To Catch a Star (12 page)

“Not quite like any other.” The crew worked so hard, labouring long hours, because they were passionate about what they did. But they made sacrifices. They spent months away from home, away from their families. So many had failed marriages, estranged children and no fixed home to return to.

They also partied hard and drank too much. The downward spiral her mother had taken was only just a few steps away.

Some sacrifices weren’t worth making.

Tessa leaned back against the invitingly soft cushions of the sofa. “The night we met you admitted to being a narcissist. I don’t think you are at all.”

He laughed. “Of course I am. I couldn’t do what I do without having an above-average dose of self-interest. Though I don’t usually go around admitting it. It wouldn’t make me very popular. Can you imagine the Twitter fall-out?”

No, she couldn’t. But she didn’t understand this fascination with social media. Her friends had Twitter accounts and Facebook accounts and Instagram accounts. What for? So they could talk to each other online rather than in person? It was hard enough being the person she was supposed to be, without adding an online persona to manage too.

Yet Christian did it every day. He pretended to be someone else. Not just the characters he played, but the persona of the likeable, roguish, devil-may-care actor. She’d seen enough now to know he wasn’t that person. He did care.

And he wasn’t always likeable and charming.

She shook her head. “Have you ever considered just being the real you in public?”

“Have you ever considered being the real you in real life?”

Her eyes narrowed. But it was hard to be cross with him with her limbs growing languid and the fire’s lazy warmth stealing into her. As long as she’d been busy and on the move, she hadn’t felt the effect of the long hours spent on set, but just sitting still, the tiredness crept in.

That feeling of being stretched thin all the time, of her emotions scraped raw and exposed, had also worn her out. She no longer had the energy to keep up her defences.

They lazed in comfortable silence, and Christian put no pressure on her to make conversation. Or maybe he was tired too. She had made him stay awake all night, after all.

“I’m sorry I made you stay up all night reading that script,” she said, shame gnawing at her. It was unlike her to be so vengeful.

Christian shrugged and stretched.

“So are you interested in making the film?”

“It’s not a bad script.”

She smiled. “Your enthusiasm knows no bounds. What’s wrong with it?”

“It’s not what’s wrong with the script. It’s the third in this superhero franchise and surprisingly well written for what it is. The problem is with me. I’m bored.”

She bit her lip, contemplating him. He seemed in a mellower mood today. Not so full of quick comebacks. Less likely to dismiss her.

“Robbie has a script he thinks you should look at. He says it’s very different from what you usually do. Would you read it?”

He looked thoughtful. “I’ll ask him about it tomorrow. What do I have to lose apart from another night’s sleep?” He grinned, and his eyes crinkled at the corners.

She’d reached the bottom of the mug of cocoa, that ultra-sweet, ultra-thick layer that settled at the bottom, when she made the decision. “I have a list of names for you.” She’d had it for two days. She just hadn’t been sure until now if she would show it to him.

“A list of names?”

“People your mother associated with during her time in Westerwald.”

He sat up, at instant attention, as she dug the list out of her messenger bag. It wouldn’t be of much value to Christian. It was just a list of names and addresses, with those who’d died marked with a star. Unless he knew more than he’d admitted.

Her father’s intelligence people had already checked out everyone on the list, and narrowed it down to only three who had access to the palace’s most closely guarded secrets.

One of those three had to be the traitor who’d stolen the ring from the palace vault, the ring she still hadn’t seen. All of them belonged to the royal family’s inner circle.

If Christian could help them narrow it down…

“How did you get this?” he asked.

Not a question she was willing to answer, so she asked one of her own instead. “Do any of these names mean anything to you?”

Christian flipped through the pages, running a finger down the list as if searching for something.

“What are you looking for?” she asked, working hard to keep her voice neutral.

He didn’t look up. “There are a lot of titled names on this list.”

“Your mother worked in the palace and in the higher levels of government. She was bound to meet a few.”

What was with this hatred he had for aristocrats? Then something clicked. “Your father was titled, wasn’t he?” she guessed.

Christian looked up, his expression guarded. “I overheard my mother and my grandmother arguing once. My grandmother said:
You should have known you were nothing more than his plaything
.
You didn’t honestly think a man of his birth would have married you?
”

“You didn’t tell me that before.”

“Would it have made a difference?”

“Of course it would.”

His jaw tightened, and she sighed, impatient. “Not because he might have been noble, but because it would have narrowed down the search. Was there anything else?”

Christian shrugged. The movement might have been intended to make it seem he didn’t know, or didn’t care, but Teresa could see straight through him.

“My mother said:
I would never have married him, even if he’d asked. It would have ruined him
.” He looked straight at her. “She believed herself inferior to him.”

And that was where all his hurt came from. Teresa had learned enough during their dinner at The Playhouse to know how much Christian admired his mother. She’d been beautiful, fierce, clever, loving, yet she’d thought herself unworthy of the man who’d knocked her up and then walked away.

Tessa had never wanted to put her arms around someone and comfort them as much as she wanted to comfort Christian now. But she didn’t know how. It was hard to give what she’d never received.

She blinked away the sheen that obscured her vision. “I’m sorry,” she said.

Christian lifted his chin. “I don’t need your pity.”

“No, you don’t.” He’d used that hurt to drive his entire life. He’d become a star, the man every man wanted to be, the man every woman wanted.

“I won’t let anyone make me feel inferior.” He met her gaze, and held it, and she was the one to look away first.

“We’re not all like that,” she said. But she had to swallow before she could get the words out.

He looked down at the list in his hands. “I suppose I should contact a few of these people and see if anyone can tell me anything about her? One of them might even be my father.”

Why was he so determined to face his father if he hated the very thought of him? To show him the man his unwanted son had become? Tessa frowned. “It’s equally possible his name might not be on the list. Who knows how or where they met? And what are you going to do – ring up all the men and ask ‘
did you sleep with my mother thirty-seven years ago?
’ You start making calls and it’ll be all over the papers tomorrow. You’ll have every hopeful with either stars or dollar signs in his eyes after you and another mob wherever you go. And you probably still won’t find the one person you’re looking for.”

He sighed. “Good point. So what do I do now?”

“Nothing.” She took the list from between his fingers. “You let me deal with it.”

Though she had no idea how. Yet. “Do you have anything of your mother’s, perhaps something from her time here?”

She held her breath as she waited for his answer. He paused. Then he shook his head.

She wished she could swear. If she could just see the ring…

Christian reached for the envelope stuck in his coat pocket. “If you’re not in any hurry, could you run lines with me?”

“I thought you had a photographic memory?”

“I still need to read through the new pages.” His azure eyes twinkled, the dark mood banished. He looked more like himself and she breathed an audible sigh of relief.

“Please?” he pleaded.

How could she resist that twinkle? She agreed.

Christian glanced through the script pages, printed on salmon-coloured paper to indicate that it was already the eighth rewrite, then handed them to her.

Tessa skimmed the scene. She knew now that movies were not shot in sequential order. She’d also read the entire script and knew the story. While the bulk of the movie took place in the Caribbean, it began and ended in Europe, climaxing in the dramatic duel they’d filmed the day before.

This scene, a quiet moment just before the climax, was scheduled to be filmed on the film unit’s last night in Westerwald, in one of the palace’s drawing rooms, which Lee was currently transforming into a stately bedroom.

It was the love scene.

When Lee had proudly walked her through his set yesterday, she’d admired the magnificent antique canopied bed, still with its original oriental silk hangings. She hadn’t imagined then that Nina and Christian would soon be naked together in that bed. She did now.

She blushed as Christian settled back on the sofa beside her.

“I know this is awkward,” he said, “but trust me, it’s a lot less awkward than me having to run through this scene with Dominic.”

“I can imagine.” She cleared her throat, held the pages between them where they could both see, and began: “Dance with me at the King’s ball tomorrow.”

“There was a time you didn’t want to be seen dead in public with me.”

“There was a time you would already have had me naked by now.”

“A lot has changed.”

“You’re not going to make love to me?”

Christian laughed and she looked up.

“You’re supposed to sound a little disappointed when you say that.”

“I’m not the actress.”

She didn’t like Christian’s grin. “Aren’t you? Is there anyone who knows the real you?”

She looked back at the page and it took her a moment to find her place again. She could feel another blush starting to work its way up her neck. Or perhaps it wasn’t a blush. Perhaps it was simply the fire’s heat.

He carried on with his lines, unblinking, in a voice softer than before, and even more seductive than usual. “I fully intend to make love to you. But not before you tell me what’s changed. The girl I used to know was too afraid to stand beside me where everyone could see. I’ve done much worse things since then. So what’s changed?”

He leaned forward and brushed his fingers over her cheek, stroking back a strand of her hair and tucking it behind her ear. The move wasn’t scripted. She had no idea whether it was part of the scene or not. She only knew that she couldn’t have moved away from his touch even if she’d wanted to.

Heat burned her skin where his fingers trailed, down over her jaw, her neck, to settle on her collarbone, against the very edge of her shirt’s neckline.

She glanced down at the script. “I learned there are worse things a girl can lose than her reputation.”

Christian raised an eyebrow. “Like what?”

“I lost my heart. It’s hard loving someone who doesn’t love you back.”

“I have always loved you.”

It was increasingly hard to tear her gaze away, to read the words on the page, with those piercing eyes holding her captive. “But not enough to stay and fight for me.”

“And you didn’t love me enough to acknowledge me publicly.”

They faced each other, the emotion in the room cranking higher until the air around them crackled with the tension.

He laid his hand on her arm. She’d seen him do this again and again with one woman after another. She really should know better. She should pull away. She was a respectable woman, engaged to a very respectable man.

Only her body didn’t seem able to move.

He ran his hand down over her arm, and even through the thick cashmere of her sweater, she shivered. Not the usual shiver when someone touched her. No uncomfortable squirm this. This felt like an electric charge building and building under her skin until she was sure her body would explode with the pressure.

“Tell me how I make you feel,” he asked. This wasn’t in the script.

She looked at the page in her hand, struggling to focus, flustered, breathless.

Hot, bothered, stretched thin. Doubtful. That was how he made her feel.

She hadn’t doubted herself or her place in the world for a single moment until the night Christian had vaulted into her car. Now she could barely remember why she was here.

“So are you going to make love to me or not?” she read. Her voice sounded needy and desperate. What was wrong with her? Had the cocoa been spiked?

Following the stage directions, Christian leaned in even closer. His arm draped across the back of the sofa, a mere inch from her neck. In spite of the prickles rising up along the back of her neck, she didn’t move away. She couldn’t.

“Beg me,” he said.

She swallowed. This time she didn’t look down at the page. “I don’t beg.”

He leaned closer. His breath brushed her cheek. He was so close all she had to do was lean the tiniest distance and her body would press against his. Into his.

“Say that again.” His voice was so low it thrummed across her skin.

“I don’t beg,” she repeated, her throat croaky. For the first time in her life, she wanted to beg for something. He hadn’t even kissed her, and her entire body had turned to molten fire.

She glanced at the page. Not that she needed to. The words seemed to have seared themselves into her brain. “I’m stronger than you think.”

He laughed and leaned back, away from her.

She almost wanted to cry with disappointment. It was easy to see how actors could get so carried away while filming. She certainly wouldn’t blame Nina for getting a little swept away while filming this scene.

“Please,” she said. She kept her eyes on the script, hoping, praying, that he wouldn’t hear in her voice how close she was to begging.

“See, that wasn’t so hard.”