Chapter Seven
After another excruciating fifteen minutes of hitting, grunting and generally getting annoyed with himself, Marcus finally strutted off the court. He stopped right in front of me, a deliciously cool shadow falling across my face.
‘What’s wrong with you?’ he said, training his piercing brown eyes on me. Sweat was pouring off him now, running down his temples in rivulets and dripping on to the white towel slung around his neck.
‘Nothing,’ I said, struggling to utter even the simplest of words.
Marcus crouched down in front of me and peered at me with a frightening intensity.
‘You look all grey and sweaty, even though the only exercise you’ve done is to lift your pen.
Have you got sunstroke, or something? You should have gone inside if you were too hot.
Here,’ he said, rummaging in his sports bag and pulling out an ice pack.
‘Hold this against the back of your neck.’
He twisted the plastic pouch to pop it, shook it and handed it to me.
Even though I probably didn’t have sunstroke, I did as I was told.
If nothing else, I was stalling for time.
I’d emailed Dean the link and had asked for an emergency meeting – he’d requested that Marcus and I meet him in the restaurant in the VIP village as soon as they’d finished training.
Hopefully, this meant that he was going to be the one to tell Marcus what was happening.
‘What is wrong? Does she need a medic?’ asked Patrick, now standing over me and peering at me too. He looked to Marcus for help. ‘Is she diabetic, or something?’
‘How the hell would I know?’ snapped Marcus, standing up. ‘Ava, do you feel unwell? Should we call for a doctor?’
‘I’m honestly fine,’ I said, keen not to appear completely pathetic. ‘I’m not ill. I’m just a bit . . . thrown by something.’
‘Thrown by what?’ asked Marcus.
What had I gone and said that for? Now he’d know something was up and would try to force it out of me while I was feeling vulnerable and didn’t have Dean to back me up. To distract him I got up, keeping the ice pack on my neck because, funnily enough, it was actually calming me down.
‘Dean wants to meet us,’ I announced. ‘Urgently.’
‘Where?’ asked Marcus, still eyeing me suspiciously.
‘Le Village. Shall we go?’ I said, picking up my bag and trying to act vaguely normal, although it was difficult with an ice pack on the back of my head and Marcus and Patrick staring at me as though I was about to keel over.
As I headed for the gate, trying to keep what little dignity I had left intact, I noticed another tennis player and his coach looking furtively in our direction. Had they seen the story?!
While I grappled with the lock on the gate – why wouldn’t it open?! – Marcus grabbed his tracksuit and ran to catch me up.
‘Ava, you’re acting very strangely,’ he said, sliding the lock effortlessly open for me.
‘I know,’ I said, choosing not to elaborate.
It was gone eleven o’clock now, meaning the main gates to the tournament had been opened. As a result, a group of fans had already gathered just outside the court, standing patiently behind a chrome handrail with their cameras held aloft.
‘Morning, Marcus!’ said one male fan chirpily as I followed Marcus down the steps, back towards the VIP village.
‘Morning,’ he grunted reluctantly.
A few people shoved notebooks and scrappy bits of paper in his direction, which he mostly ignored.
‘Marcus! Sign this for me, will you? Please? Please, Marcus?’
I kept my head down, noticing that the only person Marcus stopped for was a little girl who wanted him to sign a giant green tennis ball.
Dean was on the phone when we arrived at the restaurant, one of the plush places I’d spotted in the VIP village earlier.
It had a marquee-style roof and proper linen tablecloths and food that looked as ‘exotic’ as I’d been described in the showbiz column I never wanted to set eyes on again. He waved us over as he ended the call.
‘Thanks for joining me, guys. Ava, did you fill Marcus in?’
‘Fill me in on what?’ asked Marcus coldly.
I scraped back a chair and sat down, with Marcus moodily following suit.
‘I thought it would be better coming from you,’ I said to Dean.
Surely that was fair – this whole thing was humiliating enough without me attempting to put the unfortunate string of events into a coherent sentence.
Plus, Dean knew Marcus best – he’d be well versed in how to manage things in a way that didn’t cause Marcus to have one of his tantrums, although on this occasion I wouldn’t blame him if he did.
If I wasn’t such a people-pleaser, I might have smashed a racquet up myself right about now.
‘Can someone please tell me what’s going on?’ said Marcus, the dark look of yesterday reappearing. It was going to get even darker in a second, I was certain of it.
‘You and Ava have been photographed by the paparazzi and it’s splashed all over the press. They’re saying she’s your new girlfriend,’ said Dean.
Blimey, he didn’t mess around, did he? I cringed, probably visibly.
‘Is this true?’ asked a seemingly incredulous Marcus, turning to me.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Somebody sent me a link.’
‘Show me,’ he said.
I opened up the column and handed it to him.
You could have heard a pin drop at our table as he scanned the screen.
The restaurant’s other diners, mostly well-dressed tennis types who loved the sound of their own voices, were too caught up in themselves to notice that one of the best players in the world was metres away and currently a rather unhealthy shade of green.
‘Fuck,’ said Marcus, scrolling through the images with his thumb while shaking his head in disbelief. ‘It was that stupid French woman, wasn’t it?’
‘Probably,’ I agreed.
Here was a thought: maybe if Marcus hadn’t been so rude to her, she wouldn’t have done this in the first place!
I decided against pointing this out, even though I was desperate to.
The most important thing here was to keep Marcus calm.
If he got too wound up, he might threaten to pull the interview altogether.
‘What are we going to do about it?’ said Marcus to Dean, still holding my phone in his hand.
‘I was thinking nothing?’ said Dean mysteriously.
Had I heard him right?
‘Nothing?’ I clarified.
‘I like the idea of showing the public a different side to Marcus,’ he said.
‘Which side are we talking about, here?’ Marcus quite sensibly asked.
Dean looked him in the eye, his confidence unwavering.
‘A sweeter, softer side. The sort of side that might be more obvious to the general public if you were in a relationship with Ava, for example,’ he said, sitting back in his chair and folding his arms as though he hadn’t just dropped a massive bombshell slap, bang in the middle of our beautifully laid-out table.
‘What are you talking about?’ asked Marcus, using more or less the exact words that were on the tip of my tongue. Had Dean missed the point entirely? He was supposed to be ensuring the rumours went away, not making the situation ten times worse.
‘Can I ask both of you to take a moment to think about this?’ asked Dean, finally acknowledging the icy change of atmosphere.
Think about what, exactly? It was like he was talking in a foreign language all of a sudden, one that included utterly confusing vocabulary like if you were in a relationship with Ava, for example.
At least Marcus appeared to be as blindsided as I was – this clearly wasn’t a normal scenario for him, either, so it wasn’t like it was an elite tennis world thing. I turned back to Dean.
‘Just so we’re clear, you’re expecting me and Marcus to . . . do what exactly? Magically develop romantic feelings for each other, just because our picture was posted online?’
Dean laughed softly, which I took immediate offence to – how was any of this remotely funny?
‘You misunderstand me, Ava. I don’t expect you to have real feelings.
I’m proposing that we simply let this play out for the cameras.
Leave people to come to their own conclusions.
And looking at those sizzling photos online, I have a sneaking suspicion that they’re going to fall for those headlines hook, line and sinker. ’
Sizzling photos? Was Dean looking at a different set of images? I took back everything I’d ever said about him, he was an utter snake.
‘You’re joking, right?’ said Marcus, who now looked even angrier than he had the time somebody’s phone had rung just as he was about to serve. Of course he found the idea of pretending to be in a relationship with me abhorrent, I was probably the furthest thing from his type.
‘It’s perfect,’ continued a seemingly unfazed Dean.
‘Ava has huge “girl next door” appeal, which the British public will likely relate to. The rumour mills are already out in force, anyway, and you’ll have the tennis world speculating about whether you’re an item or not in no time.
The groundwork has already been laid. All we need to do is stay quiet and let people believe what they choose to believe. ’
‘Have you lost your mind?’ asked Marcus, looking genuinely concerned. ‘I can’t stand the paparazzi, you know that. Do you honestly think I’m purposely going to let them take photos of me? In some sort of ridiculous fake-romance set-up?’
‘I know it’s a lot to take in,’ said Dean, keeping his cool. ‘And it’s not a set-up: it’s business.’
Putting Marcus’s irrational dislike of photographers to one side, he did have some valid points, even if he could have put them across a little less aggressively.
‘Is this something you do with all your clients? Because it sounds kind of unethical,’ I said to Dean.
This was hands down the weirdest assignment I’d ever undertaken and I hadn’t yet written a single word. Could I really endure another three months of this?