His dad’s voice in his head made Noah scowl, as it always did, but he shook the expression away before Eloise turned to face him and replaced it with his habitual charming smile.
‘Right. Okay.’ Eloise surveyed him with something akin to displeasure on her face, which gave Noah slight pause. Usually, women were delighted to score some alone time with him. And, from the way Eloise had stared at him on arrival, he’d naively assumed that she’d be the same.
Apparently, he was missing something here.
‘If you’ll just follow me, Mr Cross?’ Eloise said, every inch the professional, as she headed for the elevators at the back of the lobby. They had a Gothic-style metalwork design painted on the doors, which amused Noah. As an attempt to make them fit in with the rest of the surroundings of Morwen Hall, he supposed it was as good a try as any.
‘Guess these didn’t come with the building, huh?’ he asked as she pressed the button to call one. ‘The elevators, I mean. Sorry. They’re “lifts” here, right?’
‘That’s right,’ Eloise said with a nod. ‘And no. They didn’t have lifts when Morwen Hall was built.’
From her tone, Noah suspected she was already writing him off as a dumb American movie star. Well, she wouldn’t be the first—hadn’t his own father done the same? And there had been plenty more since—journalists, interviewers, all sorts. It was always fun to prove them wrong.
‘Gothic revival, right? So, nineteenth-century? I’d guess...1850?’
If she was surprised Eloise didn’t show it. ‘1848, actually. At least that was when work started.’
‘Sounds like you know a lot about the place. Have you worked here long?’
The elevator pinged and the doors opened. Eloise motioned for him to enter first, which he did, then she stepped in behind him, pressing the button for the top floor.
‘Since I was sixteen,’ she said as the doors swished shut.
Of course. She was Melissa’s oldest friend. She, and the Hall, were presumably the reason they were having the wedding in England in December in the first place. ‘And that’s when you met Melissa, right. Nice of her to want to come back here for the wedding, I guess.’
‘It’s just lovely,’ Eloise said, her tone flat.
Noah was beginning to suspect that ‘oldest friends’ might not be the most accurate of descriptions for Eloise and Melissa’s relationship.
‘She must have a lot of fond memories of working here,’ he pressed.
‘I’m sure she does.’ Eloise didn’t place any extra emphasis on the word ‘she’, but somehow Noah heard it. From what he knew about Melissa, he wasn’t overly surprised. Oh, she was sweetness and light to directors, producers and other stars, but he’d seen her berate one of the catering assistants for not having exactly the right kind of chia seed for her salad. He knew that sort of person—who could be anything you wanted if you mattered, and hell on wheels if you didn’t. Hollywood was full of them.
He prided himself on trying not to ever become one of them. Whatever his father thought.
He’d learned how to be a star and still be gracious from watching Sally. It was one of the many lessons his best friend had taught him. After she got a recurring role in a weekly drama, she’d still been, well, Sally. Lovely and sweet and kind and patient with everyone from her co-stars to the guy on the street begging for enough quarters to buy a coffee. Sally had been the most genuine person he’d known in a city full of actors.
Just remembering that much pricked at his heart and Noah knew it was time to change the subject.
‘Enough about Melissa,’ he said as the elevator reached its destination and the doors parted again. ‘So you’ve worked here, what, eight years?’ He’d guess ten, based on Melissa’s age, but everyone liked a little flattery, right?
‘Ten, actually,’ Eloise corrected him, and he hid a smile. He still had it.
‘Must have seen a lot of changes here.’ That was a given too, right? Everything changed. Whether you wanted it to or not.
‘Yep. Melissa left, for one.’ Eloise shut her eyes briefly. ‘Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.’
‘Yes, you should,’ Noah insisted. Not least because it was the first real thing she’d said since they’d met and for some reason—perhaps because he’d been remembering Sally—Noah wanted her to be real. Maybe it was just that he had enough fakes in his professional life already—not that it usually bothered him. People who were putting on an act, being who they thought you wanted them to be, never wanted you to look too deep or get too close, so they never looked too deep or too close in return. And that suited Noah perfectly.
Too deep and too close led to the sort of pain he wasn’t willing to feel again.
But Eloise... Maybe it would do him good to see some reality again. As long as he wasn’t the one getting real.
‘So... Oldest friend?’ he asked as she led him along a wide corridor, carpeted in deep, dark green pile. They really did go all out with the luxury at this place. Not that Noah was complaining. He’d worked hard for years to earn this sort of luxury. He deserved it. And he would ignore any and all voices inside his head that said otherwise. Even if they did sound like Dad.
What was it about this place that was dredging up all those old insecurities he thought he’d left behind seven years ago? He bit back a laugh. Hadn’t Eloise warned him he might find ghosts here?
‘We’ve known each other pretty much all our lives.’ Eloise sighed. ‘Born in the same hospital, went to the same playgroup, same schools, then had the same part-time jobs as chambermaids here at Morwen Hall.’
‘So you basically lived the same lives until Melissa set out to conquer Hollywood?’ Interesting. He’d expect Eloise to show a little more envy, in that case, but mostly she just seemed...inconvenienced by Melissa’s arrival.
‘Not exactly the same lives,’ Eloise said. ‘But yes, there were similarities, I suppose.’
‘And you never fancied Hollywood?’ With Eloise’s striking looks, he was pretty sure she’d have found some work at least. But Eloise laughed.
‘No, not for me.’
‘How come?’
She paused outside door number three-one-nine and flashed him a smile. ‘Too many actors. Now, let me show you your room.’
He was almost sure she was joking, Noah decided, as Eloise gave him the nickel and dime tour of his suite. For all that Morwen Hall was unlike any building he’d ever been in from the outside, he’d expected the rooms to be fairly standard. ‘Luxury hotel’ didn’t have so many different meanings, in his experience.
The main room of the suite confirmed his guess—there were a couple of creamy sofas, a coffee table laden with magazines and local information, a large window with a round table and two wooden chairs in front of it, a TV, fridge, desk, the usual. But then Eloise led him through to the bedroom.
‘Huh.’ Noah stared at the giant four-poster bed in the middle of the bedroom, decked out with heavy forest-green drapes and blankets over crisp white sheets. The wall behind the bed had been left bare, exposing the original stone of the house, but with tapestries hung either side of the four-poster for warmth. A pile of cushions and pillows in varying shades of green and different textures sat by the wooden headboard, ready to sink into.
‘Do you like it?’ Eloise asked and, for the first time, Noah heard a hint of uncertainty in her voice. ‘With Melissa and Riley out in the Gatehouse suite, this is the best room in the hotel.’
‘It looks it,’ Noah said, eyeing the bed appreciatively. He had some awesome ideas for that bed.
He