Chapter 13: Going Rogue

The media circus outside Elara's house had grown into a full-scale invasion. From her bedroom window, she could see at least twenty news vans lined up along her normally quiet street in the Hollywood Hills, satellite dishes extended like mechanical flowers reaching toward the sky. Reporters clutched coffee cups and checked their phones obsessively, while photographers adjusted their lenses and waited for any sign of movement behind her curtains.

Her phone had been ringing non-stop for three hours. Miranda. David. Studio executives. Entertainment reporters. Even her old college roommate, who somehow thought this was an appropriate time to catch up. She'd finally switched it to silent and shoved it in a drawer, but she could still see the screen lighting up every few seconds like a digital heartbeat.

The last call she'd taken was from Helena, the director of Aetheria's Echo.

"Elara, honey, I need you to know that whatever happens, I believe in you and Liam," Helena had said, her voice tight with worry. "The studio is in full panic mode. They're talking about reshoots, about recasting the promotional campaign, about legal action. But I've seen you two together. I've watched you fall in love in front of my cameras. Whatever this contract says, what I witnessed was real."

"Thank you," Elara had whispered, her voice breaking slightly. "That means everything."

"Just... be careful, okay? Hollywood doesn't forgive easily, and the studio has a lot of money riding on this film."

Now, as she sat on her bedroom floor in yoga pants and an oversized sweater, Elara felt strangely calm. The eye of the hurricane, maybe. Or the peace that came with finally accepting that everything was about to change.

Her doorbell rang again, but this time it wasn't the insistent, demanding sound of reporters. It was three short, measured rings—their signal.

She made her way downstairs, stepping carefully to avoid the windows where photographers might catch a glimpse of her. At the front door, she paused with her hand on the deadbolt.

"It's me," Liam's voice came through the heavy wood, barely audible over the shouting questions from the media pack.

She opened the door just wide enough for him to slip inside, then quickly locked it behind him. Through the narrow opening, she'd caught a glimpse of the chaos—reporters surging forward, cameras flashing, voices shouting questions that blurred together into white noise.

"Jesus," Liam breathed, running a hand through his hair. "They followed me the entire way here. I had to duck out through my neighbor's backyard and climb over your fence."

He looked as disheveled as she felt. His usually perfectly styled hair was mussed, his t-shirt wrinkled, and there were dark circles under his eyes that suggested he'd slept about as well as she had.

"Are you okay?" she asked, studying his face.

"No. You?"

"No."

They stood in her entryway for a moment, the weight of the morning's revelations settling between them. Outside, the reporters continued their vigil, occasionally shouting questions at the house as if the walls might answer.

"So," Liam said finally. "We're really doing this."

"We're really doing this."

"Miranda's going to kill us."

"David's going to have an aneurysm."

"The studio's going to sue us into oblivion."

"And we'll probably never work in Hollywood again."

They looked at each other, and despite everything—the media circus, the exposed contract, the potential career annihilation—Elara felt a laugh bubble up from somewhere deep in her chest.

"Why am I not more terrified?" she asked.

"Because we're finally going to tell the truth," Liam said, stepping closer. "For the first time in months, we're going to say exactly what we mean."

"No scripts."

"No publicity teams."

"No performance."

"Just us."

He reached for her hands, and she let him take them, feeling the familiar warmth of his touch. Even now, with everything falling apart around them, this felt right. Real. Worth fighting for.

"I have to ask," she said quietly. "Are you sure about this? Because once we do this, there's no going back. No more denials, no more damage control. We'll be admitting to everything."

"I'm sure. Are you?"

Elara thought about the question seriously. In a few hours, she would probably be unemployable. The studio would blacklist her. Other producers would see her as a liability. The carefully constructed image she'd spent years building would be destroyed in real time, broadcast live to millions of people.

But she thought about the secret dates, the stolen moments, the way Liam looked at her when he thought no one was watching. She thought about defending him on the red carpet, about the way he'd kissed her afterward—not for the cameras, but for her.

"I'm sure," she said.

They moved into her living room, and Liam immediately began pacing, his mind clearly working through the logistics of what they were about to do.

"We need to be smart about this," he said. "If we're going to control the narrative, we need to do it right."

"What are you thinking?"

"Not a press conference. Not a written statement. Something more direct. More personal."

"Like what?"

He stopped pacing and turned to face her. "Instagram Live. Just us, sitting here, talking to people directly. No filters, no editing, no intermediaries."

Elara felt her pulse quicken. "That's... completely insane."

"It's brilliant. We go around the media, around the studios, around everyone who's trying to control our story. We talk directly to the people who've been invested in our relationship from the beginning."

"And we tell them everything?"

"Everything. The contract, the fake dates, the moment it became real. We show them the receipts, but we also show them our hearts."

The idea was terrifying and exhilarating in equal measure. No safety net, no corporate backing, no carefully crafted talking points. Just two people, sitting in a living room, explaining how they'd fallen in love despite—or maybe because of—the lies that had brought them together.

"We should probably turn off our phones," Elara said. "Miranda and David are going to lose their minds when they find out."

"Already done," Liam replied, pulling his phone from his pocket and powering it down. "Whatever happens next, we face it together."

Elara retrieved her phone from the drawer upstairs, ignored the seventeen new missed calls, and switched it off. The sudden silence felt both liberating and terrifying.

"So how do we do this?" she asked when she returned to the living room.

"We set up here, on the couch. Good lighting, comfortable setting. We start streaming and just... talk. Tell the story from the beginning. Show them that we're real people, not just tabloid headlines."

"And if they don't believe us?"

"Then at least we'll have told the truth."

They spent the next hour preparing, but not in the way they'd prepared for any of their previous public appearances. There was no stylist, no makeup artist, no publicity team crafting talking points. Instead, they made coffee, gathered the few physical mementos they had of their relationship—photos, ticket stubs, handwritten notes—and set up her laptop on the coffee table.

"You know what the crazy part is?" Elara said as they tested the camera angle. "I'm more nervous about this than I was about any of our fake dates."

"That's because this matters," Liam replied. "All those other times, we were playing characters. This time, we're just being ourselves."

"And if ourselves aren't enough?"

He reached over and took her hand, squeezing gently. "Then we'll figure it out together."

Outside, the media circus continued its relentless watch. But inside, in the quiet of her living room, Elara felt something she hadn't experienced in months: peace. Not the artificial calm of a well-executed performance, but the genuine serenity that came from making a choice and accepting its consequences.

"Are you ready?" Liam asked, his finger hovering over the "Go Live" button.

Elara looked at him—really looked at him. The man who'd started as her contractual obligation, who'd become her secret escape, who'd somehow transformed into the person she couldn't imagine living without. His dark eyes were steady and determined, and she could see her own resolve reflected there.

"I'm ready," she said.

"Then let's go tell the world how we really fell in love."

As Liam pressed the button and the red "LIVE" indicator appeared on the screen, Elara felt a strange mixture of terror and relief. In a few minutes, millions of people would be watching two movie stars dismantle their own careers in real time.

But they would also be watching two people choose truth over safety, love over ambition, authenticity over performance.

For the first time in months, Elara Vance was about to stop acting and start living.

The fairy tale was over.

The real story was just beginning.