Why Resist a Rebel - By Leah Ashton Page 0,29

art. He certainly didn’t make a habit of welcoming them.

‘If I name every city in the world until you say yes, we could be here a while.’

‘And then you still wouldn’t have an answer.’

They’d reached the end of the walk, and stood between the train station and ferry terminal.

Ruby was looking up at him, grinning—and waiting for him to do something with that non-response.

But he just left her waiting as he looked at her. Leisurely exploring the shape of her eyes, her nose, her lips. Beneath the CBD lights, he could see flecks of green and gold in her eyes he hadn’t noticed before.

‘You’re beautiful,’ he said, very softly, realising it was true.

Ruby took a rapid step backwards, and wobbled a little on her heels. He reached out automatically, wrapping his fingers around her upper arms to steady her.

For a moment her expression was soft. Inviting...

But then it hardened, and she shook his hands away.

‘Nice try.’

‘It’s the truth,’ he said, but immediately realised he was doing this all wrong as she glared at him. He didn’t know how to handle this, why a compliment had caused this reaction.

‘Look, it’s getting late. Thanks for the lovely dinner. I’m going to head back to my hotel.’

She said all that, but didn’t actually make a move to leave. If she had, he would’ve let her go, but that pause—he decided—was telling.

‘If not Sydney, or Melbourne, or any other city in the world—where do you live?’

Ruby blinked as he deftly rewound their conversation. He could see her thinking, could see all sorts of things taking place behind those eyes.

‘Wherever I feel like,’ she said, slowly and eventually. ‘I might stay where I’ve been working for a while. Or fly to stay with a friend for a few weeks. Or maybe just pick somewhere new I haven’t been before, and live there.’

‘But where’s your base? Where you keep all your stuff?’

She shrugged. ‘What stuff?’

‘You don’t own anything?’

‘Nothing I can’t keep in a suitcase.’

He took a moment to process this. ‘Why?’

She smiled. ‘I get asked that a lot. But the way I look at it, it makes sense. I’ve lived in some amazing places, seen incredible things. I’m not tied down—when I get a call offering me a job I can be on set, almost anywhere in the world, basically the very next day.’

‘But don’t you want a house one day?’

She wrinkled her nose. ‘What? The great Australian dream of a quarter-acre block with a back pergola and a barbecue?’ She shook her head. ‘No, thanks.’

She spoke with the confidence of someone absolutely sure of their decision. He admired that—her assuredness. But he found it near impossible to believe. Could you really live your life the way she described?

‘Most women your age are thinking marriage and babies. Putting roots down.’

‘You’re older than me,’ she pointed out. ‘Are you putting down roots? Is that what you’re doing at your place in Beverly Hills?’

‘Absolutely not,’ he said. That was the last thing he wanted.

‘Well, there you go.’

He must have looked confused, as she then tried to further explain.

‘Is it so hard to believe? I told you before I’m a foster child, so my only “family” are the various sets of foster carers I called Aunty and Uncle. Nice people—great people—but, trust me, they couldn’t wait to see the back of me, and I don’t blame them. And nearly all my friends work in film, or did work in film, so they are scattered all over the place.’

He assumed he still looked less than convinced, as she rolled her eyes as if completely exasperated with him.

‘No,’ he said, before she tried again. ‘I do get it.’

Didn’t he, after all, live his life in kind of the same way? Yes, he owned his home, but that was a financial decision, not one based on long-term planning—it wasn’t a life goal or anything. He hadn’t extrapolated that purchase into plans for the future: a wife, kids. Anything like that. In fact, he’d only ever had one goal: to act.

And now he wasn’t even sure he had that.

‘Do you want to get a drink somewhere?’ he asked.

Ruby let the invitation bounce about in her brain for a moment.

‘I should go,’ she said. ‘Like I said before. It’s late, I—’

‘But you didn’t go.’

I know. She wasn’t sure why. It had been the right thing to do—the right time to go. When he’d called her beautiful, she’d been momentarily lost. Lost in the moment and the pull of his warmth, and the appreciation she’d