Page 27 of Just Like in the Movies

1Because now he felt invested. And responsible. In a way he hadn’t felt since he was a kid and he’d walked into the en-suite bathroom in his old man’s townhouse in Montecito and found—

‘I’m going to do it,’ he said to Grayling and Janet Abernathy, the solicitor, blanking the picture in his head which was only going to turn this cluster fuck-tastrophe into a cluster fuck-mageddon. ‘The sentence … I’m going to do it,’ he added, because both Grayling and Abernathy were momentarily dumbstruck.

‘You really don’t need to do that, Mr Devlin,’ Janet Abernathy pitched in first. ‘It’s a fairly simple process to get it overturned. All we need do is show that your business interests will suffer if you’re forced to stay in London for any length of time. And a magistrate’s court simply does not have the jurisdiction to compel a US citizen to—’

‘I have both US and British citizenship,’ he said. ‘And I can rearrange my schedule.’ Gwen was going to love him when he gave her the good news. He’d have to give her an even bigger bonus this December. ‘To make sure my business interests don’t suffer, there’s always the Internet, and I can fly home on weekends, right?’

‘Well, yes,’ Janet murmured. ‘Community payback orders only apply outside the hours of work if the subject is employed.’ Her gaze intensified. ‘In fact we could negotiate a lengthy time frame to complete it, so you would only have to return for a weekend every couple of months. Or perhaps we could offer a donation in lieu of your time on—’

‘Nope, I don’t want to do that,’ he added, surprised to realise it was the truth.

Throwing his money around had already made him look like enough of a dick and he wanted to get this over with – stringing it out for months would only increase his contact with Ruby of the Lush Ass and Sad Eyes and that probably wasn’t a good idea. Plus, the theatre had less than three months left in business now, if his financial calculations were correct. ‘I’d rather just do the time.’

It’s what he’d always done to make cluster fucks go away: bury his head in work – the harder and sweatier and more time-consuming the better. This would be the first time he’d be doing that to fix a cluster fuck of his own making, so at least it had novelty value. Plus, it was years since he’d had to get his hands dirty on a job. And even longer since he’d strapped on a tool belt. From the snapshot he’d got of The Royale while he was being mobbed by the Falcone for Pope brigade, it needed a lot of work. The cornices were crumbling, the carpets were wrecked, the paintwork looked as if it had been done by a five-year-old and the light fixtures, even in the lobby area, hailed back to the days when Judy herself had been a bright young thing and drug addiction, burn-out and an untimely death had all still been years ahead of her.

He was a code certified electrician, knew enough about plumbing and roofing to fix any major problems, and had more than enough experience as a painter, decorator and carpenter to handle anything the old building had to throw at him. And while he’d never met his Uncle Matty, after singing a few off-key choruses of the guy’s favourite show tune, in a weird way he felt like he owed him. Something. Working on his uncle’s movie theatre ought to get that out of his system before they had to sell the place.

Plus, he had once loved getting his hands dirty.

And he’d missed it. Luckily, he had no major projects launching globally at the moment. And when was the last time he’d taken any vacation time? A genuine break? Not only that, but the greatest plus of all, he’d be an ocean away from the biggest drama queen in the Western World for four whole mental-health-cleansing weeks while she was rocking her grief-stricken dying swan act over the untimely demise of the brother she hadn’t spoken to in thirty years.

Cowardly yes, but what choice did he have? He’d gotten into this fix by helping out Ruby Graham, so now he was going to have to help out Ruby and her movie theatre to get out of it again. There was a certain freaky kind of logic to that, too. And he loved logic. And heck, if he did the work he’d be increasing the property’s potential profit when they had to sell the place.

When you looked at the sentence that way, it was almost a win-win.

He tensed at the memory of holding Ruby Graham’s warm weight in his arms, her fresh spicy scent filling his nostrils and the weird jolt of awareness that had freaked him out a moment ago, then released a careful breath.

This de

cision had nothing to do with Ruby, or her toned thighs, or her full, firm breasts, or her sweet sensual voice catching on the words of that dumb song. This was about owning his own shit after a couple of dumb decisions, bad mouthing a judge for no good reason, paying a debt to his Uncle Matty and getting the heck out of his mom’s orbit.

He didn’t owe Ruby a thing – especially not after getting himself arrested and slapped with a community service order on her behalf – and the weird jolt would go away as soon as he got stuck working in her theatre.

He tugged his iPhone out of his pocket after bidding goodbye to Grayling and Abernathy, who still looked shell-shocked.

Join the club, guys.

‘Hey, Gwen,’ he said when his ultra-efficient administrative assistant picked up on the first buzz. ‘I’ve got good news and bad news,’

‘Hit me with the good first,’ she said in a suspicious growl, because Gwen Calhoun was nobody’s fool.

‘You’re not going to be seeing much of me in the next four to six weeks.’

‘Damn, that actually is good news!’ she said, because Gwen – who had been with Devlin Properties ever since the days when their office was a trailer on a construction site in Queens – had never learned how to respect her boss. ‘What’s the bad news?’

‘You get to overhaul my schedule for the next month and locate me an apartment within walking distance of the Talbot Road in West London.’

‘London as in England?’ Gwen asked, the suspicion back with a vengeance.

‘Correct. I just got ordered by a judge here to do three hundred hours community payback. AKA court-ordered community service.’

‘In England? You have got to be kidding me?’ Gwen said, because she did not mince her words either. ‘How the hell did you manage that, Dev? You a badass in disguise?’

‘Apparently. Go figure, huh?’

Gwen’s deep forty-a-day chuckle rasped down the phone line.

Well hell, good to know someone is being entertained.

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