Intertwined | Charles Leclerc

CHAPTER 11

I wake up in the safety of Charles' arms, our legs interlocked, we just can't keep off of each other even in our sleep. Charles is still fast asleep as I wriggle out of his grasp to use the bathroom, I slither out of the bed trying not to wake him. I pick up my phone from my bag that I discarded on the floor the night before and walk into the bathroom. I decided to check my phone while sitting for a pee, 9.04am. 13 New Notifications. I unlock my phone and pull down the notification bar, an email from David reminding me of my trailer release today and the rest are notifications from the group chat, nothing of big importance except for one message from Grace.

Grace

Grace

-You need to see this. I saw it at work. It's already out there and it's only a matter of time before it's picked up big time. Call David.

-Grace sent 3 images

My stomach dropped, the 3 pictures are screenshots of a tweet with photos of Charles and me arriving at the factory yesterday, the caption 'Spotted Charles Leclerc in Maranello!! Who's the girl?' The photos are of the two of us getting out of his car and walking into the factory, Charles waving at the camera. I quickly open twitter and search the username and see that the tweet has a few thousand likes and a couple hundred replies. My fingers hesitate over the screen before I press on the tweet and scroll through the replies.

-Omg did you go say hi?!!?

-Who is she? 🤔

-Girl you're so lucky you saw him! I'm soooo jealous!

-Charles has a girlfriend????

-He'll drop her quickly, she's not as pretty as the others

I realise I've been scrolling for too long as my ass starts to go numb on the toilet seat. I clean myself up and head back into the bedroom, Charles still fast asleep just as I left him. I quickly pull out one of Charles' t-shirts from a drawer and put it on, the bottom of my shirt brushing my upper thighs. I write an email to David asking him to call me as soon as he can, I have to control this somehow and if anyone knows how he will. Not even a minute after I hit send my phone starts ringing.

I tip toe out of the bedroom, not wanting to wake Charles before answering, "Hello?" I answer. "Hey Nova. Is everything okay? How's Italy?" David asks sounding concerned. "Hi, yeah Italy's great thank you. Everything's good but I need to tell you something." I cringe as I know I have to tell him everything. "Uh okay?" "Please don't be mad because I wasn't completely honest but I had good reason. But I didn't come to Italy just to see a friend, well he is a friend but it's kind of more than that but anyway. Some photos of us just got posted on twitter and I'm scared it's going to interfere with the trailer dropping and I don't know what to do." I blurt out, I'm not even sure if he understood anything I just said because I was talking so quickly. "Right? Well without sounding horrible, you're not a huge name yet and I'm saying yet because I know you can and will be but why has someone been taking photos of you?" "That's the thing, I'm not the one they were taking photos of, it's who I'm with." I reply. "Okay so who are you with?" I take a big breath "You might not know him but Charles Leclerc." I scrunch my eyes closed waiting for his response. "Wait, Charles Leclerc as in Formula One driver Charles Leclerc?" I can hear the shock. "That's the one." "How the fuck do you know Charles Leclerc?" He half laughs. "I met him when I was away a couple of weeks ago in Monaco and we kind of started getting to know each other. I didn't tell you before because I didn't know what was going to happen so I didn't think I'd need to." "You do realise he's a big name, people were going to find out at some point, myself included." It's like I can hear his eyes rolling at me through the phone. "Yes I know that but I didn't think it would be this soon. I thought we'd be able to keep it quiet for a while." "Unfortunately when you're as popular as he is, things don't stay quiet and rumours fly very quickly. Send me the link now and I'll take a look." I take the phone from my ear and email him the link to the tweet. "Okay it should have sent." "Yep, got it. Okay well the photos aren't bad and they're from pretty far away so I don't think anyone will be able to recognise you too well just yet. I don't think we need to panic, let's go ahead as we said and if this starts to gain traction and your name gets brought up we will reassess." He sounds so calm and confident, I wish I was matching those same feelings. "You really think you can't tell it's me?" "You can tell it's you, but I don't think we have anything to be worried about. Like I said, let's just go ahead with the launch as usual and if anything crops up then we'll cross that bridge when it comes to it." His confidence is slowly putting me at ease. "Okay David as long as you're sure. What time is the trailer dropping again?" "6pm UK time, so 7pm for you. Just do a couple of sneak peak posts, Instagram stories like we discussed and then link the trailer the minute it goes live. We can control this if needs be but I think we're okay for now." I breathe a sigh of relief, he's right, people don't know who I am yet. "Thank you David, sorry for interrupting your weekend." "Don't be Nova, it's what I'm here for. Now go enjoy Italy and stay safe, contact me if you need anything." "I will thank you again, bye." I hear him saying goodbye as I take the phone away from my ear to end the call.