“Sorry,” Lucas murmured. His hands were back on her shoulders, and he pulled her into an embrace.
She let her head fall against his chest. She wanted comfort, but even more than that, she needed him to see her point of view. She wasn’t trying to be unforgiving and judgmental; she just had to look out for herself. Most people’s hearts could heal from a few cuts. Hers had been so scarred at an early age that it couldn’t take many more wounds.
“We’re not your parents,” Lucas said.
“Not if I can help it.” She was going to start crying in a few seconds.
“Riley.”
The word was a plea. He kissed the top of her head. She didn’t feel capable of moving away from him. Her feet had a mind of their own.
He lifted her chin, and her eyes automatically shut, waiting for his lips to come down on hers. They did, soft again, warm and gentle.
Walking away from the Nutella jar was one of her weaknesses. Once you had a taste, it was so easy to go back for more. In an hour, she was going to regret all of this.
A startled gasp came from the doorway, and then Mrs. Cisneros’s, flustered voice, “Oh! Sorry to interrupt.”
Riley nearly jumped away from Lucas.
“I came to check on you,” Mrs. Cisneros continued, backing away from the door. “Looks like you’re working out your differences just fine.” She gestured behind her. “I’ll go concentrate on the other teams.” She was gone as quickly as she’d come.
Riley felt her cheeks warming in embarrassment. She took another step away from Lucas and forced a laugh. “Well, I’m sure Mrs. Cisneros does lots of these workshops, but you know what? She’s always going to remember ours.” Riley edged closer to the door, making her way to leave, to flee. “I guess this means I can check off enduring fame from my bucket list.”
Lucas didn’t laugh, didn’t even smile. An unspoken sigh was on his lips. “I just realized you use humor to deflect pain.”
“I’ll remember to put that on my next two truths and a lie list.”
“You usea lotof humor.”
She’d been wrong about regretting kissing him in an hour. She regretted it already.
“Right. I wish I could stay and discuss it with you, but I’ve got a marketing flyer to create, supplies to check, and then a comedy routine about my love life to work on.”
She headed out of the kitchen, ignored the lobby, and ensconced herself in the office to get some work done.
He didn’t come after her.
That was the advantage of being the assistant manager.
It was harder for the manager to blow off his own workshop.
She meant to work on a new flyer but somehow found herself going to Winter Harris’s social media page. Riley had tried looking at it yesterday, but Winter had blocked Riley’s account.
Unnecessary. Riley wouldn’t have ever tried to contact her.
The Riverside Inn had its own social media account though, and Winter hadn’t blocked that.
Jace was right. Not many new pictures showed up on her account, which was odd, knowing her love of the camera. Some photos showed places in England and Spain. Other pictures showed her face, smiling and beautiful as always, but those photos were always taken in nondescript places.
So perhaps Winter had lied about where she was?
Riley still wasn’t sure what it meant.
CHAPTER 22
Lucas somehow managed to get through the rest of the team-building exercises with his optimism intact, despite the fact that most of the staff grumbled about having to finish the exercises while Riley got to go AWOL.
The housekeeping team didn’t join in those complaints. Wendy and Mariah had decided that team building was more fun than cleaning toilets and made a point of letting people know that housekeeping clearly had the most miserable jobs since everybody else would rather do their tasks than play what were essentially party games.