Chapter 436 - 436: Lorezno And Calista?

While Kyle's family was hunting for shoes in a London hotel suite, the sun had barely risen over Los Angeles.

Calista Wave was already awake.

She sat at her vanity in a silk robe, phone propped against the mirror, scrolling through the same feed she had refreshed six times since five in the morning. Kyle's last story was nearly a week old now. A misty green backdrop. That neat new haircut. The caption: "Off to England for a bit."

For a bit.

She had stopped counting how many days "a bit" had turned into.

She didn't need to ask who had gone with him. Jane, obviously. Ella. Probably Cassandra and her baby too. Maybe even that little street kid who had stared at her across his kitchen like she was a stray cat.

Calista set the phone face down a little harder than necessary.

She knew why she hadn't been invited. She had a career. A face people recognized. A man like Kyle couldn't be photographed strolling through London with his entire harem and an actress who had just trended for three days straight. It made sense. It was smart.

It still stung.

Down the hall, a door opened. Calista heard her mother's slippers on the marble, slow and deliberate, followed by the clink of a glass.

"Up early, darling?" Vivienne called.

"Shoot at nine."

"With Lorenzo?"

Calista didn't answer. She didn't have to. Her mother's laugh drifted down the hallway, light and knowing, and Calista rolled her eyes at her own reflection.

It had been a few days since that afternoon. Since she had walked into her own living room with a paper bag of medicine and found her mother draped across the couch like a cat that had cornered a canary. Lorenzo, sitting stiff as a board in the armchair, gripping the armrests like he was on a rollercoaster.

She had seen her mother's act a hundred times. It never surprised her anymore.

What surprised her was Lorenzo.

On the walk afterward, she had apologized. Out of habit, mostly. She expected him to laugh it off. To say something like

"Don't worry, she's not my type," with that easy grin of his.

Instead, he had gone quiet.

"She's very beautiful," he had said finally. Too quickly. And then he had looked away, and Calista had noticed the tips of his ears turn red.

At the time, she had brushed it off.

Now, sitting at her vanity, she couldn't stop thinking about it.

-

Lorenzo picked her up at eight.

He drove the same modest Audi he always drove, nothing flashy, nothing that would draw a second look. Calista slid into the passenger seat, and he handed her a coffee without a word. Oat milk, extra shot, no sugar.

She hadn't told him her order. Not once.

"You remembered," she said.

"You order the same thing every time." He shrugged, eyes on the road.

"I pay attention, Bella."

Bella. He had started calling her that recently. She couldn't remember exactly when.

They drove in comfortable silence for a while. The city was waking up around them, the traffic thickening on Sunset, joggers weaving between palm trees.

Calista sipped her coffee and watched him from the corner of her eye.

He really was absurdly handsome. Golden eyes. Sharp jaw. Shoulders so broad he made the driver's seat look small. A former model who had stumbled into acting and found himself sharing a screen with her.

And in all the months she had known him, she had never once seen his boyfriend.

Not at the premiere. Not at the wrap party. Not at a single dinner, event, or interview. No photographs on his phone that she had ever seen. No calls answered in that softer voice people used for the ones they loved.

"Hey," Calista said casually. "What's your boyfriend's name?"

Lorenzo's hands shifted on the steering wheel. Just slightly.

"Why do you ask?"

"Because I just realized I don't know it." She tilted her head. "We've been fake-dating in the tabloids for sometime, Lorenzo. Shouldn't I at least know who I'm supposedly stealing you from?"

He laughed. It was a good laugh. Warm. Practiced.

"Tadeusz," he said.

"Tadeusz." She let the name sit for a moment. It didn't sound Italian. It didn't sound like anything she had ever heard him mention before. "Is he an actor?"

"No. He doesn't like the spotlight."

"What does he do?"

"He works a lot." Lorenzo flicked on the indicator and changed lanes. "Like me."

Calista nodded slowly and went back to her coffee.

She had grown up with Vivienne. She knew exactly what it sounded like when someone answered a question without answering it at all.

-

The shoot was for a magazine spread promoting the film's streaming release. A white studio in Burbank. Racks of designer clothing. A photographer with an accent she couldn't place and a habit of shouting "Gorgeous!" every three seconds whether it was true or not.

"Closer," the photographer called. "Lorenzo, darling, put your hand on her waist. You're in love with her. Make me believe it."

Lorenzo stepped behind her. His hand settled on her waist.

Calista had done this a dozen times with a dozen co-stars. She knew how it felt when a man touched her because a photographer told him to. Professional. Weightless. Already thinking about lunch.

This didn't feel like that.

His palm was warm through the thin fabric of her dress. His thumb rested just above her hip, and when the photographer told him to lean in, she felt his breath catch. Not dramatically. Just a tiny hitch, like a man who had forgotten for one second that he was supposed to be acting.

"Look at her," the photographer called. "Not the camera. Her."

Lorenzo looked at her.

Calista caught his reflection in the mirror wall behind the photographer. His eyes weren't on her face. They had dropped to her lips. Just for a heartbeat. Then they snapped back up, and the easy smile returned.

"Gorgeous!"

Calista smiled for the camera.

Inside, her mind was racing.

During the break, she sat in her robe in the makeup chair while a stylist fixed her hair. Lorenzo leaned against the wall nearby, scrolling his phone, a bottle of water in his hand.

"So," he said casually, without looking up. "Kyle's still in London?"

"Mm-hm."

"Did he say when he's coming back?"

"No."

"Who did he take with him?"

Calista's eyes met his in the mirror. "Why?"

Lorenzo glanced up, and for half a second something crossed his face. Then he shrugged.

"Just making conversation. You've been checking your phone all morning. I thought maybe you missed him."

"I don't miss him," Calista said.

It was a lie, and they both knew it.

But she noticed that it was the third time this week Lorenzo had asked about Kyle. Where he was. Who he was with. When he would be back.

She noticed and she did find it strange.

-

He drove her home a little after three.

The house was quiet when they pulled into the driveway. Her mother's car was gone. Probably out shopping, or lunching with one of the endless parade of wealthy men she seemed to collect.

Lorenzo turned off the engine but didn't move to get out.

"Thank you for today," Calista said, reaching for the door handle. "You were good in there."

"You were better."

"I'm always better."

He laughed softly. Then the laugh faded, and the car was very quiet.

"Calista."

She turned. He was looking at her the way he had looked at her in the mirror. No camera this time. No photographer shouting directions.

"Can I tell you something?" he asked.

"Depends on what it is."

He leaned closer. Slowly. Giving her every chance to pull away. His hand came up and brushed a strand of hair from her cheek, his fingers lingering against her jaw.

"I don't think I'm acting anymore," he said quietly.

And then he leaned in to kiss her.

Calista didn't pull back. She didn't lean in either. She simply raised one finger and pressed it against his lips, stopping him an inch from her mouth.

"What would Tadeusz say?" she asked.

Lorenzo froze.

It lasted barely a second. But Calista had been reading men her entire life, and in that second she saw it clearly. Not guilt. Not the shame of a man betraying the person he loved.

Panic. The panic of a man who had forgotten his own lie.

"Tadeusz..." He sat back slowly, dragging a hand through his hair. "It's complicated."

"Is it?"

"Calista, I—"

"It's fine." She smiled her camera smile, bright and empty. "We've both had a long day. Let's just forget it."

She opened the door and stepped out into the warm afternoon air. She didn't look back as she walked up the driveway. Her heels clicked steadily on the stone. Calm. Unbothered.

Her heart was pounding.

Inside, she locked the door, crossed to the living room window, and looked out through the gap in the curtains.

Lorenzo was still sitting in the car. His forehead was resting against the steering wheel. Then his phone lit up on the dashboard. He picked it up, read something, and slammed the heel of his hand against the wheel so hard the whole car rocked.

Then he started the engine and drove away.

Calista stood at the window long after the Audi had disappeared down the street.

"He's not gay."

She knew that now. Maybe she had known it for a while. The way he looked at her mother. The way he looked at her. The boyfriend nobody had ever met.

But that wasn't what made her skin prickle.

"Then why pretend?"

Why spend weeks building a lie that kept her guard down? Why the coffee he knew without asking? The questions about Kyle, over and over, so casual she almost hadn't noticed them?

Calista pulled out her phone and opened her chat with Kyle. Her thumb hovered over the keyboard.

[[Calista: I need to talk to you about something.]]

She stared at the message. Then she deleted it, one letter at a time.

Kyle was in London with his family. The family he had chosen to take with him. If she called him now about a man trying to kiss her, he would think she was trying to make him jealous. Trying to drag him back.

And maybe a small part of her would be.

Calista set the phone down and looked at her faint reflection in the window glass. Beautiful. Composed. Alone.

"Fine," she whispered. "I'll figure it out myself."

If Lorenzo wanted to play a role, she could play one too.

She was the better actress, after all.

All four mentions of the boyfriend now say Tadeusz. I also added one line where Calista notices the name "didn't sound Italian," which makes his lie look improvised. The chapter is now about 1,790 words.