The Austen Playbook (London Celebrities #4)(26)

“No. I won’t,” Freddy said firmly. “What’s going on with you? Interviewing anyone cool this week?”

The pause this time had a different, tense quality, and Freddy frowned, her thoughts dragged back from the impending confrontation with their father. “Sabs?”

“Work is fine.” Sabrina’s voice was crisp, and there was an unmistakable defensive shape to the words that put Freddy on high alert. She knew that tone. It only ever emerged when—“But since you’ll have to know sometime... Ferren’s back in London.”

Freddy lifted a hand in a literal face-palm. Sabrina had been in an on-off-maybe-on-no-definitely-off relationship with Joe Ferren, the star of a series of high-earning action films, for about eight years. Freddy had been fifteen when she’d first been introduced to Sabs’s famous boyfriend, and she’d progressed from a starstruck teenage crush to “What the fuck is my sister doing?” in the space of a month.

Their tempestuous romance had hit a wall with what seemed like a permanent crash when Sabrina had got her permanent contract on Sunset Britain—Ferren didn’t do well sharing any sort of spotlight—and Freddy had thrown a mental carnival. He’d made himself scarce the past year working abroad, and Sabrina’s overall happiness had gone on an upward climb. Freddy had hoped the unreliable shit would set up permanent camp in Hollywood.

He’d probably had a temperamental fit and been fired again.

“You’re not...” Freddy trailed off apprehensively, already anticipating the frosty reaction. Sabrina’s personality was ninety-five-percent rational, but Ferren always slotted into the other bit.

“We’re not back together. We’re just...talking.”

Shit. They’d be shagging by the end of the week.

“Sabrina...”

“Peanut.” The “back off” warning was flashing with full red lights. “As much as I adore you, I do not require commentary on my personal life from my baby sister.”

It would be like trying to reason with a slightly patronising brick wall. Freddy sighed. “Are you still going to be calling me that when I’m eighty-five years old?”

“As I’ll be a venerable old dame in my nineties by then, yes.”

“Maybe even a proper dame. Famous presenters sometimes get the honour.”

If they didn’t derail their career and future title by making horrible decisions in their sex life.

Sabrina snorted. “Ten quid says Nick Davenport smarms his way to that one. He’s probably already got a drawer full of socks and undies embroidered with ‘Sir Nicholas.’”

Willing to take the easy route and keep the conversation in noncontroversial territory for now, Freddy said teasingly, “Spend a lot of time thinking about Nick’s pants, do you?”

“Don’t be revolting. My taste in men isn’t that dire.” Sabrina cleared her throat so pointedly that Freddy was instantly wary. “Speaking of which—”

“What?”

“My word precisely: what. Before you veered into polite small talk, you’d come over all flustered. What’s going on with you and the silver-haired demon?”

“His hair isn’t silver, it’s just very pale blond,” she said without thinking, and could visualise Sabrina’s growing smile back in London. Evidently, older sisters believed they had a prerogative to meddle that was denied their baby siblings. “Oh, shut up.”

“I haven’t said anything. Your reaction is carrying the conversation for both of us. You haven’t shagged Malfoy? He once called you so overly sweet that you were a diabetic hazard. Have some standards, Frederica.”

Seriously—pot and kettle.

“I haven’t shagged him.” Leaning forward, Freddy rested her cheek on the quilt. “I haven’t shagged anyone, for months. I’m sure it’s bad for my health. My eczema has been flaring. It’s probably sex deprivation.”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“Smugness is not an attractive quality.”

“Do you like him?” Sabrina asked, curiously, and Freddy played idly with the phone for a few seconds, giving herself time to consider her words.

“I don’t know. I’m not sure how I feel about him.” She had a track record of falling into lust and crushes and infatuation with dozens of men at the drop of a hat, and emerging from each experience just as quickly and usually unscathed—but this didn’t feel... It didn’t feel quite like that.

“He’s not your usual sort of man. Physically or in any other respect. You always seem to have a variation of the same type in tow: loud, burly, hairy, and up for a laugh.”

Fair assessment of her dating history the past few years. She did tend to swipe right on certain key characteristics. “Hmm.”

“But you fancy him?”

“Oh yeah,” she said with feeling.

When she went downstairs—with not even a limp; thumbs up, body—the house was very quiet. Most of the cast were still in bed, since the first rehearsal call wasn’t until eight. A buffet breakfast had been set up on the terrace. The caterers were keeping out of the dining areas in the house to leave them clear for the Ford-Griffins. Freddy did a full sweep of the options, chose a chocolate croissant, and took it through the woods to The Henry. She should use the spare hour to go over her lines. The deadline to be off-book was creeping ever closer, and the prospect of another Springsteen incident was haunting her.