“Ran off?” I say, keeping my eyebrows raised.
Her eyes narrow. “I did not run off.”
“Why were you so scared to have a cup of coffee with me?”
“I was not scared.”
“Were you afraid you might enjoy it?”
“Oh, come on.” She straightens up. “I’m definitely not afraid of enjoying a morning coffee with you. God. Do I need to remind you that we have coffee behind the desk most mornings, and it usually ends in an argument about whether or not you are a snobby arsehole about my choice of Starbucks syrups? Spoiler: you absolutely are.”
My lip twitches. Her eyes are sparkling again. Izzy can fake a smile, but she can’t fake the way her eyes light up when she’s really having fun.
“So you called things off this morning because . . .”
She hesitates for just a moment before saying, “You weren’t sticking to the rules.”
“Ah,” I say. “Not because you were scared to have coffee with me.”
“I am not—ugh,” she says, throwing her hands in the air. “You are so infuriating.” She points a finger at me. “And you are not going to see me in that elf costume.”
I give her a slow smile. “We’ll see,” I say, and walk away.
My smile stays in place as I wind my way through the guests beginning to arrive for the early dinner sitting. I dodge a couple gazing up at our Christmas tree, and two of the Hedgers children, who are fencing with Mr. Townsend’s walking stick and my umbrella, which I am sure I put behind the front desk.
It’s handover time. Poor Mandy greets me with a confused frown as I approach her.
“Izzy says I need to get you a bottle of the 2017 Sauvignon?” Mandy says, immediately getting distracted by several loud dings from her phone.
“What? Why?” I ask, moving around the desk. Already my mind is racing. What does it mean? Is it an apology for this morning? Would she like us to drink it together? Is it a gift? What for? “Oh,” I say as I look over Mandy’s shoulder at Izzy’s handover notes. “That says Louis, not Lucas.”
And suddenly I am no longer thinking of all the reasons Izzy wants me to have a bottle of good wine. Instead, I am thinking of why she would give Louis one. Perhaps she would like them to drink it together. Perhaps it is a gift for him.
Mandy finishes typing frantically on her phone and squints at the page, pulling her glasses up from her chest, where they dangle on a chain. “Does it?” she says rather plaintively. She is far too loyal to admit to struggling with Izzy’s handwriting. “Are you sure?”
“I’m certain,” I say.
If my voice is short, Poor Mandy doesn’t seem to notice. Her eyes are widening.
“Does it?” she says. “That says Louis? Not Lucas?”
I frown at her. “Is there a problem, Mandy?”
“No!” she squeaks, still staring down at the word Louis on Izzy’s notes. “No, no problem at all! Just . . . me . . . being my usual daft self. Off you go, now, it’s your home-time.”
She shoos me away from the desk, her phone dinging loudly again. I collect my bag, reluctant to leave. I would like to stay here for the arrival of Louis’s wine. But then my phone buzzes in my pocket, and I find a message from Izzy.
Did you actually put a toy elf on my car?
I smile. So she’s going home, then. And if I’m fast, I’ll catch her in the car park.
Izzy
Honestly, the man is a child.
The elf is sitting on my wing mirror, and it is giving me the finger.
This is a family hotel. Anyone could have seen this elf. As Lucas strides over to me with that smug half smirk on his face, I fold my arms and glare at him, but the truth is I’m having to fight not to smile. I feel better than I have all day.
That conversation at his flat this morning really freaked me out. As he’d talked about his ex, this weird surge of emotion had come over me, almost like a hormone hit, like PMS. I felt kind of vulnerable.
I never give this man anything—that’s how we operate. Both of us are stubborn; neither of us budges an inch. But there he was, naked, telling me about his past, and suddenly I was feeling . . . something. I thought of Jem saying I’m too cosy for a relationship like this, and I wondered with panic if she might be right. Lucas was starting to look like a flawed, complex, gorgeous man, when it’s absolutely imperative for my well-being that he remains an emotionless arsehole.
Because that’s who he is. No matter how he touches me, or what his story is, he’s still the guy who laughed at my Christmas card, kissed Drew, and spent all year acting like I’m totally unreasonable all the time. He’s not one of Jem’s romantic heroes, misunderstood and just waiting for the right person to unlock his inner nice guy—he’s a regular, thoughtless, competitive pedant who happens to be very good in bed.