In Brazil, the twenty-fourth is the focus of Christmas celebrations—this will be perfect for me. I have no plans for the day, and a party at the hotel will be an ideal way to stop me missing my family so much.
I glance sideways at Izzy. Her face is set. No doubt she is remembering that argument on the lawns at the last Christmas party. How I’d snapped at her, how she’d screamed back. How Drew had hovered in the hotel entrance, watching, and then said to Izzy, You know, you don’t actually own either of us, though?
Which was true. But it had hit Izzy like a slap in the face.
The more I get to know Izzy this winter, the less I understand the way she reacted that night. I always assumed she’d been protecting her friend, but Drew seems to have disappeared from Izzy’s life without trace. I’d imagined they were very close, but if they were, there is no way Izzy would have let Drew go—she never seems to let any friends go.
So why was she so furious with me for kissing Drew?
I want to believe Pedro’s suggestion—that she was jealous. But even if she was . . . her reaction was so unreasonable. All year I’ve told myself that it is classic Izzy—always unreasonable, and nobody else seems to see it. But that doesn’t fit with the Izzy standing beside me now.
“Twenty-fourth is great,” Izzy says, voice strangled.
“Oh, I suppose I need to check with the builders about where we’ll have got to with renovations by then . . .” Mrs. SB glances distractedly at her phone.
I pounce. “If you are looking to delegate the work with the builders and decorators, Izzy would be an excellent choice.”
The look on Izzy’s face is one I want to see every single day. I have to look away.
“Izzy?”
“I’d love to. Absolutely. I can handle it from now on, if you just forward me everything you’ve got in terms of quotes and so on, I can just . . . take that off your plate.”
“Delegating,” Barty says, pointing a doughy finger at his wife. “See?”
“Well, thank you! Both of you. And how are you getting on with your rings?”
We exchange a glance.
“Oh,” Mrs. SB says, smile falling. “Tell me we aren’t due another showdown on the driveway. No more bigamists, please.”
“No, no,” Izzy says hastily. “Just . . . we’ve stalled a little. But don’t worry. Lucas and I are on it.”
“Good! Now, put your heads together and get to work on the party,” Mrs. SB says, waving us off. As we walk out, we hear her scolding, “Barty! You’ll knock all the air out of it if you do that!”
Izzy
Lucas tells me to meet him at the car at five fifteen. I’m there at ten past, shivering in my teddy coat and woolly hat.
Lucas arrives at quarter past on the dot. He’s changed into his casual clothes again, and under his open coat he’s wearing a soft, dark-grey jumper and jeans—he looks like a celebrity caught stepping out for a coffee on a winter morning. He’s that kind of handsome, the kind that makes you famous.
“Thanks for the lift home,” I say as we get in the car.
“We aren’t going to your flat,” he says.
“What?”
“It is still my day.”
“But it’s the end of the working day,” I wheedle. Today has been confusingly enjoyable, but it has also involved a lot of Lucas—I’m not sure how much more I can take.
“I’m not done with you yet,” he says with the hint of a smile.
“Where are we going?”
“My flat,” he says, pulling out of the car park.
I’ve never seen where Lucas lives. I imagine it is extremely tidy, and that lots of things are made of very well polished wood. The thought of stepping into his private space makes me a little nervous and extremely curious.
We sit in silence for the drive. I hold my rucksack on my lap and cling to it like it’s my support animal. Lucas lives about a fifteen-minute drive from the hotel, but it feels like hours.
He fiddles with the radio and “Last Christmas” sings out through his car speakers. I snort, turning my face to the window. This song always makes me think about him, and not in a good way. I can feel him looking at me, questioning, but I keep my gaze on the grey slush lining the road outside. The song is a useful reminder that no matter how gorgeous he is, no matter if he speaks up for me with Mrs. SB, he’s still the man who kissed my flatmate on the day I’d confessed my feelings for him and then acted like I was crazy for caring. Red flag after red flag, basically.
His flat isn’t like I’d imagined it would be at all. It’s surprisingly characterful and homely. The sofa is battered old leather and the wooden coffee table looks handmade. There’s an impressive number of books on the shelves, a mix of Brazilian and English titles—I didn’t know Lucas read books. Most of them are non-fiction, so I suspect I’m some way away from persuading him to tackle my Sarah J. Maas collection, but still, I’m impressed.
“Would you like a beer?” he asks, opening the fridge.
“Oh. Sure. Thanks.” I take the lager he offers me. “So what are we doing? What brand of torture have you lined up for me next?”
“You’re doing my evening,” he says, grabbing a collection of vegetables from the fridge. “Nothing special. Though I am sure you will find a way to make it torturous.”
He points with a knife to a chopping board hanging on the kitchen wall.
“Ginger root, please. Finely chopped.”
A predictably rubbish job. I get to work peeling the nub of ginger, watching him covertly as he slices a pepper.
“You know, you got a couple of things wrong today. I loved the adventure playground. And the floorboard-painting was right up my alley. As in, just the sort of thing that I like,” I say, as I see his brow furrow, the way it does when he doesn’t quite understand something I’ve said.
“Why do you like painting floorboards?”
“I love making stuff better,” I say after a moment’s thought.
There is something intimate about cooking together like this. It’s unsettling. I’m missing the solid, reassuring presence of the front desk, the familiar hum of voices from the restaurant.
“Before my parents died, I was doing an interior design course,” I go on, filling the silence. “I had this idea of setting up a business that redecorated spaces, only without any new materials. We’d use as much recycled stuff as we could, and where possible we’d use what was already there, just dressed up.”
“Upcycling,” Lucas says.
“Yeah!” I say. “That’s exactly it. Anyway. Obviously it’s fallen to the wayside a bit, but maybe I’ll go back to the course if we lose our jobs.”
I feel him stiffen at that as he reaches for the ginger, combining it with the garlic on his board and adding them to the sizzling oil in the pan. His eyebrows are drawn in a tight frown. He’s stressed about the job, I realise—I don’t know why this hasn’t occurred to me before. I guess it’s that I’m sad rather than stressed. Losing the family we have at the hotel is what guts me—I haven’t thought much about having to find other work, because I’m relatively confident in my CV, and I know there are a few jobs going around the area. But I guess the stakes are higher for Lucas. I don’t know how long he would be able to stay in the UK if he lost his job, and I know money is tight for him.
“It might all just be fine. I think Louis is really considering investing,” I say.
“Hmm,” Lucas says. “Louis is considering something, certainly.”
I frown. “What does that mean?”
“He wants the building. I am not so sure he wants the hotel.”
My eyes widen. “You think he wants to buy the place? Take it off the Singh-Bartholomews?”
Now he mentions it, I remember Louis jokingly offering on the hotel last Christmas, and Mrs. SB laughing him off. Could he? I’d never considered the idea of Forest Manor as anything else, but I guess it would make a beautiful set of flats, or offices, or . . .
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “Louis would have told me.”
Lucas stiffens at this. “Food’s ready,” he says, shoving a knife and fork at me.
We eat on the sofa. I expect Lucas to turn on the TV, but instead he grabs a pile of yellow cards from the coffee table and sets about reading them while he eats. I snoop over his shoulder—they look like revision cards.