Page 94 of Just Like in the Movies

‘I do understand,’ Jacie said, not giving Ruby the argument she had been braced for. ‘I wish I didn’t. So, what happens now?’ she asked, but it was obvious from her expression she knew the answer.

‘I’m going to sell.’ Ruby looked around the foyer. ‘It will still be a cinema, which is the most important thing. And Gallagher has agreed to keep everyone on – on full pay – while they refurbish.’ It was a white lie, because she hadn’t had a chance to contact Gallagher yet, but she would drop the price to whatever he asked to get that much for her staff.

‘Really?’ Jacie looked surprised. ‘That’s incredible, he never struck me as the generous sort. I mean, it would have been cooler if you and Falcone’s son still owned it together, but you’ll be rich right? There’s that.’

Ruby sniffed and forced herself to smile. ‘Absolutely loaded.’ Hopefully, she’d have enough to put a deposit on a flat, and take some time out to go travelling before finding a new job. The way she’d always planned. Even if that was the very last thing she felt capable of doing right now.

Going to LA was definitely out, because being in the US would be too close to Luke.

‘So loaded, I won’t have to work for a while,’ she added. ‘The manager’s job is there if you want it.’

‘Wait a minute, you’re not going to be managing the place anymore?’

‘I decided not to,’ Ruby said, making sure she sounded jaunty rather than lost. ‘I think I’ve spent too long here. It’s just not the same with Matty gone.’ And Luke gone. ‘And I need a new challenge,’ she added. It felt like another lie now, but she knew she needed to make this break. She couldn’t stay here, she had to stop hiding, however painful that was going to be.

‘Right.’ Jacie didn’t look convinced, but what could she do about it. ‘So next week marks the end of an era?’

‘Yes, I thought we could schedule the last of Matty’s Classics for the final showing before we shut down for six months.’ Not we, Ruby. She swallowed past the lump of grief stuck in her throat.

Jacie’s brows furrowed. ‘But isn’t the only one left The Last of the Mohicans? Are you sure that’s the right choice for The Royale’s final film? It’s a really dark movie.’

‘It’s not that dark, it’s an epic romantic adventure.’ Not unlike her romance with Luke, a rollercoaster ride of emotion.

‘People get burned alive and take headers off cliffs,’ Jacie pointed out. ‘And pretty much everyone dies at the end. So I’d have to disagree with you there. Don’t you want to choose something more upbeat? Seeing as how you’ve already had your heart broken by Luke Devlin?’

‘My heart is not broken,’ Ruby said, determined to believe it. She loved him, she’d told him, and he’d confirmed what she had always known to be true: he couldn’t or wouldn’t be able to love her back. She refused to wallow. ‘We were only really a thing for three weeks.’ Goodness that was even

shorter than some of her mum’s grand love affairs.

‘Hawkeye and Madeleine Stowe were only a thing for about three hours, but that didn’t stop her promising to survive a fate worse than getting her heart cut out and eaten by the acne-faced guy to be with him again,’ Jacie said pragmatically, because suddenly, she was the authority on Last of the Mohicans.

‘Losing Luke is not a fate worse than getting your heart cut out and eaten by Wes Studi,’ Ruby said, fairly sure it wouldn’t feel that way, eventually.

‘It’s not me you have to convince, Rubes.’ Jacie headed towards the auditorium to grab some medicinal Prosecco. ‘It’s you.’

Chapter 20

‘You’re late,’ Luke said, as his kid brother Jack strolled into the small bar in Les Halles. Tucked in a side street, the dark interior smelled of stale beer and garlic and was crammed with tiny tables full of burly guys who looked as if they’d just finished unpacking truckloads of fresh fruit and vegetables as Paris’s premiere market, probably because they had.

‘I didn’t come all the way from Manhattan to see you, just to get blown off for …’ Luke checked his watch. ‘Close to forty-five minutes.’

He’d made the last-minute decision to come to Paris yesterday, after only five days back in New York, when he’d received the text from his brother saying he was going to be hanging out in the City of Lights for the summer. But now Luke was here, he didn’t know why he’d bothered. Sure, his penthouse had felt like a prison the last five nights, and he hadn’t seen his brother in a while, but he had a ton of work to do in New York and Jack clearly did not appreciate his efforts to totally rearrange his schedule just to make this meet-up happen.

‘Stop pissing and moaning and give me a hug, man,’ Jack said, then tugged him out of his chair and pulled him into his embrace.

Luke hugged him back, the irritation subsiding as he absorbed the smell of motor oil and leather and soap that clung to his brother’s standard uniform of battered jeans, T-shirt and biker jacket.

Standing back, Jack gripped Luke’s shoulders. ‘Good to see you, too, big bro,’ he said, still smiling that killer smile, then signalled to the bartender.

Luke sat, fighting the dumb lump of something closing his throat.

Jack was a pain in the butt, he always had been, and after this afternoon he probably wouldn’t see him again for another year, because his brother was currently drifting his way through Europe doing odd jobs, as far as he knew.

‘What you having?’ Jack asked, as if the last time they’d seen each other had been a week ago, instead of close to twelve months by Luke’s count.

The barmaid, who’d been super surly when Luke had walked in forty-five minutes ago, hurried over to take Jack’s order as if someone had lit a fire under her butt.

Funny that. But then, Jack tended to have that effect on women. The more laid-back he was, the more attentive they became.

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