Chapter 1: Cynthie Chapter 1 CYNTHIE
I am 90 percent certain that my personal trainer is trying to kill me, but if she’s truly homicidal she’ll have to get in line: the list of people who want me dead is currently pretty long.

“Stop crying like a little baby and give me five more!” Petra yells.

“I’m not crying,” I pant, clinging to what little dignity I have left as I crawl across my exercise mat. “I am sweating. I think my eyeballs are sweating. Is that even possible?” I take a deep, shuddering breath. “Physiologically speaking, I mean.”

“I am not here for a science lesson about your sweaty body!” Petra snaps out. “I am here to make you strong! Right now you are not strong, you are weak and limp! Like a worm! Or the leaf of lettuce!”

Every sentence out of Petra’s mouth is punctuated so emphatically with an exclamation point that I can almost see them floating through the air toward me, though that could be the delirium brought on by how exhausted I am.

Standing over me in her hot-pink Lycra workout gear, she looks and sounds like the meanest cheerleader in the world. Petra is small and blond, with a bouncing ponytail and perfect white teeth: a tiny Serbian prom queen with the dark, shriveled heart of Wednesday Addams. I love her. At least, I do when she’s not actively trying to destroy me.

Over the speakers, Mary Poppins sings peppily about spoonfuls of sugar. Petra’s obsessive love for Julie Andrews is extremely intense, and today it was her turn to choose the music. While I would not previously have considered Julie’s oeuvre to be the obvious soundtrack to a workout, I have to admit she does have some bangers.

I attempt to curl my body into another of the impossible crunches Petra wants. “It hurts,” I whimper.

“Life is pain, princess.” Petra is unmoved.

“Hey,” I say, like a hostage trying to forge a human connection with their captor, “I love that film.”

She frowns. “What film?”

“?‘Life is pain, princess,’?” I repeat. “Isn’t that a quote from The Princess Bride?”

“Oh.” Petra tilts her head to the side and nods. “Yes, I have seen that film. I like best the giant rat.”

Of course the woman is on the side of the rodents of unusual size.

“I suppose you were team Darth Vader, too,” I grumble, falling back against the floor, my jelly-like limbs splayed around me, refusing to move any further.

“His cape is excellent,” she says with approval, before nudging at my leg with her foot. “Now we will do the light weights.”

I groan, which only makes her smile widen—like a shark showing off all its teeth.

“We do the jabs and the uppercuts and you pretend you are punching that man in the face.”

I don’t need to ask her which man she means.

“Okay,” I agree, letting her drag me to my feet.

Once I’m standing with the weights in my hands, I mirror her stance and start moving my arms, putting some snap into the jab-cross movements.

“You can do better than this!” Petra is fired up, bouncing on the balls of her feet. “You hit him in the face! You hit him in the mouth! Go for the groin! You break that asshole’s nose!”

“Yeah,” I pant, arms flailing everywhere as “The Lonely Goatherd” blasts out at top volume. “Fuck him.”

“That’s right.” She nods. “Louder!”

“FUCK HIM!” I yell, twisting my fists, imagining the punches landing on Shawn Hardy’s stupid, handsome face.

Petra cheers and lets loose a string of Serbian profanities.

“What does that mean?” I ask when I come to rest with my hands on my hips, sucking in deep gulps of air.

Petra considers this for a moment. “It is like… I hope the thunder from the sky fucks you until you are dead.”

I blink.

“We Serbs are very good at cursing,” she adds proudly.

“Clearly.”

“We are done for today. Make sure you drink the water and stretch.” With a flick of her ponytail, Petra moves to stop the music, cutting Julie off mid-yodel.

“It is better,” Petra concedes, as I guzzle from my water bottle. “Maybe you will not be total embarrassment after all.”

I start to stretch my hamstrings. “I don’t know…” I feel a flutter of nervous energy. “I’ve never done proper combat training like this before. It’s going to be intense—so many classes in martial arts and weapons. I’m going to have an axe to wield.”

“Nice.” Petra takes a swig from her own bottle. “Will you also get to wear a cape?”

She looks so hopeful that I say, “Probably.” And now I know exactly what to get her for Christmas.

“But they want a more muscular look,” I continue, flexing my bicep, which is certainly more of an event than it was a few weeks ago. “I’ve still got a way to go.”

I’ve been putting in a lot of hours with Petra lately, which has been fine with me. Until this scandal blows over, there’s no way I’m voluntarily leaving the house, so my home gym has been a place to burn off some of my rage.

When I first bought my place in LA, I didn’t give much thought to the large exercise space in the basement, even though the Realtor had been in raptures about it. As Petra would be the first to point out, I am neither a natural nor an enthusiastic athlete.

I was much more interested in the bright, sunny kitchen, and in the rooms that weren’t just big empty glass boxes but felt a little familiar, given the 1920s English-Revival style of the building. An LA mansion was hardly a two-bedroom semi in Wiltshire, but it felt a lot closer to home than some of the properties I’d been looking at.

After spending over twenty years plotting to get as far away from the place as possible, it was a real kick in the teeth to find myself feeling homesick.

Anyway, it turned out the Realtor had been right all along and I was extremely grateful for the slick, kitted-out room that I had once referred to as “the dungeon.” Preparing for my next role in a big comic-book-hero franchise has been the perfect distraction from the disaster that is my life.

Perhaps disaster is the wrong word. Catastrophe? No, what’s worse than a catastrophe? It sounds like the Serbs could just about do justice to the absolute bin fire of the past month.

It’s been four weeks now since the news of my affair with Shawn Hardy hit the tabloids. Four weeks of relentless attention, of paparazzi camped outside the door, of increasingly hysterical headlines, of earnest think-pieces, of tweets and letters and emails ranging from “I’m very disappointed in you” to “I wish you were dead.” I’ve been called a slut, a whore, a scarlet woman (a fun throwback). There’s even been an SNL skit about it—so I hear, anyway. I haven’t seen it because Hannah confiscated all my devices after I spent the first week curled up under a blanket, crying and subsisting entirely on ice cream.

“If you leave it to melt, you can just drink it straight from the carton,” I had told her, wild-eyed and sugar-drunk. “The tub is already cup shaped, and there’s no washing up. It’s the perfect method. Do you think people know about this?”

“You don’t even do your own washing up,” Hannah had replied sharply, wrenching my phone from the birdlike claw my hand had formed around it thanks to hours of doom-scrolling.

As if the memory has summoned her, Hannah hustles into the room.

“Oh, good, you’re done,” she says. “Gayle is here, and she wants a word.”

My agent turning up unannounced… This can’t be good.

“Do I have time to grab a quick shower first?” I ask. Petra may be able to work out and develop a delicate, aesthetic glow, but I am tomato red and my hair is scrunched into a sweaty ball. This is in stark contrast to Hannah, who looks chic in a drapey black linen jumpsuit. She’s all perfect flicks of black eyeliner, glowing golden skin, and cut-glass cheekbones, courtesy of her Bangladeshi mum and her Italian dad—a genetic combination so winning that she absolutely could have made it as a model if she wasn’t—and I quote—“unable to be in a photo without blinking, and deeply dedicated to carbohydrates.”

“Of course,” Hannah replies hastily, because, as I said, the picture is not a pretty one. “I’ll set Gayle up with a coffee.”

“I’ll be quick,” I promise, and bidding goodbye to Petra I run upstairs, shower, and change into a pair of yoga pants and a stretchy cashmere sweater.

(It seems to me that when you’re heartbroken and your reputation is circling the drain, you can’t be expected to wear anything that doesn’t have an elasticized waistband. The fact that I bother with a bra at all is an indication of my innate professionalism.)

“There she is!” Gayle greets me when I make my way back down to the living room. “Darling, you look gorgeous.”

Considering the last time Gayle saw me I was hyperventilating into an empty crisp packet (Who has paper bags in the house these days?), I’m sure my current appearance is indeed an improvement.

Hannah and Gayle sit side by side on the horseshoe-shaped, pink velvet sofa that has been my cozy little depression-themed, trash-panda nest in recent weeks—probably not the vision my interior designer had in mind—but that is currently respectably tidy. There are barely any chocolate bar wrappers and crumpled tissues stuffed down the sides of the cushions.

Gayle Salt is one of the most formidable agents in the world, representing a whole roster of movie stars both in the UK and here in the States. When she took me on thirteen years ago it felt like a miracle, and most days it still does. She looks and dresses like Iris Apfel but with improbably red hair, commands any room she walks into, and has a career that has spanned over fifty years (though she remains extremely vague about her age beyond telling me “Darling, I was the merest child when I started out! Practically a fetus!”). She drops names through conversation like confetti but does so without affectation: she simply knows everyone.

“There’s good news and bad news,” she says now, direct as always.

My eyes flicker over to Hannah. The woman has been my best friend since we were in diapers, and I can usually read her like a book. Now, however, her expression is a strange mixture of anxiety and excitement.

I lower myself into a chair facing the sofa, and pick up the coffee that Hannah has made.

“Okay,” I say. “Let’s hear it.”

“The bad news,” Gayle says it quickly, like she’s ripping off a Band-Aid, “is that the studio has dropped you from Iron Maiden.”

I thought I was braced for whatever was coming, but I was wrong. It turns out that what I had considered rock bottom still left me with further to fall.

“They’ve… what?” I ask. My coffee cup shakes perilously in my suddenly numb fingers.

Gayle shrugs. “It’s a family franchise. They don’t like the press you’ve been getting.”

“But… we have a contract,” I say weakly. I can’t believe this is happening. My work is the only thing that’s been keeping me going. Or, at least, preparing for the work has kept me going. I haven’t wanted to tell Gayle that the thought of being on set, of actually filming, fills me with a sense of rising dread.

“They say you’ve violated the morality clause.” Gayle sounds impatient. “It’s bullshit, but fuck ’em. If they haven’t got the balls to stand behind you now, then you don’t want to be working with them.”

“The morality clause,” I say dully. “Because of the affair.”

“I wish you’d stop calling it an affair!” Hannah cuts in, furious.

“Why?” I sigh. “It was an affair. Shawn is married.”

“But he told you he was separated.” Hannah is practically vibrating with anger. “He told you there were lawyers involved. That it had been over for years.”

“And I was stupid enough to believe him.” I knuckle my eyes, too tired to deal with another wave of guilt and regret. “I should have known better. I should have… Well, there are a lot of things I should have done, but I didn’t.” I exhale a shaky breath. “So that’s it? Just like that, I’m out?”

Gayle sits forward, and there’s a sparkle in her eye. “Ask me about the good news.”

“What’s the good news?”

“Jasmine Gallow got in touch with me,” Gayle says, and I feel a flicker of interest. Jasmine codirected my first film, and she’s the one who hooked me up with Gayle in the first place. I loved working with her.

“Does she have a new project?” I ask.

“Of sorts,” is Gayle’s cryptic response. She nods to Hannah, who slides an iPad across the coffee table between us. Cued up on the screen is a video. I hit play.

I’m surprised when I see my own face. It’s a trailer for a film—a period romance—but it’s not a film I have any memory of making.

“What is this?” I murmur.

“Just watch,” Gayle says tranquilly.

When Jack Turner-Jones’s face fills the screen, I almost drop the tablet. “I— What?” I manage.

It takes me a moment to realize that the trailer has been made by splicing together scenes from other films that I’ve done: a small but well received adaptation of Northanger Abbey, some snippets from a fantasy film where I played a tragic princess, and the one that started it all, A Lady of Quality. They’ve skimmed a bunch of stuff from Blood/Lust, Jack’s vampire show too—mostly the historical flashbacks.

As the music swells, the words “A Lady of Quality 2: Coming Soon” roll across the famous scene of the two of us kissing in the original. I feel my stomach tighten.

There’s a long moment of silence. When I look at the women in front of me, they are both watching me with anticipation.

“I don’t understand,” I say slowly.

“So, as you know, several years ago Lady went up on Netflix.” Gayle drums her long, dagger-sharp nails against her silk-clad knee. “And its popularity has gone from strength to strength. We’re talking cult classic at this point. The numbers are really impressive, and interest from the sixteen-to-twenty-four demographic has gone through the roof. It’s all over social media: there are hundreds of these homemade trailers, mock-ups of movie posters, fan art… and that moment from the MTV awards has gone viral again.” The glint is back in her eye. “There’s an online petition calling for a sequel that has over one hundred thousand signatures. No one can predict when these things are going to happen, when an old title gets a new lease on life, but it’s gaining very serious momentum. People are paying attention.”

“We made this thirteen years ago,” I say. “Are you suggesting that Jasmine wants to make… a sequel?”

“I’m saying that the funding’s in place.” Gayle sounds delighted, and well she might—everyone knows that funding a project can take years of shaky negotiations, false starts, and disappointments.

“Netflix wants the sequel, and Jasmine’s had a script knocking around for years. Frankly, the only thing that’s been holding the idea back is you: you got too big, too busy. Without Cynthie Taylor, there is no movie.” She leans forward. “But the script is great, Cyn. Really, something special. And a hole just opened up in your schedule.”

“They want to make it now?” I’m trying to keep up.

“In two months, when you were due to start working on Iron Maiden.” Gayle is brisk.

“That is insane,” I say flatly. “There’s no way.”

“It’s not as wild as it sounds,” Gayle jumps in. “Like I say, the script’s been doing the rounds for a while. They want to use most of the original cast and crew—that’s part of the draw, so there’s no messing around convincing producers that this guy or that gal is the right choice. The scheduling has fallen into place like you wouldn’t believe. The original locations in the UK are available, and they’ll shoot the rest on the same lot in the studio outside London. I swear, it’s like the universe is behind this movie. Even Logan is on board.”

“Logan?” I frown. “I thought he was doing the next Marvel movie?”

Logan Gallow is Jasmine Gallow’s twin brother. A Lady of Quality was the first and last film they ever directed together and the experience was… interesting. Logan went on to direct a bunch of action blockbusters, while Jasmine’s sporadic output has been much more arthouse.

“Wait.” The final piece of the puzzle slips into place. I blame my muddled brain for the fact it’s taken this long. I look at Hannah, and she gazes innocently off to the side, careful not to meet my eye. “What about Jack?”

Saying his name makes my stomach hurt again.

If I hadn’t been looking for it, I don’t think I would have noticed Gayle’s infinitesimal hesitation. “That’s the best part. He’s just wrapped the latest series on his show,” she says brightly. “If you’re in, he’s in.”

I absolutely cannot make a film with Jack Turner-Jones. I can’t even be in the same room with Jack Turner-Jones.

Thirteen years ago we swore we’d never see each other again. It’s a promise we’ve managed to keep.

I close my eyes.

Apparently, that’s about to change.