Page 82 of Just Like in the Movies

They’d spent weeks working their asses off on the proposal they had delivered this morning, Jacie doing the lion’s share of the work on the financials while Ruby worked on a PowerPoint presentation of everything The Royale had to offer. They’d been brutally honest about the theatre’s financial liabilities, but after all the hard work Luke had done bringing the aging décor back up to scratch, the beauty of the theatre had shone through in the series of shots she’d taken over the last week.

Luke.

Just the thought of him had Ruby’s anxiety ramping up another notch. Was today his last day of work? She didn’t know, he hadn’t said anything this morning when they’d had breakfast together, but there had been a moment when she’d caught him watching her as she had laid their plates down on the table in the living room and what she’d seen had made a sharp pain stab under her breastbone. A sharp pain that felt like loss. Perhaps avoidance wasn’t so great after all, because not knowing was starting to turn her into a basket case.

‘So, Phil and I have got an answer for you …’ Jamie said, and Ruby wrangled her thoughts back from the topic of Luke.

The young CEO glanced at the man sitting next to him, who Ruby had thought for a minute might be his twin when they had arrived to do the presentation that morning – except where Jamie never stopped talking, Phil had yet to say a word.

‘When something this hot comes our way, we don’t like to mess around,’ Jamie said. ‘So we have a counter offer for you.’

‘You do?’ Ruby said.

‘Fantastic,’ Jacie said at the same time. ‘What is it?’ her assistant manager asked.

‘We totally get that The Royale is special,’ Jamie said, leaning forward to emphasise his enthusiasm. ‘And the place is looking great. You’ve got a business we think The Rialto brand can enhance considerably. And from your preliminary numbers we definitely think it’s well situated to expand our reach in the West London area. It’s kind of close to our venue in Holland Park, but we’ve been thinking of changing that to a first run theatre so adding The Royale to the portfolio as a venue for classics and retrospectives would totally work.’

‘That’s wonderful,’ Ruby said, letting Jamie’s enthusiasm inflate the bubble of hope under her breastbone and push out the pain of Luke’s impending parting. Turning The Royale into another Rialto cinema hadn’t been what they had offered, that sounded like a takeover rather than the fifty percent buy-in that she and Jacie had proposed so they could cover the theatre’s debts. But she was happy to hear him out.

‘We thought the name The Rialto Royale would build on your local clientele while giving the venue a hit of extra Rialto cool points …’ Jamie grinned.

But we don’t need your cool points, we’ve got enough of our own.

‘Why don’t we call it The Royale Rialto,’ Jacie said, the flat tone saying exactly what Ruby had been thinking. ‘Seeing as it’s been The Royale for a lot longer than you’ve been in business.’

Jamie’s grin sharpened. ‘That’s not going to work for us,’ he said easily enough, and Ruby realised Jamie Callagher was nobody’s fool. He knew The Royale was in trouble, that he had the upper hand in these negotiations.

‘That’s okay, Jace,’ she said, sending her assistant manager her best cease-and-desist look. ‘I think the name change sounds wonderful,’ she added.

They needed The Rialto on board as investors, or the only option was to sell the theatre to developers and close The Royale forever – while working on the presentation she had contacted every possible investment prospect she could think of, and she hadn’t even gotten a call back from the others.

‘Okay, cool,’ Jamie said, his silent partner Phil remaining silent but sending Jacie a hard stare which was making the spiced caramel bomb in Ruby’s stomach start to implode. Something wasn’t right about all this, because she was getting the impression Jamie and Phil were wolves in hipster clothing.

‘Now, we’d really like to move on this ASAP. We’ve spoken to a developer and they think the best use of the space is to gut the upstairs flat and add a floor, so we can create some rental units to increase the theatre’s operating profits,’ Jamie said, his enthusiasm becoming turbo-charged. ‘It’ll take a while to get planning permission and do the rebuild.’

Rebuild? They hadn’t mentioned anything about a rebuild, or gutting her home.

‘So we’d need to finalise the purchase in the next couple of weeks to get going on that and re-open before we hit the lucrative Christmas season.’ Jamie was still speeding up. ‘We’re prepared to be generous to you and your staff to expedite the deal. We’re proposing double the asking price you specified plus an extra five percent.’ Pulling some paperwork out of a file in front of him, he passed the contract across the table. ‘It’s all there in black and white for you to look over, but for this to work for us we’d need to close the deal a week from now.’

‘I’m sorry? What?’ Ruby said, dumbly. ‘Did you say you want to pay me double what I asked for plus five percent for fifty percent of the business?’

Jamie’s wolfish grin took on the precision of a killer shark. ‘No, Ruby … Is it okay if I call you Ruby?’

‘Yes, of course,’ she said, the bubble of hope turning into a lead weight.

‘Ruby, a partnership isn’t going to work for us. That’s not how we roll at The Rialto. We’re only interested in purchasing one hundred percent of The Royale and running the cinema with our own team in our own way.’

‘But we’re not offering you a hundred percent—’ Jacie’s outraged shout barely registered as Jamie interrupted her, his killer smile making the lead weight in Ruby’s stomach collide with the nuclear bomb.

‘Plus, we checked out the loan agreements on the theatre, and we know you’ve got to pay off the theatre’s debts by June 20th. So it’s not like you’ve got a lot of time to find a better offer.’

***

‘Jesus, and to think I once thought Luke Devlin was the Antichrist. The man’s a fricking saint compared to Jamie and Phil the Evil Hipster Twins,’ Jacie stared glumly into her lemon-tini as they sat on the stools at the end of the bar in Brynn’s Babes a half hour later. ‘What the bloody hell do we do now?’

‘We move on to Plan B,’ Ruby said, knowing there was no Plan B.

‘Is there a Plan B?’ Jacie asked, the flash of hope in her expression making Ruby want to cry.

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