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‘What time is good, on Saturday?’ he asked, tugging his iPhone out of his pocket and making the cashmere of his sweater stretch across his chest.
‘Oh, any time you can make it we’ll be available …’
He frowned, looking up from his phone ‘Seriously? You don’t have screenings that day we should work around?’
Yes, they did. The fortuitousness of the date struck Ruby like a bolt of lightning.
Saturday night was the About a Boy Talent Show Gala. The second film in Matty’s Classics season.
It was a sign. She had to get Luke to that screening, because as her staff had pointed out ten minutes ago, it had to be a much better Get Luke On Board bet than The Wizard of Oz.
As much as everyone at The Royale had always adored the Judy Garland classic, the film had obviously been far too cute and sweet and idealistic to pierce Luke’s anti-movie cynicism. Surely the caustic Hugh Grant Brit-com would be much more Luke’s thing? Snarky and witty, with even the cheesy moments played for laughs, About a Boy also had the huge advantage that the only song in it was a piss take of Roberta Flack’s ‘Killing Me Softly’.
‘How long do you think the checklist will take to hammer out?’ she asked, as guilelessly as she could while she was frantically working out the logistics. If they moved the talent show to after the screening, she should at least be able to get him to watch the movie. He’d probably rather claw out his eyeballs than watch a talent show. Even if he didn’t stay for the gala, the movie was the important thing, with all it’s wonderful messages about not being an island and making your own family. The Royale was Ruby’s family, if she could just plant the seed in Luke’s head he didn’t have to be an island anymore like Will in the movie, they could start to—
‘A couple of hours,’ he said. ‘There’s a ton of stuff that needs work. I’ll arrange to get the surveys done first, but as I said, the structure looks good to me. They made these old buildings to last.’
‘Five o’clock would work for me,’ she said, hoping the guilty heat fanning out across her neck wasn’t visible in the bar’s low lighting.
‘That late?’ He sounded unconvinced. ‘I can make it earlier. I’ll be getting a red-eye from New York.’
‘No, really, five’s good, it’ll give you time to rest after the flight.’ And would ensure he was in the theatre when the screening started at seven. ‘Where will you be staying? At The Grant again? I could send Gerry round to pick you up?’ Gerry was the only one of them who had a car.
He sent her a suspicious look. And the flush intensified.
Dial down on the eager. For crap sake, he’ll think you’re hitting on him.
‘I can walk over,’ he said. ‘My assistant is renting me a space in Notting Hill for the duration.’
He was hiring a flat in Notting Hill? The rent on a studio flat in one of London’s most sought after neighbourhoods would cost him three grand a month at least.
‘That’s … Really? You’re hiring a flat for a whole month.’ Just to come work at The Royale?
Visions of Hugh Grant’s superfly noughties pad in About a Boy sprang to mind. More than three grand a month, because she doubted Luke Devlin would be living in a pokey studio flat.
‘It’s a house,’ he said without looking up, busy tapping the details into his phone’s calendar with his thumbs. ‘On a street called Chepstow Villas. It was the only rental Gwen could find at short notice,’ he finished.
A house? On Chepstow Villas? Quite possibly the most expensive residential road in the whole fricking country? Those Georgian piles were enormous. It would cost him an absolute fortune to hire a house in Chepstow Villas for a month. He wouldn’t get change from twenty grand.
Ruby gulped her lemon-tini
to stop her heart exploding out of her chest with anticipation and astonishment as realisation struck.
Luke Devlin was already invested in The Royale. He just hadn’t figured it out yet.
‘That’s incredibly generous of you,’ she said, barely able to speak around the emotion threatening to close her throat.
His thumbs paused on the iPhone. She bit into her lip to keep the wave of gratitude below tsunami proportions.
‘Generous how?’ he said.
‘To be renting a house in Chepstow Villas so you can help us,’ she qualified. Was he being modest? That was so … sweet. The tsunami built again. ‘While you’re here, I mean. That’s above and beyond the call of duty.’
The blank look on Luke’s face turned into a frown. ‘I’m under court orders, remember.’
‘I know but …’ You could totally have got out of that. ‘I just mean, that’s going to be expensive. And we really appreciate it.’ Don’t give him ideas again Ruby. Be cool. Pretend like it’s no biggie.
‘I’m not paying for it personally; it’s a company expense. I’m going to be doing other work while I’m in the UK – I figure I can schedule in three to four hours a day tops at the theatre because we’ll have to work around your screening times and I’ll need to clean up each day before you open up.’
