Just Like in the Movies by Heidi Rice

Author:Heidi Rice [Rice, Heidi]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2021-02-19T17:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

‘I can’t believe Devlin didn’t come back this afternoon like he promised,’ Jacie said as she loaded the hoover back into the supply cupboard after the final clean-up. ‘Do you know where he went?’

‘No, I don’t.’ Ruby sighed. ‘I’m not his keeper, Jace.’ Not even close.

Luke had left before lunch saying he’d be back in an hour and then never reappeared. And she’d missed him. Too much. How had he become such an important fixture after only two weeks? His steady, capable, competent, mostly silent presence, something she had come to rely on? And that was without even factoring in last week’s shock hug while she was having her Matty meltdown after his mother’s call.

Being able to sink into his strong arms, feel his warm breath on the back of her neck and hear the solid thud of his heartbeat pounding against her ear had been pretty much the best thing that had happened to her for a long long time. Well, the best PG-rated thing to happen to her.

Don’t think about Hairgate.

She needed to get over needing him, and missing him, because sooner rather than later Luke and his strong arms and steel buns and steady, capable presence would be gone. And today had been a timely reminder of that fact, for them all.

‘Perhaps we should inform the magistrate’s court of his no-show?’ Jace said, propping her fists on her hips. ‘He is supposed to be doing three hundred hours you know.’

Ruby shut the safe where they kept the night’s takings and whizzed the dial to lock it.

‘We most certainly are not going to be doing any such thing, Jace,’ she said as calmly as she could. Jacie’s heart was in the right place, but she needed to get over her animosity towards Luke. The guy had been The Royale’s very own super-hero so far, working long hours, fixing seats and toilets and a host of other equipment that had been broken for a long time, not to mention starting to return the theatre’s infrastructure to its former glory. ‘From the schedule Luke’s outlined,’ she continued, because Jacie still looked like she wanted to argue, ‘he’s going to be doing five times that number of hours over the next few weeks. I don’t even want to think how much money it’s costing him to rent a house in Chepstow Villas and keep his business in New York on hold. He probably had a boardroom emergency today he couldn’t tell us about …’

The tickle of anxiety, which had been getting worse ever since Luke had failed to turn up at one thirty that afternoon, clawed at Ruby’s throat.

‘All I care about is that it’s not any other kind of emergency …’ If he’d been hurt, or injured in any way, she’d never forgive herself. Perhaps he’d had to return to America. Was that the real reason his mother had called? To inform Luke of some family disaster? Because Ruby still couldn’t get her head around the idea of Helena Devlin ringing The Royale to talk to her.

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