I try to imagine what my mum would have said about him. She and Dad always told me I should choose someone kind and attentive—“A man who smiles easily, that’s what you need,” Mum once said.
That thought swings it.
“Why not?” I say just as Lucas marches out of the restaurant, looking furious about something.
Louis smiles. “Excellent. See you when your shift ends—five, is it?”
“Perfect.” I turn my attention to the glowering Lucas. “What?” I ask.
The two of us have been avoiding each other more than ever since our interaction in the car park. Every time I see him, that conversation leaps into my mind—his intensity, the way he looked at me when I called him offensively handsome.
“You volunteered me to wait on the hen party for lunch?”
I press my lips together, trying very hard not to smile. I forgot I did that.
“Can you not do it?” I ask.
“I can,” he says with deliberation. “But I don’t want to. You know I hate waiting on the big groups. Especially drunk ones. Especially hens.”
“But you always go down so well with the hens!”
“If anyone attempts to undress me, it will be you I’m suing,” Lucas says darkly.
“Well, I’m going to be spending the time sorting coins from the lost-property room and taking them to the post office. You could swap, if you like.”
I gesture to the jars of loose change lining the edge of the front desk. Lucas stares at them.
“Does that actually need to be done?”
“It’s money,” I point out. “Are you suggesting I throw it in the bin?”
He growls under his breath and stalks off towards the restaurant. Then he pauses, turning with his hand on the door.
“How is your hunt for your wedding ring’s owner going?”
“Brilliantly!” I say. “I’m down to my final five contenders.”
Five, seventeen—what’s the difference, really?
“Good for you,” Lucas says.
I narrow my eyes. His tone is far too . . . nice.
“How’s yours going?” I ask.
“A woman is dropping in to collect her lost ring at three o’clock,” he says, pushing through the restaurant door and letting it swing shut behind him.
Shit.
* * *
? ? ? ? ?
I glance at the clock. Two minutes to three. Lucas’s ring owner is due any second. Would it be wrong of me to run some intervention? Lock the hotel doors, just for ten minutes or so? Send Lucas off to do something urgent and then tell his visitor that the ring has already been claimed by somebody else?
It would be wrong, definitely. However . . .
“Don’t even try,” Lucas says, not looking up from where he’s cleaning silver candlesticks at the other end of the front desk.
“I didn’t do anything!”
“You are . . . tramando.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“Scheming. Plotting.”
“Would I ever?” I say as he turns to look at me. I arrange my expression into the picture of innocence.
“That face doesn’t work on me,” Lucas says.
His eyes hold mine, dark and knowing. Something flutters in my stomach. Then his gaze snaps to the door as a woman steps into the lobby, bringing in a blast of freezing air.
“Hello!” Lucas calls with more enthusiasm than I’ve seen from him since someone suggested updating the restaurant table booking system. “Are you Ruth?”
“Yes, hi, that’s me!” the woman says, pasting on a large smile.
I am immediately suspicious. Obviously I have skin in the game here, but I meet a lot of members of the public in this job, and I’ve developed a bit of an eye for the ones who are going to cause trouble. The people who won’t pay their bar tab, who will take things from the hotel that aren’t strictly toiletries, who will print out the same Groupon voucher twice. And this Ruth has troublemaker written all over her, from her pristine ponytail to the toes of her trying-to-look-expensive boots.
I do not believe that Lucas’s ring belongs to this woman. That ring is stunning, but it’s not showy: the diamonds are tiny and the design is really subtle. I’d say a woman with a counterfeit designer handbag probably wants a wedding ring that shouts about how pricey it was, not something small and pretty.
“Thanks so much for coming in,” I say, standing up with my best smile. “As I’m sure you’ll understand, we’ll have to check a few things to make sure we’re giving the ring to the right person.”