Chapter Twelve
‘Couldn’t we just have played at the country club?
’ I complained, thinking that surely that would have been a far better photo opportunity than this other tennis club, which appeared to be way out in the suburbs.
The last thing I wanted was to have to struggle through a game of tennis without a camera in sight, making the entire thing a pointless exercise.
I could have been writing by the pool with a caramel latte instead, it would have been much more pleasant.
‘The courts will all be booked out. Sometimes even players involved in the tournament have to practise elsewhere,’ he explained. ‘Also, Dean reckoned it would look too obvious for us to be playing together there, too set up. He wants it – us – to look natural together, apparently.’
I sighed a little bit. ‘Wonderful. Any advice on how to achieve that would be gratefully received.’
When we arrived at the club, the manager came bustling out to make a fuss of Marcus and then we were shown to the court we were using for our ‘game’.
‘If you need anything, anything at all, Monsieur Taylor, please do ask for me personally,’ he gushed.
‘Thanks,’ said Marcus, turning his back on the poor guy and unzipping his bag, producing the kind of paraphernalia that might suggest he was going into a session with Patrick, not a knock-around with a complete novice.
‘I don’t own a racquet, by the way,’ I said.
Marcus pointed to his bag. ‘Take your pick.’
I bent down and looked inside, surprised to see at least ten of them placed neatly in there.
‘Do you always carry this many around with you?’ I asked.
‘Yep,’ he said. ‘Sometimes if you’re playing badly, it’s good to switch things up. Or if the court is faster than you think, or if your serve isn’t going well. Plus there’s the problem of broken strings.’
‘Throwing them about probably doesn’t help?’ I suggested.
Marcus gave me a look.
‘What?’ I said, all innocence. ‘Just stating the obvious.’
‘I’m well aware that you can’t stand the way I let my anger get the better of me on court, Ava, but maybe you’ll at least understand it a bit more by the end of our time together.’
‘That is one hundred per cent my intention,’ I said, glad he understood the point of the piece, even if he wasn’t exactly at the opening-up stage.
Then again, we hadn’t actually spent much time alone together – maybe this would be a good opportunity to get him talking.
Plus, the more I talked, the less I’d have to play, right?
I chose a racquet for no other reason than I liked the electric-blue trim and stood up, acclimatising to the weight of it in my hand; it was much heavier than I’d imagined. I wondered whether the fact he might have won a tournament with this very piece of equipment would bring me beginner’s luck.
‘Happy with your choice?’ asked Marcus, making a show of stretching out his hamstrings. Should I be doing the same?
‘You do know I haven’t played tennis since I was forced to in a PE lesson circa 2011.’
‘Well, that’s what I’m here for. To show you where you’ve been going wrong all this time.’
‘At pretty much every stage of the process, I’d say.’
He laughed. Like he had on the plane, but not really since.
He was always so deadly serious when he was engaged in something tennis-related, and I guessed this didn’t really count.
Maybe a positive by-product of us doing fake couple-y things together would be that he’d feel relaxed enough to start talking.
‘Let’s just start hitting and see what we’ve got,’ said Marcus, who of course was all kitted out in the kind of thing he’d just played the Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters in.
‘Please don’t work me too hard,’ I said, looking around anxiously and noticing that almost everyone else playing at the club – most of whom were at least twenty years older than me and looked rich as hell – were really quite good.
‘Wouldn’t dream of it,’ said Marcus, tossing a ball at me. Of course I fumbled it, didn’t catch it and had to clumsily lunge around after it until it finally stopped bouncing out of reach. A fabulous start.
As I stood across the net from him and attempted to partake in a very basic rally, I was aware of how tight my shoulders were and how I kept sticking my tongue out every time my racquet made contact with the ball.
Why was I doing that?! On the plus side, I was managing to hit the odd shot back and when I did occasionally make proper contact with the ball it made that satisfying thwack that I suspected could become addictive.
Everyone had to start somewhere, didn’t they?
‘Not bad,’ said Marcus generously.
After working on my forehand for what felt like an hour but was actually only about ten minutes, we moved on to backhand, which I found much trickier.
There was so much to think about: getting into position, changing my grip, using my left hand more than my right, even though I was right-handed, following through after a shot and swinging the racquet over my right shoulder.
‘Think of the racquet like a windscreen wiper,’ Marcus said, executing a perfect backhand that looked nothing like the ones I was producing. ‘Like this, see?’
I was already sweating and out of breath. How did Marcus play for four hours straight again? It was mortifying that I was so unfit and so I did my best to cover it up by commenting on the warm weather and taking fake water breaks, just so I had the chance to catch my breath.
‘Right. Let’s try a serve,’ said Marcus.
‘You’re joking, aren’t you?’ I said, thinking of the complicated movement I’d seen him doing out on court, feet sliding here, arm swinging there.
‘Not in the slightest,’ he said, striding over to my side of the court. ‘It’s easy when you know how.’
He was suddenly perilously close. What was he doing?
‘The paparazzi are here,’ he whispered in my ear. ‘Dean must have arranged it. Don’t look.’
‘You do know that when somebody says “don’t look”, it’s really hard not to?’ I said.
In order to avoid inadvertently making eye contact with one of the photographers, I was forced to keep my eyes on Marcus, which was a little disconcerting.
I didn’t think I’d been this close to him face on since we sat together on the plane, and even that had been from a weird angle, and also I’d had more pressing matters on my mind.
‘Can they hear us as well as see us?’ I asked, lowering my voice. Did they have listening devices as well as telescopic lenses, I wondered, their microphones primed and ready to capture some controversial snippet of conversation?
‘I very much doubt it. So we can basically say anything to each other, as long as it looks like we’re . . .’
I waited.
‘We’re . . . ?’ I prompted.
‘Into each other? I don’t know.’
‘Are you going to have to touch me again, then?’ I asked, realising that had come out much flirtier than intended.
On the other hand, if we were supposed to look as though we couldn’t wait to rip each other’s clothes off, I didn’t think talking politely about the weather or the state of world politics was going to cut it.
‘Would you like me to touch you again, Ava?’ he asked.
For some reason, the thought of him getting any closer sent an intense fizzing sensation shooting down my spine.
Annoyingly, the same thing had happened when he’d held my hand last night, and now here we were again – him with his golden tan and his perfectly trimmed beard and his pink lips that looked as though he might just have bitten down on them, sending blood pumping into that billowy raspberry-hued flesh.
Damn. This whole thing would be much easier to manage if Marcus was, say, twenty-five per cent less attractive.
He took another step towards me, running his thumb along my cheek, cupping my jaw with his warm, soft palm, looking deep into my eyes.
‘Is this authentic enough for you?’ he asked.
I cleared my throat. ‘You’re actually quite good at this,’ I said.
‘And you’re not, for the record. You’re looking terrified, and as though I’m about to murder you, not kiss you.’
‘Do not kiss me, Marcus Taylor.’
‘Or what?’
I swallowed hard.
‘Please tell me you’re acting right now?’ I said to him.
‘Of course I’m acting,’ he said, his voice gravelly and low. ‘And it would be wonderful if you could at least try to do the same.’
My cheeks flushed. I’d show him.
I reached out, hesitantly at first, and hooked my finger into the belt loop of his shorts, pulling him closer to me.
‘Still questioning my acting skills?’ I asked, looking at him defiantly.
‘This is definitely an improvement,’ he said.
Then he very gently pushed me up against the green wire fence behind me.
Other than his hands on my waist and mine on his quite considerable biceps, no part of us was touching, but it was oh so close, and probably looked much more intimate than it was from a different angle (i.e.
from behind a bush on the other side of the court).
‘People will see us,’ I hissed.
‘Isn’t that the idea?’ he asked coolly. Why was he so chill about this all of a sudden? ‘Let me know if it gets too much for you, won’t you?’
I wasn’t sure what these feelings I was experiencing actually were, but I could not take much more of it.
‘It’s getting too much!’ I shrieked.
He obediently removed his hands and took a step back.
‘Since I am supposed to be teaching you how to play tennis, let’s play a game. Best of three,’ he called over his shoulder, walking back out on court.
I, on the other hand, was rooted to the spot. What had just happened? In less than twenty-four hours he’d gone from barely being able to look at me to pinning me up against fences – I guessed he really did want those sponsorship deals back.