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This was hard for him, too, and somehow that was enough. All this was ever meant to be was a moment – or rather several moments – out of their real lives. They could never have been a real couple, and not just for the reasons she’d told Jacie.
Luke Devlin was a billionaire property developer, the son of two Hollywood icons. Breathtakingly handsome and a master of the dark arts in bed. He was so far out of her league it was ridiculous. But more than that, despite all the great sex they’d had, all the intimate conversations, all the midnight feasts and shared breakfasts and lengthy discussions about everything from dry rot to flying monkeys, Luke was the most emotionally unavailable man she’d ever met.
She had a better idea of why that might be now. But she wasn’t in the right place to change him, and she very much doubted she was the right person.
They’d become accidental bonk buddies. And while she was desperately sad that would soon come to an end – and she knew she would miss him terribly, when no one turned up on her fire escape after dark – she refused to fall to pieces. Which meant no deep and meaningful conversations to make him uncomfortable, or her feel too needy.
He stared out of the cab’s window, his thumb rubbing across the knuckles he’d kissed, his profile tense. He was waiting for her to ask about ‘them’.
So she searched her mind for something to say that didn’t involve ‘them’.
‘What happened between you and Ross Bartlett on the set of Life’s a Bitch?’
He turned towards her.
‘Is it juicy?’ she asked when he simply stared at her.
‘Yeah, it’s real juicy,’ he said.
‘Then you need to ’fess up. You owe me.’
‘How do you figure that?’ he said, but his lips quirked with relief.
‘You refused to introduce me to you mum. I could have dined out on my meeting with the great Helena Devlin for decades so I want something to compensate me. Juicy gossip about Bartlett might just cover it.’
He choked out a rough laugh. And her pulse did a giddy little back flip.
‘You’re such a movie nut,’ he said, the gruff affection making her smile. Once upon a time, coming from Luke, that would definitely have been insult. If nothing else, Luke’s opinion had softened about a medium she loved and he had been taught to hate, thanks to his association with her and The Royale.
Matty would be proud of her.
‘I know,’ she said. ‘Now cough up.’
She wanted their last nights together to be joyful. And sexy. Not sad and tense. If that meant keeping the conversation shallow, so be it. And to be fair, juicy gossip from the set of a cult nineties romcom wasn’t a bad parting gift.
‘You’re sure you want to have all your illusions about Barlett shattered? Because I’m not taking responsibility.’
‘I am okay with having my illusions shattered, now tell the story,’ she said.
His shoulders relaxed as he spoke int
o the darkness, his tone one of jaded amusement. ‘Okay, just to give you some background, during a shoot my mom always insisted on having us with her. That meant paid tutors and nannies when I was a little kid, but as Mom’s career tanked, the producers were less willing to fork out for that kind of support. When she made Life’s a Bitch with Barlett her movie career and his were already entering the end zone, which meant she had to pay for the babysitters. It was a micro-budget movie shot on location in the summertime in some podunk town in Georgia.’ He sighed. ‘We had been stuck at the location all day watching mom getting tied to a post over and over again and the au pair mom had hired – a local college student called Melanie Schultz – had forgotten to come get us and take us back to the hotel.’ He gave a rueful smile. ‘Mom sacked Melly the next day when it turned out she’d been getting high with one of the grips and passed out in his trailer.’
‘Stop talking about Melly and tell me about Ross Bartlett,’ she said.
‘It’s not that juicy, don’t get too excited.’
‘I’ll be the judge of that,’ she said, waving him on.
‘Okay, so I’d put Jack and Becca to bed in the bedroom of my mom’s trailer. And I was reading my Incredible Hulk comic in the back, wondering where Melly was and when Mom would be finished shooting so we could go back to the hotel, when I heard a commotion outside. Then both my mom and Bartlett came crashing into the trailer. Not expecting us to be there, they didn’t see me. They were arguing loudly, in that theatrical way actors always argue – as if they’re on Broadway instead of in real life.’
‘Do they?’ she asked.
He simply looked at her as if she were impossibly naïve.
Okay, point taken. ‘What were they arguing about?’
‘Who knows, they probably didn’t even know. It was foreplay.’
