So there it was. Charlie’s whole persona, neatly summarized for public consumption by a complete stranger. She would have been upset this woman invoked her mother’s death so casually if she weren’t so shocked by the entire summary, a little glimpse into how the world perceived Charlie.

Todd must have been able to see the distress stamped plainly on Charlie’s face. ‘Don’t go getting all pissy, Charlie. This sport of yours isn’t just a little hobby. This is a huge industry, with all sorts of opportunities, and pardon my French, but you’d be an asshole for not taking your piece.’

Meredith cleared her throat and shot Todd another look. ‘It might be easier if you think about the fact that everyone, regardless of their career, has a public persona and a private one, right? We aren’t here to tamper with your private life or change who you fundamentally are as a person. But it’s naive to think that your public persona can’t – or shouldn’t – be manipulated to maximize the benefit to you.’

The waiter appeared and began to lower a bread basket onto the table, but Todd barked, ‘Get that out of here!’ Not missing a beat, the man tucked it under his arm and took their order, looking unsurprised when they all requested the exact same salad.

Charlie waited for him to leave and said, ‘Okay, my public persona needs some “manipulating.” Can you be more specific?’

With this, Meredith’s smile was beneficent. ‘Of course, darling. Keeping in line with Todd’s plan to make you more aggressive and confident on the court, we would do our best to mirror that boldness off the court. To that end, we’d like to do away with Charlie as Good Girl and make you into … are you ready for this? The Warrior Princess.’

‘The what? Oh, come on.’ Charlie laughed.

Neither Meredith nor Todd cracked a smile.

‘It’s brilliant, Charlie. It’ll give you a rock-solid identity that fans and media alike can attach to. And let me tell you, it’s exactly what you need.’

‘The Warrior Princess? You’re serious?’

Meredith continued as though she hadn’t heard Charlie. ‘First, we’ll eliminate the brightly colored tennis dresses in favor of something darker, sexier, edgier. We’ll lose that childish ribbon you weave through your hair. We will work with great hair and makeup people to update your look – without affecting your performance, of course. I’ll bring in a stylist to help redo both your look on court, which is the most important, but also overhaul your off-court wardrobe for player parties, interviews, charity events – really anywhere you’ll be seen. You’ll need a quick session with one of our media trainers so you can better control your own message, but we’ll be doing all the behind-the-scenes work to get the media clamoring to cover you. Your brother is already hard at work securing an additional endorsement deal, one that would add a little interest, a little seduction, to the usual sporty brands everyone represents. Overall, there is very little to do.’

Charlie’s eyes widened. Very little? Meredith had just outlined an entire image overhaul that required a bulleted list and no fewer than five people to execute it.

Todd took a slug of his drink. ‘Remember your promise that you were going to lose the sensitive-girl crying crap? We’re way ahead of the game here, Charlie. In your five full years on the women’s tour, you have remarkably never done a single fucked-up thing that we need to undo. No scandals to clean up. All peaches and cream. So we reverse engineer this.’

Meredith nodded. ‘It’s true. It’s a lot easier going the other way, weaving in some intrigue and interest, than it is trying to expunge years of bad decisions.’

The waiter set their salads in front of them. Todd shoveled a forkful into his mouth before the women picked up their silverware.

‘I told her you’re fucking Marco,’ Todd said through a mouthful of food.

Charlie inhaled sharply. ‘My own brother doesn’t even know!’

Meredith placed a warm hand on Charlie’s. ‘I’m a vault. Todd told me because it’s definitely something we can use to our advantage. I already have—’

‘Wait a minute. I am not using my … situation with Marco as some sort of image thing.’ Charlie couldn’t bring herself to use the word ‘relationship’ to describe whatever it was she and Marco had between them.

‘Of course we understand that’s not why you’re involved with him,’ Meredith crooned soothingly. ‘But we’d be remiss if we didn’t honestly acknowledge that this particular preexisting relationship could have a great deal of value to all of us.’

‘It’s not a relationship,’ Charlie said, despite herself. ‘It’s actually not something I want to talk about.’

Meredith nodded knowingly, her red curls bouncing in agreement. ‘Understood. For now, let’s all agree to keep this between us. You can trust me, Charlie. We’ll just see what happens. Perhaps things will develop naturally between you two, and you’ll be ready to raise the profile on this a bit more. We can take it a day at a time.’

Todd took a big swallow of martini and licked his lips. ‘Can you even imagine the optics on that one?’ he asked as if Charlie weren’t sitting right there. ‘I mean, these two young hardbod— er, athletes, both of them hot stuff on and off the court? My god, it would be a media shitstorm. The good kind. Even when I coached Adrian and he dated that supermodel – this would eclipse that.’

Charlie looked to Meredith in a panic. ‘I already said it: bringing Marco into this is out of the question. It’s not like he’s my boyfriend, or that we even really have a … It’s more like an understanding, and even that’s not totally spelled out.’ She knew she was rambling – and more so, that she didn’t owe them any explanations about her love life – but she couldn’t stop. ‘It could be over tomorrow for all I know. I don’t even know what “it” really is, so there’s no way I’m going to—’

‘Charlie. I’m reading you loud and clear. Marco is off-limits. Whatever you have is your business. We’ll respect that. For now.’

‘Thank you,’ Charlie said, hating that her embarrassment was spelled out for everyone to see in the warmth of her cheeks. She took a small bite of salad and a sip of her Pellegrino as she tried not to think about what the ‘for now’ really meant.