Reese could geton board with playing tennis every day if it meant that she could watch Sydney move around the court, long limbs sprinting gracefully as she hit seemingly impossible shots.
It was one thing to watch a professional tennis player on television, when the camera was zoomed out and the whole court was visible, two opponents battling back and forth with commentators explaining the hits and volleys.
This was something else. Like magic, Sydney seemed to anticipate the ball before their opponents, Brynn and Stan—unluckily for them—had even finished the follow-through on their racket.
“I’m starting to regret telling you that I didn’t want you to take it easy,” Stan said as he missed a shot down the doubles line, the ball skittering off and across the court where Grant, much to his obvious chagrin, and Reese’s dad, were playing a half-hearted singles match.
Sydney laughed, animated and light, as she spun her racket in her hand.
Sydney looked so free, her skirt billowing around her as shecovered her half of their side of the court nimbly, her leg brace looking more like a decoration than a necessity for her safety.
This was Sydney King in her element, laughing and letting out little puffs of sound when she hit a shot, practically skipping when she returned to her position before the next point.
It was infectious, the lightness that permeated the match, fun and exciting and good-natured, like all Sydney was thinking about was the next shot.
Not their scheme.
Not how Grant had betrayed her trust.
Not how Sydney was playing against her ex-boyfriend’s new fiancée.
Reese wished that she could let go to that degree and just experience the thrill of an enjoyable game without all of her baggage seeping into her consciousness.
It didn’t help that she couldn’t miss how her father kept looking over at their court, like missing an hour of networking with Stan would somehow send his whole life toppling into disrepair.
So, maybe it was a little more obnoxious than intended, when she laughed, too.
“You’re pretty good, Reese. Does Sydney give you lessons?” Brynn asked as Reese stepped back to the serving line. Brynn dropped into a low stance diagonally across the court from her, ready to receive the serve on their new game.
Reese shot an amused grin at Sydney, wondering if she’d take credit for Reese’s passable serve, which was rusty after years of disuse.
Sydney winked at her, doing a trick where she spun the bottom of her racket on her index finger. “I take zero credit for Reese’s impressive athletic abilities. If anything, I feel like she’s been holding out on me. Competitive much, babe?” she asked as she lined up at the edge of her service box to await Brynn’s return, looking over her shoulder and smirking.
Beyond Sydney, who’d trained professionally, both theDevereuxs and the Fitzpatricks had grown up in the world of country clubs, where a weekend of tennis was as normal as seeing a movie or going shopping.
In Stoneport, her parents were members at the local country club, and she’d spent summers on the courts, having taken lessons when she was younger to learn the fundamentals.
Honestly, she preferred golf, but that was because she’d spent years working to get better at it, hoping she’d be able to tag along with her dad on the weekends when he’d headed to the course.
By the time she was a teenager, she’d given up asking, knowing that he would come up with some variation of the same excuse.
That she’d get bored.
That the course was no place for his young daughter.
Maybe that was why it hurt all the more when, at the same age she’d wanted to start joining him, Grant had started going with him instead.
“A boy needs to learn about the finer things in life. Deals are closed on the course, not in the boardroom,” he’d said. Reese remembered the way he’d ruffled Grant’s hair, her brother looking so disinterested that she wondered if he’d even heard Tripp.
And then, Reese had thought to herself, at the age of twelve, that The Devereux Group didn’t have a board. They had an executive team of men who looked and acted and thought just like her father, the same men with whom he spent weekends on the golf course.
But at the head of the pyramid was Grant Devereux III, and at the end of the day, he was the gatekeeper.
At some point, he’d deemed Reese unworthy of seeing behind the curtain.
It didn’t stop her from spending her adolescence trying to prove it to him. To be smarter, more successful than her brother.
Along with playing tennis at the club, she’d taken private golf lessons, like a minor league baseball player, just waiting for her chance to be called up to the majors.
