In Love with a Star Read online

  “There’s no need for that. I was fond of Arthur and I took care of him willingly. I’m just sorry he left us so early”.

  “He loved you too. He told me before he died”.

  Leny felt her eyes burn with coming tears at the thought of the love she felt for that proud stubborn and poor old man.

  Overwhelmed by the latest memories, she kept grasped to reality, trying to concentrate on clearing the table and washing the cups.

  “I went to the bank this morning to have news about my grandpa’s account. I discovered he didn’t even touch the money I regularly sent him each month”, he went on seriously.

  “He didn’t want your money. On the contrary he didn’t understand why he should have all that money if he didn’t have a life long enough to spend it all”.

  “I just wanted him to be happy and able to afford the life he had always wished for, without trudging at the end of each month with his small pension”, he said nervously.

  But he didn’t want your money. He just wanted his grandson next to himself!

  She wished she could answer and accuse him of materialism, but she didn’t have the courage to get involved.

  She had to bite her lower lip to avoid speaking.

  “There are things you can’t buy with money”, she hissed at the end. She would have given up all that millions if she could have Chris back instead.

  “You’re talking like him”.

  “Arthur was a wise but also very proud man. He loved you and he would have liked to spend more time with you”.

  “So why didn’t he ever told me? Why didn’t he look for me to ask me to come back?”, Chris burst out furious and hurt.

  Because he loved you and he couldn’t clip your wings keeping you stuck to him…just like me!

  “He didn’t want to damage your opportunity of making your dream come true”, Leny answered trying to control the pain for that choice. A pain she had been sharing with Arthur for seven years.

  “So now I’m left alone. I’ve lost the last part of my family”, Chris sighed broken-hearted.

  Leny felt a stone on her heart seeing Chris’s hurt and desperate look.

  Pushed by the love she felt for him, she hugged him, holding him in her arms.

  “But you’re not alone. I’m here for you. And Emily too. We’re a family, don’t you remember? Even if our paths parted, that doesn’t mean I’m not fond of you anymore”, and I don’t love you.

  She felt Chris’s strong arms holding her waist with passion and his face diving into her neck.

  She could feel the man’s sadness and pain by that contact.

  Letting tears flow down her face silently, she hold him tighter and caressed his head bending on her.

  “Chris, I’m fond of you”, I love you.

  She saw him lift his head and look straight into her eyes. His glance was so sweet to make Leny smile too.

  She was going to tell him how fond of him she was and that he could always rely on her, when she saw him bent again on her and put his lips on hers.

  She had a déjà-vu for a moment, but then she was suddenly overwhelmed by the new feelings aroused by that kiss she had been craving and wishing for such a long time.

  If at the beginning she had remembered the soft and sweet kiss they had exchanged when she was sixteen, now she found the assault much deeper and overwhelming, letting her breathless.

  She felt his tongue looking for hers, while his mouth moved thirsty on hers, as if all his life depended on that kiss.

  For a moment they didn’t even hear Chris’s mobile ringing.

  They finally parted unwillingly putting an end to that exciting whirl of emotions which had shattered Leny to her bones.

  The phone call was short but as soon as it ended, the magic of the moment before completely disappeared and the man’s gloomy look didn’t foretell anything good.

  “Is everything ok?”.

  “I don’t know…Emily was on the phone. Our agents are here and they need to meet us at once”.

  Leny tried to make her brain work again.

  Chris was talking to…Emily.

  Emily, her cousin.

  Emily, Chris’s girlfriend!

  O my God! She had just kissed her cousin’s boyfriend!

  How could she have betrayed in that way the trust of the one she considered more than a sister?

  5

  The next day, she agreed with Emily to go out together. Just the two of them, but Emily finally stood her up because she had a videoconference on Skype to talk to Catwoman’s movie director.

  She had spent all the evening getting ready to avoid cutting a poor figure next to her perfect and always gorgeous cousin, and now she was left with a perfect look in front of TV, crouching on the sofa.

  Half an hour of zapping later, she heard the doorbell ring.

  Hoping Emily was there, she went to open cheerfully, but she saw instead Chris’s disarming and charming good looks.

  “You’re so beautiful! Were you going out?”, he asked her keeping holding his eyes on her.

  “No, not any more. Please, come in”, she whispered unsure because her body had immediately reacted to his presence and just wanted to get satisfied by his kisses.

  She had been thinking all the while about that wonderful kiss and she had finally come to the conclusion that she should put an end to her dream, because Chris was engaged to Emily…and then what did she have to do with their world?

  He would soon leave to turn the seventh season of “Love School”, and she wouldn’t meet him again. Craving for Chris meant to feel more pain.

  “The bank director called me this afternoon to tell me he had forgotten something important. It looks that the day of his admission to hospital, my grandpa called him early to tell him to keep a considerable amount of money apart, because he wanted to give it to someone he loved and who was in financial trouble. The director was surprised by the fact, since he had never touched the account before, so he asked my grandpa to talk again about it, but then…he died and…”, he told her.

  Leny knew Arthur wanted to make her a deposit after he had known she had been fired, but she pretended she knew nothing about it.

  “You’ll imagine my surprise when the director told me your name as a recipient”, he went on moving menacingly to her and sucking all the air in the room.

  “Maybe he made a mistake”, Leny tried to say making place for herself.

  “That’s just what I believed, but then I remembered your bare house and your free car repair…”.

  “I’ve already told you: Tom asked me a favor and my house is essential just as I like it”, Leny burst out humiliated.

  “Really?”, he challenged her, moving to the box room door.

  “No!”, Leny screamed throwing herself between the man and the door to block his way, but he was ready and pushed her aside badly, then he opened the door showing the piled up boxes labelled with what they contained.

  “Leny, you must explain all that to me”, he got angry, holding her shoulders in a steel grip.

  “I don’t owe you any explanation!”, she got furious, trying to hide her shame. She didn’t want to show that a movie star’s cousin was poor and penniless.

  “Leny, are you in trouble? I want to know”.

  “No trouble. I’ve just decided to move home”, she invented trying to keep calm.

  “But does your mother know?”.

  “Not yet, and please I want to tell her myself”.

  “Ok. But where are you going to stay?”.

  “In a bigger house. I don’t know…I’m still considering some offers”, Leny lied biting her lips.

  “Why can’t I believe you?”, Chris hissed furiously.

  “Why are you so suspicious?”, Leny assumed trying to get free.

  “You’ll catch it if you are lying”, Chris warned her before he put his lips harshly on hers and pushed her against his aroused body.

  Leny wished she could part from him and put an end to that ki
ss, but her body didn’t agree at all. As if pushed by its own will, it stuck instead even more to Chris’s body, till she could feel his contracted abdominals through her light dress.

  Drugged by the passion which had caught and overwhelmed them, they moved to the bedroom, where he laid her down sweetly on the bed and then covered her with his body and overwhelmed her with kisses, moving from her mouth to her cheek, then to her earlobe and finally to her neck, making her moan with pleasure.

  She had made sex just once before but she was too drunk to remember.

  After that, she had had just a few love affairs and they had ended too soon to get to bed, especially after what she had experienced with Ethan.

  But now feeling Chris’s body, mouth and hands on her body made her melt languidly and stretch till she was exhausted at the same time.

  Unexperienced and completely at the mercy of those new emotions, she couldn’t recover her spirit and check her reactions.

  She herd herself whispering, wailing and muttering his name, while Chris went on covering her with sweet and then possessive kisses, as he went down her soft neckline which underlined her prominent breast.

  “Oh, Leny, you make me go crazy”, he growled quite aggressively when she bent her back, pushing her pelvis against his trousers made tight by the painful erection which was pushing against the cloth to get free.

  She wished she could tell him that he was making her crazy too, but she was so excited she couldn’t even put the words together.

  She let herself go instead and clung eagerly to him.

  When he put his hands on her panties, she started for the intimate and experienced touch and when he took them off, she couldn’t avoid a scream of surprise.

  He was going to take his trousers down, when the doorbell rang.

  “Who can it be so late?”, Chris thundered suddenly furious.

  It took Leny a long time and a second ring to recover enough to understand what she was doing.

  When she finally realized what was happening, she got scared and run to answer, praying Chris to stay locked into the bedroom.

  Feeling terribly guilty for what she was doing with her cousin’s boyfriend, she went to

  open sure it was Emily. She had probably disengaged from the videoconference and she wanted to go out now.

  Before she opened the door she checked herself in the mirror of the hall.

  Her gathered hair was all in a mess and her bright eyes and swollen lips without any make-up made her look terribly sexy.

  What she had been doing was clearly impressed on her face!

  Hoping she could find a plausible explanation, she opened the door and found a huge bunch of red roses.

  “Leny, my love! Travis exclaimed coming inside and hugging her, in spite of the rose thorns scratching her back.

  She couldn’t even react when Travis’s thin lips stuck on hers.

  “Oh my God, you’re gorgeous!”, the man burst out parting from her to admire her better.

  “Travis, we’ve already talked about that…”.

  Was it possible he couldn’t give her up?

  They had split up two months before, but he kept springing surprises on her, in particular after he had been to any pub.

  “Leny, I love you”, he blew to her face, his breath smelling whiskey.

  They suddenly heard the bedroom door slam.

  Chris came out of the room, his face covered by a pair of sunglasses, and he moved to them in a steady step.

  The contractions of his jaw made his disapproval and his fury in looking at that scene evident.

  Without uttering a single word, he moved to the door and went out.

  “Who is that?”, Travis asked in a bewildered voice.

  “He’s my new boyfriend. And now get out of here”, she screamed furious, slamming the door on his face.

  She knew Travis was drunk enough to forget in a day what he had seen and heard.

  6

  The next evening, they were again all together in Pieville.

  The tension between Leny and Chris was evident, but nobody dared to ask for the reason.

  She went on keeping her eyes down and Chris ignored her or replied rudely to her.

  “So, when are you going to stay with your boyfriend?”, Chris started after he had refused his dessert.

  Leny’s murderous glance didn’t seem to stop him.

  “So, Leny, have you already decided the day?”, he went on undeterred.

  “I don’t understand what you mean”, Leny replied harshly.

  “But of course, you and…Travis, that’s it?”.

  “Leny! Are you going to stay with Travis? But that’s wonderful news! Why didn’t you tell me before?”, Leny’s mother rejoiced.

  “Mum, I’m not going to stay with Travis”, she got to the point, wishing she could turn Chris to ashes by her glance.

  “Leny, be true! I saw all those boxes in your box room”.

  “Are you already organizing the removal?”, her mother became enthusiastic in the seventh heaven.

  “No, mum. Chris is wrong. Those aren’t the boxes for the removal, but just some things I want to get rid of. Forever.

  “So aren’t you moving to Travis’s”, Claire asked downcast.

  “No. Absolutely not. On the contrary…Travis and I have split up”, she announced irritated.

  “What a pity! I really liked that guy…but when did it happen?”.

  “Some time ago! I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to worry you, but it isn’t important anymore now thanks to some gossip”, she burst out furious getting up from the table and going away in a hurry.

  Nobody dared to stop her and she started to bustle about the car keys sticking at the bottom of her bag.

  “Why did you let me believe there was still something between you and Travis?”, Chris burst out angry preventing her from getting into the car.

  “Nobody made you believe anything. You drew the wrong conclusion before you even talked with me. You intruded into my life and dared to pontificate on me, but I wish to remind you that seven years have gone by…Seven years when you haven’t come home even once! Seven horrible years when I had to fight to get through…but how could you understand? You! A Hollywood star! You don’t know anything! You weren’t here!”, Leny shouted at him furious and hurt, pushing him far from the car.

  She didn’t stop to listen to Chris’s answer. She felt too hurt, humiliated and angry.

  She locked herself into the car and started home as fast as lightning.

  The next day she heard someone ringing and knocking at the door again.

  Chris was there.

  Still angry for the night before, she kept silent waiting for him to go away.

  Even when he tried to call her on her mobile, she didn’t answer.

  Neither her mother and aunt’s invitations could persuade her.

  For once she felt she was making other people suffer from loneliness, but even if she tried to be happy about her revenge, she felt really sadder and more gloomy than ever.

  At lunchtime three days after, her mother tried to call her again to invite her to dinner once more.

  “I’m busy”, Leny went to the point trying to wipe away the sadness which had overwhelmed her during those last lonely days.

  “Please, Leny. Emily is leaving in two days and…”.

  “So soon?”, she whispered even more disheartened than before. Since her cousin’s return, they hadn’t been able to spend a moment together. Emily was always talking to her about her job and her part as Catwoman, while Leny was always blocked by the fear of not knowing what to say or even worse, of telling about her misadventures and playing the nerd.

  “Of course. Now she’s here and she wants to talk with you”.

  “Mum, I’ve got no time…”, she got irritated and uneasy trying to avoid facing her cousin, but Claire had already passed her niece the phone.

  “Leny?”, Emily called her hesitant.

  “Hi. I’ve learnt you
are going to leave”, she answered.

  “I am, they called me to take part in Catwoman’s cast and the shooting will soon begin”.

  “I feel happy for you. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”.

  “Yes, but I also wished I could spend more time with you these days”.

  “Next time”.

  “I don’t know when next time will be. Maybe you could come and see me”, Emily asked her hesitant even if she already knew her cousin’s answer actually.

  She would never go to Los Angeles. Emily had sent her a flight ticket in the last five years to make her go and see her, but Leny had never used it.

  “We’ll see.

  “We’ll see. You know, with my job…and all the rest…I’m a bit busy”.

  “Of course, I understand. So please, try to come to dinner tonight. I really care for that”, Emily surrendered disheartened.

  “Ok”, Leny accepted in the end, her heart heavy with her sense of guilt.

  “So we’re waiting for you”, her cousin muttered before she hung up.

  Why had things between them gone that way?

  Why had their perfect relationship gone to the dogs?

  What had happened in the last seven years?

  Years spent feeling a sense of guilt, anger, frustration, regrets, unhappiness, loneliness and rage.

  Leny was still trying to understand how they could renew their relationship, when she got to her aunt’s house, where she was welcomed by one of Chris’s most cheerful and charming smiles.

  He didn’t look angry at all for their last meeting.

  It was as if he had pressed the Reset key in the last two days, keeping only what was perfectly fantastic in himself.

  Mesmerized by his smiling eyes and his sensual lips, she let him drag her inside the small house, where her aunt and mother had worked hard to prepare a dinner based on sushi, following the recipe Rose had learnt at a Japanese cooking course in Los Angeles.

  Even if Claire was very skeptic about eating raw fish, she didn’t want to disappoint her sister, so she had worked hard as well to prepare steamed spring rolls and a tatsoi and mizuna salad in a soy sauce dressing.