“Ruby, it’s me.”
“Who’s me?” she said impatiently.
“Steve.”
“Steve…Where are you?”
“The Hilton in Bristol.”
“No you’re not. Where are you really?” she said dryly.
He laughed. “I am. I swear, The Hilton, Bristol.”
“Which one?” She still didn’t believe him, her tone dubious.
“The one just off the M5.” He sighed, losing his patience.
“Bloody hell! I’ll be right over. I assume you’d prefer to be tucked away in your room?”
“Yeah, for now. We’ll have dinner here, I’ve got a suite.”
“Oh, um, what name should I ask for?”
“You won’t need a name, just come up.” He gave her the room number and ended the call, then started unpacking his things. Not that he’d be able to stay here long. Someone would work out who he really was and before he knew it, the paps would arrive.
***
“Where’s my British brother gone? What’s with the accent?”
Ruby had turned up half an hour later and hugged him. She’d changed so much since the last time he’d seen her. Lost some weight, and cut off all of her hair. It suited her though; she looked like a younger version of their mother with her tomboy hairstyle.
“Well, you tend to pick it up…and I needed to sound less British to get better parts. I have been living in LA fifteen years.”
“Don’t I know it, and you’re brown as a berry.” She gently prodded him. “Is it fake tan?”
“No.”
“Oh, well, you’ll soon lose that here. It’s turned so cold. So, what brings you home?”
“You.”
A stab of guilt hit him, realising his agent had encouraged him to visit Ruby. It hadn’t come from Steve; hadn’t entered his thoughts initially, as he was still carrying a slight niggle of resentment about his mother’s death. Damn, he was really glad to be here.
“Me?” Ruby said with disbelief.
“Let’s order some food and then we can talk,” Steve said, finding the room service menu. This was going to be tough. He hardly knew her now, but he wanted to get some time back with her. Catch up, talk about things. Mum, even Erica. Could he tell Ruby about Erica?
The room service arrived and Ruby and Steve sat around the small table. Ruby insisted she didn’t want wine, she’d drive home as she needed her car for work the next morning.
“So,” Ruby put her fork down and rested her elbow on the table, “when does your next film start?”
“Starts shooting in three months. Marie will let me know when they send the revised script through.”
“Marie?”
“She’s my personal assistant.”
“Is she pretty?”
“She’s forty-nine and married with two teenage kids.” He looked at her dead pan.
Ruby rolled her eyes. “Okay, so for someone who’s worth a million dollars, you’re looking pretty miserable. What’s up with you?”
“You read the papers, right?”
“Not really – full of tripe most of the time. Quick glimpse at OK or Hello when I’m in the hairdressers, but that’s about it. Oh, and I might catch the front pages of the newspapers before they head up to the rooms. But I don’t like reading stuff about you.” She shrugged.
“I was seeing Erica Kealey. We met filming Perfection.” During the making of the movie a passion had been ignited within them – it hadn’t helped they’d had a lot of love scenes. On and off the set, they couldn’t get enough of one another. Steve had believed Erica was his soul mate.
“The Erica Kealey? Wow! I did see you were going to marry your leading lady and was wondering where my wedding invite was, admittedly.” Ruby scowled.
“Yeah, well, we broke up.” Over a year later, when they’d made wedding plans for next spring – albeit loose ones, then she’d ended it all. She hadn’t even given him a backwards glance.
“When?”
“About two months ago – and now it appears she has a thing for her current leading man.” After their sudden break up, Erica had drifted to another man’s bed. She had moved on easier than Steve.
“Oh.” Ruby patted his knee. “I’m sorry.”
They finished their meal, then headed over to the couch, Steve pouring himself a large scotch. Ruby insisted on an orange juice.
“So, is that what’s bothering you? Erica Kealey? She’s your reason for turning up on my doorstep – sort of.” She gestured to the four-star hotel suite. “Do you still love her?”
“Yes, and no. I had the Hollywood bug, didn’t I? We’re so rich, so independent, we can leave a relationship at a drop of a hat. See it happening all the time.” Steve looked at his sister, and sighed angrily. Perfection had given him millionaire status, but even before that, his income had been increasing nicely over the past few years. From years of struggling, he’d gone to the other end of the scale. “I had hoped I’d be married when success knocked on my door. How am I going to find someone to settle down with now?”
Ruby frowned. “You want to settle down?”
“Yes, of course. Why is it so hard to believe I don’t want to play the field? I want to find love. Real love – like our mum and dad had.” He ran his hand through his hair. “Maybe I’m being stupid—”
“Ha! I didn’t say that.”
Steve scowled at her interruption. She buttoned her lips then sat rock still. “I want to find a woman who wants to get married and have kids. I want a family, like we grew up in. If I fall for an actress, she’s as busy as me, we have no time for one another, and then there’s the added stress of neither of us really committing. I mean it’s so easy to get out of a relationship in Hollywood rather than actually work at it.” He sipped his scotch, and slouched further on the couch, sighing heavily. “I want a marriage where we don’t need to discuss pre-nups.”
“You’d need to do that whether you married Miss Plain Jane or not. Otherwise they could take you to the cleaners.”
“Exactly! If I say who I really am, how do I know someone’s marrying me for me, and not my money? Not the person they see in the press. I need them to fall in love without all that getting in the way.”
Ruby chewed her lip, as if in deep concentration. Steve watched, depression deepening. Telling Ruby hadn’t lightened the weight on his shoulders as he’d hoped, just darkened his thoughts. He realised that he might not ever find the perfect woman. He was destined for a life of one Hollywood romance after another – and oh, how the press would love the gossip. It would be okay, but he was thirty-five now, and ready to settle down. He didn’t want to grow old and lonely. He wanted to find someone he could share his life with, as his mother and father had done.
Maybe Ruby didn’t remember, but their parents had been so in love. To this day, he remembered the tears his mother shed over their father’s grave.
“I’ve got it.” Ruby nudged him, shaking him out of his reverie. “What you need to do is be normal for a while.”
“Normal?”
“Yeah, be normal – like me.”
Steve