Chapter 77
Seventy-Seven
The Beckett Invitational party was just as polished as the courts outside.
White tablecloths, rows of glasses catching the light, trays of canapés drifting past on the hands of waiters who never seemed to stop moving.
And the people? Delilah could smell the wealth.
Everyone moved with that loose, confident ease of those who never had to worry about an unexpected bill.
Delilah sort of hated them immediately.
She kept close to the edge of the room, taking it all in.
Cassie walked beside her, stride easy, shoulders loose, dark jacket unzipped over a plain black T-shirt, jeans worn soft at the knees, boots scuffed from use.
She looked hot as fuck, mostly because of how effortlessly she carried herself in this overly preened room.
Delilah had dressed to the nines in a deep emerald slip dress that clung in all the right places.
Her heels pinched, her hair was lacquered into submission, every detail painstakingly arranged.
Yet next to Cassie, she felt like she was trying too hard.
Cassie, she supposed, knew this world well enough not to give a damn what anyone thought.
But then some guy bumped into them and muttered, ‘Scuse I,’ as he walked away, Cassie’s face darkened.
‘Who was that?’ Delilah asked.
‘That’s Jarvis Peekle,’ Cassie almost spat.
‘I ask again, who is that?’
Cassie sighed. ‘Just some player I remember from my last tourno. Went out first match. Fucking rubbish. Ranked fifteenth in the country now, if you can believe it.’
Delilah nodded. ‘So you hate him because he had way less talent than you, but he got to stick around until he got any good, while bad luck robbed you of the opportunity to be in his position despite your natural talent.’
Cassie laughed, a short, surprised sound. ‘That’s about the size of it, yeah.’
Delilah gave Cassie a long look. ‘I shouldn’t have forced you to come here, should I?’
‘You didn’t force me, Delilah,’ Cassie told her.
‘I did. I boxed you into this. I’m sorry. I won’t mind if you want to leave.’
Cassie shook her head. ‘I’ll be OK.’ She paused. ‘I’m glad you asked me to come.’
Delilah felt a little funny in the tummy at that. She wondered if today was the day to brace herself and do it. Have ‘the conversation’. But there was so much going on today. She didn’t have the bandwidth to potentially add a heartbreak.
Delilah noticed Ashley spotting them and strode over.
‘There she is,’ she said, squeezing her hand like a stage parent, before ushering her forward into the knot of people she’d been talking to.
‘James, look who I found!?’ Ashley said.
James Rourke, the director of the Tamsin Rowe biopic, was a wiry man with restless hands. ‘Delilah. Thanks so much for coming along. I’m sure you’re busy, but we just thought it would be nice for you to spend some time in the tennis world. For, you know… research.’
He was pretending not to have seen the video. OK, fine. Delilah would go along with that. She smiled and took a glass of champagne from a passing tray. The stem felt slippery in her hand.
‘Oh, this is my tennis coach, Cassie Thorne,’ Delilah said casually.
She had to explain why a formerly famous player was her date, and it seemed the most sensible thing to say. Now that she was on the other side of her inexperience, it was less dangerous to mention Cassie.
Cassie only nodded and took her own drink.
‘You’ve been in training already?’ James said, super casual.
‘I’ve just been keeping my hand in,’ Delilah said, feeling a slight tremor in her knees.
‘That’s great. We’ve got our own coach for you, but she’s more about training you to move like Tamsin. As you’re, you know, already very experienced.’
‘Great,’ Delilah said, telling her knees to cut the shit.
‘Yeah,’ said Ashley, though what exactly she was saying ‘yeah’ to was hard to say.
Delilah necked her drink and then held up the empty glass. ‘Welp, I’m empty!’ And she walked off, dragging Cassie by the hand.
‘Jesus Christ, am I sweating?’ she asked when they were a safe distance away.
Cassie shook her head. ‘You’re OK. Calm down.’
‘Yeah, I’d love to. Say, do you have any sedatives on you? Anything that will stop me feeling like I’m about to rocket off to the moon?’
‘Just have another glass.’
‘I feel like alcohol isn’t cutting it. I might see if anyone has any heroin.’
Cassie snorted. ‘You handled that director guy fine.’
‘It’s not just him. It’s the room. I’m out of my depth. Everyone here’s either rich or famous or both.’
‘Give it a year, that’ll be you,’ Cassie said.
That stopped Delilah short. ‘You really think so?’
‘Why shouldn’t it be?’ Cassie asked lightly.
Delilah forced herself not to respond to that compliment with a list.
‘God, I wish Whitney were here,’ Delilah muttered. ‘That girl really knows how to piss me off in that specific way that I find really helpful.’
Cassie placed a hand on Delilah’s arm. ‘No one in this room is better than you.’
Delilah felt her goosebumps stand to attention. But she was not forgetting why this room was hard for both of them. ‘Well, you either.’
Cassie smiled sadly. ‘No?’
Delilah looked at the beautiful, sad eyes of Cassie Thorne and, for a brief second, she pictured the words falling out of her mouth, spilling across the noise of the party, unmissable. I want to be yours. I want you to be mine.
But she didn’t say them.
And then she saw something. James Rourke, moving across the room, all restless gestures and easy charm, talking to someone.
That someone else was Lena Dalton, a very famous actress.
The same Lena Dalton who had been the frontrunner for Tamsin Rowe before Delilah got the part.
According to Ashley, Lena had priced herself out, which left the bargain-bin newcomer a chance to swoop in.
Not that it mattered for Lena. She could afford to lose roles.
She was cushioned by a trust fund and a surname that opened every door in the business.
But now she was here, talking to James. A coincidence? Not likely. Was Lena prepared to drop her fee to get in this movie?
This was bad.