To Catch a Star (6 page)

“We’re on our lunch break and I thought I’d drop by and get an eyeful.” He sighed. “Seems I timed it perfectly! Would you like an apple turn-over from the craft table? They’re fresh from the oven.” Lee held out a beautifully crafted piece of pastry on a napkin.

She shook her head. “Thanks, but I don’t like cooked fruit.”

“Goodie, more for me.” He grinned and popped the pastry in his mouth.

The food on set was good. Cappuccinos, fresh fruit and pastries on tap at the craft station, and hot meals prepared in the mobile kitchen every day. If Christian didn’t keep her running for twelve hours of every day, she might not fit into her wedding dress.

“Have you made any progress yet?” Lee whispered as the AD called “Action!”

“Not you too?” She whispered back. “Zero progress. Christian doesn’t trust me. I think perhaps I’m the wrong person for this job.”

Lee rubbed his chin and contemplated Christian as he leapt down the stairs chased by a half dozen uniformed guards. Another group of guards emerged at the bottom of the stairs. He ducked between them and headed past the camera for the doors.

“Cut and re-set,” the AD called.

Christian glanced their way, searching for her. When he spotted Teresa he crooked a finger at her. With an apologetic shrug to Lee, she followed the summons. But not before she caught Lee’s low chuckle. “You’re the perfect person for the job. You just need to work it.”

He would get along great with her father.

The film caterers cooked in a mobile kitchen but the meals were served in what had once been the servants’ hall. It was a vast, draughty room, though definitely warmer than eating outdoors, where the food was cold before it even reached the plate. A cloud of richly scented warmth hit Teresa as she and Lee entered the room.

“Like an army, we march on our stomachs,” he said, grabbing a tray and joining the buffet queue.

“Would you like to go ahead, Ms Adler?” The person ahead of them in the queue asked. He was one of the set runners, fresh out of film school and one of the few locals employed on the production.

She shook her head and smiled. “I can queue like everyone else.”

Lee’s eyebrow arched. “
Do you get that often?
” he mouthed at her.

She shrugged. Didn’t everybody?

She watched in envy as Lee loaded up his plate full of rich boeuf bourguignon and Parisienne potatoes, and a generous helping of cheesecake on the side, while she settled for a much more modest bowl of lamb tagine and salad.

“What do you men do with everything you eat?” she asked enviously.

“Who exactly do you mean by
we men
? I can’t speak for anyone else, but me, I just have good genes.”

She’d been thinking of Christian, but she didn’t think good genes alone would account for the sculpted abs. He looked like a man who worked out, though she couldn’t figure out when he found the time. Unless he never slept, which would certainly account for his morning moods.

Robbie waved them over to join him at his table. “So you’ve survived your first week?” he asked Teresa with a cheerful grin as she took the seat across from him.

She shrugged. Survival was a relative thing. Some of Christian’s more bizarre demands made the political sharks she’d met seem like pussy cats. Though she was beginning to suspect his diva behaviour was purely for her benefit.

“Film people are nothing like I expected,” she said instead.

“Oh?” Robbie raised his eyebrows.

“Everyone’s so friendly and unpretentious. And you’re all very accepting.” Tolerant was the word she’d wanted to use, but that would be like admitting the people she mixed with were intolerant of anyone different from themselves.

What had Christian said about the narrow world she lived in?

She brushed away the thought. Her social circle might be small, and filled with people exactly like her, but she would have been much more useful at today’s ladies’ luncheon at the club to discuss the next charity fundraiser than fetching and carrying all day for Christian.

“In this last week I’ve met film crew of every nationality, from all sorts of backgrounds, and none of that matters here. No one here cares where you’ve come from, only what you’re doing right now,” she said.

Robbie nodded. “I guess we’re all so focused on the jobs we’re here to do that all the other bullshit gets checked at the door.”

Lee rested his elbows on the table and leaned forward as if sharing a juicy secret. “Did you know that the hunky assistant grip used to be a stockbroker before he burned out and started this as a new career?” He laid a hand over his chest. “Buff and brainy. Be still my beating heart… and speaking of buff and brainy… ”

Tessa followed Lee’s gaze to where Christian and Dominic had entered the room and joined the lunch queue.

“Which one?” she teased, and Lee sent his gaze heavenward, praying for patience. He’d already made it clear he was a card-carrying member of the Christian Taylor fan club.

“It’s such a treat working with him,” Robbie said around a mouthful of tagine, “Christian’s one of the truly great actors.”

Not him too.

Seeing her scepticism, Robbie waved his fork in the air as he explained. “Most actors, when you walk them to set, they don’t talk to you. They’re already in that zone where they’re preparing to get into character. Christian stays himself right up until that moment he walks on set. Then it’s like he flicks a switch and he becomes someone else. That’s a rare talent.”

Where she came from, that wasn’t called talent. Sociopaths could also be charming and duplicitous.

Robbie’s fervour mounted. “He’s wasted in these action and special-effects movies. I’d love to see him do something with real meat in it.”

“I’ll remember to tell him that,” Teresa said.

Robbie completely missed the dryness of her tone. His face lit up. “Would you? A friend of mine’s written a script I think he’d be perfect for. It’s a little different from his usual stuff, though. Could you get him to take a look?”

She doubted Christian would follow any advice she gave, but she bit back the comment. “No promises, but I’ll give it a try.”

She seemed to be saying that a lot today.

“Who
is
that guy?” Christian scowled at the flustered catering assistant attempting to dole more salad onto his plate.

“What guy?” Dom asked, craning his neck to look.

“The pretty boy next to my assistant.” He really didn’t intend the
my
to sound quite so possessive. But it did. His scowl deepened.

“That’s Lee. One of the art directors. Apparently he’s an accomplished set designer too. Talented young man.”

Christian grabbed a napkin, knife and fork from the dispenser at the end of the buffet and made a beeline across the room, leaving Dom to catch up.

“May I have a seat?” He pulled out the vacant chair beside Teresa and smiled at the group around the table.

“Of course.” The blonde hunk with the ill-concealed biceps on the other side of Teresa smiled and gave Christian the once-over. “Any time!”

Christian relaxed. Pretty Boy was no competition.

“I’m Christian.” He leaned forward to offer his hand to Lee. His elbow brushed Teresa’s arm and she shifted away. Or attempted to. There was nowhere for her to go. “And you’re Lee, the set designer.”

Lee preened as he shook Christian’s outstretched hand. “Strictly speaking, I’m only one of the art directors.”

“But very talented. I’ve heard good things about you.”

Dom, in the process of sitting down across the table, choked on a laugh.

“Oh damn, is that the time?” Robbie pushed out his chair and rose. “We’re back on set in five, everyone,” he called to the room at large. Then he turned back to Christian. “We’re moving the camera to the top of the stairs. We’re going to be at least an hour, so take your time.”

Christian nodded, and Robbie excused himself to head back to work.

“So how do you two know each other?” Christian asked, waving his fork from Teresa to Lee.

“We met through Kenzie.”

It took him a moment to place the name. The freckle-faced redhead who’d brought Teresa to the wardrobe room. “The new girlfriend of Teresa’s ex-boyfriend. How cosy.”

Lee pushed his empty plate away and rubbed his stomach. His phone, on the table beside him, beeped a text message and he glanced at it. “Damn. I’d love to stay and chat, but I’ve got places to go and people to see.” He rose and grinned at Christian, flashing his dimples.

Christian smiled back. “It’s been a pleasure. We should do this again soon.”

Lee winked, patted a hand on Teresa’s shoulder in farewell, and headed off.

Teresa rounded on him. “Do you have to flirt with everyone?”

“That wasn’t flirting.” He held her gaze and smiled, then ran a finger over the back of her hand, where it lay on her lap. She shivered. “This is flirting.”

The colour rose up beneath her pale porcelain skin, a wash of rose-pink staining her throat and her cheeks. But it took barely a heartbeat for her to regroup. Her eyes narrowed, turning to chips of burning blue ice, and he removed his hand.

She rose from her seat, all smooth grace and repressed emotion. “I’ll be re-stocking your trailer fridge if you need me.” Then she turned on her heel and walked away.

Damn. Any other woman would have been willing to sacrifice her firstborn after he gave them The Look. But not Teresa. She was so tightly wound, nothing he did could penetrate the armour. What would it take to get under her skin, to make her
feel
?

Her over-organised little life needed a good shake-up almost as much as she needed the volcano to blow. Almost as much as
he
needed the volcano to blow.

Dom’s laughter brought him back to the present. “You’re losing your touch, dude!”

Christian threw his napkin at him, but it didn’t help. Dom was still laughing.

The next day Christian was due to wrap by mid-afternoon so his publicist had filled his rare spare hours with press interviews.

Not only did the first journalist arrive early but filming ran late, an-all-too frequent occurrence on film shoots. Tessa gave the young woman and her cameraman a guided tour of the set and made small-talk until Christian was ready. She breathed a sigh of relief that they represented a British TV breakfast show and didn’t have a clue who she was.

She took them to the craft station, offered them tea and biscuits, and mentally ran through the brief Pippa had given her.

• 1. Four interviews, each one to be half an hour only, including setting up lights and cameras. Not a second more.
  
• 2. They’re there to talk about his last movie. No spoilers of the new one allowed.
  
• 3. No questions about his personal life. They ask any of the questions on the attached list, the interview is over.
  

Tessa had memorised the list of banned topics. Christian’s family and his childhood (great, that took care of everything she needed to know), his love life, his love life some more, and that incident with the fan in Houston. Tessa didn’t think she wanted to know the story behind that one. Whatever it was, it certainly hadn’t made it into her father’s intelligence report.

“Does he have a girlfriend?” the reporter asked, taking the cup of tea Tessa offered her. She was very pretty, with auburn streaks in her lushly curling dark hair.

“Christian doesn’t have girlfriends, he has dates.”

“What’s he like to work for?”

“Milk or lemon with your tea?”

After the third question the reporter gave up.

At four o’clock on the dot, Tessa knocked on the door of Christian’s trailer. “May we come in?”

“Yeah, come on in.”

The brunette reporter’s lips curled in an eager smile as she heard his voice. Tessa couldn’t blame her. Christian’s voice was deep and sexy as hell at the best of times, but when he added that come-hither tone…

Tessa swung the door open and held it wide for the cameraman to get his gear inside. The door opened straight into a compact kitchenette. To the left was the living-room area, the bedroom on the right. The door to the bedroom was closed and there was no sign of Christian.

“Make yourself at home,” he called, his voice muted by the bedroom door.

The cameraman set up his camera for the best angle, and the reporter arranged herself provocatively before it. Spacious as the trailer was, once all their gear was in, there wasn’t much space left, so Tessa ducked into the kitchenette and tried to make herself inconspicuous.

What character would Christian choose to play for the interview – smooth and charming, playful and teasing, or intense and brooding? He did all of them so well.

The bedroom door opened behind her back. From the reporter’s gasp and the way her eyes dilated at sight of him, Tessa guessed Christian was in the mood for fun.

She was right. He strode past her and she could appreciate the other woman’s gasp. If she hadn’t been as self-controlled as she was, she would have gasped too.

He’d clearly stepped straight out of the shower. His short, spiky hair glistened with droplets and he wore nothing but jeans, slung low on his hips. The trailer wasn’t exactly cold, but it was cold enough. His nipples were as hard as his abs.

He looked like a god – and he knew it.

Tessa swallowed, mouth dry, throat choked. She’d never considered herself a woman of wild sexual appetites – she was above all that – but if he’d asked her in that moment, she doubted she’d be able to say “no”.

Luckily he wasn’t even looking at her.

“Hi, I’m Christian.” He held out his hand to the reporter, who took it gingerly. She looked dazed. Tessa hoped she found her tongue again before their half hour was up.

He smiled at the woman, holding her gaze. “Should I put a shirt on for the interview?”

It was the cameraman who finally answered. “If you’re not too cold, it’ll suit the part,” he said gruffly.

Christian sat where the cameraman showed him and smiled at the camera, that smouldering public smile Tessa was learning to distinguish from his far more natural impish one.

She crossed her arms over her chest, leaned back against the refrigerator, which was about as far out of his line of sight as she could get, and tried to pull herself together. Sensible, unemotional, unaffected Teresa still had to be inside her somewhere.

“What would you like to ask first?” Christian prompted the reporter.

The young woman cleared her throat, glanced at her clipboard and asked the first question.

The to-and-fro of question and answer was mildly interesting. Christian’s answers were about as shallow as a petrie dish, but he added enough banter – and flirtation – to keep the reporter eating out of the palm of his hand.

“In your last movie you played a Roman gladiator. What sort of training did you do for the role?”

“I trained for six hours a day with a master swordsman. It was gruelling but it was so worth it. Do you want me to show you a few moves?”

The interviewer declined with a giggle, and Tessa sighed. No wonder Christian’s ego had been punctured the night they met if this simpering was what he was used to.

“Tell us how you got your break in acting.”

“I was at a party in Hollywood and this guy comes up to me and says ‘How would you like to be an actor?’ I thought he was pranking me, but it turns out he was Steven Spielberg.”

“Who is your role model?”

“Working with Steven was just such an incredible experience that I’d have to say he’s my idol.”

“What is your favourite holiday destination?”

“I really like sunshine and warmth, so without a doubt it has to be the Bahamas.”

“Time’s up,” Tessa announced brightly as the minute hand on her watch clicked over onto the half hour.

The next journalist was already waiting, under the watch of a not-so-patient Robbie. He bounced from foot to foot. “I have real work to be doing,” he whispered to Tessa.

“Lucky you,” she whispered back.

Fun though it was to watch Teresa work so hard
not
to ogle him, while she was out of the trailer Christian slipped on a shirt.

This next interview was for a French magazine and they would use pre-approved photos supplied by his publicist, so there were no cameras. Even if there were, he’d suffered enough for his art. He had the heating cranked to the max, but the trailer was still bloody cold.

Not that the shirt made much difference to his next interview. The next reporter Teresa ushered in was just as speechless at the sight of him. The novelty had worn thin years ago.

He suppressed a sigh and switched on the charm, but being charming took more effort than usual. The woman’s heavy perfume made his nose itch. He’d grown used to Teresa’s softer, understated scent.

“How did you prepare for your role as a gladiator?” she asked.

“I did an army boot camp for three weeks before filming began. It was one of the toughest roles I’ve ever prepared for, but it was an incredible experience. I really learned a lot about myself in those three weeks.”

“You were a stunt man before you became an actor. How did you make the leap into acting?”

“I was training a lead actor for his role as a professional boxer. He got arrested for driving drunk just before filming started and was sent to rehab, so the director offered me the role.”

Over the woman’s shoulder he glimpsed Teresa in the kitchenette. Though he resented what she represented, beside these brassy reporters, with their heavy make-up and too-trendy clothes, her style appeared all the more elegant and effortless. He could almost admire her, if only things were different…

“Who is your greatest role model?”

“Nelson Mandela. If I can be just half the man he was, I’ll be happy.”

He caught Teresa’s eye-roll and his mouth quirked in response.

“What is your favourite holiday destination?”

“I really like the cold, so I’d have to say my ideal holiday would be spent skiing. I have a holiday home in Colorado.”

When the half hour was over and the reporter showed no sign of letting up, Tessa quietly and firmly ejected her from the trailer. Christian grinned. “That’s Germanic precision for you. Who’s next?”

The third interviewer – another woman – was from a fashion magazine, and all she wanted to know was where Christian bought his clothes. He had no idea. He recommended she interview his personal stylist. Or she could have interviewed Teresa. She clearly knew how to shop. He hadn’t yet seen her wear the same outfit twice.

The fourth was a minor celebrity in her own right, hostess of a local television talk show. Or so Frank had reliably informed him. From the confident way Susanne introduced herself, holding eye contact rather than descending into a gibbering mess, Christian rather thought this interview had potential.

“What training did you do for your last movie?”

Teresa’s lips twitched.

“I spent a week with a Roman history professor, who taught me how to use all the weapons of that period. It was fascinating. Ask me anything you want to know about the gladius sword.”

Susanne tittered. “Tell me how you got into acting.”

Or maybe not. Same questions, same glib answers.

He suppressed a sigh. He’d learned long ago that the media and his fans wanted facts as much as they wanted to know the real him. Which was not at all. They wanted the fantasy of Christian Taylor. They wanted to be entertained, wooed. As long as he gave them what they wanted, they forgave him his outrageous lies. He charmed, he seduced, he smouldered, and they loved him for it.

“I fell completely head over heels in love with this girl who was an actress. She asked me to go with her to an audition one day, to help feed her lines. She was so pissed off that I got a part in the movie and she didn’t that she never spoke to me again. She broke my heart.”

Susanne sighed, though it sounded more like “aaaw”. “If you could be anyone, who would you be?”

Christian looked straight past her to Tessa. “I’d like to have been Albert Schweitzer, for all the humanitarian work he did. I really want to make a difference in the world.”

Her expression flickered, caught half way between disapproval and amusement. What would it take to tip the scales? Beneath that prim and proper exterior lay a woman with hidden depths. What would it take to get her to reveal them?

“What is your favourite holiday destination?”

“I’m a bit of a city slicker, so I think for me it’s got to be a toss-up between New York or London. I’m all ‘bright lights, big city’.”

“You grew up without a father. How did that affect who you are as a person today?”

Tessa stiffened imperceptibly. He smiled for the camera pointed in his face, though it took a little more effort. “Of course it had an impact. But I was blessed with a mother who more than made up for any lack.”

Susanne looked down at her notes. “Did coming from a mixed-race background hinder you in any way, or did it spur you on to achieve what you have?”

He gave his scripted answer, the one he’d given a million reporters before her. Forget potential, this interview had descended deep into dull territory. Sometimes he wondered why the reporters even bothered. They could just as easily dig a story out the archives and stick a new picture on it.

But he smiled and held Susanne’s gaze until she blushed. She batted her long and very obviously fake eyelashes. “There’s a rumour that you weren’t born in the States as your official biography states, but that you grew up in the Caribbean. Is that true?”

His smile no longer reached his eyes. Who he’d been before he became Christian Taylor wasn’t something he wanted out there for all to see. But if he shut her down, he’d only make her scent blood. She was a reporter after all.

In the moment he hesitated, Teresa spoke. “This interview is over.”

“Our time isn’t up yet,” Susanne said.

“Christian has other appointments.”

The reporter pouted. “But that wasn’t on the list of no-go questions.”

Susanne looked to him for support, but she was looking in the wrong place. Christian shrugged, as if it was out of his hands.
I owe you one, Teresa
.

“Do you know who I am?” Susanne shook back her golden-blonde curls and sent Teresa a look filled with all the superciliousness of someone addressing a menial servant.

Teresa pushed herself away from the counter, her school-marm face on, and for a moment Christian felt sorry for Ms
I’m-a-Celebrity-get-me-out-of-here
. “I’ll give you to the count of three. After that I call Simon Beck and we’ll see if he knows who you are.”

Both reporter and cameraman were out the trailer by the count of two, though the look of pure venom Susanne cast behind her as she exited would have made arsenic curdle.

Christian whistled as Teresa closed the door firmly behind them. “Remind me never to get on your bad side!”

She smiled, softening. “You do. Frequently.”

He lazed back on the sofa, an arm slung casually across the back. “Who’s Simon Beck?”

“Chief executive of Westerwald’s national broadcaster.”

“Geez. The way you said his name, it sounded like you have a direct line to him.”

“I do.” She averted her gaze. “He’s my godfather.”

“Handy connection.” A knot he hadn’t known was there clenched in his gut. Of course all these aristocrats knew one another. She probably knew all the rich Westerwald tourists he’d served as a kid, people who hadn’t even seen him except to remark on how odd it was to see a boy of mixed race on Los Pajaros. As if he weren’t there, as if he couldn’t hear. As if he didn’t already know.

He knew how it felt to be treated as a servant. He doubted Teresa had ever been spoken to like that before, yet she hadn’t blinked at Susanne’s lack of courtesy. And to her credit, in the time he’d known her Teresa hadn’t once addressed anyone the way Susanne had spoken to her. Teresa’s manners were more than skin deep and she noticed people. Perhaps she even noticed too much.

He rolled the tension from his shoulders and rose. She probably also knew all the gossip of Westerwald’s upper echelons of society. Which made her more dangerous than any reporter.