To Catch a Star

by Romy Sommer

  The building had once been a theatre and their table was above the main floor. It was used for private functions, and obscured from sight by an elaborate carved wooden screen. They could see without being seen.

  She wasn’t sure whether she’d taken the precaution for the sake of her celebrity guest or herself. Stefan knew she’d taken this job but most of their acquaintances didn’t, and she wasn’t in the mood to explain why she was out at a romantic dinner for two with a man who wasn’t her fiancé.

  And it was romantic. Candlelight, rose petals strewn across the starched white-linen table cloth, the soft serenade of strings in the background.

  Christian ordered a bottle of one of Westerwald’s finest vintages, and the maitre d’ bowed himself out of the room. It was just the two of them. For a room that was large enough to seat ten comfortably, it suddenly felt very small.

  “I’m impressed.” Christian lazed back in his chair. “I was told it was impossible to get a booking here.”

  “It is. But you knew that and you asked anyway. Are you always this demanding of your assistants?”

  “No, just you.” He grinned, all impish charm. “You said you could get a table in any restaurant. I wanted to see if you’d told me the truth.”

  She stiffened. “I always tell the truth.” Though she’d learned at the feet of the master the many ways to skirt the truth.

  She contemplated Christian across the table. He’d made it clear he didn’t like aristocrats, and by extension he didn’t like her. He needled her at every point. Yet, he’d invited her out to dinner alone tonight. What game was he playing?

  She reached into her purse for her moleskin notebook and pen. Hopefully having a task to focus on would make this evening fly faster and stop her from dwelling on other less-comfortable thoughts.

  Like how fine he looked tonight. He’d practically disrobed in the coat room, and now he wore nothing more than dark trousers and a dark jacket over a crisp white shirt open at the neck.

  She cleared her throat. “Did your mother mention anything about the work she did in the palace?”

  “What’s the hurry? We have all evening.”

  Not if she could help it. The box was far too cosy, far too intimate. She couldn’t wait to get this evening over with, to get away from that clear blue gaze that seemed so familiar and yet so disquieting at the same time.

  Their waiter arrived with the wine, and they placed their food orders. Tessa took a sip, the velvety-red burgundy steadying her nerves. Since she wasn’t easily unnerved, this constant state of agitation around Christian was beginning to wear her thin.

  After a week in his presence the discomfort level had at least dropped to a low-level simmer. With a little luck, by the time the next two weeks were up he would no longer have any effect on her at all.

  With even better luck, her job would be done long before then. Tonight would be good.

  “My parents might have worked together.” Christian swirled the wine around in his glass and stared into it. “I thought perhaps they met at the palace, though I suppose he might just as easily have been a visitor. As I’ve realised while filming there, the palace is more of a corporate HQ than a royal residence. There are a lot of people coming and going all the time.”

  In her head she scrolled through the list of questions her father had made her memorise. His people had already interviewed as many of his mother’s former colleagues as they could find, and none had known a thing about Connie Hewitt’s personal life. Or if they knew, they weren’t telling.

  “When did your parents meet?”

  “In the spring the year before I was born. Their affair lasted through the summer. By Christmas she was home in Los Pajaros, in disgrace. No job, no husband. Just me a few months later.”

  “How did her family take it?”

  He shrugged and set the wine glass down. “Her father was already dead. Her younger brother, my uncle, was now the head of the family. Though he’d benefited from the money she sent home for his education, he said she brought dishonour on the family and refused to acknowledge her. The only person who stood by her was my grandmother.”

  She sent money home? How much? Teresa scribbled in her notebook.

  “Are you still in touch with any of your family?”

  He shook his head. “My grandmother died a few months before we left Los Pajaros, and my uncle… we never spoke to him again after we moved to the States.”

  “You said you worked for him as a kid.”

  His lips tightened and he took a long draft from his glass before he answered. “He made a deathbed promise to my grandmother that he’d look after us. So he gave me a job. It didn’t work out.”

  There was a whole lot more to it than that. She didn’t need the elevated tension around the table to tell her that. It was in the hard, uncompromising look in his eyes.

  She changed the subject. The secrets she needed to uncover didn’t lie in the islands.

  “What sort of things did your parents do together?”

  “Aside from the obvious?” Christian laughed, but it sounded forced. He closed his eyes as he tried to remember. “They spent a weekend at some castle upriver. It was surrounded by vineyards.”

  That was no help. There were at least eight castles along the river where it ran through the hills. More than half had been converted into hotels and all of them were surrounded by vineyards. But she made a note in her notebook anyway.

  “Did she mention any of her colleagues? Anyone she was particularly close to, or anyone she was afraid of?”

  Christian frowned, and she couldn’t blame him. It was an odd question. But her father needed to know not only what his mother had stolen from the palace, but who she’d done it for. Why was of no importance to him, unless it could help determine who had bullied, blackmailed or seduced her into doing it.

  “Not that I know of. She had a mentor she spoke of once, an older man who’d been one of her industrial relations professors in university. I think it was he who got her the position at the palace.”

  She jotted down a note. “Do you know his name?”

  “Alexander Wolff.”

  Her breath caught. Stefan’s father. It wasn’t possible he and Connie could have… no, that would make Stefan and Christian… She downed half her glass of wine before she added the name to her notebook.

  “But he wasn’t my father.”

  She looked up. “What makes you so sure?”

  “Because I asked my mother and she said ‘no’.”

  “And you believe everything she told you?”

  “She never lied to me. Unless you count the one about Santa Claus, but every parent lies about Santa, don’t they?”

  No, they didn’t. Her father could be economical with the truth when it served him, but he’d never been one for sugar-coating things either. The Santa gifts under the tree had stopped the day her mother left home. Two weeks before Christmas.

  More wine.

  The waiter arrived with their first course, topped up their wine glasses, and withdrew. Tessa forced away her bitterness and concentrated on the food.

  As they ate, Christian spoke about his mother, about the stories she’d told him of Westerwald. The history and the legends. Ice-skating in the winter, hiking in the forests in the summer. Student wine-tastings and late-night study sessions.

  She’d had friends, that much was clear, but she’d never mentioned them, and she hadn’t kept contact with a single person after she’d left Westerwald.

  Most of what he told her was irrelevant to what she needed to know, but she let him talk. She had the feeling he never spoke about his past and she’d opened a floodgate.

  By the time their main course arrived, she’d built a picture of the bright young woman who’d been set for a meteoric career until she’d met a man and succumbed to single motherhood.

  It was an age-old story, but still there were things that didn’t add up. Tessa kept her reservations to herself and made a mental note to ask her f
ather to dig deeper.

  During their desserts and coffee, Christian spoke of his childhood in Los Pajaros, growing up rejected and alone. His bitterness coloured every memory.

  There was so much about his life she would never understand. She had never known how it felt not to belong or to be judged on the colour of her skin. Never having known anything but privilege, she would never know how hard he’d fought for his success.

  But he had fought and succeeded. Those years had made him the man he was today. Strong, fearless, determined. And she admired him for it.

  Christian attempted to empty the last dregs of the bottle of burgundy into her glass, but she covered it with her fingers. “I’m driving, I can’t drink anymore.”

  She might be within the legal limit, but her head was fuzzy enough. Almost fuzzy enough to let her guard down, and that couldn’t happen.

  Christian grinned and removed her fingers, filling up her glass. “I’m sure your father the judge can bail us out if we get drunk. Or are you worried Daddy might think the big bad playboy American is leading his perfect little daughter off the rails?”

  Though he meant it as a joke, he could have no idea how close he was to the truth. Her father had even less reason to trust fickle actors than she did. “It’s not my father I’m worried about as much as the papers. Christian Taylor in drunk-driving arrest as a headline in the morning news will not please your publicist.”

  Teresa Adler found drunk in company of Hollywood actor would be more likely and infinitely worse. Though her father could be trusted to find a way to spin it in their favour, he would not be pleased either. The Arelat name could not be besmirched.

  “At least it’ll give Pippa something to do to earn that generous retainer I pay her,” Christian said.

  “Not to mention it would probably land me out of a job. Speaking of which, shouldn’t you be learning lines, or something? Don’t you actors ever need to prepare?”

  He rolled his eyes. “I have an eidetic memory. Do you take everything so seriously?”

  “Do you take anything seriously?”

  “I’m being serious now.” He took her hand across the table and refused to let it go when she pulled away. “Thank you for your help. Even if the trail is cold and I can’t find out anything more about my father, you’ve shown me tonight that I knew a great deal more about my parents than I realised. In fact, I think we should celebrate. We need champagne.”

  He let go of her hand and she was almost disappointed. There was something magical in Christian’s touch, something she’d never experienced before. As if the world had been painted in shades of grey until the moment he touched her. Then the room had suddenly lit up in technicolor.

  She nursed her hand. This wine must be more potent than she realised. She’d definitely had enough. “No champagne,” she said firmly.

  “Yes, ma’am!” Christian leaned back in his chair. “It seems crazy now, but I thought perhaps my mother named me for my father and that would be a clue. It was only after I arrived here that I realised just how common the name Christian is in Westerwald.”

  “The previous Archduke was named Christian. A lot of our generation were named after him. In this next generation every second boy will most likely be called ‘Max’ after our new Archduke.”

  His gaze fixed on her. This was what made people love him. When he looked at you, he really looked. As if you were the only person in the world for him in that moment.

  “How does Prince Fredrik fit into all this? I met him the night of the welcome drinks at the palace. He wasn’t very friendly.” He frowned. “He’s Max’s older brother, right? Shouldn’t he be the new Archduke?”

  She was the first to look away. She fiddled with the stem of her wine glass. “Fredrik was a bastard.”

  “He wasn’t popular?”

  “Not like that. He was… ” Oh lord, there really was no way to say this without summoning that familiar pang, the regret for everything that had changed so irretrievably. “He was disinherited. It turned out he wasn’t Archduke Christian’s legitimate child.”

  “Seems there was a lot of that going around Westerwald at the time. Does he at least have any idea who his real father was?”

  “I never asked,” she replied at her driest.

  Christian grinned, and she squirmed. There was mischief in his eyes, as if he saw way more than he should. She fought back the urge to blush and composed herself.

  “Europe in the 80s was not so backward that your mother’s career would have been over because she was pregnant. Why did she leave and go back to Los Pajaros, where being an unwed mother is about the worst thing one can be? Why didn’t she stay and raise you here?”

  His gaze hardened, all the mischief gone. “Would it have really been any different? I still wouldn’t have belonged here, in your neat, white world.”

  She flinched at the word, though she knew he wasn’t talking about race. He was talking about Westerwald’s society. Tolerant, but only to a certain extent. Unlike their neighbours, this little nation remained frozen in a bubble, where the old hierarchies, the traditions, were still deeply entrenched. It was a society in which her father, Stefan, Max, could pursue a career, but in which she was expected to be nothing more than be an ornament. At least she was determined to be a useful ornament. Marriage to Stefan would enable her to do more than serve meals at the soup kitchen.

  Like the snow-blanketed streets outside, Westerwald was a perfect, frozen world. But beneath that unblemished surface lay the cold, hard realities of stone, concrete, asphalt.

  She and Rik had talked about changing things when he acceded as Archduke. Max and Phoenix were equally determined.

  But the changes would be too late for someone like Christian.

  She shook her head. “You might not have belonged, but you wouldn’t have been bullied as you were. Your mother would have had a good job and a good income.”

  He leaned forward, his elbows on the table, and his eyes burned with that intense look he got sometimes that made her hot and shivery. She shivered now.

  “My mother was forced out. Her work permit was rescinded and she was deported. I once heard her say she had to leave because her pregnancy was found out. It was such an odd thing to say that I’ve always remembered it. She had to leave because she was found out. By who – my father? By her boss?” He sighed, frustrated, and ran his hands through his hair. “Did my father have her deported to avoid the embarrassment of a mixed-race child?”

  Tessa closed the notebook. She didn’t need to write this down. She wouldn’t forget.

  Because she was found out. She had an uneasy feeling that it wasn’t a pregnancy his mother had been talking about. But who had driven her out and why?

  Her next question wasn’t one on her father’s list. It was also the toughest question to ask. “Do you think your father might have been married?”

  Christian stared past her, through the screen to the vast space of the auditorium beyond. “I’ve considered it, but I don’t think so. My mother wasn’t that kind of person. I don’t believe she would have had an affair with a married man.”

  Not knowingly, not intentionally. But even good people made mistakes.

  “And you’re sure your father knew about you?”

  He pulled his focus back onto her. “He must have. I can’t see my mother sneaking off without telling him he was going to be a father.” He sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. “I always thought he dumped her when he found out she was pregnant, but I guess it’s possible he didn’t know.”

  He sprawled in his chair, the energy ebbing out of him. He looked tired, not in that still-half-asleep way he had in the mornings, but bone weary.

  “It must take a lot of energy being you,” she commented. It was the first thing she’d come to admire and respect in him this past week. She felt tired just keeping up her own façade. How much more difficult, then, for Christian, who not only had to live up to his movie-star image, but had to do it while wielding a sword or d
odging punches or leaping down stairs? Or into moving cars.

  His gaze met hers, and she looked straight into the face of honesty. This was the real Christian Taylor. Not the laugh-a-minute performer who kept the crew entertained on and off camera. Just a man trying to live up to the world’s expectations.

  And no one understood that as much as she did.

  She toyed with the stem of her still-full wine glass and asked the last question on her father’s list. “Why did you leave Los Pajaros and move to the States?”

  The shutters came down. It was so instantaneous that she blinked. Then he smiled, and it was the glossy, charming smile that adorned a million magazine covers. “Why does everyone move to the States? In pursuit of the American Dream.”

  He was lying. As he lied to every reporter who interviewed him, even to the people he worked with. She should feel grateful he’d shared as much with her tonight as he had. She should, but all she felt was hurt.

  “Shall we go?” She pushed her chair out from the table. “I’ll get the bill on the way out.”

  He rose. “I invited you to dinner. It’s on me.”

  She laughed softly. “I think I can stand you for it.”

  Besides, this dinner was worth every cent. He’d given her something new to tell her father. Not that it was of any use in tracking down how his mother came into possession of the Waldburg ring, but enough for her sixth sense to be screaming that there were secrets buried deep here. And where there was smoke, there was inevitably fire.

  When they reached the coat room, the restaurant manager himself came to meet them. “I am so sorry,” he said, rubbing his hands together in anxiety. “I have no idea how word got out, but there’s a crowd waiting for you outside the entrance. Not just fans, but paparazzi too.”

  Tessa caught Christian’s gaze. “The only way to the car is through them. We can wait and hope they give up, or we can go out there and face them.” Already she could see Christian gearing himself up, pulling on his energy reserves so he could smile for the fans and make small-talk. She’d seen him do it on set with visitors, making time to speak to each person individually, to sign autographs and pose for pictures. But he was tired and he deserved one night just to be himself.