La Rosa Gialla

Chapter 56

December 2024

"Do we really need all this?" I asked Charles, who was stuffing giant shopping bags into the trunk of his car. "If you don't want to freeze, then yes," he shrugged and finally successfully slammed the trunk shut. "I said I don't care where we spend Christmas as long as I'm with you. I had no idea that we had to buy out the entire sports store for this and..." before I could continue babbling, he cut me off with a kiss. "You'll like it in Val Gardena," he smiled sweetly and sat down in the driver's seat. "I know, I've been there before," I objected and he looked at me in shock. "Why didn't you say that? We could have gone elsewhere. Maybe to Val-d'Isère or..." "Charlie," I interrupted him for a change. "We could easily stay in Monaco. I just want to be with you, okay?" "Okay," he nodded and kissed me again.

Charles once again showed his addiction to driving, as he decided to drive to the ski paradise in the Dolomites. I seriously began to doubt his mental health when I found the route on the map and found out that we would be driving 600 km. He tried to appease me by saying we'd stop halfway and sleep at the hotel, but that didn't do much to calm my doubts. However, it turns out that driving for that long and not having to deal with anything except where to eat and pee is actually pretty liberating. And besides, Charles is an excellent traveling company. Unless he's singing.

He parked in front of the five-star Granvara Hotel and without further ado headed inside with me in tow. He greeted the staff as if they were old acquaintances and handed the car keys to the porter. Without him having to say anything, the receptionist handed him our room card with a smile and he started down the hall to the elevator. "Do you come here often?" I asked, still a bit confused. "Every year," he grinned. The elevator dinged to announce we were on the 4th floor and Charles placed the card on the door directly opposite.

A family of five with two large dogs could comfortably fit in our suite. It was bigger than most apartments I've ever been in and definitely a lot more luxurious. But I immediately understood why Charles returns here every year when my eyes were drawn to the French window that dominated the living room. It offered a spectacular view of the peaks towering over the valley and took my breath away for a moment. "Nice huh?" Charles said, dampening my astonishment a little. The word nice did not describe the scenery at all. "More like très magnifique," I corrected him and he smirked. He stepped behind me and hugged me. "You look quite surprised considering you've already been here." I turned to him and gave him an angry look, but he just chuckled again and kissed me.

"You need to get going or we'll be here until the evening," laughed Charles, but it was clear in his eyes that he was slowly running out of patience. "If you hadn't taken me to the black slope for the first ride, I would have been down by now," I got slightly angry. "It didn't occur to me that I should arrange a ski school for you first. And this one is red. The black one is over there," he laughed and waved his hand to the side slope, which was definitely at least 90-degree angle. "Come on," he urged me for perhaps the sixteenth time, and I took a deep breath and bounced off my ski poles. I went slowly and made big turns so as not to speed up too much. As a child, I skied a lot and with the whole family we went to Madonna di Campiglio several times every winter, where there were a lot of blue, I repeat blue, ski slopes. But in the last 10 years I have not stood on skis even once. And skiing is obviously one of those skills that you forget over time, just like driving a kart. Charles overtook me and stopped a few meters below me. I wanted to shout at him to go away, but I didn't have time and at breakneck speed (understand the speed of, for example, a turtle), I crushed into him. We both ended up on the ground with our skis and poles tangled together. I wanted to scold him for being crazy and why the hell he didn't move, but when I saw him rolling on his back, laughing merrily and holding me with his gloved hands, I laughed too and almost didn't notice that my right hip hurt like hell.

"Ouch," I whined as I got out of the shower in nothing but clean underwear and examined my beautiful purple bruise in the mirror. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to," Charles said, his bottom lip curled up, but there were sparks of something that could hardly be called regret dancing in his eyes. "I will heal you," he said in all seriousness and fell to his knees. He grabbed my hips with his hands and first began to plant kisses on the bluish skin, but then moved to the other side as well, and finally tugged at the hem of my panties with a pleading expression.