Chapter 111: First Time on the Entertainment Page

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“Do not move.”

Kate Moss had tried to sit up. The instant she shifted, her face went white and her fingers clawed at the sheet.

Nolan caught her shoulder before she could make it worse. “Stay flat. If something is cracked, twisting around will only turn a bad night into surgery.”

“It hurts,” Kate breathed.

“I know.”

He did not sound comforting. He sounded like a quarterback seeing a blown assignment and refusing to panic. That steadiness helped more than sympathy would have.

Kate turned her head toward the nightstand. “There are pills in the drawer.”

“No.”

“Nolan.”

“I am not giving you mystery pills after an injury. I am also not giving you a cigarette. If you want to hate me, hate me after the doctor clears your pelvis.”

She stared at him, stunned by the bluntness, then gave a brittle laugh that almost became another wince.

He helped her dress enough for the ambulance crew without letting her move her hips. When the paramedics arrived, he kept answers short: adult woman, fall-related injury, severe pelvic pain, no loss of consciousness, no drugs administered by him.

Kate caught his wrist before they lifted her.

“Call my agency,” she said.

“Number?”

She gave it through clenched teeth.

The woman who answered at Storm Management did not waste time on courtesy. The moment Nolan gave his name and said Kate was being taken to Cedars-Sinai, she began swearing at him as if volume could reverse bone damage.

Nolan waited three seconds.

“If you want to scream, do it at the hospital,” he said. “If you want the address, listen.”

That quiet threat cut through the noise. He gave the address, hung up, and followed the ambulance in his own car.

The emergency intake fee alone looked ugly. By the time the ambulance charges, advanced-life-support surcharge, mileage, waiting, dispatch, and hospital deposit were mentioned, the number was already pushing twelve hundred dollars. Nolan paid the immediate part and left the rest for Kate’s people to handle.

It was the most expensive lesson in restraint he had ever bought.

The hospital staff tried to be discreet, but a famous model with a pelvic fracture was not the kind of thing a night shift swallowed cleanly. Whispers moved faster than paperwork. By the time Kate disappeared behind an exam-room curtain, Nolan already knew the entertainment press would smell blood before morning.

He called Lisa Virgil.

She answered on the third ring, voice low and sharp. “This better matter.”

“I put Kate Moss in the hospital.”

Silence.

“Say that again slowly.”

“Kate Moss. Hospital. Pelvic fracture, maybe. Soft-tissue injury too, according to the look on the nurse’s face.”

“Did you hit her?”

“No.”

“Did she fall?”

“Something like that.”

“Did you steal Johnny Depp’s girlfriend?”

“Leo started this.”

“Of course he did.” Lisa exhaled through her nose. “Do not speak to police without counsel. Do not joke with staff. Do not tell anyone a private detail because you think it is funny. I am coming.”

Kate’s agent arrived before Lisa did.

Sarah Doukas walked into the hospital with two people behind her and fury held so tightly it looked elegant. Nolan recognized her from memory before she introduced herself. Storm Management. The woman who had helped turn Kate into a fashion-world event instead of just another pretty face in London.

Tonight, she looked ready to turn Nolan into a lawsuit.

“You are Nolan Callahan?”

“Yes.”

“The police are on their way.”

“Good. Kate can tell them what happened.”

Sarah’s mouth tightened. “She had campaign obligations. Editorial bookings. Brand work. Do you understand what a body injury means in this business?”

“I understand she is hurt,” Nolan said. “Everything else can wait until the doctor finishes.”

“That is convenient for you.”

“It is accurate.”

The first LAPD officers arrived with the careful expressions of men who had already heard a story from the angriest person in the room. Nolan gave them the same brief account: he had met Kate through Leo DiCaprio, driven her home, stayed, and called emergency services when she was injured during a private, consensual adult encounter. He refused to add performance, detail, or jokes.

Lisa entered ten minutes later with a lawyer at her side.

“No statement beyond what he already gave,” the lawyer said at once.

Sarah turned on Lisa. “Of course you are here.”

“Of course I am,” Lisa said. “My client called an ambulance and stayed. Yours can speak for herself.”

“Your client?”

“For tonight, yes.”

The two women knew each other. The air between them made that obvious.

The officers eventually spoke to Kate in private. When they came back, their tone had cooled. There was no allegation. No forced entry. No assault complaint. Just an injury, a furious agency, and a famous boyfriend whose name made the whole thing combustible.

The doctor gave Nolan the clean version in the hallway because Kate insisted he be told.

“Fracture, conservative treatment for now. Pelvic brace, pain control, bed rest. Six to eight weeks before we even discuss normal activity. Longer before she tests the industry schedule her agent wants.”

“And the other injury?”

The doctor, a woman old enough to treat stupidity as a recurring weather pattern, gave him one steady look. “No evidence of assault. But bodies have limits, Mr. Callahan. I suggest everyone involved remember that.”

“Understood.”

Kate demanded to see him before he left.

She looked smaller in the hospital bed, but her eyes were alert and far too bright.

“You have to come take care of me,” she said.

“That is not how this works.”

“You broke me.”

“The doctor says you will heal.”

“Then help me heal.”

There was a strange hunger under the words, not simply desire. Nolan had seen people latch onto pain, fame, danger, sedatives, cigarettes, lovers, anything that made the world sharp enough to feel. Kate’s gaze had that same fever.

“Your mother is coming,” he said. “Your agency is here. You are not alone.”

“I do not want them.”

The curtain snapped aside before he could answer.

Johnny Depp entered like a man walking onto the wrong set with all the anger from the previous scene still in him.

“You,” he said.

Nolan stepped back from the bed. “Johnny.”

Depp swung first.

That was unfortunate for him.

Nolan moved on instinct, took the punch off line, and answered with one short strike. Depp hit the floor hard enough for a nurse to shout from the corridor.

Kate did not scream.

She looked at Johnny with exhausted contempt. “Do not contact me again.”

That landed harder than Nolan’s fist.

Security arrived. Then Lisa. Then Sarah again, pale with rage. By the time the new mess was contained, Nolan had decided that Leo DiCaprio was a hazard to public life.

Outside the examination area, Lisa leaned close and spoke softly enough for only him to hear.

“Congratulations. If she gets pregnant, Sarah Doukas may actually try to kill you.”

Sarah heard enough to snap, “I will break all three of his legs.”

“Back door,” Nolan said.

“Too late,” Lisa replied.

The lobby doors flashed white.

Paparazzi had gathered outside the hospital entrance, pressed against the glass with cameras raised. Reporters shouted through the opening whenever someone came in.

Nolan looked at the crowd, then at Lisa.

“Advice?”

“Say less than you want to,” Lisa said. “Look sorry. Do not look afraid. And for the love of God, do not smirk.”

Nolan adjusted his jacket and walked out into the flashstorm.

For the first time in his new life, football would not be the reason his name landed on the entertainment page.

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I hope this chapter drew you further into the story. Stick around, because there’s still a lot waiting just ahead.