by Romy Sommer
Which explained how so many of them knew her name.
“If we’re done now… ” Teresa said, her tone clipped. “Mr Taylor has other events to attend today.”
With a backward wave to the journalist and photographer, who seemed loath to leave the cosy warmth of the chalet’s dining room, Christian allowed himself to be hustled out the door and back to his car.
“What other event am I supposed to be attending?” he asked, casting Teresa a cheeky grin as he climbed into the car.
“You could say thank you I got you out of there before they started in on your love life.”
“Thank you.” Though he wasn’t entirely sure she’d wrapped up the questions for his benefit. “You don’t like to talk about your charity work? Strange, since you couldn’t stop talking about it the night we met.”
The look she turned on him was frostier than usual. “I don’t attend charity benefits or visit children’s homes to preen in front of the cameras.”
Touché.
“Even without the cameras present, it’s bloody hard for me to do what you do,” he said defensively. “Everyone wants their pound of flesh, their moment with the person they think I am. I can’t do what you do.”
“And what is that?”
He didn’t like the look in Tessa’s eyes. It was as if she was daring him.
“Just help out. Be myself.”
“You want to bet?”
Now he really didn’t like the look in her eyes. This was definitely a dare.
Chapter 10
Teresa gave Frank an address Christian didn’t recognise. As they descended back into the city bowl, the snow thinned, then disappeared.
“Where are we going? Is this the kind of place where I’m going to get mobbed and torn to pieces again?”
Not that he really cared where they were headed, as long as he had Teresa at his side. The longer she spent with him – him, not the person he was on set – the better his chances of seducing her. He hoped.
And the more time he spent with her, the more he wanted her. He’d wanted to knock her off her pedestal and instead she’d climbed down willingly. The way she’d been with those kids today…she hadn’t been the Ice Queen with them.
She laughed. “I doubt it, but if you like we can ask Frank to keep the motor running, just in case.”
He remained clueless as to their destination until Frank pulled up to the kerb outside the magnificent Gothic cathedral. Not the tourist entrance where the visitors entered, but a porter’s gate to what had once been the monastery.
“You’re taking me to church?”
Teresa shook her head and smiled the smile he was learning meant be patient. Not something he was particularly good at.
Several people hung around on the sidewalk, so Frank did his usual scan of the area before he opened the door for them. “All clear,” he said gruffly, his eyes peeled and his expression fierce.
“You’re welcome to come in too, once you’ve parked,” Tessa said to him as she climbed out.
Christian followed her inside, past the porter’s gate into a dimly lit hallway, where his eyes took a moment to adjust to the sudden gloom.
“This way,” Teresa said. She reached out to take his arm, nothing more than a guiding touch, but in the gloom she misjudged the space between them and her hand made contact with his. He wrapped his fingers around hers.
For a split second she resisted the touch, then her grip softened in his, yielding and compliant.
Victory Number Two.
“This way,” she said again, giving his fingers a gentle yank.
In that moment he’d have followed her anyway.
Their hands seemed to belong together, as natural as salt and pepper, as shampoo and conditioner.
He didn’t want to let go.
But at the end of the unoccupied corridor a thick and rather ancient wooden door opened into a vast, kitchen lit by tall arched windows, and as they entered, Teresa pulled her hand out of his. The sunshine dimmed and the colour drained from the room.
A half dozen people worked at different stations. All heads turned as they entered, and one man, tall and rangy with a shock of white hair, hurried towards them.
“It’s such a pleasure to see you here, Tessa,” the man said. “We’ve missed you these last couple of weeks.”
“Father Tomas, this is Christian Taylor. He’s here to help out with preparing today’s lunch for the soup kitchen.”
Father Tomas shook his hand. “Wonderful! Are you any good at peeling carrots?”
When Christian left home he thought he’d peeled his last carrot. These days his housekeeper bought them ready-peeled and ready-julienned. But for the next half hour, he peeled, chopped and diced vegetables, and it was the most fun he’d had in years.
Teresa stood beside him, elbow to elbow and they chatted as they worked. He’d never seen her as relaxed as she was now. Perhaps because they were on her turf this time.
Alongside them, other volunteers cut and buttered bread rolls, and stirred and seasoned the massive pots of bubbling vegetable soup. Even Frank joined them, removing his jacket and rolling up his sleeves to wash dishes.
Once the meal was prepared, they stood at the hatch into the former monk’s refectory and served the soup into bowls for the waiting crowd that had swelled to a vast number.
Many of the people queuing before them knew Teresa’s name. None seemed to know his. More astonishing, Teresa knew many of them. Not just their names, but their children’s names, their circumstances.
And she treated every one of them as equals.
He had to give Teresa credit. Stuck-up aristocrat she might be, but she walked the walk.
She certainly treated them more warmly than she’d ever treated him. Who would have thought the Ice Queen would be better at dealing with people than he was?
While she talked, he kept his mouth closed and listened, and learned. He learned that she was respected. That she was generous, with both her time and her money.
That she would have made a great Archduchess.
He also learned that perhaps he did care after all.
Because now he’d met these people they were more than the recipients of an anonymous donation. Now he would lie awake in his vast, warm bed, with room service at the other end of the line, and wonder where these people he’d met slept at night in this bitter cold.
Posing for photographs was much easier than connecting with real people.
She’d made her point.
The food line seemed never-ending, but at last everyone had been fed and the crowd thinned. Christian’s face ached from smiling and his feet ached from standing. And Teresa did this three times a week?
He was now also starving. Teresa doled the last of the nutritious soup into bowls and at last they got to sit down and eat themselves. Frank joined Father Tomas and a few of the other volunteers, and Christian and Tessa found themselves alone at one end of a long refectory table.
He gave Frank a thumbs-up when he was sure she wouldn’t notice.
“I win,” Tessa said with an easy smile that melted though her haughty exterior. “You’re doing real work and not a camera in sight. Thank you.”
“I didn’t have much choice, did I?” He mopped up the last of the soup from his bowl with the bread roll. “And I enjoyed it. It’s very refreshing to be in a crowd of people and not one of them asking for an autograph.”
Her shoulders stiffened and he gave himself a mental slap. Way to go for making this all about himself again. He never seemed to be able to say the right things when she was around. He tried again. “The food’s also really good. Almost better than the food at The Playhouse.”
“Food one cooks oneself always tastes better.”
“You like to cook?”
She nodded. “I love cooking.”
So that made two things he knew about her now. Charity and cooking.
He broke apart the last of the fresh-baked bread roll with his fingers. “I take bac
k what I said the first time we met. You’re not a princess and you are making a difference in the world. I think perhaps I needed to meet you. You challenge me in ways I need to be challenged.”
He expected her to say “thank you” in her polite, perfectly enunciated voice. Instead she smiled that warm, melting smile again. “That works both ways. I didn’t know it, but I needed to be challenged too. And you are definitely challenging.”
He took that as a compliment.
She was silent a moment, and when she raised her gaze again he was surprised to see a flash of emotion in them. Worry. Doubt.
“What is it?” he asked.
She pinched her lips together, but this time the shutters didn’t come down. She sighed. “Sometimes I feel like a ghost. It’s as if I’m simply killing time, as if I have no real purpose.” She straightened her shoulders. “Which is stupid. I help out here at the soup kitchen, and I teach reading and supervise homework at the children’s home. I arrange parties and fundraisers and business dinners for my father and his business associates. I have a full and active life.”
It sounded as if she was trying to convince herself.
“But you feel something is lacking,” he prompted.
He understood the feeling well. He’d achieved every goal he’d set for himself and still he felt as if something was lacking. He felt hollow inside. “I only got into acting because I wanted more fame and money than being a stunt man could provide. But now that I have them, it’s still not enough. I want more.”
She stiffened.
“I want to make a mark, to do something meaningful with my life.” To be the man his mother had believed he could be. She’d told him a hundred times that he was born for great things.
Teresa’s expression softened, and he glimpsed another flash of emotion before her mask reasserted itself, calm and impenetrable as ever.
“I was wrong about you,” she said. “You’re not as shallow as I believed you were.”
He was every bit as shallow. And as self-serving. But he suppressed the twinge of guilt and took her hand. “And you’re not the pampered princess I thought you were.”
She didn’t pull her hand away.
Victory Number Three.
They stepped out of the porter’s lodge and Tessa gasped. Giant soft snowflakes whirled about them, melting as they hit the pavement. And stayed. She closed her eyes and lifted her face. The snowflakes settled on her nose and eyelashes.
“You like the snow?” Christian asked.
“I love it! It’s so magical, so pure and clean.”
“I like you like this.”
She opened her eyes and frowned. “Like what?”
“Less uptight. Carefree. Smiling. I didn’t think you even knew how to relax.”
“I can’t. Twenty-four-seven, remember?” But she did feel lighter and freer. More like herself and less like the Teresa Adler she showed the world.
Frank pulled the car up to the kerb and Christian climbed in. The blast of the car’s heating hit her. But instead of diving into the warmth, as Christian had done, she savoured the swirling snowflakes a moment longer.
Snow’s most magical attribute was that it made the world anew. It wiped away the traces of what had gone before, leaving the slate clean and ready for fresh footprints.
Reluctantly she slid into the too-hot, too-enclosed interior of the car. As always, Christian dominated the space, with his scent, with his energy, with his awareness.
They drove slowly through the quiet streets as the snow softly settled around them, smothering the greyness of the city in a blanket of bright, shimmering white.
In preparation for Valentine’s Day, every shop window they passed seemed to be decorated in shades of pink and red. Fluffy toys, chocolates in bows…and more hearts than Tessa could stomach. She wasn’t sure which she detested most – the crass commercialism or the excess of sentimentality.
Either way, the decorations felt like a warning. Half her time had already elapsed and she needed to fill in the final gaps in Christian’s story and see his ring. She’d barely managed a quick glance around his suite before he’d woken this morning. It hadn’t been in the closet with his clothes either.
The warning also felt like a death knell. She was no longer quite so keen for this assignment to be over. She hadn’t had this much fun in years, not since she’d left university. Though even that could hardly be described as “fun” since she’d spent the entire four years working to be the top of her class.
And for what? So she could be the country’s most underpaid party-planner?
At the hotel’s entrance, Frank got out the car to open the door for them, and Tessa stepped out first. Snowflakes settled on the car’s roof, on the ground, clung to the dark shoulders of Christian’s coat.
She pulled on her gloves. “Robbie texted me that there are revised script pages waiting for you at reception. I’ll check for them, and then is there anything more you need from me today?”
“Don’t go just yet.” Christian laid a hand on her arm. “Everyone else will still be out enjoying their day off and I don’t feel like being alone. Please come inside for something warm to drink? You too, Frank.”
Frank shook his head. “If you’re not needing the car again, I’ll be heading home.”
Christian shook his head. “Have fun,” he said, then he cocked an eyebrow at Tessa, no doubt fully expecting her to refuse too.
It was a request, not an instruction, but even though she still had that dratted seating plan to work on, she didn’t feel like being alone this afternoon either. The big house had never felt as empty as it had since she’d started working on this job.
And she certainly didn’t want to be alone while she felt this unsettled. Because then there would be no distraction from her thoughts.
She nodded.
At the reception desk she found the envelope waiting with the new script pages as well as a revised schedule for the next few days’ shoot. Clearly the production team hadn’t had a day off either. She handed the envelope to Christian, who barely glanced at it before rolling it up and stuffing it into his coat pocket.
He led her to the hotel library, a dignified room lined with tall windows overlooking the gardens, where a log fire blazed in the hearth. Teresa stripped off her jacket and gloves, unwound her scarf, and sat on one of the chintzy sofas while he ordered from the hovering waitress, cappuccino for himself and cocoa for Teresa. Then he sat beside her.
She suppressed a shiver. Not her usual tremble of unease, but a rather thrilling sensation. Not once in all the time she’d known him had Stefan made her feel like that. Which was a good thing. She didn’t want this awkward sensation with the man she was going to spend the rest of her life with. Did she?
She and Stefan were comfortable together, and that was far more important for a happy marriage.
The waitress brought their steaming mugs and Tessa sipped carefully as she studied the schedule changes. “We’ll be on location for the next few days, then we shoot the pirate-ship interiors at the studio.” She frowned as she flicked to the next page. “Why would we need to start and end so late if we’re shooting inside a studio?”
“To ease us into the night shoots at the end of the shoot.” Christian grinned.
“What’s so funny?”
“You said we. You’ve been bitten by the film bug.”
She shook her head so vehemently that Christian laughed at her. “What do you have against the movie business?”
She paused a long moment before she answered. Her first answer was easy. Because it’s an industry of self-involved, self-important people. But she bit back the words. That wasn’t her real reason. “Because my mother abandoned me for it.” The raw honesty scalded her throat.
Christian’s eyes rounded. “That was your mother’s mistake, not the movies’. She made a choice, but that doesn’t make the movie business the devil’s work. It’s a job like any other.”
“Not quite like any other.” The c
rew 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.