“I think he loves the hotel. Same as me.”
“Right, but . . .” Louis seems to realise that this is more interrogation than conversation. He laughs. “Sorry. Just making sure he’ll be sticking around. He’s such an asset, and if I’m going to be investing in Forest Manor Hotel . . .”
I relax slightly. If he wants Arjun, he can’t be planning to turn the place into flats.
“Why do you guys love Forest Manor so much?” Louis asks. “It’s almost certainly going under in the new year. But none of you have left for a new job. What’s that about?”
I reach around for the words to capture it. The magic of Forest Manor at its best: sconce lights glowing, live music playing, the warm hubbub of a happy crowd in the dining room. All the weddings: those love stories that found their happily-ever-after against the backdrop of our beautiful sandstone walls. And, for me, the coffees and heart-to-hearts with Arjun after dinner service has ended and neither of us wants to go home; the slow-growing friendships with guests like Mr. Townsend who come to the hotel year after year; the sense of being part of something that brings joy in a harsh, frightening world.
“You know when people say somewhere is a home away from home?” I say. “I think it’s that. For all of us. So when we’re talking about losing our jobs . . . we’re also kind of talking about losing our home.”
“Right, wow. That’s cool.”
He doesn’t get it, I can tell. Suddenly, I can’t be bothered with much more of this. I planned to wait longer, but as we walk slowly between the stalls, I find myself saying, “Louis, I don’t think we should see each other like this anymore. I’m just not feeling a spark.”
“This again!” he says, nudging me. “Izzy, you said you’d relax and give this a proper shot.”
I frown. “I am. I have.”
“All right, sure,” he says easily. “I hear you loud and clear. You want a mulled wine?”
“What? No, Louis, I want to head home, OK?”
“You certain?”
“I’m certain,” I say with emphasis.
“OK.” He smiles. “Let’s head back to my car, then.”
He’s just the same all the way home, chatting away. At first I assume it’s an act—he was so keen at the Angel’s Wing—but he seems genuinely fine. Maybe he was losing interest, too, or maybe he just doesn’t want me to feel bad about calling things off. Whatever the reason, I’m relieved: I’d worried he might get petty, or even let it affect his potential investment in the hotel, but he asks more questions about Forest Manor as we hang around outside my flat, and then hugs me goodbye like we’re friends. It’s nice to wave him off with absolutely zero regrets.
Once I get inside, I settle in on my sofa with a bowl of Krave and an episode of The Vampire Diaries that I know so well I can reel off half the lines from memory. Everything I could possibly need.
Except I keep checking my phone. Opening WhatsApp, closing it again. If I’m honest with myself, I’m thinking about Lucas. I want to know what he’s doing tonight.
For some reason.
Ugh.
I stare at the TV. The trouble is, last night was just so . . . memorable. I feel like every inch of it is traced across my skin—as though instead of getting rid of Lucas, I’ve tattooed him there. The rasp of his breath, the solid muscle of his shoulders, the words he whispered in low, quick Portuguese . . .
I swallow. Maybe the problem is that it was all so rushed.
Maybe it’s not really getting it out of your system if it’s a snatched hour in a car. Maybe I just need a bit . . . more.
And then, just as I’m about to cave and open WhatsApp, a new message appears. From Lucas. Who has not messaged me since 2021.
How was the market?
I scrunch up my nose. Since when does Lucas ask me how my evening is going?
It was gorgeous, I reply after a moment. So festive.
I pause, and then I do something very bad. I type, I was kind of preoccupied, though.
Preoccupied with what?
Thinking. About last night.
His next reply doesn’t come for fifteen minutes, and I feel as if I am quite possibly about to die of embarrassment. I fidget on the sofa, trying to concentrate on the television. I’ll just quit my job, I think to myself. I’ll just never go back to work, so I never have to see him again after sending that message and not getting a reply.
When he finally writes back, the message is infuriating.
How was Louis? is all it says.
I type my reply before I can think better of it.
Are you jealous?
His response is instantaneous this time.
Yes.
I knew it.
Was it a date?
What’s it to you?
Can you just tell me that he was respectful?
I roll my eyes.
Lucas.
Yes?
Is it any of your business what happens between me and Louis?
There’s a knock on the door. I slurp the last of the cereal on my way to answer it, sliding the empty bowl onto the kitchen counter.
It’s Lucas at my front door, messaging. He must have left his flat the moment I said I was thinking about last night. He doesn’t look up when I open the door; my phone pings in my hand. He’s wearing his usual black coat open over loose, low jogging bottoms and a long-sleeved tee, with a duffel bag by his feet. The idea of him right there in my hallway seems as strange and impossible and exciting as the sight of him tipping his head back against the driver’s seat, muscles pulling taut in his shoulders, eyes piercing mine.
After a long moment facing each other across the threshold, I glance from Lucas to my phone screen.
No. But can it be my business to check you’re OK?
“No,” I say out loud.
“Why not?”
I narrow my eyes at him, but I’m tingling. I’ve spent all day avoiding that tingle.
“You don’t get to be jealous,” I tell him. “You don’t even like me, Lucas. In fact, I’d say this isn’t about me at all. It’s about another man. It’s a stupid macho possessive thing and it’s a total red flag for me, if you didn’t have enough of those already.”
“I can assure you,” he says, “I am not thinking about Louis right now. I am thinking about you.” His tone is clipped, and his eyes are all darkness. “Are you going to let me in?”
“Why would I let you in?”
He doesn’t answer that. Not as if he doesn’t know, more as if he thinks it’s obvious.
“You’re being completely obnoxious,” I tell him. “We had rules. You’re breaking them.”
“Tell me to leave, then.”
We face off on either side of the threshold. Slowly, slowly, his gaze shifts. Taking me in. My jumper dress, leggings, the woolly socks I slipped on when I got in the door. Back to the neckline of my dress, the only place where I’m showing skin. As he lifts his eyes to meet mine again, I feel like he’s stripped me bare. The tingle is a buzz now, insistent, like the giddy rush of a tequila shot hitting your stomach.
“We said one night,” I say, but even I can hear the lack of conviction in my voice.
“Then I’ll leave,” Lucas says, not moving an inch.
I say nothing. He waits.
“Is that what you want, Izzy?”
It absolutely isn’t. We made those rules for a reason, though. One night felt safe—I could do that without getting hurt. But to give him more than that, this man who drives me mad all day, who goes out of his way to make my life difficult, who laughed when I told him I had feelings for him?
That would be dangerous.
“Tell me to go,” he says, his voice low and rasping as he stands there in my hallway, one step away from coming in.
But I don’t. Despite all the reasons I should, that low hot buzz has set in, and no part of me wants to send Lucas away. I know what it feels like between us now. He’s not just some abstract fantasy. He’s real, and that’s even harder to resist.
I cross the threshold between us and kiss him hard, pulling him inside, letting the door close behind us with a short, sharp slam.
* * *
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