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‘If Devlin could just loan us the money to pay off the debts, we’d be able to pay him back. We’ve already got the budget for this month and next into the black, especially with all the extra revenue from Matty’s Classics,’ Jacie said.
‘I don’t want to ask him, though,’ Ruby said, knowing she couldn’t.
She placed the last plate on the draining board, dried her hands on the dishtowel, and swallowed past the raw spot in her throat.
‘So, we’re basically fucked, then?’ Jacie said, sounding devastated.
‘No we’re not …’ Ruby said. ‘All we need to do is come up with another plan.’
The kernel of an idea which she had flirted with weeks ago drifted back into the forefront of her brain.
‘What plan?’ Jacie said, sounding dejected. ‘We don’t have a plan. Devlin was the plan, remember.’
‘You know The Rialto chain?’ she said, naming a chain of independent cinemas who had luxury venues all over London.
Jacie nodded. ‘Of course I do, the new cinema they opened in Holland Park took a big chunk out of our revenue four years ago according to Matty’s records.’
Ruby smiled, the idea gathering pace. ‘Before they opened that cinema they tried to buy The Royale, Matty told me.’
‘Those sneaky bastards,’ Jacie murmured.
‘Not necessarily,’ Ruby said. It was a long shot, but it might work, if she and Jacie put together a good enough proposal.
And better yet, it would mean working overtime in the office for a while.
What she needed right now was a project not just to save The Royale but also to save her from day-dreaming about Luke and his tool belt and their one night together. And all the things she now knew about him that only made her like him more.
PART FOUR
The Way We Were (1973)
Ruby’s verdict: Everyone when they watch this film falls in love with Robert Redford’s Hubbell Gardner, because he’s so gorgeous (especially in Navy whites). But Barbra Streisand’s Katie is the heart of the movie, with her passion and her purpose, and her determination to make their relationship work no matter what. She has to give up in the end, but the truth is he’s not out of her league, it’s totally the other way round. She’s way out of his league, because she believes in something enough to fight for it, and he doesn’t – not even her.
Luke’s verdict: Streisand’s exhausting in this movie, no wonder Redford sleepwalks through the whole thing – and that song has got to be the ear-worm of the century – but you’ve gotta feel bad for Katie at the end because she still doesn’t get it – Hubbell was never worth the effort.
Chapter 13
‘Hey, Ruby, hold up!’ Luke dodged past a couple of tourists dawdling by the entrance to Portobello Road Market to catch up with his prey.
Ruby’s head swung round and he clocked the pink flags in her cheeks before her gaze darted to both sides. ‘Luke!’ she whispered as he reached her. ‘What are you doing? Is it safe for you to be out here?’
He choked back a laugh at the urgency in her tone. ‘I think I can navigate a few tourists without killing myself,’ he said wryly as he side-stepped the Japanese pair who were now taking pictures of the Portobello Road sign tacked to the wall.
Really? Even if you filtered the hell out of the shot, wasn’t it going to look kind of generic on Instagram?
She grasped his arm and tugged him into a small alleyway off the main drag. Before checking the street again as if they were being followed by the FBI.
‘I just …’ Her gaze finally landed back on him, making his heart lift. He’d discovered he liked having Ruby’s eyes on him … Probably because he’d missed them so much over the past week.
‘I just don’t think it’s wise for you to venture out into a tourist hot spot like The ’Bello,’ she finally said, her voice barely audible above the colourful shouts of the market traders selling everything from plantains to vintage Indian silk and the back beat of an old-school reggae sound system set up under the overpass by a vinyl record stall.
He tilted the bill on his ball cap down, because he did not want to alert attention, but couldn’t resist a grin at her obvious concern for his well-being as her gaze continued to flick back and forth to the road from their hiding spot.
Good to know she still cared. He’d started to wonder, because it had been a week since he’d woken up in her bed and he hadn’t managed to speak two whole sentences to her since. She’d either been too busy, locked in her apartment doing taxes, or accounts, or planning something with Jacie, or away from the theatre all together while he was on the premises, running anonymous errands that no one else seemed to know anything about. Such as this one.
But this time he’d gotten the jump on her, spotting her heading out just as he was arriving for his morning shift. So he’d decided to follow her.
And now here he was risking exposure in a West London tourist mecca and he actually did not give a damn. Because he’d wanted to get Ruby alone for a week.
