Page 59 of A Billionaire for Christmas
Lucca rolled his eyes.
* * *
As Molly approached Valerie and Armand’s room, she heard loud bickering. She knocked on the door and waited several minutes for Armand to answer it. Although he was forcing a smile, he looked red-faced and frazzled.
‘I just wanted to say again how sorry I am about the mix-up with the wine last night. It really wasn’t me who chose the?—’
‘Merci beaucoup,’ Armand said flatly, cutting her off. He was clearly in no mood to hear her out, just like the previous evening. He quickly took the tray from her, but as he nudged the door shut with his hip, Molly caught a glimpse of Valerie standing at the far side of the room in her dressing gown, fragile-looking without make-up, face tear-stained, shoulders hunched, arms folded tightly, far from the elegant poise of last night.
They clearly had issues. Molly resolved to make tonight’s dinner the best she’d ever cooked. But without electricity it would be a challenge. And most of the food would go off within days. She went to Toby’s room to find his door open and him pulling on extra jumpers over his salopettes.
‘We really need that generator working,’ he said. ‘The fire and cooker run on gas, but everything else is electric. The fridge, the freezer, the boiler for the central heating, the sauna, the pool, the TV, the phones, all need electricity.’ Toby looked stressed. ‘And that lot are no help. They don’t even know what a generator is, never mind how to fix one.’
‘I’ll help. What do we need to do?’ Molly offered. ‘I’ll just grab my snowsuit and gloves. Have you got a toolkit? Screwdrivers, monkey wrench, multimeter, that sort of thing?’
‘Molly, that would be amazing but I haven’t got the first clue what you just said.’
‘I’ve got an old generator at the restaurant that keeps blowing. I’m sure we’ll work it out.’
‘You have no idea how happy I am to hear that. The resort maintenance manager reckons the power outage will last several days so we really need that generator up and running as soon as possible. Levi will go ballistic if his laptop runs down. He says he’s calling for a helicopter and leaving. Then that’s the family holiday ruined. They’ll all leave.’
Molly did not want Levi to run off without having the chance to explain herself properly. She needed to reverse his low opinion of her. And Lucca and Freda seemed so excited to help their parents, it would be a shame if they didn’t get this chance. Valerie and Armand clearly had bigger issues going on.
Molly raced back to her room to grab warm clothes.
‘We have to ski over to it. It’s at the bottom of the small field.’ Toby led her through to the back of the kitchen area where glazed, Georgian-style double doors opened onto the boot room which was freezing cold. Racks of boots, skis, helmets, gloves, padded coats, hats and poles were all lined up neatly. It was more like a showroom. Molly glanced around the uber-modern and stylish room, dominated by stone walls and a floor-to-ceiling glass window with a breathtaking Alpine view. The highly polished wooden floors and wooden box-shelves oozed elegance. She noticed several first aid kits, walkie-talkies, large battery-powered torches, a box labelled flares and even a stretcher. She spotted her oversized, hi-viz, ski resort padded coat with STAFF emblazoned on the back, and the ugly hat that matched it hanging alone on a line of pegs. She slid with some effort into the standard-issue bright-orange staff salopettes and fastened up some equally unattractive purple moon boots. She went over to the large, cushioned bench. Toby proceeded to fit Molly with the regulation staff safety gear. The coat, the hat and the salopettes were all horrendously lumpy and unflattering.
It was snowing quite heavily as they stepped onto the snow outside. ‘We’ll have to be very careful,’ Toby said, taking her gloved hand.
Molly was not confident on skis. In fact, the moment he let go of her, she began sliding backwards away from him. She flapped her arms about, poles in the air.
‘Dig your poles in,’ Toby yelled. ‘No! Molly, keep your arms down.’
‘I’m try-iiiiiinnnngggg!’
‘Don’t ski backwards. We’re going this way.’ Toby pointed away from the house, but it was too late. Molly had gathered momentum and was sliding downhill backwards. She passed the large living room patio doors where Levi happened to look up. They made brief eye contact as she whizzed by, screaming.
The sheer embarrassment. What an impression to make. Skiing backwards wasn’t even on the bloody bucket list.
Molly eventually came to a stop and dug her poles in the ground, just as Toby swooshed to a stop in front of her. He was laughing hard. ‘I’ve never seen anyone ski quite like that before. Oh man, that’s the funniest thing I’ve ever seen.’ He lifted his goggles. ‘You okay?’
Molly chuckled despite herself. ‘Yeah. That was quite exhilarating, actually.’
They inched back up the hill. This time Levi was standing at the window. He gave Molly a sarcastic look and took his hand out of his pocket to sweep it in the air.
‘Why is he making a tick sign at you?’
‘Erm, no idea,’ said Molly, facing away. Levi was suspicious of her every move.
Toby held on to her as they slowly zig-zagged their way over to the generator. The generator was piled high with snow and required a lot of unearthing. Once they removed most of the snow, Toby lifted off the front panel to reveal lots of tubes and wires. ‘See what I mean? Who would have the first clue?’
Molly patted him on the shoulder. ‘It’s a propane-fuelled engine, same as mine. Here, look.’ She pointed out the control panel. ‘This is basically your standard battery-operated control for the engine. I’ll just switch it off while we assess what’s going on.’ Molly got to work pressing buttons and poking around, checking fuel, the overcrank, oil and coolant levels. ‘Well, at least we have oil,’ she said, wiping down the oil dipstick with a cloth and replacing it. ‘So it’s not that. And we have plenty of fuel. I’ll try turning it back on.’
Nothing happened.
‘Hmm.’ She wiped her sleeve across her forehead to remove the snow. ‘We’ve got three coils, three cylinders and no spark.’
Toby looked on, giving her a helpless shrug as though she was speaking Arabic.
