‘Hastings & Hart is not most stores.’
About to ask if there was a Mr Hastings, or even a Mrs Hart, she thought better of it. She was having a bad enough day without feeling guilty about lusting after some woman’s husband.
‘Is that all?’ Frank asked with a sardonic lift of the brow. ‘Or are you prepared to honour us with another teddy-dressing class for the under fives?’
‘I’m sorry. It got a bit out of hand,’ she said, fairly sure that was sarcasm rather than praise. ‘I won’t do it again.’
‘Oh, please don’t let me stop you. You are a hit with the children, if not with their mothers.’
Definitely sarcasm and she had been feeling rather guilty since several of the children had refused point-blank to surrender their bears to the rigours of a freezing sleigh ride and insisted they come home with them in a nice warm taxi. Not that it should worry Frank Alyson. It was all the more profit for Nathaniel Hart, wasn’t it? Which was all men like him cared about.
But all the practice she’d had smiling in the last few months stood her in good stead and she gave him one of her best.
He looked somewhat startled, as well he might-she didn’t imagine he got too many of those-and, satisfied with the effect, she returned to her stool, where she would be safely out of sight of Mr Nathaniel Hart, unless he borrowed Frank Alyson’s Chief Elf robes.
But, while the children kept her busy, her brain was fizzing with questions. Had Grey Eyes been contacted directly by one of Rupert’s minions? Asked to organise a discreet search for her? Or even perhaps by Rupert himself? They probably knew one another-billionaires united was a very small club-because he seemed to be taking a personal interest in the search.
He hadn’t sounded at all happy when, having belatedly come to her senses, she’d taken off up the stairs, leaving only her shoe behind.
And it would explain why he was carrying it around with him. He assumed that she had the other one tucked away in her bag and, obviously, she would need two of them if she was going to walk out of here.
Tough. He should have kept his mind on the job.
Or maybe not. Even now, her heart flipped at the memory as she absently sucked on an overheated lip.
Having been assured by the paramedics that Pam was suffering from nothing worse than the latest bug that was going around, Nat drove her home and insisted that she stay there until she was fully recovered.
‘But how will you cope? There’s so much to do and-’
‘Pam, we’ll manage,’ he insisted. ‘And the last thing we need at this time of year is an epidemic.’
‘Sorry. I know. And no one’s indispensable. Petra will manage. Probably.’ She rubbed at her temple. ‘There was something I was meant to be doing…’ He waited, but she sighed and said, ‘No, it’s gone.’
‘Can I get you anything? Tea? Juice?’
‘You’re a sweet man, Nathaniel Hart,’ she croaked. ‘You’d make some woman a lovely husband.’
An image of the woman on the stairs, her scent, the softness of her dress, disturbingly real, filled his head…
‘I’m just a details man,’ he said, blanking it off. ‘Go and get into bed. I’ll make you a hot drink.’
‘You should get back to London before the roads get any worse,’ she said. Then, as headlights swept across the window, ‘That’s Peter home.’
‘Closing time, Lou.’ The elf sitting on the next stool stood up, eased her back. ‘Reality beckons.’
‘I’ll just finish dressing this bear.’
‘You’re keen. See you tomorrow.’
It was a casual throwaway line, needing no answer, and Lucy didn’t reply. Tomorrow would have to take care of itself; it was tonight that was the problem.
She tucked the teddy into a pair of striped pyjamas and a dressing gown, putting off the moment when she’d have to face a cold world. Because no amount of thinking had provided her with an answer to where she could go. Certainly not the flat she’d shared before she’d met Rupert. That would be the first place anyone would look.
She had a little money in her purse that would cover a night at some cheap B &B. The problem with that was that her face would be all over the evening news and someone was bound to spot her and call it in to one of the tabloids for the tip-off money.
The sensible answer, she knew, would be to contact one of them herself, let them take care of her. They’d stick her in a safe house so that no one else could get to her and they’d pay well for the story she had to tell. That was the reason they’d been grabbing at her, chasing after her. Why Rupert would be equally anxious to keep her away from them.
The problem with going down that route was that there would be no way back to her real life.
Once she’d taken their money she’d be their property. Would never be able to go back to being the person she had been six months ago.
Instead she’d become one of those pathetic Z-list celebrities who were forever doomed to live off their moment of infamy, relying on ever more sleazy stories to keep themselves in the public eye. Because no one would employ her in a nursery or day-care centre ever again.
But this reprieve was temporary. Out of time, she placed the teddy on the shelf and went to the office.
Frank looked up from his desk, where he was inputting figures into a computer. ‘Are you still here?’
‘Apparently. I was looking for Pam.’
He pulled a face. ‘She collapsed not long after you arrived,’ he said in an I-told-you-so tone of voice.
‘Oh, good grief. I’m so sorry. Is she going to be all right?’
‘It’s just a bug and an inability to accept that we can manage without her for a day or two. Mr Hart took her home a couple of hours ago. Why did you want her?’
‘Well…’
About to explain about the swipe card, it occurred to her that if Pam had collapsed not long after she’d mistaken her for an elf, she might not have had time to do the paperwork. Make her official. Log her in.
‘It’s nothing that won’t wait. Although…’
She couldn’t. Could she?
‘She didn’t mention what time I’m supposed to start tomorrow,’ she added, as casually as she could.
‘The store opens at ten. If you’re honouring us with your presence, you’ll need to be in your place, teddy at the ready at one minute to. Is that it?’
‘Er…yes. Ten. No problem.’
He nodded. ‘Goodnight.’ Then, as she reached the door, ‘You did a good job, Louise. I hope we’ll see you tomorrow.’
‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘Me, too.’
Nat switched on the radio as he drove back through thick swirling snowflakes that were beginning to pile up on the edges of the road. The footpaths were already white.
He’d hoped to catch an update about Henshawe’s missing fiancee-ex-fiancee-on the news, but it was all weather warnings and travel news and the bulletins focused on the mounting chaos as commuters tried to get home in weather that hadn’t been forecast.
She’d got lucky. But not as lucky as Henshawe. An embarrassing story was going to be buried under tomorrow’s headlines about drivers spending the night in their cars, complaints about incompetent weather forecasters and the lack of grit on the roads.
They’d probably be reunited and back on the front cover of some gossip magazine by next week, with whatever indiscretions she was accusing him of long forgotten, he told himself. Forget her.
By the time he returned to the store it was closing. The last few shoppers were being ushered through the doors, the cloakrooms and changing rooms thoroughly checked in a well rehearsed routine to flush out anyone who might harbour ideas of spending the night there.
He parked in the underground garage, removed the shoe from the glove compartment and walked through to the security office.
Bryan looked up as he entered.
‘Anything?’ he asked.
‘Not a sign. She probably slipped out under cover of the crowds. She’s certainly not in the store now.’
‘No.’ He looked at the shoe and, instead of dropping it in the lost property box, held onto it.
