by Romy Sommer
But he wasn’t the first one to look away.
“You have a date tonight. I’ll call for Frank to bring the car around.”
To hell with his date. She’d laid him bare to his core, and now she expected him to entertain and amuse some starlet he had no interest in?
“Cancel it.”
Her eyes widened, but she didn’t argue. She slipped away from him, though she had to brush against him to get past, and pulled her phone from the bag.
He didn’t listen as she made the calls for his car and to the starlet’s agent to cancel dinner.
What the hell had just happened here?
Thank heavens tomorrow was the film unit’s day off. Because he needed time away from Teresa to regroup. He needed to get his head back in the game.
Chapter 7
“You’re quiet today,” Anna said, as they left Anton’s bridal boutique, the flagship store in his design empire.
Tessa shrugged and climbed into the back of the sedan idling at the kerb. Her father’s car, provided less for her convenience than for his.
“Are you missing Stefan?”
Tessa started. Far from missing Stefan, she’d barely thought of him these last few days. She hadn’t even called. But then, neither had he. Since he’d left New York for Montreal, she wasn’t even sure what the time difference was between them now.
She looked at the bare finger on her left hand. She still hadn’t collected her ring from the jeweller’s. Something Stefan didn’t need to know.
And she still hadn’t mentioned her wedding to Christian. Something he didn’t need to know.
Tessa rubbed the sudden ache in the centre of her forehead and Anna cast her another of the sidelong glances she’d been doing all morning.
“What?” Tessa asked, irritated. “Have I grown horns?”
Anna chuckled. “No, but there is something different about you.”
“I’m just tired.”
“I’ve worked for you for three years. I know the way you look when you’re tired, and that’s not it. You look…edgy. Kind of restless. Are you getting cold feet?”
“Good heavens, no!” What a preposterous thought. Scions of the House of Arelat didn’t get cold feet. They made calculated, rational decisions and then stood by them. All but two, and look what had happened to them. Clara Adler had run off with her lover and died an ignoble early death and the other… well, her mother had never been an Adler by birth, only by marriage.
“Are you sure Stefan is the right man for you?”
There was something in Anna’s voice, a hesitance, that made Tessa turn and look at her. “Of course I’m sure. There isn’t a man more suited to me than Stefan. Why do you ask?”
Anna blushed. “I’m sorry. It’s not my place to ask.”
Tessa frowned. Of course it was Anna’s place. She was more than just an assistant. She was also the closest friend Teresa had. The one person who saw behind the carefully composed image to the person underneath, a person with weaknesses and frailties just like anyone else.
Apart from Anna, the only person who saw her shortcomings was her father, the master at whose knee she’d studied. He was impossible to deceive.
And then there was Christian.
She rubbed her forehead again.
He seemed to have developed an uncanny knack for seeing through her too. Except that he didn’t accept her as she was. He used the insight to goad her, to get under her skin.
Like that dig yesterday about being willing to do absolutely anything if it benefited him. He’d meant it… and yet, he hadn’t. Hard as he tried to conceal it beneath all the attitude, she’d seen it there in his eyes – Christian had an honourable streak.
“You’re doing it again,” Anna commented.
“Doing what?”
“Rubbing your forehead. Something’s worrying you.”
“Of course something’s worrying me. I’ve been summoned to lunch so I can give a report and I have no new facts to give.”
“Then don’t give facts. Give your impressions.”
Tessa stared at her assistant as if she’d grown two heads. “Impressions?”
“Yes, you know… listen to your gut instincts. I know you never pay the least attention to them, but you have really good instincts about people. You should trust them.”
Tessa shook her head. Anna was normally such a rational person. What had gotten into her today? Instincts were as unreliable as following one’s impulses. Her father would want facts, not feelings.
The car pulled up outside the gabled brick façade of her father’s club. Tessa waited for the valet to step forward and open the car door before she turned to Anna. “Have fun, and please don’t let Lee go overboard with hearts.”
She climbed out and watched as the car pulled back into the flow of traffic on the wide boulevard. She wished she were going with them. She had no doubt that Lee and Anna would have more fun selecting the décor for her wedding than she would have lunching with her father.
The day off flashed by in a blur. Since he’d ditched his date, Christian hit the town with Dom instead. They’d been mobbed in one nightclub and only escaped thanks to the intervention of Frank and a couple of especially burly bouncers. After that, they’d gone to a far more exclusive and dull-as-ditchwater club, where at least the whiskey had been good, even if the only woman worth flirting with had been the barmaid.
Dom had taken her home.
By the time Christian had gotten over his hangover, half the day was gone and he hadn’t known what to do with himself. Dom was still ensconced with the barmaid – at least Christian hoped it was still the same woman – and unavailable, so he’d pulled on a cap and scarf in an attempt to disguise himself and gone out for a walk.
In an effort to clear his head and escape the confines of the hotel, it didn’t work.
He found himself heading in the direction of the palace, the only place in town he knew. So he’d turned back and sought sanctuary instead in an old-fashioned movie house.
To Catch a Thief was showing.
It had been one of his mother’s favourites. After they’d moved to California, in those early days when they’d been cut off from everyone and everything they’d ever known, growing into their new identities, she’d often sat awake late into the night and watched old movies. Sometimes he’d crawl onto the couch beside her and fall asleep tucked into her side.
He’d forgotten how much like Teresa Grace Kelly was in the movie. Imperious, entitled, with a simmering passion beneath her frosty exterior.
So much for clearing his head.
He sat now in the back of the car, cradling his head against another almighty hangover as they headed back to set and back to work.
At least he was only scheduled in two scenes today, which would have been a bonus if he’d been able to sleep in. But no, fate was not so kind. His call time on set was six o’clock. The sky was still dark, the streets slick with black ice. Even with snow tyres, the car slid ominously every time it cornered.
“Remind me again why we’re shooting this movie in the bloody middle of winter,” he moaned to Dominic, who’d cadged a lift with them.
“Because your dance card is already full and this was the only gap left in your crazy schedule. You’re the one who wanted to do this damned movie,” Dom reminded him. “I had a long, lazy holiday in sunny Acapulco planned before you decided to take this trip down memory lane.”
Christian glared warningly at him, flicking a glance at Teresa in the front seat beside Frank. Dom only shrugged.
“She won’t run to the papers,” Dom mouthed back at him.
Christian bloody hoped not. The last thing he needed right now were press hounds prying into his past. Any day now, one journalist more intrepid than the others might realise Christian Taylor was a fabrication, with no corresponding birth certificate.
The car turned into the wide, tree-lined boulevard that led to the palace gates, which swung ponderously open at their approach. As always, t
heir arrival was anticipated. Security hardly seemed a necessary precaution for the film shoot these days. The weather had turned bitter enough to discourage even the most determined of fans.
Teresa turned to him. “You have a long break in the middle of the day. Should I make a reservation for you somewhere for lunch?”
Christian shook his head and the world tilted for a moment. He could barely think about breakfast without his stomach roiling, let alone lunch. He sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. “I’m never touching another whiskey again in my life.”
“Yeah, if I had a dime for every time I heard you say that, I’d be a wealthy man,” Dom retorted.
“You are a wealthy man.”
Dom laughed.
Inside his trailer, Christian downed his third espresso of the morning and changed into the costume his stylist had laid ready. Then he stood in front of the long mirror in the trailer’s bedroom. He breathed deeply, set his shoulders back, lifted his chin, and put the smouldering trademark smile in place.
Christian Taylor, Movie Star.
Now he was ready to face the rest of the world.
He opened the door. In the living-room section, Teresa sat on the couch, legs tucked beneath her. She hummed something lilting and vaguely familiar as she read the Financial Times. Her hair was pulled back into its usual neat bun, but a tendril had escaped and curled down the curve of her neck.
His driving force for more years than he could remember had been the quest for adoration and respect, but in this moment he wanted something new, something different.
He knew the bookies ran odds on who he’d bed next and how soon, but none had ever taken a bet on when he’d settle down in domestic bliss. Christian wouldn’t take those odds either. But for half a moment he savoured the scene before him. The two coffee cups on the table, a beautiful woman who looked as if she belonged in his space.
He clamped down on the ridiculous notion as Teresa set down her paper and looked up at him. “You look tired.”
His smile slipped. “Don’t give me that ‘you shouldn’t stay out all hours’ speech. I know, okay?”
She arched an eyebrow. “I didn’t say a thing.” Then she grinned, flashing a rare glimpse of impishness. “I don’t need to. Marie’s waiting in the make-up trailer for you and I know she’ll have a lot to say.”
Women!
It was well after dark that night when Frank pulled up the car beside Christian’s trailer. Teresa stifled a yawn as she climbed into the back. Christian slid in beside her, looking far more wide awake than he had any reason to be. He was in almost every scene, worked twelve-hour days, and all he’d done was party away his rest day.
Not that she had rested either. Between the grilling from her father and the hundred and one wedding-related errands, she’d actually looked forward to returning to work so she could recover from the day off.
But being on set was no sinecure for Christian as it was for her. His energy output during the day was staggering. Even when the cameras weren’t rolling, he still seemed to be playing a part, cracking jokes, making conversation with everyone from the boomswinger and set runners to the visiting studio executives.
Everyone loved him, but at what cost?
She knew the effort is took to maintain an image, but at least she was able to switch it off in the glorious solitude of her home.
As Frank shut the car door and moved to the driver’s side, she asked the same question she asked every night. “Is there anything else you need?”
She braced herself for whatever stupid request Christian would come up with tonight. The white Piedmont truffles had been easy to come by. A DVD copy of some obscure Canadian musical had kept both her and Anna on the phone half the night – though the look on Christian’s face when she’d handed it over the next morning had been worth the effort.
“Frank tells me The Playhouse is a popular restaurant. Make the reservation for eight thirty.”
It was popular. Reservations-made-three-months-in-advance popular. But Tessa didn’t bat an eyelid. “For how many?”
“Just you and me.”
She pressed her lips together. “That would not be appropriate.”
“Nonsense. Your job is to keep me happy and tonight I don’t want to eat alone. So tonight you keep me company.”
When she still didn’t answer, he arched an eyebrow. “Do you have other plans, or have you changed your mind about this job? I did make it clear it was twenty-four-seven.”
She smiled sweetly. “I’m just surprised you don’t have a date tonight. I’ll meet you at the hotel at eight.”
At least this meant she’d have the opportunity to talk to Christian without someone calling for him to be someplace else. But Anna did have a date tonight, so she’d have to take up Lee’s offer of help with more than just the décor. He would have to take her place at the meetings with the wedding photographers she’d set up for this evening.
She’d arranged some of the biggest parties this town had seen, and here she was leaving a virtual stranger to plan her wedding. She would have laughed at the absurdity of it if she hadn’t been secretly relieved. She was tired of people asking where the groom was.
And tonight she would show Lee that she could work it.
Every morning, Teresa had beaten Christian to breakfast and been ready and waiting when he emerged. So her surprise at finding him waiting for her for once gave him a buzz.
Not that she ever showed much break in her composure, but a week in her company and he’d learned to read the signs. The way her lips pursed in disapproval, the tightening of her jaw when she wanted to say something impolite but couldn’t, the small tug at the corner of her mouth when she wanted to laugh but didn’t.
There was a powder keg beneath that flawless façade, he was sure of it. And if she didn’t release a little of that emotion soon, it was going to blow sky-high.
“You shouldn’t be hanging around at the front door,” she reproved as the doorman held open the passenger door of her sports car for him. “You might start another riot.”
“Yeah, but I knew you’d be here to rescue me again. May I drive?”
She shook her head, and with a grin he got in and closed the door. She put the car in gear and took off. “So how much of this city have you seen?”
“Apart from the palace and getting lost the night we met? Not much.”
“We’ll take the scenic route, then.”
He’d visited Paris a few times. Neustadt was a quarter the size, but it had the same tree-lined boulevards and the same gracefully proportioned buildings. Against the velvet sky the city lights stood out, a rainbow of shimmering colours reflected in the dark river and off the streets, where a thin layer of snow had begun to settle.
“This city is bleak in winter,” she said, in full tour-guide mode. “But it’s magical in the spring when the cherry trees blossom, and in the summer when the shops stay open late, the sidewalk cafés are full and the river boats are more frequent.”
“I can see why my mother loved it here,” he said, looking out the window at the light drifts of snow settling on the icy road and turning the cityscape into a sparkling wonderland. He was beginning to understand why she’d believed this place to be magical.
“She visited Neustadt?” Teresa kept her eyes on the road, driving cautiously.
He relaxed in his seat and watched her. “My mother studied at the university here on a scholarship, then spent a year working at the palace before she returned to Los Pajaros.”
“What did she do?”
“A doctorate in politics and industrial relations, then she got a job as an intern with some sort of think-tank that was trying to bring the unions and employers together.”
Until she’d fallen pregnant with him, been dumped and unceremoniously thrown out of the country. He shrugged. “She met my father here in Neustadt. I was conceived here.”
“How did they meet?”
“I have no idea.” He turned away from the window he’d
been staring sightlessly out of and faced Teresa. “She never spoke of him. All I know is that he was from Westerwald.”
“Not even a name?”
“Least of all a name.” Christian sighed. “There’s a part of me that hoped by coming here I’d found out who he was. Whether he’s alive or dead. But of course that’s not going to happen. It’s worse than searching for a needle in a haystack because I have nothing to go on.”
Teresa slid the car into a narrow parking bay in front of the restaurant and cut the engine. “Maybe I can help.”
“How do you figure that?”
“My father works with the government. He has access to information you wouldn’t be able to get on your own.”
He processed that for a moment. “He would need some place to start.”
“He often says that putting a case together is like connecting the dots. On its own, each piece of evidence is nothing more than a dot, but when you connect them you start to see patterns. We can make a list of anything and everything you remember your mother telling you about her time here. Then perhaps we can start to connect the dots.”
Well that should at least take them until their drinks arrived. He shrugged. Why not? This was ancient history and couldn’t hurt him, unlike other more recent events. And since she’d signed a non-disclosure agreement along with her employment contract, what harm could come from talking about his past?
Chapter 8
“It’s a pleasure to see you again, Ms Adler.”
The maître d’hôtel bowed to her and she smiled. “Good evening, Philip.”
“Your request for privacy was noted, so instead of your usual table we’ve seated you in the Royal Box. Please follow me.”
She ignored the curious sideways look Christian sent her.
Since the main floor of the restaurant was known as the place to see and be seen in this town, Teresa was immensely relieved when they were led down a wide, completely empty, corridor and through a private door to their table.