Page 27 of Worth Every Game

I type Kate a quick message.

Me: I had no idea your brother was such a neat freak.

Kate: He’s very particular. Don’t touch his stuff.

A laugh snorts out my nose, and I’m glad no one’s here to witness it.

A folded piece of paper with my name written on it catches my attention. I snatch it from where it rests on the kitchen island, open it and read.

El,

Welcome to the bachelor pad. Make yourself at home. Help yourself to anything you want from the fridge, but don’t lick my cheese.

Jack.

P.S. Always wear slippers.

I laugh at the note, aware of a funny sensation behind my breastbone, like a small, warm kitten is curling up there. If Jack wants me to always wear the slippers, he must mean that if I don’t…

I abort the thought. It’s Jack. He’s joking. Flirting. He wrote ‘don’t lick my cheese’ for goodness’ sake. Even though he admitted he wanted me at the racetrack, it was probably a passing desire… he’s likely forgotten about it or moved on to someone else. He’s not exactly the type to doggedly pursue one woman. He has too many options for that.

Next to the note is an envelope, on top of which is a batch of photographs. I move closer to get a look and fan them out. They’re all attractive women.How weird.

I tidy them into a pile again and push them away. I shouldn’t be looking at Jack’s stuff.But, really, what the hell are they?I clench my fists in an attempt to resist the temptation to look at them again.Come on, Elly. Be good.

My skin itches.

Fuck it. What harm would it do to look?

I pick up the one on top, but as I do, it catches the one beneath and flips it over. My stomach drops as I see the nameLydiawritten in Mrs Lansen’s neat script. I recognise her handwriting from the letters she used to send Kate back when we were at boarding school. I quickly flip it to the picture side, revealing Lydia’s beautiful face smiling at me. I turn it over again to read Mrs Lansen’s annotations.

Lydia Archer. Twenty-nine years old. PR Manager at Archer Consultancy. Very sociable. Academic. Successful. Perfect for Jack. Granddaughter of Sir Marcus Compton. Fine breeding.

Perfect for Jack?These notes are like a window into Mrs Lansen’s twisted mind.And… breeding?Ha. It’s as if she thinks Lydia is some kind of pedigree dog.

Pedigree bitch.

I instantly reprimand myself for the mean thought. I don’t know Lydia. Maybe she’s not that bad, and she owns her own company, which is impressive. I’ll give her that much. She’s a high flier. I take out my phone and put her name into Google, and it brings up an array of glamorous photos of her with various celebrity clients. In several of them, she’s draped all over that famous actor who Kate and I met in one of Nico’s clubs earlier this year. Michael Drayton.

Ugh. A flutter of insecurity explodes in the pit of my stomach. Lydia’s beautiful and competent. Maybe she’s more suited to Jack than I am.

I scan through the rest of the cards, reading the notes on the back.Mrs Lansen must have put all these together and given them to Jack.How interfering can a mother be? That woman is crazy.

I shuffle the pictures back into a pile and push them away.

But wait. Jack took Lydia on a date. Before or after he got these cards? Maybe he’s taking these suggestions seriously.Maybe he’s just as crazy as his mother.

What an awful thought.I dismiss it instantly, because no one is as crazy as Mrs Lansen.

After a day of unpacking and getting familiar with the house and the local area, I’m sitting at the kitchen island on a fancy rotating bar stool, staring at a bowl of Persian chicken and walnut stew I made this afternoon. Jack might have said I could take things from his fridge, but there was nothing in there, apart from twenty half-size cans of Angel Tree tonic water, ten bottles of Dom Pérignon, and a block of cheddar cheese, so I went shopping.

I used to love cooking when I was younger. I did a lot of it with my mum in the school holidays. She was a real foodie, and was happy as long as I was doing exactly what she wanted, and I was happy just to be with her.So cooking it was. The thought raises a bitter taste at the back of my tongue, because at the time I didn’t realise she only wanted to spend time with me on her terms. As soon as I told my parents I wouldn’t be going to law school after uni because I wanted to be a musician, our relationship fell apart. It’s not as though they’ve cut me off exactly, but I get no financial assistance from them, and whenever we do meet, they make sure not to ask a single question about my career, my music, my aspirations, or my life in general. The weather is practically all we have left.

I shove all those thoughts out of my mind. I don’t want to think about my parents right now.

I lift my fork and assess the food I’ve made. It’s a veritable feast. Nowadays, I rarely cook anything fancy because I’m alone most of the time and happy to eat a cheese sandwich, which,ironically, I couldalmosthave made from the contents of Jack’s fridge.

But what better way to say ‘thank you for letting me live in your Notting Hill mansion for the same rent as a tiny flat in South London’ than Persian chicken, cumin roast potatoes, a pistachio and feta dip with flatbreads, and tabbouleh? But now that I’m sitting here, with my plate piled high and enough leftovers to feed an army, I feel like an idiot. I should have checked whether Jack had plans. I don’t even know when he’s coming home, and there is no possible way I can eat it all myself. The ingredients were crazy expensive, too. I had to buy three bottles of pomegranate molasses that I definitely can’t afford.Beans on toast for me for a week after this.