Chapter Seventeen
It took me a while to settle into the normality of being back in London.
Marcus had been in the south of France with Patrick, preparing for the grass court season, so we hadn’t seen each other for nearly two weeks, although there’d been the odd text back and forth.
Dean had flown back to LA but had sent a message to say that our plan was working – there had been some good press coverage around Roland-Garros, not only of Marcus and I together, but of Marcus’s performance against Tomas Horvat.
I’d acclimatised to seeing photos of myself sitting on the sidelines of the court.
The press had taken a shot of me cheering Marcus on in Paris and I’d realised that my emotions in those moments had become completely authentic.
I wanted to support him; I wanted him to do well.
Zoe had sent me a set of photos of us walking in the Place des Vosges after the cooking class, pictures I hadn’t even known existed.
It still surprised me that images could be so misleading – it was dark, so they were pretty grainy, and I had the impression they’d been taken by a member of the public rather than by a professional paparazzo.
Even so, we looked as though we were staring love-struck into each other’s eyes for the entirety of the evening, mesmerised by the sheer sight of each other, his arm around my shoulders, mine slung around his waist. I hadn’t even remembered walking like that, it had felt so natural and easy, and, okay, we’d had a glass of wine or two, but since when had we acted like a proper couple when we weren’t even sure anyone was watching?
No shots had surfaced of us kissing outside the entrance to my hotel, however, meaning that little set-up had all been for nothing.
Not that kissing him had exactly been a hardship.
And it had reminded me that kissing someone you didn’t know that well could actually be quite nice, and that I could kiss random people now, if I wanted.
Except that there was our agreement – I had a strong sense of not wanting to undermine everything Marcus and I had been trying to achieve.
Our mission had had the desired effect for me – I’d succeeded in making Charlie jealous, and it had been much less satisfying than I’d thought it would be.
I’d realised I couldn’t forgive Charlie for the way in which he’d left me and also that there had been cracks in our relationship that I’d never even noticed because it had been enough for me that he was a nice guy with a nice family.
But we weren’t quite there with Marcus and his sponsorship deals.
Dean said a few brands had been in touch to indicate that Marcus was back on their radar, but nothing was definite, and so for now our arrangement would remain.
I caught up with Marcus for the first time out on one of the practice courts, the day before his first match at Queen’s.
The club was in West Kensington, slap-bang in the middle of a residential area made up of beautiful four-storey townhouses that probably cost about eight million pounds each.
The site was tiny compared to Roland-Garros and had the sort of neighbourhood tennis club vibe of the Monte-Carlo tournament, except with a stuffy, high-end London feel and crappier weather.
I’d never seen Marcus play on grass before – he said his game was better on this surface than it was on clay, but when I took a seat on a bench to watch him hitting with Patrick, it looked exactly the same to me.
Had he said the ball bounced faster or slower on grass? I honestly couldn’t tell.
When he saw me, he said something to Patrick about taking a quick break and ran over, perching on the bench next to me.
He stuck his long, bronzed legs, contrasted perfectly by his pristine white socks and white trainers, out in front of him.
He was sporting almost indecently short shorts in the same silky material as the tracksuit bottoms he’d worn the very first time I met him on the plane, and a white T-shirt topped with the white Monte-Carlo Country Club cap I’d seen him in once before.
It was a simple yet phenomenally effective combination.
I knew Marcus had been training hard over the last couple of weeks and I could see that it had paid off – the shoulder muscles just visible beneath his T-shirt looked a little more defined and I was almost certain that his arms, still tanned from months of travelling in our winter, were a little bigger on the bicep.
‘It’s lovely here,’ I said, looking around. ‘I’m actually quite looking forward to the tournament.’
He frowned at me, his eyes in teasing mode. ‘Ava, are you getting into tennis?’
‘Now, that would be telling.’
‘How have you been?’ he asked, looking sideways at me.
I still found it quite difficult to look him directly in the eye when we were up close. I actively untensed my shoulders and forced myself to.
‘Good. Busy writing up the article. I work in a pub sometimes and did a couple of shifts there.’
The bar manager had seen photos of me and Marcus in the papers and had been teasing me mercilessly about it ever since. My rule about not outright lying was getting harder and harder to stick to as time went on.
Marcus looked surprised. ‘I had no idea you had another job.’
I shrugged. ‘I’m not quite at the point of my career when I can survive on writing gigs alone.
It’s so up and down – one month I’ll have a couple of commissions and the next I’ll be lucky to pick up anything at all.
And then there’s the age-old problem of companies being slow to pay and having to chase them up the whole time.
We don’t all have a “Dean” to do that kind of thing for us. ’
‘Oh, believe me, I know how lucky I am,’ said Marcus. ‘If it was down to me I’d do everything for free. Even the whole sponsorship deals thing really doesn’t sit well with me – if I didn’t have to do it, I wouldn’t.’
‘How come you’re doing all of this, then?’ I said, indicating him and me. ‘Because I thought the whole thing was about the sponsorship. The money. Getting it all back.’
He sighed. ‘Yeah. It is, but not for the reasons you probably think.’
‘Which would be what?’ I asked.
‘You probably assumed I was thinking about myself and my own bank balance. And sure, I’m not completely selfless, and a tennis career is short – I want to be able to support myself until I find something else to do afterwards.
But really, it’s for my team. They rely on me for their income, especially Patrick and Nick, but Dean too, in a smaller way, and my nutritionist and my psychologist.’
‘You have a psychologist?’ I asked, amazed.
‘I do.’
‘What do you talk about with your psychologist?’
‘Almost exclusively tennis,’ said Marcus.
I rolled my eyes, teasing him.
‘And my temper,’ he admitted.
‘And your racquet smashing?’ I asked.
‘Sometimes,’ he said.
‘And your parents?’
He shuddered. ‘Not yet.’
‘So you have a whole team of people helping your body and your mind,’ I said.
‘I do. And I’d feel bad if I had to start letting people go. Or cancelling sessions or whatever. I feel I have a responsibility to them to change, to do well, to start bringing in sponsorship money again so that they can carry on doing what they love, too.’
‘Can I quote you on that?’ I said.
I made it sound like a cheeky request, but I actually meant it. This was exactly the kind of thing that would endear him to people – that readers would never have guessed about ruthless, ambitious Marcus Taylor.
‘Sometimes I forget that you’re actually a journalist being paid to follow me around. That anything I say to you may or may not be splashed over the pages of the UK’s biggest-selling glossy magazine, as somebody once billed it to me,’ said Marcus.
‘Ah, well, that is my special power. Lull my interviewees into a false sense of security,’ I said, smiling at him.
‘Are all our conversations just about that?’ asked Marcus.
‘Course not,’ I said, meaning it.
Our phones pinged simultaneously.
‘What’s the betting that’s Dean checking up on us?’ said Marcus, looking at his watch. ‘It’s like three a.m. in LA – does that guy ever sleep?’
‘You look,’ I said. ‘Tell me what he says.’
Marcus scanned the message and did a sort of angry half-laugh.
‘Well, that’s not happening,’ he said.
‘What isn’t?’
‘He wants us to go to a gala dinner together – one of the tournament sponsors is holding an event at Claridge’s tomorrow night. He’s booked us a room.’
‘One room?’ I asked, aghast.
‘Yep,’ he said, putting his phone away. ‘We can tell him no, obviously.’
Our phones pinged again. I looked at mine this time, reading out Dean’s message.
‘He says: Guys, I know you’re about to say no way, but bear this in mind – Lacoste are close to being back in.
But they like Marcus in a couple. Think it will appeal to their slightly older clientele, guys in their thirties and forties who aren’t hanging out in bars picking up girls, they’re at home with their wives and girlfriends and kids.
Having the two of you photographed at an event like this could totally seal the deal. ’
Great. Really?
‘He’s very persuasive, isn’t he?’ I said eventually.
‘I think that’s what you might call an understatement. Thoughts?’ asked Marcus, staring out at the court, which I was glad of, because the thought of spending a night in a hotel room – at Claridge’s – with him was making my cheeks burn. Scrap that, everything was burning!
‘I’m thinking we should go. How bad could it be? And now you’ve explained to me why the sponsorship deals are so important to you, I really want to help you get them back.’
‘But what’s in it for you?’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll think of something. It will probably involve a really intense question that you’re going to feel obliged to answer because I’ve been so very accommodating with this whole thing.’
He laughed softly. ‘After this, I deserve the most difficult set of questions you can possibly come up with.’
He stood up. Patrick was setting up cans at the back of the court that presumably Marcus was going to have to knock over.
‘I guess I’ll see you tomorrow night, then,’ he said. ‘Unless you were planning on hanging around until I’m done. We could grab dinner, if you want?’
Aaaargh. Dinner? Why did it suddenly feel as though there was nothing I’d rather do?
! And no, I one hundred per cent wasn’t ready to acknowledge that – for me, at least – my feelings for Marcus might have turned into something more.
That slowly but surely I’d actually started to like him.
To care about him a little bit, even. And of course he was beautiful to look at, but I’d always known that, even when I’d thought he was an arrogant arsehole, so that was nothing new.
I didn’t know what any of this meant, or what – if anything – I was supposed to do about it.
Feeling as though I needed to get away from his undeniably intense gaze, I began hurriedly packing up my stuff, grabbing my water bottle, my phone, my jumper.
‘I think I’m just going to head home, actually. Want to make some good progress on the article today – Amanda’s been on my case and I’m feeling the pressure.’
‘No worries,’ he said, smiling. ‘Some other time, then.’
‘Sure.’
No! Not some other time. In fact, never would be best.
‘Marcus!’ called Patrick, waving him over.
‘Better get back to it,’ he said, jogging off.
I sighed. He even looked beautiful from behind.
So much for pushing forward with the article.
When I got home, managing to not put on the TV even though I desperately wanted to watch something light and easy and maybe even romantic (no, maybe not romantic) to distract me from thinking about the prospect of sharing a bed with Marcus, and started up my laptop, I realised I didn’t have my notebook.
After tipping out the entire contents of my bag – what was all that crap at the bottom of it?
– I deduced I must have left it somewhere.
Hopefully, it wasn’t the Tube, because I’d never get it back then, would I?
I fired off a text to Marcus.
Did I leave my notebook on the side of the court?
He must have been on a break from training, because he began to reply almost immediately.
Yes. Want me to drop it somewhere?
It was kind of him to offer but I couldn’t expect him to come all the way over here and, given my current frame of mind, I doubted my writing would be at its best today anyway.
And a thumbnail for the new season of Emily in Paris had popped up on my home page last night and the idea of ploughing through the entire season in one sitting was proving impossible to resist.
I messaged Marcus back and told him I’d grab it from him the following day.
When my phone pinged, I assumed it was him again, but it was actually my mum, asking how I was, saying they hadn’t seen me for ages.
It was true, I’d been avoiding them a little bit because I didn’t want to have to lie to their faces about Marcus, so it had been easier to keep contact to a minimum for now.
Then I’d tell them we’d broken up after Wimbledon and job done.
Haven’t seen you for ages! Up to anything exciting this week?
It’s Queen’s so mostly tennis. Off to a gala dinner tomorrow night.
Sounds lovely. Somewhere nice?
Claridge’s.
Very swanky. Beyoncé stays there when she’s in London, apparently.
Ha, I’ll keep an eye out for her. Will come up and see you all soon x