I sit up straighter. “Yes, sir,” I say. “Can I help you?”
“It was a long, long time ago, but I actually do recall a lady losing an engagement ring while I was staying at your hotel. She asked for my help looking for it. In the end, we never tracked it down. She told me she’d get a replica made so as not to upset her husband, who was a lovely bloke, loved her to distraction. Sorry, I don’t remember their names.”
I jot this down. “Can you tell me which ring it is you’re referring to, sir?”
“An emerald one. Izzy Jenkins emailed me?”
“Thank you so much for calling,” I say. “It’s all written down—I’ll let her know.”
She walks in just as I tuck the note I’ve written under her keyboard, beside her to-do list. My whole body tightens at the sight of her, and I smile—I wouldn’t be able to stop myself even if I wanted to. She looks beautiful. She’s in her uniform, rucksack slung over her arm, gold rings glinting on her fingers and her ears.
“Lucas,” she says with a quick arch of her brow.
“Izzy.”
I watch her as she comes around behind the desk, slinging her bag under her chair and turning her computer on. She side-eyes me, ponytail bouncing. Her hair is still striped in red and orange, and beside the fine gold necklace she always wears is just one more, with a tiny broken heart pendant. I wonder why she made those choices—the fiery hair, the heart.
She reads my note and frowns.
“What?” I ask.
“Nothing, it’s just . . . this makes things more complicated with the emerald ring. If half the couple don’t even know it was lost, because the woman kept it a secret . . .” She purses her lips. “Never mind. I’ll get there.” She widens her eyes slightly at her to-do list. “So much to do today. Chat through the snag list for the bannisters with Irwin, negotiate some deals we can actually afford for staff at the Christmas party, torture you interminably until the evening comes . . .”
She meets my eyes, and her expression is pure wickedness. My heart lifts: She isn’t seeing Louis tonight. She’s got plans with me.
“It’s going to be a long day,” she says.
* * *
? ? ? ? ?
She makes me wait until eleven before she plays her first move. I return from a trip to the post office to find her looking up at me from the desk with a quick, devious smile that hooks something in my chest and pulls it taut. She stands, reaches for my desk chair, and wheels it away towards the lost-property room.
“Am I using your chair today, or . . . ?”
“This way, Lucas!” she calls.
I humour her. I’d follow her anywhere these days—maybe I always would have. When I step into the lost-property room, I pause. There’s a trestle table set up in here, and an array of face paints on its surface.
“My skills are a little rusty. I need a subject to practise on ahead of the Christmas party,” she says, pointing to my desk chair, now positioned in the centre of the room.
She walks to the door and clicks it shut. The sound sends a shiver across my skin like the trail of a fingertip.
“Sit,” she says when I don’t.
“Did someone make this Izzy Day?” I ask, raising my eyebrows at her.
“Sit, please?” she tries, and this time I do as I’m told.
She dips a small, pointed brush into a rectangle of blue paint, moistens it with water, and dips again. I watch the way she frowns when she concentrates, how she brushes her hair away from her eyes with the back of her hand. Everything about her is suddenly acutely fascinating.
I wonder when it happened. If there was one single tipping-point moment when I began to fall for her. Did I ever truly hate her? It seems unthinkable now.
Izzy touches the brush to my temple, stepping close enough to skim her thighs against my knees. The paint is cool—I flinch slightly, and she tuts, brush still moving, tickling against my skin. Dab, paint. Dab, paint. Each time she leans in towards me, I have to fight the temptation to look down her shirt.
“So,” I say as she works her way down the side of my jaw. “You have me at your mercy. What are you going to do with me?”
“I’m thinking a sort of Jack Frost vibe,” she says, but the quirk in the corner of her mouth tells me she knows what I mean.
The next time she returns to me with the paint, she stands even closer. Heat unfurls along my spine, and on impulse I shift my knees to trap her leg between mine. She breathes in sharply, brush stilling on my cheek. I give in and let my gaze flick to that triangle of pale skin where her shirt falls open at the neck. I can see the edge of a white lace bra, and the soft curve of her breast.