The Wake-Up Call

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.

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.

So I just told them I’d be with Jem for a second year running, as otherwise she’d be solo for Christmas. They knew she’d got a job in Washington for six months, but I was always a bit vague on the when, so it was all very simple.

“Why don’t you tell them the truth?” Lucas asks.

“They’ll feel sorry for me.” I look out at the activity on the lawns, the racks of old coats backdropped against the misty grey trees, the cars already pulling up in the car park. “They all have a lot going on right now. I don’t like being a burden on them.”

“I very much doubt they see it that way.”

“Coffee tables are in the corner by the holly bush,” I say. “You can put that one next to the mahogany one.”

He waits so long I sigh in frustration and straighten up, spinning to look at him.

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