But now that we’re at work, and he’s back to himself, I feel better. All is well. Lucas is still impossible, my walls are still firmly up, and I’m still perfectly safe.
“I thought you might want a—what’s it called?” Lucas says, nodding to the elf. “A sidekick.”
“We have a million things to do, the hotel is falling apart, and you have time to buy a toy elf?”
“I am very good at multitasking,” Lucas says gravely. “It is part of what makes me so excellent at my job.” His eyes glitter in the darkness. “For instance, I have managed to spend all day looking for Goldilocks, arranging music for the Christmas party, manning the phones, and thinking about you naked.”
I swallow. I was so determined never to sleep with him again after the conversation this morning, but now the suggestion sets something alight deep in my belly, and suddenly my evening plans—The Princess Switch, spiced tea, mince pies—feel way less interesting than the idea of driving Lucas home.
“Get in,” I tell him. “And that elf is riding in your lap, not mine.”
* * *
? ? ? ? ?
The next day should be my day off, but I’m in anyway because we’ve organised a huge jumble sale at the hotel. It’s all-hands-on-deck this morning. Poor Mandy is “live-tweeting the event,” apparently; Barty is polishing everything in sight; even Arjun is carrying an old set of chiffon curtains out onto the lawn. I down a second coffee, trying to look like I wasn’t up half the night with Lucas. Arjun already knows something is going on—he saw us pulling in together in Smartie, and gave me a look that said, Do you know what you’re doing there, Ms. Jenkins?
Which I don’t. At all. Obviously. Last night with Lucas was breathtakingly hot, and this morning I woke up in his arms, which was a） against the rules and b） extremely risky. We barely made it in on time.
I take a deep breath. It’s an absolutely stunning winter morning—with the sun just beginning to scorch through the mist, the gardens are glowing.
“Your friend Grigg is trying to get hold of you,” Lucas says, coming up behind me.
His voice is a dangerous shade of conversational. Lucas playing it casual means he’s plotting something, generally. I turn away from the crockery I’m arranging on a picnic blanket to find him holding a large coffee table in one hand in the way that I might hold, say, a large coffee.
“Over there,” I tell him, pointing. “And what do you mean, Grigg’s . . .” I check my phone. Three missed calls. “God, is he OK?”
“He’s panicking about your Christmas present,” Lucas says, showing no signs of carrying the table off to the correct area of the lawn. He’s wearing a black scarf over his coat—who owns a plain black scarf? “He rang reception.”
“Oh.” I have a bad feeling growing in my stomach now. I turn back to my crockery. Would it look better if I put all the teacups together, or . . .
“He wants Jem’s address, since you’re spending Christmas with her.”
“Right,” I say, unstacking saucers as loudly as possible without breaking anything valuable. Maybe I can just drown this conversation out and then I can pretend it’s not happening at all.
“When we went to Shannon’s divorce party, at Brockenhurst station, Jem said that you were spending Christmas with Grigg and Sameera.”
“Is that what you choose to remember about our trip to London?”
I can feel the steadiness of Lucas’s gaze on the back of my neck.
“Izzy,” he says with great deliberation. “Where will you be celebrating Christmas this year?”
“I’m working Christmas.”
“Yes. You are. And do your friends know that?”
“Umm.” I squint down at the picnic blanket. I’m concerned that I might cry if he asks me any more about this.
“I know what it feels like to be away from your family at Christmas,” Lucas says.
I glance over my shoulder at him. Very few people really get that my friends are my family now, just like the team at the hotel. Lucas looks back at me, unreadable, and for a frightening moment I find myself wondering whether he might actually know me really, really well.
I turn back to the teacups. “I would usually be with Grigg and Sameera this year, but they’re spending it in the Outer Hebrides with Grigg’s parents.”
Grigg’s parents have never taken to Sameera—they have this stupid thing about how me and Grigg should have got together, and it’s always awkward when the three of us are with them, mainly because I get so irritated I’m at risk of saying something tactless, and that makes Sameera nervous. Now that they’ve got baby Rupe, it’s extra important for them to bond as a family.