To Catch a Star (17 page)

“So we just pretend it never happened?”

She nodded, relieved that he understood.

“Your fiancé is in Paris this weekend, right?”

Where was he going with this? She hoped he wasn’t planning on taking advantage of Stefan’s continued absence.

“Would you like to see him?”

“Of course I would.” Even though she looked away again, she suspected he knew she lied. If she could put off the wedding and buy herself some time to think, she would. But she couldn’t. The wedding was a little over a week away. It was too late to think.

Her throat closed with the all-too-familiar suffocating feeling.

“I’d like to ask you a favour, then.”

She needed to clear her throat before she could speak. “What?”

“Come to Paris with me.”

Taken by surprise, she met his gaze. And instantly regretted it as it scorched her.

“I have spare tickets for the premiere in Paris on Sunday night. We can fly in on Saturday, you can spend some time with your fiancé, watch the movie, and be back home on Monday.”

“Why?” she managed. “Why me? There must be dozens of French actresses and models who will be more than happy to be your date for the night.” And who’d be more than willing to provide more than just eye candy. She hadn’t thought it would be possible to feel even more choked.

“It’s not a date. Just a movie ticket, no strings.”

“That’s still a really bad idea.”

“I’m asking you to watch one of my movies. Give me a chance, Tess.”

She closed her eyes but she couldn’t block out the plea in his tone. He dropped his voice. “I’m sorry about what happened on Sunday night. But I don’t want this to be the way things end between us. You’ve been a good friend and a phenomenal assistant. Let this be my way of saying thank you and I’m sorry.” His voice dropped even lower. “I promise I won’t do anything you don’t want me to.”

And there lay the problem. Because she
did
want him to.

She opened her eyes and lifted her chin. No way was she going to let him know how he affected her. No way.

“I’ll think about it.”

“Christian!” Robbie called down the corridor, more impatient than she’d ever seen him. “What’s keeping you? We’re on a schedule here!”

Christian stepped back with a grin. “I’m sorry for the way things ended between us the other night, but when it comes to kissing you, I’m never going to be sorry about that.”

He turned on his heel and walked away. Tessa sagged back against the wall and let her breath out.

Anna ran her finger down the list. “Menus printed – check. Champagne on ice – check. Musicians rehearsed – check. Dress – check. Bridesmaid and page-boy outfits – check. I’ll collect the men’s suits from Anton’s the day before if you can sign for the delivery from the florist.”

“You do the florist. I’ll collect from Anton.” Lee stretched out on the divan. The same divan where she and Christian… Tessa hadn’t been able to bring herself to sit on it since.

Anna scribbled a note on her list. “So that leaves only the cake.”

“Yay – does that mean I get a cake-tasting session?” Lee asked.

“No need to taste. It’ll be traditional fruit cake, with plain white fondant icing and decorated with real red roses. To be delivered by the bakery the day before. Someone needs to be here to make sure it gets positioned in the right place.”

“But I thought Tessa hated cooked fruit?”

They both turned to her.

“What?” Tessa asked, starting guiltily.

“Are you paying any attention?” Lee scolded. “What’s with the fruit cake? You don’t like cooked fruit.”

She shrugged. “It’s traditional. It’s expected.”

“It’s also traditional for the bride to be a virgin on her wedding night. Please, please tell me you’re not still a virgin?” He ducked away, laughing, as Anna smacked his arm. “Okay, just kidding. But you do know that traditions are meant to be broken?”

“That’s rules, not traditions,” Anna corrected.

“Potato, po-ta-to. I’ll have my set-dressing team in here a few days before to set up, and the afternoon before the wedding my team coordinator will supervise where everything needs to go.”

“You really shouldn’t,” Tessa protested. “Your crew have been working flat out. They deserve a few days off before they head to Los Pajaros.”

Lee smiled. “They want to do it for you. Consider it a wedding gift from everyone on
The Pirate’s Revenge
.”

She blinked against the emotion welling up in her eyes. It must be wedding jitters making her so emotional these days. “Thank you.”

Lee’s smile turned into a grin, dimple flashing and all. “Besides, you’re paying them all really good money for their time.”

Tessa leaned forward and took Lee’s hand. “I can’t thank you enough. You’ve given up so much of your own time and put in so much effort. How did you do this in such a short time?”

“I told you, my best friend’s ditched me. And since
I
at least have sworn off bad boys, and since there really don’t seem to be any other kinds worth mentioning, I’ve got nothing better to do with my time. Besides, I enjoyed it. If I ever get bored of this movie lark, perhaps I’ll become a wedding designer.”

“I think I should take you out for a very big drink to thank you. What are you doing this weekend?”

Lee and Anna exchanged a look. Tessa’s newly acquired gut instinct perked up. “What?” she asked.

“Dominic told Marie who told Robbie who told me that Christian has invited you to go to Paris this weekend.”

“What is this – high school?”

Lee shrugged. “So are you going?”

“Of course not! It’s a week before my wedding. I can’t afford to go away!”

“I think we’ve just ascertained that everything that needs to be done for the wedding has been,” Anna said gently.

“You can’t possibly be encouraging me to go away for a weekend with a man who isn’t my fiancé a week before my wedding!”

“It’s not as if it’s an illicit rendezvous,” Anna said. Though she glanced at Lee again in that furtive way that was starting to drive Tessa nuts. “And I thought you wanted to see Stefan?”

Of course Tessa wanted to see Stefan. She needed to talk to him. He’d been away so long she’d grown confused. When she saw him again… maybe then these horrid doubts would scatter. Maybe then she’d find sense in the chaos of her emotions.

She toyed with the ring on her fourth finger.

“I like Stefan and all,” Anna said. “It’s just that…” She turned to Lee. “Help me out here.”

He nodded. “When you speak about your husband-to-be, you don’t light up. But when we mention Christian…”

“That’s not attraction! That’s anger, frustration, intense dislike…”

Lee smirked. “You could call it that too.”

“You’re wrong!” Teresa slid the ring firmly back onto her finger and rose to pace the room.

“We’re just saying…” Anna took a deep breath and leapt. “Perhaps you might want to consider exploring your options before it’s too late.”

They were both mad. Certifiably, insanely mad.

So why did they both look so calm and rational sitting together on the divan, while she felt feverish and stifled? Tessa swallowed against the emotions strangling her. “It
is
too late. Three months too late. I accepted Stefan’s proposal. The invitations have been sent out. I can’t go back on that!”

“You don’t have to.” Anna rose and took her hands. “I just think… we both think… that you need to be a hundred per cent sure you’re doing the right thing. Not for your father or for Stefan, but for you. If you can tell me absolutely without a doubt that Christian means nothing to you and that you really want to marry Stefan, then great, don’t go to Paris.” Anna looked to Lee for support.

“
Chica
, if you have any doubts, then this is the weekend to address them. Talk to Stefan. Talk to Christian. Away from the wedding stress and away from the film crew. And if you have to, get Christian out of your system so that when you walk down the aisle next week you do it with conviction.”

Great. She could walk down the aisle with conviction and a guilty conscience.

But maybe it didn’t need to get to that. If there was one thing Stefan was good at, it was bringing order into chaos. Maybe just seeing him again would ease this awful tension inside her. And this weekend, alone, would be a better time to talk than waiting another whole week until he walked into the cathedral for their wedding rehearsal.

Lee’s dimple flashed. “I knew she’d see sense.” He stretched back on the divan, satisfied. “Go to Paris so you can decide once and for all whether you want traditional fruit cake – or decadent chocolate cake.”

Rather than filming the bedroom scene in one of the palace’s actual bedchambers, which were too small to fit a film crew, cameras and all the paraphernalia that went with them, the magnificent antique four-poster with its embroidered hangings had been moved to one of the drawing rooms. Black-out cloth hung over the windows to simulate night in the room as it was not yet dark outside.

It was the same room where, less than ten months ago, Fredrik had broken the news to her that would make headlines the world over the following morning. They’d sat in the deep window embrasure, with golden afternoon light falling through the lead-paned windows, the scent of spring flowers in the air, and they’d said goodbye.

And here she was again, preparing for another goodbye.

She stood behind the panel of monitors and watched the scene play out over the heads of the director and the producers, who sat on fold-up chairs with their headsets on, engrossed in the action.

Christian and Nina lay on the bed, bodies so close they touched. He wore nothing but snug-fitting black-leather trousers no real seventeenth-century pirate would have worn, and she wore a lacy nightdress that might have looked chaste had it not been practically see-through.

But this was hardly the intimate moment Teresa had envisioned. Even with the subdued mood lighting, it was hard to appear intimate with more than thirty onlookers and a microphone hanging overhead.

“You’re not going to make love to me?” Nina pouted, sounding way more disappointed than Teresa had when she’d read the lines. Sounding way more like Teresa felt right now.

Christian’s voice was low, but the seductive quality still managed to reach where Tessa stood. “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. So what’s changed?”

He brushed a finger over Nina’s cheek and Tessa’s heart raced. Her sensitive skin remembered the burn of his fingers over her cheek, down her neck.

When his hand rested on the very edge of Nina’s neckline, her own breasts ached with need. She crossed her arms over her chest to hide her reaction.

“I learned there are worse things a girl can lose than her reputation.” Nina whispered.

The room was so very still.

“Like what?” Christian asked.

When she’d read these lines, Tessa hadn’t believed the words. There was nothing worse a woman could lose than her reputation. Her name, her reputation, was everything.

But now she understood. Now she knew how it felt to lose her heart. To lose a piece of herself. It hurt so much she could hardly breathe.

And they hadn’t even said goodbye yet.

But she didn’t hurt enough to sacrifice everything else for what would never amount to anything more than an affair. Not enough to give up her home, her safety, her place in society.

Unlike losing her reputation, this pain was personal. It could be concealed.

She shook her head as Nina replied: “But you didn’t love me enough to stay and fight for me.”

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

A pin could have dropped in the room and she’d have heard it. The air crackled with tension. Or maybe the tension came from inside her. Tessa hugged herself closer, but it didn’t help.

Christian ran his hand down Nina’s arm, over her breast, over her hips, as the camera zoomed in. On the bank of monitors, Tessa got to see the intimate touch up close and personal.

A hand touched her arm and she jumped.

“Shhh.” She turned to find Max, his finger on his lips in warning.

Her eyes widened in delighted surprise and she smiled.

“And that’s a cut,” the director said, his words echoed louder by the assistant director. The director jumped up from his chair and moved to the bed to talk to Christian and Nina, and Tessa turned to Max.

“So you finally made it onto the shoot. I was wondering if we were ever going to see you here.”

“We’ve been frantically busy with wedding arrangements and state affairs, but Phoenix threatened to kill me if we missed the entire film shoot.” He wrapped an arm around his fiancée and pulled her close.

“Hi, Teresa.” Phoenix’s smile was warm and instantly engaging.

Tessa couldn’t help but respond with a smile. “Hello again.”

They’d met at a number of official functions and she liked the soon-to-be Archduchess. And this time she felt nothing at that thought. It no longer hurt that this American cocktail waitress would have the role she’d once expected would be hers.

Tessa had finally moved on. To a whole new pain.

“This is a closed set – no visitors!” shouted the AD. The people at the monitors turned where he looked.

“This isn’t a visitor,” Tessa said, raising her voice so it would carry to the room. “This is Archduke Maximilian of Westerwald.”

They were immediately swamped with attention, the cameras and action forgotten. Tessa was forced to make an endless round of introductions. She noticed that Phoenix repeated every name she heard, the same trick Tessa used when faced with an impossible number of names and faces to remember.

Yes, Phoenix would make the perfect Archduchess. Westerwald was in good hands.

Then it was Nina and Christian’s turn to be presented.

Did Max have any idea yet that Christian might have the missing Waldburg ring? If he did, he showed no sign of it. He kissed Nina’s cheek, exchanged a few pleasantries with her, then shook Christian’s hand.

Max’s eyes held the same friendly, mischievous look they always had.

Tessa started to choke.

“Are you okay?” Phoenix asked, patting her on the back.

Tessa nodded, but she couldn’t breathe.

Oh my God!

All faces turned to her, but she could see only two. Two very different faces, two concerned expressions. Two pairs of identical eyes.

Now she knew why Christian had always seemed so familiar.

“Get her some water,” Max called.

Christian was right beside her, his arm around her. He looked truly worried now. “What’s wrong, Tess?” he asked, holding her tight.

She shook her head. “I’m fine.” She pushed him away and gratefully accepted the bottle of water thrust at her.

She gulped down the cool liquid and slowly began to breathe again.

“We’re on a deadline, people!” The AD shouted. “It’s nearly dark and we have night exterior scenes to get to.”

Nina and Christian returned to the bed, the crew returned to their places, the cameras rolled. Only Tessa no longer watched the action. Her gaze moved from Christian on the bed to Max beside her. They even stood alike and moved alike. The same light, easy grace, the same cocky grin, the same laughter lines.

It wasn’t possible.

But it was.

When Christian was conceived, Max and Fredrik’s mother had still been working as a supermodel in New York. Her engagement to Prince Christian had only been announced in the late autumn.

Around the same time that Christian’s mother, six months’ pregnant with her illegitimate child, had been deported back to Los Pajaros.

Tessa turned away. She needed to sit. Her skin felt icy and clammy at the same time. She made her way soundlessly to the doors and out into the corridor. It was darker out here, away from the bright film lights. Film technicians sat on boxes and crates, whispering to one another. None paid her the least attention as she sank down to the floor and buried her head in her hands.

She couldn’t go to her father with this yet. She had nothing but a gut instinct. She needed proof. She needed to see Christian’s ring.

If she went to Paris with him this weekend she might be able to get one last shot at it.

What if she was wrong?

But if she was right, then Christian’s mother hadn’t stolen anything from the palace. She’d been given it.

Max and Phoenix stayed on set throughout the night. Though it was bitterly chilly outside, they stayed to watch the filming, met everyone on the crew – from the executive producers to the lowliest set runners. Tessa, firmly back in command of herself, stayed with them, introducing them to people, explaining the film-making process.