by Romy Sommer
Christian had no idea. Normally on a date, he was the attentive one. Normally he let the woman do all the talking. But Teresa had turned him so inside out he’d spent the entire evening out with her talking about himself. Revealing himself. He had no clue what she liked to do.
“She volunteers for a charity,” he offered up.
“Great. Then be charitable. Don’t you have that photo op thing at the children’s home tomorrow? Take her along with you.” Dom stretched out on the sofa. “I’m sure she’d be worth the effort. Those ice queens are usually the hottest once you get them into bed.” He grinned. “If you’re not interested, I’ll take a shot at defrosting her.”
“Only if you don’t plan to use your limbs again,” Christian threatened.
There was a knock at the door and Christian stashed his beer bottle out of sight.
“Come in,” he called.
The door opened and Teresa’s head appeared, accompanied by a blast of glacial air. “They’re ready for you on set.” She cast a pointed look at the beer in Dominic’s hand. “Should you be drinking that before a fight scene?”
Dominic set the beer can down, looking like the schoolboy who’d been caught smoking behind the bicycle shed. “No, ma’am!”
As she disappeared from sight, pulling the door closed behind her, Christian laughed. “What was that about taking your shot? Chicken!”
“Forget a princess, she’s like a bloody school marm.” Dominic rose and dusted off his creased trousers. The wardrobe ladies were not going to be impressed, though Christian was sure it wouldn’t be for long. No one ever stayed cross with Dom for long.
“Yeah, and I remember too well your school-marm fantasies. But if I catch you so much as laying a finger on her…”
“Yeah, yeah, working limbs and all that.” With a grimace, Dom bent and drew one long swig from the beer bottle before heading to the door.
No one knew better than Christian how much Dom needed something to take the edge off the pain these days, and a beer was far sight less harmful than the drugs most stunt men needed to get through each day. Dom often quipped that there were no old stunt men – and he was rapidly getting old.
Dom paused, his hand on the door handle. “Though if you’re going to try seducing her, you might consider being a little nicer.”
Christian pulled a face. “Nice” wasn’t usually what women wanted from him.
Teresa waited for them outside the trailer. On the surface, she’d come a long way since the day they met. The tailored pants suit and pearls were gone, replaced by heeled boots, skinny jeans, figure-hugging sweater, and a fur-trimmed vest jacket.
It took all his effort to pull his gaze off those skinny jeans.
The icy breeze funnelling between the motor homes stung roses to her cheeks and whipped tendrils of hair loose from the knot at the back of her head. She looked younger and a little less untouchable.
And a whole lot more like the woman he saw in his dreams.
Dom was right. He needed the dreams to stop. He needed to get Teresa out of his head and into his bed.
The end of another long week and they’d earned their day off.
Tessa sank back against the car’s plush leather upholstery. Her legs felt cramped, but she resisted the urge to stretch them out. She’d discovered Christian had a fascination for her legs, and his admiration didn’t do her blood pressure any favours.
Her blood pressure was already sky-high. Christian had unsettled her today, even more than usual. On the surface, he’d still been the same wisecracking livewire on set, but there’d been no pranks and no foolish errands. Almost as if he’d been trying to be nice to her.
She shook her head and returned to running through her mental list of all the things she needed to do tomorrow. Her personal to-do list had grown to stupid proportions. She was almost glad Stefan had been forced to extend his business trip. She wouldn’t have had time to see him anyway.
As soon as she saw Christian back to his hotel tonight, she was going home for a bath and that bottle of sauvignon blanc chilling in her fridge. And once she’d had at least eight hours’ sleep, she’d crack that to-do list, starting with collecting her engagement ring from the jeweller’s.
She pulled Christian’s schedule from her messenger bag. “You’re visiting the state children’s home tomorrow morning for a photo op, then you have the rest of the day off. Should I make lunch arrangements for you? Perhaps a trip to one of the vineyards upriver? Most are closed for the season but they’ll open for you.”
“I already have plans for tomorrow.”
She didn’t like his smile. It was way too smug. Did it involve a woman? And did she really want to know?
“I’ll meet you in the dining room at nine,” he said, sounding way too casual.
“What?”
“You have something else planned?”
“It’s the day off!”
His grin was wicked. “For the film crew. But if I have to work tomorrow, you do too.”
If she hadn’t been raised better, she’d have sworn. She was Christian’s whenever he needed her. So far twenty-four-seven had only meant one dinner out and a few completely unnecessary late-night phone calls giving her instructions he could just as easily have given her the next morning.
She gritted her teeth and nodded politely. She’d signed a contract, so her only option was to quit, and she wasn’t doing that until she got what she’d come for – a good look at Christian’s ring.
She turned back to the window, though she didn’t see much beyond it as she mentally readjusted her plans. She was going to have to ask Anna to fetch her engagement ring after all.
And tomorrow she’d have to figure out how to get what she wanted from Christian, because this needed to end. Now.
When the car pulled up beneath the hotel’s portico and the doorman stepped forward, she mustered every ounce of sweetness she possessed. “I hope you don’t have any plans for tonight. Your agent sent over a script you need to read. It’s in your suite.” She smiled. “And he needs to know if you’re interested by first thing LA-time tomorrow.”
The look on Christian’s face mirrored how she felt exactly.
So much for his day off.
The room was still dark. Christian cursed and smacked his ringing iPhone off the nightstand. It hit the ground with an ominous thud. At least the alarm went silent.
Damn. And Teresa had only just arranged this new phone for him.
He pulled the pillow back over his head, but it didn’t help. He was awake now. Awake and exhausted.
He groped over the edge of the bed for the phone. It still had signal and he had unread emails. He clicked the email icon. The message from his publicist he deleted without reading. He opened the one from his agent.
Damn! Damn! Damn!
This time, the phone didn’t hit the carpet. It ricocheted off the opposite wall with a sickening crunch and this time he didn’t care.
He burrowed down under the duvet. The rest of the world could just go to hell.
When he woke again, sunshine had crept through the gap in the curtains and left a streak of wan light across the bed. He rubbed his eyes. He had no idea what time it was or what had woken him, until a shadow crossed the ray of light.
“I thought I was going to have to call Frank to get you up.”
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 se
emed 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 sm
iled 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.”