Pedro is already angling to dance her way.
“Pedro sleeps with women and never calls them back,” Lucas says in my ear, dancing behind me. “I’m sorry. I thought I should say.”
I laugh, turning to wind my arms around his neck so we can dance the way we did on that strange, snowy day in London.
“That won’t work with Jem,” I say, half to Lucas, half to Pedro. “She’s demisexual. She has to form an emotional connection first—she would never sleep with a guy she’s only just met.”
Pedro stares at me, abruptly abandoning his dance moves. “Demi . . . sexual?”
“Uh-huh.”
“So she won’t want to sleep with me?”
“Not unless you’ve built an emotional relationship, no.”
“Emotional?” Pedro says, looking positively panicked.
“It’s nice, Pedro.” I’m trying not to laugh. “You should try it sometime.”
A tap on the shoulder distracts me from Pedro’s wide, anxious eyes.
Ugh.
Louis Keele. I tighten my arm around Lucas’s waist as we both turn to look at him. Louis is wearing a casual smile, a crisp shirt, and a little too much cologne. I glance up at Lucas. He’s wearing a familiar glower.
“Hey, you two, I was hoping to catch you,” Louis says. Very relaxed and friendly. No suggestion that last time he saw me he was viciously unpleasant, but I suspected he’d play it this way after his “no hard feelings” text. “I thought I should give you a heads-up about my new investment,” he continues, his smile beginning to look more like a smirk. “Only fair. An old schoolhouse in Fordingbridge came on to the market and I just . . . Well. I couldn’t resist. It’s going to make a beautiful hotel.”
“You . . . are opening a hotel?” Lucas says.
“Oh my God,” I say before Louis can answer. “Is that why you were asking so many questions about Forest Manor?” My voice rises. “Were you ever considering actually investing? Or were you just trying to steal all our best ideas?”
“I was considering investing,” Louis says, extremely insincerely.
“You wanted to poach Arjun, didn’t you?” I say, advancing on Louis with a pointing finger.
Lucas tightens his grip on me. “Easy,” he says, but I can hear the smile in his voice.
“Who wouldn’t want to poach Arjun?” Louis says. “He’s the best chef in the New Forest. He wouldn’t budge, though. You lot really have your claws in him.”
“And what insults did you have for Arjun when you failed to seduce him?” Lucas asks politely. “Is he a small, mousey nobody, too?”
Louis’s eyes flick to mine. I smile, as if to say, Yes, of course I told him everything. Yes, we are mutually deciding not to destroy you. No, I am not confident I can prevent him from breaking rank and beating you to a pulp if he so chooses.
Louis swallows. “Look, like I say, I just wanted to give you the heads-up. There’s a bit of competition on the horizon.”
I pull myself up as tall as I can, and only wobble slightly in the process—not bad, three cocktails down.
“Well,” I say, in my sweetest voice. “That won’t be a problem. Lucas and I love a bit of competition.”
Lucas
“The thing about true love, right, is that sometimes you have to really push yourself out of your comfort zone to find it?” Ruby Hedgers tells me, from the top of the frame of a four-poster bed in one of the newly refurbished upstairs bedrooms （closed off to party guests, discovered by Ruby when the clock hit bedtime）。 “Like, Hamza from my class at school fancied Sophie, and everyone said she was sooo out of his league, but then he gave her the cake his mum made him for his lunch and she said he could be her boyfriend.”
“Ruby,” I say, “aren’t you six?”
“Yes,” she says with great solemnity. “Yes, I am.”
“Isn’t that a bit young for boyfriends?”
“Totally,” she says in the same tone. “But Sophie doesn’t know that. Which is lucky for Hamza.”
“There you are,” Mrs. Hedgers says, entering the room behind me. “Lovely to have your lifts back in order, Lucas. I particularly enjoyed the slow jazz and gold-embossed wallpaper—hello, Ruby, I bet you can’t climb down that post like a fireman’s pole, can you?”
Ruby promptly begins climbing down to prove her mother wrong. I give Mrs. Hedgers an impressed look, which she takes with the nod of a woman who knows her own talents.