catch an update about Henshawe’s missing fiancée—ex-fiancée—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.
‘Are you going straight up to the tenth floor?’
He nodded. ‘I’ll be in the office for a while. You’re working late?’
‘We’re a couple of men down with some bug that’s going around.’
‘Let me know if it becomes a problem.’
But it wasn’t the likelihood of staff shortages at their busiest time of year that was nagging at him as he headed for the lifts. It was something he’d seen, something telling him that, despite all evidence to the contrary, his fugitive hadn’t gone anywhere. That she was still here.
It was stupid, he knew.
She’d undoubtedly used the phone she’d been clutching in the hand she’d flung around his neck to call a friend, someone to bring her a change of clothes and whatever else she needed.
He needed to put the incident out of his mind. Forget the impact of her eyes, the flawless skin, long lashes that had been burned into his brain like a photograph in that long moment when he’d held her.
What was it? What was he missing?
He walked through the electrical department, but the television screens that had been filled with her larger-than-life-size image were all blank now.
Her hair had been darker in that photograph. She’d been wearing less make-up. It was almost like seeing a before and after photograph. The original and the made-over version. Thinner, the image expensively finished, refined, everything except a tiny beauty spot above her lip that could not be airbrushed out of reality…
He stopped.
The beauty spot. That was what he’d seen. He scanned his memory, fast-forwarding through everything he’d seen and done in the hours since that moment on the stairs.
And came skidding to a halt on the elf.
The one who’d been standing so still by the drinks machine while he was talking to Frank. She was the right height, the right shape—filling out the elf costume in a way it hadn’t been designed for. And she’d had a beauty spot in exactly the same place as the girl on the stairs.
Coincidence? Maybe, but he spun around and headed into the grotto.
While everyone else raced to change, get away as quickly as possible, Lucy dawdled and it had taken remarkably little time for the locker room to empty.
It was a little eerie being there on her own, the motionsensitive lights shutting down all around her, leaving her in just a small area of light. And, while she was grateful to be off the streets, in the warm, she wasn’t entirely sure what to do next.
Where she would be safe.
While the locker rooms would be free of cameras—she was almost certain they would be free of cameras—there would undoubtedly be a security presence of some sort.
Would it be high-tech gadgetry? Motion sensors, that sort of thing. Patrols? Or just someone tucked up in an office with a flask of coffee, a pile of sandwiches and a good book while he monitored the store cameras?
At least she would be safe in here for a little while and she could use the time to take the shower she’d longed for. Wash off the whole hideous day. Wash off the last few months and reclaim herself.
And if someone did happen to come in, check that everyone had left, she could surely come up with some believable reason for staying behind to take a shower after work.
A hot date?
Actually, she did have one of those. Well, a date, anyway. Rupert didn’t do hot, but neither would he cancel the Lucy B launch dinner at The Ritz just because she’d caused him a little embarrassment. She had no doubt that his PR team had already put some kind of spin on that. Stress. Prewedding nerves.
Of course if she turned up in the elf costume—the paparazzi would certainly be on the job tonight—it would wipe the smug smile off all their faces.
For a moment she was sorely tempted but, recalling the scrum at the press conference, she decided to give it a miss.
No. If she needed an excuse for being in the shower so late, she’d stick to the second job story. Everyone needed extra money at Christmas and a waitress—her own particular preference when she’d needed the cash to finance her studies—had to be clean and fresh.
She reclaimed her dress from the locker and then, having folded her costume neatly and left it on the bench, she took a towel from the rack and stepped into one of the stalls.
The water was hot and there were shampoo and soap dispensers. Hastings & Hart staff were very well taken care of, she decided, as she pushed the pump for a dollop of soap. Maybe she should reconsider her career options.
Could being an elf in a department store be considered a career? What did Santa do for the rest of the year? And would she get to meet the boss again?
Cold shower, cold shower!
She squeezed some shampoo. Her hair didn’t need washing—she’d spent two hours in the salon having it cut and pampered earlier in the day—but she felt the need to cleanse herself from top to toe, rid herself of the past few months, and she dug in deep with her fingers, washing away the scent of betrayal, rinsing it down the drain.
Then, in no hurry to stop, she reached out to adjust the temperature a touch.
The grotto, Santa’s workshop, was deserted. Nat walked through to Frank’s office, hoping he might find a staff list, but the man was too well organised to leave such things lying about. Besides, he knew he had to be wrong. It had to be a coincidence. There was no way Lucy could have transformed herself into an elf.
It
