‘Eloise?’ He didn’t want to shout—he knew that attracting more attention to them could only make everything worse—but when she didn’t answer his third knock he had to raise his voice. ‘Let me in, Eloise.’
There was a shuffling noise inside, then she yanked the door open, looking furious under her rumpled red hair. She was wearing what had to be the most unflattering pair of pyjamas in history and Noah realised that it didn’t even matter. She had bags under her eyes as if she hadn’t slept, and mascara on her cheeks, and her pyjamas had pictures of grumpy cats on them, and he still wanted her.
Eloise, however, did not look like she was having the same problem.
‘What are you doing?’ she whisper-shouted at him. ‘Do you want even more people showing up to take photos of me half dressed?’
Noah decided not to point out that the cat pyjamas covered considerably more of her body than last night’s dress. ‘Can I come in?’
Eloise scanned the hallway and, finding it empty, stood aside, still glaring at him.
‘Look, we both have a wedding to get ready for in four hours,’ she said, shutting the door behind him. ‘So, whatever you have to say, make it quick.’
She folded her arms over her chest and stared at him, and all of Noah’s intended words fled. He’d planned to talk about how they could minimise the fallout from last night, how to deal with Melissa today...but instead he found himself saying, ‘I’m sorry. About last night. I know that was the last thing you wanted.’
‘I’m not sure many people want to be caught half naked in a cupboard, Noah.’
‘You’d be surprised.’ If it meant getting their photo taken with him, Noah had found that some women were willing to do anything. But Eloise wasn’t one of them.
She shot him a disgusted look. ‘Of course. I’m sure your many admirers would be grateful for the chance.’
‘That’s not what I meant.’
‘I don’t care.’ She rubbed one eye with her fist and he realised again how exhausted she looked. Had she slept at all? ‘Look, I’ve already seen the photos online, read all the quotes. So kind of you to point out that I was equally indifferent to you, by the way, since, after all, I mean nothing to you.’
Noah winced. ‘I’m sorry, okay? I was trying to downplay it all for your sake! You’re the one who didn’t want to be another woman cast aside and presumably heartbroken when I left them. You wanted to keep it a secret. And, since that was off the table...I figured that this was the next best thing.’ He’d given up his chance at the movie role of a lifetime to try and protect her, and this was the way she thanked him?
Eloise stared at him so long he started to worry he’d grown an extra head while he’d slept. ‘Did you honestly believe that telling them I was just a meaningless fling would help?’
‘You’re the one who insisted that nobody know!’ Couldn’t she see he’d done the best he could in a bad situation? ‘We both agreed this wasn’t anything serious. Just a fling to kill a few days, right? Get the chemistry out of our system. That’s what we agreed.’ They’d had a deal and he’d stuck to it. He’d protected her—at his own expense! So why was he the bad guy?
And why was Eloise staring at him so sadly, her eyes huge and wet and her cheeks pale?
‘You’re a fool if you still believe that,’ she said softly.
Noah’s whole world tilted, for the second time since he’d met Eloise. What was it about her that kept him permanently off balance? ‘What?’
He could see her throat move as she swallowed, as if she was preparing herself for something hard. Something she didn’t want to do.
‘I know what we agreed, what we said. I was there too.’ She met his gaze head-on and he felt it down to his core, past all those carefully built defences he’d put back up. As if they didn’t exist for her at all. ‘But I want more. And I think you do too. Being with you...it’s so different to anything I’ve ever had before.’
‘Well, yeah,’ he said awkwardly. ‘I mean, it would be. My world, the way I live...it’s a new experience for you, I get that. You’ve been hiding out in this hotel for so long...’
Eloise shook her head violently. ‘That’s not what I’m talking about and you know it. I don’t care that you’re a movie star. I don’t care that you’re famous or rich or in demand or even that you’re leaving tomorrow. I care that you spoke to me like you trusted me...that you listened to me when I told you my secrets. I care that you made me see it was okay to come out of my shell, to try new things, to let people see the real me. I care that when you touched me...my whole world lit up.’
‘That’s just sex.’ The defence was automatic. Sex he knew. Sex was safe. The other stuff... Any of that he still had left he needed to save for his next movie role—if he got one that was worth anything at all after this. ‘And the talking...I told you. I wanted to get this part and they needed me to act deep.’
‘Are you honestly trying to tell me that everything between us happened because you wanted to win some role in a film?’ She raised her eyebrows as she stared at him, and he knew it was crazy. Knew that what had happened between them transcended not just his career but his life so far.
And that was why it scared the hell out of him. He’d had something close to this once—and he’d lost it the moment he’d admitted to it.
He wasn’t taking the chance of feeling that pain again.
‘You know us actors,’ he said, shrugging as casually as he could. ‘We’ll do anything for a shot at an award.’ Not that he had a hope of that now—but Eloise didn’t need to know that. If she realised what he’d given up trying to protect her she might read something more into it than there was.
Her mouth actually dropped open. A director would tell her she was overacting, but Noah knew better. Eloise didn’t act. She was who she was, and it was glorious.
But he knew something else too. She didn’t believe she was worth it, and he could use that now. Because looking deeper was one thing. Falling in love was another altogether—it would take him all the way into his soul and out the other side and it could burn him up on the journey. If he wanted to hold onto Eloise, that was what he knew it would take—everything.
And he didn’t have it in him any more.
‘You know, the saddest thing is, you might really believe that,’ Eloise said, her voice soft. ‘You might actually believe that you’re just an actor and it’s all just a role. But you’re wrong. I saw the real you, I know it. And I think we could have been happy. I don’t know how it would have worked, or what would have happened next, but we’d have been happy. And it doesn’t matter now because you won’t even try. You won’t let yourself feel anything as real and as deep as love. Even if it could give you everything that’s been missing for the last seven years.’
‘You’re wrong,’ he said but, even as the words came out, he knew he was lying.
He could have been happy.
But how long for?
‘I’ll see you at the wedding,’ he said. And then he turned and walked out on love. For good.
‘TOLD YOU SHE wouldn’t wear the veil.’ Laurel sidled up to Eloise as they stood outside the ceremony room, waiting for the signal to start the procession. Caitlin and Iona were fussing with Melissa’s train while the bride checked her reflection one last time and straightened the tiara on her—veil-less—head.
‘You were right,’ Eloise said, viewing the proceedings