He took a mouthful of coffee. “I understand how you must feel having shared something so personal, but I’m glad you told me.”

“Because it helped you understand my reason for telling Christy not to marry Seb?”

He paused. “Not just that, but yes, that was part of it.”

She shrugged. “She was pregnant, but that isn’t a reason to get married. It was important to me that she knew that. She could have raised Holly alone. I would have helped. Her mother would have helped.”

“Yes.” He topped up her coffee, fumbling with the flask and thick gloves. “But what you didn’t consider was that they might be marrying for another reason.”

“You’re talking about love?” She looked at him. “They barely knew each other.”

“I know. And I admit I had my concerns when Seb first told me.”

“You did?”

“Yes. But then I saw them together. I’d never seen Seb like that before. He was happy. And so was she. In the end, isn’t that what it’s all about? You can look at the facts and think they don’t make sense but then look at the reality and find that it does.”

Alix felt a stab of guilt. “If it helps, I wish I’d kept my big mouth shut. It’s no excuse, but at the time I truly believed I was doing it for the right reasons, to save her from a mistake. And I was worried that Holly would be me. Which is ridiculous because Christy is nothing like my mother.”

Won’t be back in London for Christmas, but money wired to your account. Fiona.

“You’re not in touch at all?”

Alix finished her coffee. “Our relationship resembles the one I share with the tax office. Factual. Transactional. If I’m lucky, I’m occasionally the recipient of a financial deposit.”

He pulled a face. “And your father?”

“I saw him last year when I was in New York. We had coffee. And talking of coffee—” she shook her cup over the snow and handed it back to him “—that was good. Thank you. Let’s carry on. It’s beautiful here, and I don’t want to waste a moment.”

“You don’t want to talk about it. I understand that.” He tucked the flask into the backpack. “It’s fine, Alix. You tell me what you want to tell me and no more. If you don’t want to talk about something, we don’t talk about it.”

The fact that he understood threw her off guard, as did the swift kiss he planted on her cheek before setting off again.

She stood for a moment, watching him, surrounded by snowy silence and her own unsettling thoughts.

He turned. “Are you coming?”

She pulled herself together and caught up with him. “So, what worse places?”

He glanced at her. “Sorry?”

“You said you’d slept in worse places than the sofa. Tell me what they were.”

He headed back to the trail they’d been following. “I guess it depends on your definition of worse. I’ve bivouacked four thousand feet up a rock face in Chile. I slept in a snow cave in Alaska.”