The Lies of Pride

by Lily Zante

  Damn it.

  “I think you’re awesome, Nina. You’re brave, you’re so much braver than you realize.”

  I frown, unable to get my tongue and lips working. He has no idea what he is talking about.

  “You remember the wallet, the reason why I didn’t want to give it up?”

  I blink, unsure where he’s going with this. “Because it had sentimental value, you said.”

  Though, knowing what I know now about him, I wouldn’t put it past him to make up some bullshit lie just to get some female sympathy. In fact, it’s the type of thing I expect from someone like Callum.

  “It was the last picture taken of me and my brother.”

  It takes me a few seconds to let that sink in but I am determined not to lower my guard for this guy. “What do you mean it was the last picture?”

  “He died of an aneurysm while playing basketball. It happened suddenly.”

  I open my mouth to say something, but nothing comes out. Any anger I felt for him dissipates in an instant. “What?”

  “One moment he was here, and then he went. It broke us as a family. “

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “I didn’t want to tell you back when you asked about the wallet. The truth is, I don’t talk about it much.”

  “But you’re telling me now.”

  He nods. “I feel as if I can.”

  Oh, for the love of all things … But my quickfire sarcasm melts away. I see a sadness in him that I’ve never really noticed before. I see another side to Callum, and this time it’s like I’m seeing him anew. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  “I’ve carried that photo around with me ever since. It was the last one taken of us together.”

  I wipe a hand over my cheek, then I sit on the couch, it’s like the news has weighed me down. “I see now why you didn’t want to give that photo up.”

  “That was why.”

  I look up at him, surprised by how much he’s opening up to me. Now I wish he would sit down..

  “How old was your brother when he died?”

  “Thirteen. I was sixteen.”

  Taken so young. Something heavy crashes into my stomach. I’m not the only one who has known extreme pain. I look at him with new eyes. His face and body are pure Hollywood hunk, and yet his eyes are wise, and ageless. And now that I’m seeing it clearly for the first time, his expression isn’t so much brawn, as something deeper altogether.

  “I don’t usually speak about Ben, but I felt I could tell you.”

  I didn’t ask him to tell me, and I wonder why he did. “It must be painful, even now, carrying the weight of your loss.”

  “I carried that photo around with me everywhere. It’s like I needed to remember that moment, that one bright sunny day when everything was just fine in my world. I miss him.”

  I feel as if a ball of sadness has gotten stuck in my throat. I know of that bond between siblings, and even though Callum and I are so different—in our backgrounds, and personalities, and past—we’ve both been touched by sadness in our earlier lives, and he is right. Stuff like that binds you together in a small way. Only in that way do we share something.

  I feel like a cold-hearted bitch, the way I’ve been around him, and now, hearing this, I feel even worse. This man has been hurting as much as me, maybe in a different way, but his pain is no less significant than mine.

  “Why did you tell me?”

  He ruffles his hair up, as if he has no idea. “I don’t know. I didn’t come here with that intention. I didn’t come to get sympathy, I honestly came to see you because...” He pauses, and there’s a world of explanation in that silence. We have spent enough time together, have experienced enough uncomfortable moments, to fill the quiet.

  “Because I’ve seen your arms, Nina. I know what you do.” His knowing and saying it out loud, shuts me down again.

  I hate this. Someone knowing my secret. I’ve lived with it this long and there has been a sense of safety in this being my secret. I can’t untell him, no more than he can unsee what he has. It makes the fabric of our already frayed relationship even weaker.

  I am at a loss for words. I have no idea what he wants me to say. I have no idea what I want to say.

  “I’m drawn to you, Nina, and I have no idea why. Maybe because we both have guilt. Maybe because we both wonder why couldn’t it have been me?”

  I shiver. Because it was me.

  I wish it had been just me, and not Elias, but if Callum thinks otherwise, I’m going to let him.

  Callum Sandersby, the sexy and confident self-assured Hollywood hunk. Who would have thought he was wracked with guilt? That he wished his brother had lived and not him?

  “I should go. Good to see that you’re getting better. You look well.”

  “Stay a while.”

  “I should go.”

  He’s going now? He comes in here, hands me an autograph, tells me about his brother and now he’s going? I get up, not wanting him to leave so quickly now. He opened up and let me see his wound, and even though I won’t allow myself to do the same, I want to try to be a better friend.

  When he leaves, I’m left looking at the autograph from Leanne Rose. Callum went to the trouble of getting that for me because of something I mentioned in a conversation once.

  I never allowed myself to believe that he could be nice, and honest and decent. If he wanted something quick and dirty, he could click his fingers and women would come running.

  Maybe the reason he won’t leave me alone is because he genuinely likes me.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  CALLUM

  * * *

  I’m glad I told her about my brother. I don’t talk about him to anyone, except my parents and serious girlfriends. Ben doesn’t deserve to be used as a pity card, but seeing that Nina is neither a girlfriend, nor a close friend, I’m not sure why I told her, except that I had an urge to tell her the truth.

  I harbor a type of guilt that Ben died and I didn’t. Brain aneurysms are a freaky occurence. I wish it hadn’t been once to visit my family. We had bereavement counseling. My mom and dad had it for longer than I did. I was still in high school when it happened. School, soccer, girls, drinks ... these things helped me to cope with my grief better than any counseling could.

  While I will never know of Nina’s pain, I’ve suffered my own. The loss of a brother, so young, fit and healthy, so full of life, being taken in the blink of an eye is something you never recover from. It shattered our close knit family. Luckily, we’ve managed to put ourselves back together again.

  I don’t think of him every single day now, not like I used to, but I feel that he’s a part of me. An invisible extension of me, somehow. At any one time I would be able to open my wallet and see Ben’s face. His smile would make me smile. In that instant, I would feel that he was there. That’s why I couldn’t part with my wallet.

  I don’t know if Nina liked the autograph. It wasn’t too hard for me to get since Leanne and I are good friends. There’s no romance there, despite the press wanting to make one up. I helped her through a tough time. She’d lost her mom to cancer towards the end of the film we were shooting, and because this business stinks when it comes to empathy, nobody cared. Nobody cares what goes on in the background, it’s all to do with breaking box office records and multi-million, if not billion, opening weekend sales.

  But I was there for Leanne. I listened, and I held her. All those pictures that the paps managed to get, those were of me being there for her in her hour of need. That’s all it was.

  “Who is this Nina?” she asked me, when I called her up and asked her to mail me an autograph.

  “Just a friend,” I told her. But the truth is, I didn’t know then who or what Nina is to me, and I am none the wiser now. I’m glad I went to see her. I was worried that she might have done something hasty, but she seemed fine. I tried to get a look at her arms, but she had them well covered.

  My cell phone suddenly rings. It’s Dottie. �
�Where are you?” She sounds anxious.

  “I’m...out, why?”

  “Everyone’s looking for you. You have some retakes to do.”

  “Now? I thought we were done for the day.”

  “No, you’re not. You need to come back quickly. How come you left the set so fast?”

  I can hear the shock in her voice. I shouldn’t have left straight after my shoot, but I didn’t think I’d be needed. Murphy’s Law. “I had things to do.” I usually hang around until late evening, because it’s not as if I have anything else to do. Nina has been my only distraction, and hanging out with Elias and Harper has helped me to pass the time. “I’m on my way,” I tell her.

  “Rudy wants me to book your plane and hotel tickets for Alyssa’s premier.”

  Shoot.

  “You had forgotten,” Dotty says, when I don’t answer.

  I let out a sigh of relief. “That’s why I hired you.”

  “Do you want to stay in LA one night or two?”

  “Two.” The jet lag will kill me if it’s just the one night.

  “Rudy wants me to remind you that this is a PR opportunity. He says, and I quote, “Don’t forget to turn up the love factor.”

  I groan. Two nights in LA? I’m not looking forward to it at all.

  * * *

  NINA

  * * *

  I go back to work the next day and as soon as I walk through the door I feel Frankie’s eyes on me. I’ve never taken a day off sick before. “You okay?” Her voice is gentle, as if she’s talking to someone sick.

  “All good, thanks.”

  “If you need more time off … “

  I frown. “Do I look ill?”

  “You look just fine to me, a little tired maybe, though you were probably working late into the night finishing off your assignments.” She snorts. “You don’t have to rush back if you need more time off.”

  “I like being here.”

  “I worry about you sometimes.”

  I laugh. “You worry about me all the time, Frankie.”

  She snorts. “Someone has to.”

  I go in the back to get my pen and notepad, and that’s when Joni walks in with a badly camouflaged black eye because despite the inch of concealer she has plastered on, I can still see it. “What happened?” I worry about her more than anything. Her dating that psychopath always makes me worry about her, even though I know she wouldn’t care about me in that way.

  Joni gives me a pointed, stare, as if she’s trying to hold back on telling me the truth. My hate for Rhys is harder to hide these days.

  “How long are you going to put up with it?” I ask her.

  I can see by the way the muscles along her jaw flex, that she doesn’t like my line of questioning.

  “What was wrong with you yesterday?” she asks, completely ignoring my question.

  “I didn’t feel well.” It’s vague, because there was nothing wrong with me, nothing physically.

  “Your actor friend kept asking me about you. I don’t get it, why he’s so into you.”

  “He’s not into me,” I counter, but this time, even as I say it, I’m not so sure I believe that anymore.

  “You wouldn’t know it even if a guy smacked his lips all over you,” she says.

  “I’d hope the guy would have asked my permission before he did that.” I look at Joni’s face, at the badly disguised black eye, at the tight press of her lips. She seems to hate me, even though I’m the only real friend she has. I feel sorry for her. “Did Rhys do that to—”

  “I walked into the door.”

  “You’ve been walking into a lot of doors lately,” I push back.

  “Mind your own business,” she snarls, and walks off.

  She doesn’t want to face the truth. She and I are similar in that respect. Callum isn’t such a bad guy. I’ve always pushed him away, and he’s doesn’t seem to take the hint. I’ve been used to lumping every guy I ever met with all the bad guys, but Callum isn’t a bad guy.

  My feelings for him have gone through a kaleidoscope of ever-changing emotions. This is strange for me, because where I once believed myself incapable of having such thoughts, I’m starting to see Callum in a different way.

  It hasn’t happened suddenly. It’s taken a while. It might have even started when I began delivering his lunch on set.

  I’ve learned that he is different from the actor guy he portrays on-screen.

  He could have any woman he wants, but he’s being extra nice to me. I find his interest in me scary, and exhilarating, and something that I don’t completely understand.

  A whisper swirls up from deep inside me, something I have always pushed back whenever a guy showed interest in me.

  If this man finds you desirable, you can’t be all that bad.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  CALLUM

  * * *

  Nina turns up with my lunch the next day. I’m so relieved to see her instead of her friend, but more than that, I’m happy to see her.

  “Your wrap, and salad and milkshake.” She puts the bag down

  “Thanks. I take it you’re better now. You look well.”

  “I’m better.”

  “How are the assignments?”

  “Coming along.”

  “Need me to attend night school with you?”

  She laughs.

  Holy shit. Did Nina just laugh? I sit up in shock, then try to slink back down in my chair, hoping she won’t notice. It’s the most magical sound I’ve ever heard, and I want her to do it again. Emboldened, I press, “I’ll let you pick my disguise this time, how about it.”

  “Disguise for what?”

  “For me to accompany you to night school again.”

  “Why would you want to do that?”

  “I’m a lonely guy, remember?”

  “You really want to accompany me to night school?”

  “It beats sitting alone in my hotel suite, trying to learn my lines.”

  “I get to pick?”

  I sit up. She sounds as if she’s considering it. Hell yes, I would. “Of course.” Her eyes grow bigger, as if she’s game.

  “Can it be anything?” She seems softer. Lighter. Now that I think about it, Nina’s always had a halo of darkness about her, I never fully realized that until this moment.

  “Anything.” I don’t want to push her. I sense that I have to take one slow step forward then wait it out to see what she makes of it before I can even think of taking another step. I can see that she’s fragile, deep down inside, even though she makes out that she’s as hard as nails. “You decide when you want me to come along.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  I wish it wasn’t night school she wanted me to accompany her to. I wish it were something else. Dinner at a restaurant, or even coffee at any place but the diner. A good old-fashioned getting-to-know-you date.

  I feel as if I know Elias and Harper better than I know this woman.

  “I’ll have a think,” she says, walking towards the door.

  “Do that.” I wish she’d hang around and talk some more, but I feel as if our previous interactions have been more jovial. I’m scared that me asking her any questions will push her away.

  Her visit has already lifted my mood. She walks away, leaving me smiling to myself. She turns and catches me grinning like a fool. “What?” she asks.

  “Nothing.”

  “What?”

  “I wasn’t expecting this...” I pause trying to find the right word, but it’s almost impossible because I don’t even know what how to explain it. “You’re being so ...”

  “Different?” she offers.

  “Nice?” I guess, and I wonder if this thaw in her demeanor has anything to do with what I told her about Ben. I want to ask her what changed, but I don’t want to push her away. She’s given me a little leeway, and I don’t want to mess things up. I don’t have long left here, and it’s taken me this long to get to this stage with Nina. I don’t know where we’ll
be by the time my stay here ends. Life is a rollercoaster with her, and I’m willing to let her take me along with her for the ride.

  “You’re not as bad as I made you out to be.”

  I snort in surprise.

  She turns back around and pulls the door open while I’m still trying to decipher what she’s said. Why did she ever think I was bad? I’ve never done anything to her that might make her think that about me. Her words confuse me, but I let it slide, for now.

  “Oh, and another thing,” she says, turning around again. “I ran into Dottie on the way in, and I asked her about the security passes. She says it doesn’t matter who turns up. The passes aren’t a problem.”

  She’s caught me red-handed.

  I can only flash her the smile that usually makes women forget whatever it was they were asking me. It’s my get out card for tricky situations. Only, it probably doesn’t work on Nina. “You lied to me,” she accuses, but she’s smiling, so it can’t be all that bad.

  I stand up. “It was a little white lie.”

  “Back when you wanted to get to know me on account of Elias?”

  I throw my hands up in defeat. “You’ve seen right through me.”

  She hovers by the open door. “Do we have to continue with this lunch thing?” Her tone indicates that she doesn’t like it.

  “You mean delivering my lunch here?” Technically no. We don’t have to continue with this, not if she’s allowing me to go with her to night school, not if we’re at the stage now where she’s picking out what disguise I have to wear.

  “Unless Joni or someone else can do it?” she suggests.

  What would be the point of that? I frown, and she picks up on it.

  “So, it was a set up?”

  She’s right. It was, but the reasons for it changed somewhere along the way. I don’t tell her that though, because we are always taking one step forward and twenty steps back. “I like the milkshakes and your waitress friend is so needy, I figured it was easier to get you to come.” I slip my hands into the back pockets of my jeans. “Don’t forget, you get to pick my disguise.”