by Lynne Shelby
CHAPTER 3
‘I’m going to have to be very careful where I walk,’ Dylan said.
‘Why?’ Yawning, I sat up in bed. It was good to talk on the phone with my brother (our sporadic communications more usually took the form of texts or comments on Facebook), but at ten o’clock on a Sunday morning, I was still half asleep.
‘I wouldn’t want to step on any of those names you keep dropping,’ Dylan said.
I realised that my sole topic of conversation for the entire call had been my job at Reardon Haye. ‘I need to stop going on about the actors I meet at work, don’t I?’
‘That’s OK,’ Dylan said. ‘If I were hanging out with celebrities like the Fallen Angel, I’d want to tell you about it.’
‘I’ve only met Daniel Miller once,’ I said. ‘And I don’t exactly hang out with any of Reardon Haye’s clients – apart from Cassie. Obviously the agency does a certain amount of entertaining, and we get invites to after-parties.’
‘Invites to what?’
‘After-show parties,’ I said. ‘Networking is very important in showbusiness. A few nights ago I got to go to a premiere in Leicester Square which was amazing.’
‘Are we talking red carpet and flashing lights?’
‘You kind of have to walk along the red carpet to get into the cinema when you’re attending a premiere. Sadly, not one paparazzi took our photo. They were too busy photographing the star of the film and his model girlfriend.’
‘Who did you go to the premiere with?’
‘The other agents, Maria and Adrian,’ I said. ‘They’ve really made an effort to welcome me to Reardon Haye. Ruby, the receptionist, is nice as well. She invited me to her house party and – Oh, I’m doing it again. Talking about work.’
‘I don’t mind,’ Dylan said. ‘There is something I want to ask you, though. That’s why I called.’
‘You can ask me anything, Dyl,’ I said in a rush of sisterly affection.
‘Now that you’re living in London,’ he said, ‘can I have your old room? It’s so much bigger than mine…’
Having established that I relinquished all claims to my childhood bedroom (it seemed only fair, now that I had my own spacious room in Cassie’s house), Dylan went off to start moving clothes, books and furniture. My thoughts strayed back to my job, and more precisely to the delectable Daniel Miller, now off on location filming his mini-series. And shagging his co-star – photos of her leaving his hotel in the early hours were on every showbiz website, much to the chagrin of the actress who’d been photographed coming out of his London flat the morning he’d left for Ireland. Not that it was ever likely to happen, I thought, but if that bad boy ever showed any interest in me, I’d run a mile.
My rumbling stomach told me that even though it was Sunday, it was time I got up. I slid out of bed, and immediately felt a chill in the air. London had been basking in a late heatwave, but autumn appeared to have arrived overnight. I showered quickly in my gleaming en-suite bathroom, pulled on my jeans and a jumper, and went out onto the landing. The house was very quiet. I walked softly down the broad sweeping staircase, crossed the black and white tiled hallway, and went into the kitchen -where I found Ryan Fleet, wearing just a pair of football shorts, frying bacon and eggs.
A couple of months ago, if I’d come downstairs in search of breakfast and discovered that a premiership footballer had got there before me, I would have been speechless. But in the last few weeks my life had changed dramatically. I’d moved into a TV star’s house, and at work I met actors who were household names on a daily basis. A shirtless Ryan Fleet wielding a spatula wasn’t going to throw me.
‘Hi,’ I said, ‘I’m Lucy Ashford. I’m a friend of Cassie’s.’
‘Hi, Lucy,’ he said. ‘I’m Ryan Fleet. I’m… with Cassie.’
He was, I thought, a good-looking guy, with tousled light brown hair and a friendly smile.
‘I know who you are,’ I said. ‘I mean, I know you’re Ryan Fleet, not that you’re Cassie’s...’ Boyfriend? Lover? Friend-with-benefits? ‘Cassie’s footballer – oh, that sounds wrong. Not what I intended.’
Ryan grinned. ‘Cassie’s footballer. I like it. I am Ryan Fleet, Cassie’s footballer. I shall always introduce myself like that in future.’ He started to dish up the eggs and bacon. ‘I made fresh coffee. Help yourself.’
‘Did someone mention coffee?’
Ryan and I both spun around to see Nadia framed in the kitchen doorway.
‘Hello, Nadia,’ Ryan said.
‘Ryan,’ Nadia said. ‘How lovely to see you. And how unexpected.’
‘I was only ever going to be in Spain for six months,’ Ryan said.
‘I know that was the plan,’ Nadia said, advancing into the kitchen, ‘but I did wonder if you’d be able to tear yourself away from all that sun, sangria and...football.’
‘It wasn’t so hard to leave,’ Ryan said. ‘I missed Cassie the whole time I was there.’
‘Well, you’ve come back to England at the worst time of year. When I got up this morning, I noticed how cold it was. You must be freezing, standing there without a shirt.’ Nadia walked over to Ryan and laid a hand on his bare chest. ‘No, you’re not at all cold. You’re hot.’
There was nothing flirtatious in the tone of Nadia’s voice, and she touched Ryan only for a few seconds, but her words, and the way she stood so close to him, made me feel distinctly uncomfortable. I gave myself a firm mental shake. What was I thinking? Nadia couldn’t possibly be coming on to Ryan. Even if she wanted to, she wouldn’t do it in front of me. Besides, she had a steady boyfriend, Leo, who I’d met a couple of times when he’d come to pick her up from Cassie’s house. She’d been out with him only last night.
‘I never feel the cold.’ Ryan took a step backwards. ‘Can you find me a tray please, Nadia?’
‘Of course.’ Nadia opened a cupboard and produced a wicker tray.
Ryan loaded the tray with the plates of eggs and bacon and two steaming mugs of coffee. ‘I must take this up to Cassie. I’ll see you guys later.’
‘Laters,’ Nadia said.
‘Good to have met you,’ I said.
Ryan smiled at me and walked out of the kitchen. I heard his footsteps going up the stairs.
‘He is such a sweetie.’ Nadia poured two cups of coffee, one for her and one for me, and settled herself on a chair at the kitchen table. ‘I’m so glad he’s back. Although I’m very surprised.’
‘I’m a bit confused,’ I said. ‘Are Cassie and Ryan Fleet together? I mean, are they a couple?’ I was sure Cassie had told me she wasn’t seeing anyone right now.
‘They were a couple,’ Nadia said. ‘They met when they were both guests on the same late night chat show and dated for several months. Then, six months ago, he went off to play for some football team in Madrid. I thought that would be him and Cassie finished, but now he’s back… Has Cassie never talked to you about Ryan?’
‘No, she’s never mentioned him.’
‘How strange,’ Nadia said. ‘She talks about him to me all the time. But then, Cassie and I are very close. Still, she can hardly stop you finding out about him if you’re living in her house.’
‘Why wouldn’t she want me to know about him?’ A thought struck me. ‘He’s not married is he?’
‘What a fertile imagination you have, Lucy. Of course Fleet Feet, as the tabloids call him, isn’t married. Why would you think that?’
‘No reason,’ I said, quickly. ‘Do the press know that he and Cassie are together?’
‘No, that’s about the one thing they don’t know about Fleet Feet.’ Nadia put her head to one side and regarded me thoughtfully. ‘Maybe that’s why Cassie didn’t tell you about him. Maybe she thought you wouldn’t be able to keep their relationship private, the way they like it. It can put a terrible strain on a couple if photos of their intimate moments are posted on the internet or they feature in the gossip columns.’
‘I’m Cassie’s friend,’ I said, annoyed by what Nadia
was implying. ‘There’s no way I’d talk to the press about her love life.’
‘I’m not suggesting you’d do it on purpose, but the tabloids can be very cunning. There was this one time when a guy who chatted me up in a bar turned out to be a journalist digging for dirt on Princess Snowdrop.’
I gasped. ‘That’s awful.’
‘That’s showbusiness. Fortunately, as Cassie’s PA, I’m used to dealing with the media, but you should be very careful who you talk to while you’re living in Cassie’s house. Although, I suppose you won’t be staying much longer.’
I was taken aback by this remark. ‘I’ve not got any plans to move out.’
‘Really? I was under the impression that your staying here was just a temporary arrangement until you found yourself a job and could afford a place of your own.’
‘Well, yes, it was but –’
‘I’m sure Cassie won’t mind, however long you stay. Although it might be a bit awkward for you now that Ryan’s back. After all, two’s company. It’s different for me. I work for Cassie. And I stay over at Leo’s half the time. More coffee?’
‘Please.’
Nadia was right, of course. I couldn’t carry on as Cassie’s house-guest forever. She’d invited me to stay with her until I’d sorted myself out. Which I had done. I had a job that I was already good at, and which paid me an ample salary to rent a room in a shared flat. There was no reason why I shouldn’t start looking for a place of my own. Except that I liked sharing Cassie’s house. With her working long hours at the studio, and having to be available for photo shoots and other events at weekends, and now my job at Reardon Haye, we didn’t see that much of each other, but we’d still managed to fall into an easy-going friendship, cemented by long conversations late into the night, and a mutual fondness for rom coms. And I’d started to think of her house as my home.
‘Toast?’ Nadia’s voice broke in on my thoughts.
‘What? Oh, yes, please, Nadia.’
Nadia put two slices of bread in the toaster. ‘If you ever do decide to move out, I’d be very happy to help you look for somewhere suitable to live. I’ve lived in London since I was eighteen, so I know it very well.’
‘That’s very kind of you, Nadia,’ I said.
‘In the meantime, you can do what I do, and try and keep out of Cassie and Ryan’s way.’
‘That shouldn’t be too hard,’ I said. ‘It’s a large house.’
‘You’d think so wouldn’t you?’ Nadia said. ‘But I remember coming home late one night last year and walking in on them in the living room. On the sofa. Apparently he’d scored a winning goal that afternoon, and they were celebrating and got rather carried away. Cassie and I joked about it afterwards, but at the time I was so embarrassed.’ Nadia laughed. I smiled feebly. Even if they weren’t given to ravishing each other on the living room sofa, every couple needed their own space. I could hardly expect to go on living in Cassie’s house now that her footballer was back in her life.
I need to speak to Cassie and tell her that I’ve decided to move out, I thought.
Not surprisingly, as he’d been away for six months, neither Ryan nor Cassie reappeared for the rest of Sunday, so I didn’t get a chance to tell her of my decision. On Monday night, Cassie came in much later than usual (Prince Ash had kept forgetting his lines and the day’s shooting had overrun) and went straight to her room with a sandwich and the next day’s script. On Tuesday, I accompanied Eleanor to see one of our clients in a production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and didn’t get in until long after Cassie had gone to bed. On Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, Ryan was back, and although he was very charming, offering me coffee every time we came across each other in the kitchen, I really didn’t want to discuss my moving out of Cassie’s house in front of him. On Saturday, he went out very early as he had an away match, but Cassie slept in, and in any case I’d planned to go shopping on Oxford Street with Maria and Ruby.
It was the first time I’d been clothes shopping since I’d started earning, and I staggered back home laden with carrier bags stuffed full of outfits for work, outfits for going out, and shoes to go with them. I’d laid out my purchases on my bed, and was trying them on again in front of my full-length mirror when Cassie knocked on my door and asked if she could come in.
‘Oh, yes, do come in, Cassie,’ I said.
‘Looks like you’ve had a successful shopping trip.’ She moved aside a pencil skirt so that she could sit on my bed.
‘I decided that now I’m not a student any more, now that I’m a professional working woman, I need a more sophisticated wardrobe.’
‘You look amazing in that dress. Are you going out somewhere special?’
‘Oh, no, I’m not going anywhere tonight. I was just trying on the dress one more time before I hang it up in the wardrobe.’
‘That dress deserves to go out,’ Cassie said. ‘Let’s take it to a nightclub. Somewhere upmarket, and with a VIP area.’
‘Tonight?’
‘Why not? You and I haven’t had a proper night out together in all the time you’ve been in London.’
‘Aren’t you seeing Ryan?’
‘No. He’s going out with some of his team tonight. It’s the goalkeeper’s thirtieth birthday.’
‘Boys’ night out?’
‘Yep. So are you up for clubbing?’
‘Me and my new dress are definitely up for clubbing.’
‘I’ll start getting ready then.’ Cassie stood up.
‘No, wait, Cassie. There’s something I need to tell you.’
Cassie sank down again. ‘You sound very serious, Lucy. Is something wrong?’
‘No. Nothing’s wrong. It’s just that... I think it’s time I moved into a place of my own.’
There was a long, heavy silence.
‘Aren’t you happy living here?’ Cassie asked eventually.
‘I’m very happy here,’ I said, ‘but I don’t want to outstay my welcome.’
‘As if you could do that. I like having you share my house. It’s far too big for one person. I don’t know why I bought it. Actually, that’s not true, I do know why I bought it…’
I waited for Cassie to go on, but when she didn’t, I said, ‘I love living here, really I do, but I don’t want to intrude on your privacy.’
Cassie raised her eyebrows. ‘Is this to do with Ryan?’
‘Not entirely.’
‘I should have told you about Ryan. You must think it really weird that I never said anything about his coming back from Spain.’
‘No, of course not.’ I smiled. ‘OK, maybe it is a little weird.’
‘The thing is,’ Cassie said, ‘I never talk about Ryan. I was with him for two months before he went to Spain, but apart from my staff and the guys at Reardon Haye, hardly anyone knew. He and I kept a very low profile, never appearing together at any showbiz or sporting events, and luckily the press never discovered we were a couple. If it had come out that Princess Snowdrop was dating Ryan Fleet Feet – disaster!’
‘I don’t see why. The tabloids love a romance.’
‘Princess Snowdrop doesn’t do boyfriends, Lucy. She has never ever had sex.’
‘OK. So you and Ryan kept your relationship out of the gossip columns. And then he went to Spain?’
Cassie nodded. ‘His club did a deal that meant he was lent to Real Madrid for six months. He didn’t want to be away from me for that long and was going to turn the transfer down, but I told him he had to go.’
‘But why? If he wanted to stay with you...’
‘It was a terrific career opportunity for him. I wasn’t going to let him miss out on it because of me. He’d only come to resent me for it.’
I wasn’t sure that I agreed with Cassie’s line of reasoning, but I didn’t argue with her.
‘So Ryan went to Spain,’ Cassie said. ‘And I told myself we were over. What were the chances that a girl could have a long-distance relationship with a footballer? Think about it. The hot Spanish nights. The adori
ng female fans. The impossibility of his keeping his trousers on.’
‘Couldn’t you have flown out to Spain to visit him?’
‘It wasn’t that easy. Ryan and I both had busy schedules. We talked on the phone a lot, and Skyped when we could, but we never managed to visit each other.’ Cassie drew up her legs and hugged her knees. ‘Before Ryan went to Spain, I wasn’t even sure how I felt about him or how he felt about me. I had no idea what would happen to us when he came back to England. Of if there even was an us. That’s another reason why I didn’t tell you about him. If we weren’t a couple any more there didn’t seem to be much point.’
‘And how do you feel about him now?’
Cassie’s smile lit up her whole face. ‘I’m not sure what either of us is feeling right now. But there’s definitely an us.’
‘I so need to move out of your house and give you guys some space,’ I said.
‘You really don’t.’
‘Maybe you should check with Ryan.’
Cassie’s eyes locked on mine. ‘Ryan is very important to me. But if it came to me having to choose between him and you or Dylan or Stephen or your mother, I’d choose you and your family over Ryan every time.’
I stared at her, disquieted by the intensity with which she spoke.
‘Sorry,’ Cassie said. ‘I didn’t mean to freak you out.’
‘You didn’t,’ I said, remembering that she was an actress and naturally disposed to be overdramatic. ‘And I would really like to stay on living in your house. But now that I have a job, I should start paying you rent.’
‘I don’t want your money,’ Cassie said. ‘And without meaning to sound arrogant, I don’t need it.’
‘But I need to feel that I’m paying my way. At least let me contribute to the housekeeping.’
‘Is it really that important to you?’
‘It really is.’
‘Well, all right. I’ll have a word with Nadia – she handles the household accounts – and we’ll sort something out. But no more talk of moving out. Mi casa es tu casa, as they say in the movies. My house is your house. My home is your home. It’s settled.’