To Catch a Star (11 page)

Teresa stepped away from the light and his eyes focused on her. Dressed in dark clothing, with her pale hair tied back, she merged with the shadows.

Triumph licked through him. He’d finally managed to get her into his room.

“How did you get in here?” he managed, lifting his head off the pillows.

“The front desk manager let me in.”

Christian shook his head to clear the fog. As rational thought returned, so did his anger. The flicker of triumph dissipated. “I got an email from my agent.”

“Oh?” She raised one perfectly sculpted eyebrow.

“He only needed a reply on that script by next week. He seemed really surprised I’d read it already.”

“My bad. I must have mixed up my dates.”

Like hell. She never got anything wrong.

Teresa smiled angelically. “Did you lose sleep over it?”

That and other things.

He flung back the duvet, enjoying a swift flash of satisfaction as Teresa realised he was naked beneath the bedding. With a sharp gasp she turned away.

He rose from the bed and padded across the carpet to where the hotel dressing gown lay over the back of an armchair. He took his time.

“Your new phone appears to be broken,” she said. Her voice sounded strangled and he grinned. Victory Number One.

“Yeah, please could you arrange me another.”

“Do you often lose your temper like that?”

“Only when I don’t get enough sleep.” Though he was well used to getting by on five or six hours of sleep a night, it wasn’t the quantity of sleep he craved now but the quality.

He’d had another of those dreams last night. Geez, but this needed to end.

“What are you doing here anyway?”

Maybe he was still dreaming. Though if he were dreaming, he’d dress her in something a little more colourful. Perhaps something the colour of her eyes, rather than her usual palette of browns, greys and beiges.

Today it was all black, which was the closest she’d come to revealing her feelings about working on their day off. Though she’d clearly had other plans for today, she’d set them aside with barely a flicker of emotion. He’d much rather she’d pouted or sworn. At least then he’d have known she felt something. What would it take to make her feel?

“We’re late. You don’t want to disappoint the children, do you?”

At the thought of the hordes of children awaiting him at the photo op he very nearly turned around and dived back into bed. In his experience, children were cruel, obnoxious creatures, and making nice to them wasn’t high on his list of priorities. As his publicist well knew.

He headed to the bathroom and turned on the shower, stepping under the spray only when the steam clouded the shower glass.

Why was Pippa still trying to punish him anyway? Hadn’t she enjoyed their time together? She certainly hadn’t complained at the time.

When he returned to the bedroom, a towel wrapped around his hips rather than wearing the dressing gown, Teresa had moved to the living room, leaving the door between the rooms barely ajar. She’d laid clothes ready on the bed for him and he suppressed a laugh.

He didn’t bother closing the door before he dressed. It wasn’t often he managed to ruffle her feathers, and he’d take any advantage he could get.

“I have espresso here for you,” she called from the other room. “But it’s getting cold and we need to hurry, so you’ll have to drink it on the way.”

He pulled a sweater on over his shirt and towel-dried his hair, then glanced into the full-length mirror. He usually put more effort in if he knew there’d be cameras waiting for him, but this morning he couldn’t be bothered.

He swung the door open and headed straight for the tray on the dining table, grabbing the Styrofoam cup of coffee and completely ignoring the toast and bowl of fruit salad. Teresa still hadn’t stopped trying to get him to eat breakfast every morning.

More awake now, he gave her the once-over. No designer chic today, but an-oversized sweater over leggings and fur-trimmed boots.

She tapped her foot impatiently. With her arms crossed over her chest, she was back in school-marm mode. Dom would have got a kick out of that look. But Dom, lucky bastard, was spending his day off skiing with some of the crew.

Christian sipped from the cup, the welcome caffeine shooting through his system. Now he was ready for the day’s challenges, the first and foremost of which stood mere feet away.

“Lay on, MacDuff.”
And damned be him who first cries “Hold! enough!”

He’d expected the state children’s home to be a brick-and-concrete monstrosity, bleak and uninviting. Instead, it was situated in the snow-clad foothills that surrounded the city, and the cluster of buildings looked more like an Alpine ski resort than an institution.

Surprisingly, there were no journalists huddled together in the cold, awaiting his arrival. What the hell had he got out of bed for?

Frank pulled the car up before the main office and kept the motor running as he dashed around to open the door for Christian. The fresh smell of pine and crisp, clean air hit him as he emerged from the cocoon of the car’s interior.

The office door opened and a grey-haired woman hurried out to meet them. Christian put on his most charming smile. But the woman rushed straight past him. “Tessa! I didn’t expect to see you here today.”

“Hello, Marsha.” Teresa turned to him. “This is Christian Taylor.”

“Oh, of course.” The woman finally seemed to notice him. “Thank you so much for coming to meet the children today. They’re so excited. They love your movies.”

Behind her, Teresa rolled her eyes and he stifled a laugh. “I’m glad someone does,” he said, to her rather than to the woman, who was now shepherding them indoors.

“Your photographer was freezing outside, so I invited him into the dining room.”

One
photographer? Pippa had definitely lost the plot.

“Would you like some hot chocolate before we start the tour?” Marsha asked.

Christian was on the point of refusing when Teresa caught his eye. “That would be lovely, thank you.”

He was rewarded with Marsha’s beaming smile.

“Tessa?” he whispered to Teresa as they followed the older woman down a long corridor.

“It’s what my friends call me,” she whispered back.

He grinned like a kid with a new toy. “Tessa.”

At the end of the corridor a door opened into a large, bright dining hall with a high pine ceiling and tall windows. Three people sat at one of the long bench tables that looked as if they’d been sprung from the Hogwarts set.

The photographer – Christian gathered as much, since he was the one holding the camera – rose with a quick smile and a flash of recognition. “What are you doing here, Ms Adler?” he asked in local dialect.

“I’m accompanying Mr Taylor during his stay in Westerwald. Consider me his tour guide.”

She introduced Christian to the photographer, his assistant, and the article writer, all by name and without a moment’s hesitation, and they all shook hands.

Polite, friendly, as if she’d done this a thousand times before. As she no doubt had. She’d dated a prince, hadn’t she?

Damn, but she was going to be a hard act to follow when he returned to California and had to hire a new assistant. Hopefully the next one wouldn’t deliberately keep him awake all night, though.

As they discussed the shots the photographer wanted – for a spread for
Vanity Fair
, so Pippa was temporarily forgiven – Marsha served them steaming mugs of thick, rich cocoa. Christian wasn’t much of a chocolate fan, but it warmed him from the inside out, and he understood why Teresa insisted he drink it as soon as the tour began.

The home was spread across a couple of acres, complete with its own classrooms, library, gymnasium, handball courts and indoor swimming pool. The children were housed in smaller chalets, more like family units than a traditional orphanage.

And every single building had to be reached by trudging through snow. It wasn’t deep, but it was soft and wet and neither he nor the journalists were dressed for it. Only Teresa in her fur-lined boots seemed unaffected.

One thing he was grateful for – he didn’t have to face a horde of screaming children all at once. Their school day continued uninterrupted, as he was escorted into classrooms and gym classes, and introduced to small, manageable groups under the watchful eyes of their teachers. He shook an endless parade of hands, signed autographs until his hand cramped, and smiled for the cameras.

He smiled as he dealt with the fawning teachers and the diva photographer. He smiled as the teachers, and most of the children, greeted Teresa by name. He smiled as she sat quietly in the corner, talking to the children and admiring their artwork, looking as if she were having more fun than she’d had any time these last two weeks.

He’d wanted to impress her and instead he was the one impressed. And again she made him feel like that angry bastard child from Los Pajaros, wanting something he couldn’t have.

Christian tried to focus on Marsha’s non-stop chatter, but it was increasingly difficult to concentrate. His brand-name trainers were sodden and his feet so frozen he couldn’t feel his toes.

Anyone who thought being a celebrity was all parties and premieres knew nothing. 4a.m. wake-up calls were easier than having to smile and look interested in complete strangers’ lives for hours on end.

“Westerwald’s first orphanage was founded after our terrible civil war,” Marsha said, as she led them back across a vast quadrangle of snow towards the sanctuary of the main chalet. “But this site was gifted to us after our original building was bombed during the Second World War.” She cast a warm smile over her shoulder at Teresa. “The land was originally part of the Adler hunting grounds. Their lodge is over there – through the trees.”

He looked where Marsha pointed. A steep wooden roof was only just visible over the distant copse of snow-covered trees.

Now he had no problem concentrating. Teresa’s family had their own hunting lodge?

She was so far out of his orbit, he was amazed her feet still touched the ground.

Back in the dining room, coffee and apple strudel awaited them. He cradled the mug and feeling slowly seeped back into his fingers. His feet took longer to defrost.

He chatted to the journalist about the charities he supported, about paying it forward, while Teresa sat quietly beside them with her poker face on.

At last the journalist turned to her. “Your family are major donors to the orphanage, aren’t they, Ms Adler?”

“The original orphanage was founded by one of my ancestors.”

Marsha did her beaming-smile thing again. “Tessa doesn’t just support us financially. She volunteers here too. She runs a reading project for the younger children.”

Which explained how so many of them knew her name.

“If we’re done now… ” Teresa said, her tone clipped. “Mr Taylor has other events to attend today.”

With a backward wave to the journalist and photographer, who seemed loath to leave the cosy warmth of the chalet’s dining room, Christian allowed himself to be hustled out the door and back to his car.

“What other event am I supposed to be attending?” he asked, casting Teresa a cheeky grin as he climbed into the car.

“You could say thank you I got you out of there before they started in on your love life.”

“Thank you.” Though he wasn’t entirely sure she’d wrapped up the questions for
his
benefit. “You don’t like to talk about your charity work? Strange, since you couldn’t stop talking about it the night we met.”

The look she turned on him was frostier than usual. “I don’t attend charity benefits or visit children’s homes to preen in front of the cameras.”

Touché.

“Even without the cameras present, it’s bloody hard for me to do what you do,” he said defensively. “Everyone wants their pound of flesh, their moment with the person they think I am. I can’t do what you do.”

“And what is that?”

He didn’t like the look in Tessa’s eyes. It was as if she was daring him.

“Just help out. Be myself.”

“You want to bet?”

Now he really didn’t like the look in her eyes. This was definitely a dare.

Teresa gave Frank an address Christian didn’t recognise. As they descended back into the city bowl, the snow thinned, then disappeared.

“Where are we going? Is this the kind of place where I’m going to get mobbed and torn to pieces again?”

Not that he really cared where they were headed, as long as he had Teresa at his side. The longer she spent with him –
him
, not the person he was on set – the better his chances of seducing her. He hoped.

And the more time he spent with her, the more he wanted her. He’d wanted to knock her off her pedestal and instead she’d climbed down willingly. The way she’d been with those kids today…she hadn’t been the Ice Queen with them.

She laughed. “I doubt it, but if you like we can ask Frank to keep the motor running, just in case.”

He remained clueless as to their destination until Frank pulled up to the kerb outside the magnificent Gothic cathedral. Not the tourist entrance where the visitors entered, but a porter’s gate to what had once been the monastery.

“You’re taking me to church?”

Teresa shook her head and smiled the smile he was learning meant
be patient
. Not something he was particularly good at.

Several people hung around on the sidewalk, so Frank did his usual scan of the area before he opened the door for them. “All clear,” he said gruffly, his eyes peeled and his expression fierce.

“You’re welcome to come in too, once you’ve parked,” Tessa said to him as she climbed out.

Christian followed her inside, past the porter’s gate into a dimly lit hallway, where his eyes took a moment to adjust to the sudden gloom.

“This way,” Teresa said. She reached out to take his arm, nothing more than a guiding touch, but in the gloom she misjudged the space between them and her hand made contact with his. He wrapped his fingers around hers.

For a split second she resisted the touch, then her grip softened in his, yielding and compliant.

Victory Number Two.

“This way,” she said again, giving his fingers a gentle yank.

In that moment he’d have followed her anyway.

Their hands seemed to belong together, as natural as salt and pepper, as shampoo and conditioner.

He didn’t want to let go.

But at the end of the unoccupied corridor a thick and rather ancient wooden door opened into a vast, kitchen lit by tall arched windows, and as they entered, Teresa pulled her hand out of his. The sunshine dimmed and the colour drained from the room.

A half dozen people worked at different stations. All heads turned as they entered, and one man, tall and rangy with a shock of white hair, hurried towards them.

“It’s such a pleasure to see you here, Tessa,” the man said. “We’ve missed you these last couple of weeks.”

“Father Tomas, this is Christian Taylor. He’s here to help out with preparing today’s lunch for the soup kitchen.”

Father Tomas shook his hand. “Wonderful! Are you any good at peeling carrots?”

When Christian left home he thought he’d peeled his last carrot. These days his housekeeper bought them ready-peeled and ready-julienned. But for the next half hour, he peeled, chopped and diced vegetables, and it was the most fun he’d had in years.

Teresa stood beside him, elbow to elbow and they chatted as they worked. He’d never seen her as relaxed as she was now. Perhaps because they were on her turf this time.

Alongside them, other volunteers cut and buttered bread rolls, and stirred and seasoned the massive pots of bubbling vegetable soup. Even Frank joined them, removing his jacket and rolling up his sleeves to wash dishes.

Once the meal was prepared, they stood at the hatch into the former monk’s refectory and served the soup into bowls for the waiting crowd that had swelled to a vast number.

Many of the people queuing before them knew Teresa’s name. None seemed to know his. More astonishing, Teresa knew many of them. Not just their names, but their children’s names, their circumstances.

And she treated every one of them as equals.

He had to give Teresa credit. Stuck-up aristocrat she might be, but she walked the walk.

She certainly treated them more warmly than she’d ever treated him. Who would have thought the Ice Queen would be better at dealing with people than he was?

While she talked, he kept his mouth closed and listened, and learned. He learned that she was respected. That she was generous, with both her time and her money.

That she would have made a great Archduchess.

He also learned that perhaps he did care after all.

Because now he’d met these people they were more than the recipients of an anonymous donation. Now he would lie awake in his vast, warm bed, with room service at the other end of the line, and wonder where these people he’d met slept at night in this bitter cold.

Posing for photographs was much easier than connecting with real people.

She’d made her point.

The food line seemed never-ending, but at last everyone had been fed and the crowd thinned. Christian’s face ached from smiling and his feet ached from standing. And Teresa did this three times a week?

He was now also starving. Teresa doled the last of the nutritious soup into bowls and at last they got to sit down and eat themselves. Frank joined Father Tomas and a few of the other volunteers, and Christian and Tessa found themselves alone at one end of a long refectory table.

He gave Frank a thumbs-up when he was sure she wouldn’t notice.

“I win,” Tessa said with an easy smile that melted though her haughty exterior. “You’re doing real work and not a camera in sight. Thank you.”

“I didn’t have much choice, did I?” He mopped up the last of the soup from his bowl with the bread roll. “And I enjoyed it. It’s very refreshing to be in a crowd of people and not one of them asking for an autograph.”

Her shoulders stiffened and he gave himself a mental slap. Way to go for making this all about himself again. He never seemed to be able to say the right things when she was around. He tried again. “The food’s also really good. Almost better than the food at The Playhouse.”

“Food one cooks oneself always tastes better.”

“You like to cook?”

She nodded. “I love cooking.”

So that made two things he knew about her now. Charity and cooking.

He broke apart the last of the fresh-baked bread roll with his fingers. “I take back what I said the first time we met. You’re not a princess and you are making a difference in the world. I think perhaps I needed to meet you. You challenge me in ways I need to be challenged.”

He expected her to say “thank you” in her polite, perfectly enunciated voice. Instead she smiled that warm, melting smile again. “That works both ways. I didn’t know it, but I needed to be challenged too. And you are definitely challenging.”

He took that as a compliment.

She was silent a moment, and when she raised her gaze again he was surprised to see a flash of emotion in them. Worry. Doubt.

“What is it?” he asked.

She pinched her lips together, but this time the shutters didn’t come down. She sighed. “Sometimes I feel like a ghost. It’s as if I’m simply killing time, as if I have no real purpose.” She straightened her shoulders. “Which is stupid. I help out here at the soup kitchen, and I teach reading and supervise homework at the children’s home. I arrange parties and fundraisers and business dinners for my father and his business associates. I have a full and active life.”

It sounded as if she was trying to convince herself.

“But you feel something is lacking,” he prompted.

He understood the feeling well. He’d achieved every goal he’d set for himself and still he felt as if something was lacking. He felt hollow inside. “I only got into acting because I wanted more fame and money than being a stunt man could provide. But now that I have them, it’s still not enough. I want more.”

She stiffened.

“I want to make a mark, to do something meaningful with my life.” To be the man his mother had believed he could be. She’d told him a hundred times that he was born for great things.

Teresa’s expression softened, and he glimpsed another flash of emotion before her mask reasserted itself, calm and impenetrable as ever.

“I was wrong about you,” she said. “You’re not as shallow as I believed you were.”

He was every bit as shallow. And as self-serving. But he suppressed the twinge of guilt and took her hand. “And you’re not the pampered princess I thought you were.”

She didn’t pull her hand away.

Victory Number Three.

They stepped out of the porter’s lodge and Tessa gasped. Giant soft snowflakes whirled about them, melting as they hit the pavement. And stayed. She closed her eyes and lifted her face. The snowflakes settled on her nose and eyelashes.

“You like the snow?” Christian asked.

“I love it! It’s so magical, so pure and clean.”

“I like you like this.”

She opened her eyes and frowned. “Like what?”

“Less uptight. Carefree. Smiling. I didn’t think you even knew how to relax.”

“I can’t. Twenty-four-seven, remember?” But she did feel lighter and freer. More like herself and less like the Teresa Adler she showed the world.

Frank pulled the car up to the kerb and Christian climbed in. The blast of the car’s heating hit her. But instead of diving into the warmth, as Christian had done, she savoured the swirling snowflakes a moment longer.

Snow’s most magical attribute was that it made the world anew. It wiped away the traces of what had gone before, leaving the slate clean and ready for fresh footprints.

Reluctantly she slid into the too-hot, too-enclosed interior of the car. As always, Christian dominated the space, with his scent, with his energy, with his awareness.

They drove slowly through the quiet streets as the snow softly settled around them, smothering the greyness of the city in a blanket of bright, shimmering white.

In preparation for Valentine’s Day, every shop window they passed seemed to be decorated in shades of pink and red. Fluffy toys, chocolates in bows…and more hearts than Tessa could stomach. She wasn’t sure which she detested most – the crass commercialism or the excess of sentimentality.

Either way, the decorations felt like a warning. Half her time had already elapsed and she needed to fill in the final gaps in Christian’s story and see his ring. She’d barely managed a quick glance around his suite before he’d woken this morning. It hadn’t been in the closet with his clothes either.

The warning also felt like a death knell. She was no longer quite so keen for this assignment to be over. She hadn’t had this much fun in years, not since she’d left university. Though even that could hardly be described as “fun” since she’d spent the entire four years working to be the top of her class.

And for what? So she could be the country’s most underpaid party-planner?

At the hotel’s entrance, Frank got out the car to open the door for them, and Tessa stepped out first. Snowflakes settled on the car’s roof, on the ground, clung to the dark shoulders of Christian’s coat.

She pulled on her gloves. “Robbie texted me that there are revised script pages waiting for you at reception. I’ll check for them, and then is there anything more you need from me today?”

“Don’t go just yet.” Christian laid a hand on her arm. “Everyone else will still be out enjoying their day off and I don’t feel like being alone. Please come inside for something warm to drink? You too, Frank.”

Frank shook his head. “If you’re not needing the car again, I’ll be heading home.”

Christian shook his head. “Have fun,” he said, then he cocked an eyebrow at Tessa, no doubt fully expecting her to refuse too.

It was a request, not an instruction, but even though she still had that dratted seating plan to work on, she didn’t feel like being alone this afternoon either. The big house had never felt as empty as it had since she’d started working on this job.

And she certainly didn’t want to be alone while she felt this unsettled. Because then there would be no distraction from her thoughts.

She nodded.

At the reception desk she found the envelope waiting with the new script pages as well as a revised schedule for the next few days’ shoot. Clearly the production team hadn’t had a day off either. She handed the envelope to Christian, who barely glanced at it before rolling it up and stuffing it into his coat pocket.

He led her to the hotel library, a dignified room lined with tall windows overlooking the gardens, where a log fire blazed in the hearth. Teresa stripped off her jacket and gloves, unwound her scarf, and sat on one of the chintzy sofas while he ordered from the hovering waitress, cappuccino for himself and cocoa for Teresa. Then he sat beside her.

She suppressed a shiver. Not her usual tremble of unease, but a rather thrilling sensation. Not once in all the time she’d known him had Stefan made her feel like that. Which was a good thing. She didn’t want this awkward sensation with the man she was going to spend the rest of her life with. Did she?

She and Stefan were comfortable together, and that was far more important for a happy marriage.

The waitress brought their steaming mugs and Tessa sipped carefully as she studied the schedule changes. “We’ll be on location for the next few days, then we shoot the pirate-ship interiors at the studio.” She frowned as she flicked to the next page. “Why would we need to start and end so late if we’re shooting inside a studio?”

“To ease us into the night shoots at the end of the shoot.” Christian grinned.

“What’s so funny?”

“You said
we
. You’ve been bitten by the film bug.”

She shook her head so vehemently that Christian laughed at her. “What do you have against the movie business?”

She paused a long moment before she answered. Her first answer was easy.
Because it’s an industry of self-involved, self-important people
. But she bit back the words. That wasn’t her real reason. “Because my mother abandoned me for it.” The raw honesty scalded her throat.

Christian’s eyes rounded. “That was your mother’s mistake, not the movies’. She made a choice, but that doesn’t make the movie business the devil’s work. It’s a job like any other.”