him opening up to her―and neither was her obvious, unfortunate, and lasting attraction to the man. But her colleague, François Junot, the only other psychologist in the Chamonix police, was on holiday in the south, and this wasn’t the kind of thing that could wait until he got back.

#

Drake

Though it was barely eight a.m., the door to Isolde’s office was open. Drake knew she usually came in early, so it didn’t surprise him to find her sitting at her desk already.

He approached the door, rapping his knuckles sharply against the wood. Her name―Isolde―came so easily to his lips, he had to force himself to utter a more formal, “Bonjour, Dr Durant,” instead.

He often spoke in French with her. The members of Drake’s search and rescue team all came from different places, so it was only with Kat, their pilot, and sometimes with Damien, that Drake got to speak in French. The rest of the time, they worked in English. Both languages worked for Drake, even if he still got ribbed sometimes for his purportedly sing-songy Quebecois accent.

Once upon a time, Isolde used to love my accent.

He shook the memory away. He couldn’t keep thinking about their brief affair. It had ended, and he needed to stop thinking about her like that.

“Isolde, please,” she said automatically, standing up to greet him.

As she did so, Drake took the chance to look at her, trying not to be obvious about it. She was once again dressed in one of her dark, professional pant suits, this time paired with a cream-colored blouse that made her honey-colored eyes stand out. He kept his face neutral but allowed himself a moment of amusement―she probably thought the outfit hid her curves.