The Wake-Up Call(95)

“Louis told me you’re a couple!”

Both our eyes narrow in unison.

“Louis?” I say, incredulous.

“That can wait!” Mrs. SB yells. “Lucas! Barty and I are racing to the airport to stop you. You can’t leave, Lucas, you mustn’t. If I could offer you a pay rise, I would, or some job security of longer than two weeks, frankly, but—please! It’s not over yet!”

“You’re racing to the airport?” I repeat, checking the time on the dashboard. “My flight departed forty minutes ago.”

“What? Did it? Barty!”

“It’s the time difference!” Barty protests in the background. “It’s very confusing!”

“He’s not leaving, Mrs. SB,” Izzy says with a smile in her voice. “I’m bringing him home.”

“Izzy, you angel. If there’s a Forest Manor Hotel in the world, it needs you two in it, do you hear me?”

Both our smiles waver at the reminder of reality. The likelihood is there will be no job to return to within a matter of days.

“Stop thinking negative thoughts!” Mrs. SB says. “I can hear them from here. We still have days left to save the hotel. It’s not too late. We’ve not sold some of the larger antiques yet, and there’s your last ring, too . . .”

Izzy pulls a face. Clearly she’s doing no better than me at finding the mysterious Goldilocks.

“Forest Manor Hotel is a survivor,” Mrs. SB says. “She sheltered sixty children from the Blitz in her day. She’s weathered storms and pandemics and more expensive structural damage than this, let me tell you. We will be open in the new year.”

“What was it you said about Louis, Mrs. SB?” Izzy asks.

“Oh, yes. He came in and told me you were romantically involved. He seemed to be under the impression that I’d fire you both,” Mrs. SB says. “He was most disappointed when Barty and I cheered loudly enough to bring the ceiling down all over again. I don’t know what that young man thinks he’s up to, but since this afternoon, he’s also contacted the local press with a story about our front desk going unmanned and sent the food safety inspector around.”

“What?” Izzy says, startled. “That vindictive little . . . weasel!”

“Don’t worry,” Barty shouts. “Even the Forest Local News didn’t think that story was worth printing. And you know the inspector has a soft spot for Arjun’s truffles. He’s been installed on table sixteen for hours.”

I can’t resist. “I told you Louis was a dickhead,” I say.

“Brace yourself, Lucas, because I’m only going to say this once,” Izzy tells me. “You were absolutely right.”





Izzy


Lucas’s flat is so familiar now—the creak of the leather sofa, the smell of his shower gel from the morning, the hum of the electric heater he puts on for me because I feel the cold more than he does. But as we turn to face each other on the sofa, so much is different. Now that I know the truth about last Christmas, I can see how tightly it was always holding me back. I’d never given myself over to him the way I am now—I’ve never relaxed like this, guard fully down.

“Do you think it will be different now?” I ask quietly, taking one of his hands and pulling it to my lap. I run my fingers over his, tracing his knuckles, then the lines of his palm. “Between us?”

“Maybe. More intense.”

I flick my gaze up to his. More intense?

“Mm,” he says with a small, slow smile. “I know.”

“Can I ask you about something?” I run my nails lightly back and forth across his forearm.

He watches my hand. “Of course. Anything.”

“Your ex. Camila.”

He stays still. I slide my hand back to lace my fingers through his.

“I’m listening now. Will you tell me about what happened with her?”

“It’s nothing big,” he says, and his eyes flick up to my face as I shake my head.

“I think maybe it is.”

“She just . . . It was my fault, really. I found it difficult to open up to her. She read it as lack of feeling.” He shrugs. “Lots of people see me that way.”

Including me, for the last year. I swallow, my throat suddenly dry.

“But actually, you feel big,” I say, lifting my hand to his chest. “But it’s all stuck in there. Right?”

He snorts lightly but doesn’t deny it.

“And she cheated on you?”

“Yes. That’s how it ended. She said, You don’t have a heart, so don’t tell me I broke it.”

I inhale sharply. Not because it’s cruel—though it is—but because I could imagine myself having said it once. Lucas can seem heartless: he’s so logical, and so inscrutable, and so bloody muscly, and for some reason all those things in combination read as a certain kind of guy. The uptight robot-man. The guy you sleep with but nothing more, because that’s all he’s got to give you.

But Lucas is the man who makes Ruby Hedgers laugh until she snorts. He’s the man who heard my Christmas plans and said, I know what it feels like to be away from your family at Christmas, because he understood that my friends are my family now. He’s made my blood boil, and my body burn, but he’s also made me laugh and challenge myself and have real fun. He is a hell of a lot more than he looks.