Noah raised his eyebrows. ‘Wow. What did we poor, defenceless actors ever do to you?’
‘Not to me. I told you. I don’t date actors.’ It was technically true—Derek hadn’t been an actor when she’d started dating him. He’d been a director. But then the leading man had fallen sick and he’d taken on the role—starring opposite Eloise’s mother. And from there it had been an old, familiar story.
She didn’t want to get into what so many actors had done to her mother. Or, more to the point, what her mother had done to them—and, by extension, what she’d done to Eloise and her father. Derek, the boyfriend her mother had stolen from her, had only been one in a long list of leading men she’d seduced then cast aside. If Eloise had needed proof that actors were all the same, she could pull out the box of old programmes her mother had kept from her amateur dramatics days and put together a list of names that made her point for her. And that was just in her home town. How much worse must Hollywood be? She didn’t want to find out.
And Noah didn’t need to know her sordid history. Especially since she absolutely was not going to sleep with him. No matter how much she wanted to.
A waiter passed and Eloise grabbed another glass of champagne. Melissa was paying for it, and it was her fault that Eloise had found herself in this position in the first place.
‘So, you’ve never dated an actor but you hate us all indiscriminately anyway. Interesting.’ Noah leant back against the bar behind him. ‘Care to tell me why you cling onto this prejudice so tenaciously? Especially since we’ve established that any fling at this wedding won’t be happening between us?’
He wasn’t the sort to give up—Eloise knew that after only a day in his company. If she had to guess, she’d say that Noah was the sort of guy who liked to understand something well enough for his own purposes and then move on. He was only interested in the surface knowledge, enough to fake a part, she supposed.
Well, surface she could do. She just didn’t want to get down to the deep, painful memories that lay underneath it.
Of course, she was pretty sure Noah didn’t want to either. If she actually broke down and gave him her sob story, he’d run in the other direction. That was something to keep in reserve, in case she needed it.
‘You’re all the same,’ she said with a shrug. ‘You fall in love for the length of time it takes to get a movie made, or to star in a play. Then, once it’s all over, you’re onto the next leading lady or love interest. Half your relationships are film promo, as far as I can tell.’
Noah raised his eyebrows. ‘Wow. You really do have a chip on your shoulder about this.’
‘Tell me I’m wrong,’ Eloise challenged. ‘You said yourself you were just looking for a fling.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with a fling, as long as both parties know what they’re getting into,’ Noah said mildly.
‘Which is what, exactly?’ Of course he’d think that. It was the perfect justification for never having to have a real relationship. ‘A meaningless encounter with someone you never really get to know?’
‘What’s so wrong with that?’ Noah asked with a shrug. ‘Maybe we’re not supposed to know the innermost depths of everyone we meet.’
‘Perhaps not. But...don’t you want that connection?’ Eloise had to admit she did. Which might be the reason she didn’t date so much. She hadn’t met many guys over the past few years she wanted to get to know that well. But that sounded a bit too much like conceding the point, so she didn’t say it.
‘Real and deep doesn’t mean for ever, Eloise.’ There was a harshness to Noah’s voice she hadn’t heard before. ‘The most real and important relationship of my life lasted barely twenty-four hours.’
She blinked. That was definitely new. ‘That must have been...intense.’ She couldn’t imagine it. From his tone she could tell that, whatever the relationship was, it had mattered—and mattered deeply. She couldn’t imagine how it must have felt to have that and then have it taken away again. What had happened? She wanted to ask but, before she could find a way to phrase the question, Noah spoke again.
‘It was.’ He flashed her a smile that was so at odds with the conversation Eloise wondered for a moment if she’d missed the joke. ‘Enough for one lifetime, anyway. Which is why I prefer things my way these days—fun, light and easy.’
‘And never getting in too deep,’ Eloise said, frowning.
‘That way you don’t drown,’ Noah joked. ‘I know when I’m out of my depth.’
She wanted to ask more, wanted to try and understand his attitude. Not to understand Noah himself, exactly, she realised, but to try and get some perspective on her mother. Was this how she’d felt? Or had she just been incapable of real love, as Eloise had always believed?
Maybe Noah was too. In which case, it was just as well she had no intention of getting any closer to him. A fling might be his sort of thing, but it wasn’t hers. It never had been.
And she was firmly ignoring the small voice at the back of her head whispering, How will you know if you never try it? Especially as it sounded exactly like Noah Cross.
‘So, who was she?’ Eloise asked, but Noah wasn’t listening any more. And, as she followed his gaze to the doorway, Eloise forgot what she’d been asking about.
Melissa stood in the entrance, arms wide, wearing a stunning forest-green gown that left her shoulders and a great deal of cleavage bare, before nipping in at her waist and following every curve down to her knees, where it flared out again.
‘Now that is not a boring dress,’ Noah murmured. ‘Of course, it would look better on you.’
‘Liar.’ Melissa looked as if she’d been born to wear that dress, and the smile on her face said she knew it.
‘It’s true.’ Noah pressed up behind her as the crowd gathered around the bride. ‘You have the height to pull it off—your legs would look endless. And that colour...made for a redhead.’
‘Maybe.’ But she’d never have the confidence to wear it. Not in a million years.
‘Of course, you’d have to wear your hair down,’ Noah added, touching the hundreds of pins that kept her hair firmly out of her way when she was working. ‘Which would be an added bonus.’
Clearly the guy had a thing for redheads. Which was funny because she’d never seen him with any on the red carpet.
‘I thought we’d established that we weren’t going to be having any sort of fling,’ she said drily. ‘I’m pretty sure that means you can stop with the compliments now.’
Noah shrugged. ‘I figured we could be friends instead. Friends compliment each other.’
Did they? Eloise wasn’t sure she’d know. But that might just be because Melissa had always been her baseline for friendship.
‘Friends?’
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Friends. Think you can manage it?’
‘I’ll give it a try,’ she replied drily. Friends with another Hollywood star. Hopefully this
