𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲𝗹 | 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗹𝗲𝘀 𝗹𝗲𝗰𝗹𝗲𝗿𝗰

Chapter 45

"Charles Leclerc's relationship is revealed to be fake by the driver himself in an interview. Charles didn't go into much detail but from this interview rumours of him cheating with Alena Pavelli, in Australia, have been cleared up. However, when asked about Alena Pavelli the Ferrari driver didn't try and hide the smile that appeared on his face. He said that she is a very important person in his life and went on to say there is a hot laps, featuring her, that will be out to the public in the next few hours."

Obviously I knew the truth was being put out there today and it did cause the uproar that I imagined. My socials were flooded with comments once again, this time not as negative and once again there was attention on me. Using the attention in a positive way, I decided to put a post up thanking people for the kind messages as I genuinely appreciated them, especially after Australia and how social media was practically hell for me at that moment in time.

I did scroll through the comments a little, liking the odd few but I also didn't want to be sitting on my phone for the next hour so placed it on the table beside me after about ten minutes. I took myself to my kitchen so that I could prepare my dinner but when I started to look for the ingredients for the meal I wanted, I noticed that I was missing the majority of them. On any other day, I'd have just changed my meal choice but when it came down to looking for something else to eat I started to feel quite lazy. It felt like my best bet was ordering food for today and when I thought about it, a pizza did sound quite appealing.

Going back to where my phone was, I opened the delivery app and placed my order but as it showed up as the order being received, the screen changed and I saw the name appear on my screen that gave me butterflies. I had an incoming facetime from Charles and I didn't leave him waiting long as I pressed the answer button almost straight away, before taking myself back to the food app as soon as the call connected just to make sure the call didn't effect the payment process.

"Where are you ma cheri?" I heard Charles ask through my phone, sounding a little confused, as I still hadn't returned back on camera yet. "Hello?"

"I am here" I smiled, going back to the call screen, where he was smiling at me as soon as my face appeared. "Hi, mr leclerc"

After how Emilio had been today, I did feel quite hurt by it and even though I was happy with Charles being able to tell the truth about Lauren, I wasn't really smiley or overly joyful. I think it was quite apparent that I wasn't in the best moods as Charles furrowed his eyebrows at me when I gave him a smile, which was obviously not a convincing one.

"Something is wrong, no?" He asked. "Because I know that that smile was not a proper smile from you." As I said, the smile gave it away.

"Emilio just had a bit of an outburst." I said, not really wanting to say why because it was obviously about Charles. Charles did know about Emilio because when he came back I explained how I'd spent most of my time with him and unlike Emilio, Charles had respect for him and appreciated him keeping me company and being a good friend.

"What type of outburst are we talking and why did he have one?"

"Too many questions" I said, trying to avoid having to answer either of them.

"Well I have time and I want to talk. Why the outburst"

There's never really a good way to say, it was because of you. It wasn't because of him but it was obvious it was and I didn't know how to explain that. I didn't know how to explain that Emilio didn't like him and because I denied his invitation to living in Barcelona he wasn't happy and brought Charles up. In fact it wasn't because of Charles, it was because Emilio made it about Charles.

"He just wanted me to go to Barcelona, and I said no." I told Charles, who had his head rested on his hand as he waited for me to continue. "He wasn't happy that I said no so he stormed out." Of course I missed out the detail but I felt it was better that way.

"Seems a bit rude to me, did it upset you?"

"A little. I mean he is one of my best friends so it was upsetting that he got so irritated over something so little," I said before continuing onto a different topic, which I knew he was dying to speak about. "So it's finally out there?"

He told me about how happy he was because he felt like he finally had something off his shoulders. Explaining how he felt bad that he had been lying to his fans about the relationship, he also added in that he felt bad that something so simple was made to be so difficult, referring to me and him in Australia.

Of course many people were speculating now after finding out about the fake relationship because me and Charles had kissed in Monaco last weekend, meaning it was quite evident that what we had was more than friends. At the time this would've looked quite negative on mine and Charles' side but now the truth was out it was clear that everything we were doing wasn't wrong in any way. Like Charles, I also felt a weight lifted off my shoulder because I felt that there was a chance for us to be ourselves with each other without having to do it sneakily and behind everyone's backs.

Whilst we continued to converse over the face time call, filling each other in on our days, mostly him filling me in with his, we both got notifications at the same time. The hot laps video had been uploaded sooner than anyone, including Charles, had expected and ScuderiaFerrari had tagged both me and Charles on instagram in a small clip of it. I could already tell he was watching it due to the silence coming from the other side of the phone and I was quick to join him as I pressed onto the video.

I always noticed how Charles looked at me when I did catch him every now and then but even after watching only a 60 second clip, I never noticed how much he looked when I wasn't watching him. The clip was when I was in the drivers seat and he was freaking out, calling me crazy as I took one of the corners. Even though he was hanging on for his 'dear life', which is what he said, he was watching me the whole time as I was focused on the track ahead of me, not paying attention to him. I thought maybe I was the only one who noticed it because I did know that Charles had a thing for staring so it stood out to me more but it was quite clear that many others saw it as they pointed it out in the comments.

"These people are making me sound so soppy" Charles said and it was like he read my mind as I was reading through the comments thinking the same thing.

His comment made me laugh because I knew as a driver he liked to be seen as this person who isn't soft for anyone and is quite aggressive but the thing with Charles is he is everything but that. The soft side of him was my favourite side and it was the side that I and his closer friends probably got to see more than anyone else did or ever would.

"You like staring at me?" I joked, winding him up a little as I laughed at his facial expression.

"I don't mean to, i'm getting in touch with this social media lady, she has set me up to be called a simp" he said, pretending to be serious before he caught my eye and started laughing himself.

"You are a simp Leclerc"

"For you only, ma cherí"

This was definitely a new step to whatever relationship we had. There were no more complications and no more drama surrounding how we were with each other and I just hoped that we could enjoy our time together as usual. I just hoped that the comment Emilio made about him believing Charles was playing a game wasn't true because what I felt for Charles was becoming stronger and there was a sense of comfort with him that I didn't get with anyone else.

I watched him on the screen as he messed with something on the desk in front of him and when he saw me watching him, he shot me a smile. The smile made me think about how much I did like this boy and whatever we had was something I wanted to grow. Especially since we now had a better scenario.

***
Writers note
Hi guys, sorry for taking so long to upload this :) I will upload a chapter in the next couple of days I have just had a bit of a hectic couple of weeks and I couldn't find the time to write, plus I still have a writers block and it's so frustrating x

Ty for 80k!🫶🏼

~Mel