To Catch a Star (15 page)

She leaned back, trustingly, into his protection.

The victory was bitter-sweet. He rubbed the back of his neck. Wasn’t that just his luck? She finally thawed, his seduction objective finally seemed possible – and she’d just shot straight from being a challenge to being forbidden.

He downed his drink and waved to the waiter for another.

When she’d finished her drink, sipping far more sedately than he had, Teresa didn’t ask him to call for his car. And he didn’t offer.

Another round, and the crowd began to thin. Dominic gave Christian a
‘cheers, dude’
and a fist pump, and left with his arm around the pouty brunette.

“Hey, it’s early yet!” Christian objected, as the last of the group rose to leave.

“We don’t all have a late call tomorrow,” Gerry said, downing the last of his Malibu and diet cola. “You guys get home safe now.” He pinned Tessa with a stern look. “You’ll make sure he gets to the studio on time tomorrow?”

“Of course.”

Then it was just the two of them.

Her unruffled serenity might have fooled Gerry, but she didn’t fool Christian.

Tessa’s eyes were over-bright, her cheeks pink. But the biggest clue that the alcohol had done its work in loosening her up was the way her shoulders relaxed. She leaned back in her chair, against his arm, which lay once again across the back of it.

“Shall I call Frank?” he asked.

She shook her head. “It’s the middle of the night. He’s probably asleep.”

“I’ll ask the barman to call us a cab, then.”

Her eyes followed the barman mixing drinks behind the counter. “I know it’s not the sensible thing to do, but I don’t want to leave yet.”

“I know the feeling. My home is a hotel room, remember?”

“Suite,” she corrected, with a small smile. “And try a whole house of empty.”

“You miss your fiancé?”

It was an obvious question and he expected an obvious answer, but Teresa didn’t reply. Instead, she shook her head.

“You want to talk about it?”

Another head shake. “I’d like to do something I’ve never done before.” The slur in her speech was so subtle he would have missed it if she hadn’t spoken with such care.

“What’s that?”

“I want to get drunk.”

He choked on his drink.
She’d never been drunk before?

The eyes that looked up at him were big and round. She looked so much younger, so vulnerable, now that the alcohol had stripped her of her airs. He liked this new Teresa. Innocent, with a hint of warmth beneath the uptight façade. It took all his willpower not to wrap her in a protective embrace.

He resisted the urge. Because once he got her close he wasn’t sure he’d be able to let her go. Not after three weeks of wanting.

“I’ll get us something to drink.” He pulled away, rose, and moved to the bar counter to place the order. No more cocktails, just coffee. It wasn’t often he got to be the responsible one. It was a good feeling. Perhaps he should try it more often.

My Chemical Romance
played in the background, not so blaring now. Glancing around the room, he could see only couples cuddling in the darkened corners of the room.

When he returned with the coffees, Tessa had moved to one of those shadowy corners, to a recently vacated white-leather sofa, too upright and stylish to be comfortable, but she’d removed her shoes and sat with her legs curled beneath her.

He handed her a cup and she frowned as she took it. “Why won’t you let me get drunk?”

Because he needed someone else to stay sober and sensible. He wasn’t so noble that he could resist taking advantage if she chose tonight for the volcano to blow.

“You’ll thank me in the morning, I promise.”

She stared down into the depths of her coffee cup.

He blew on his coffee and eyed her over the cup’s rim. “Do you want to tell me why you kept your engagement a secret?”

“It wasn’t a secret. You just didn’t need to know.”

But she wouldn’t look him in the eye.

He’d told her everything about himself. Or nearly everything. Her evasion hurt.

He placed his fingers beneath her chin and lifted her head so she was forced to look him in the eye. “Don’t lie to me, Tess. Please, don’t ever lie to me.”

Her pupils dilated, swallowing the blue of her eyes. She moistened her lips.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know why I didn’t tell you.”

He released her chin. “Tell me about this man you’re going to marry.”

She blinked, bringing herself back under firm control. Even tipsy, her strength of will was impressive. What would it take for her to truly let go and do something impulsive?

“Stefan’s a diplomat. He works as a foreign policy consultant and he has a very bright future. My father says he’ll be the youngest ambassador Westerwald’s ever had.”

“To be an ambassador means he’d have to live somewhere outside this country.”

She nodded.

“And how do you feel about that?”

“Scared. Excited.” She took a sip of her coffee, then lifted her gaze to his. A gaze stripped bare. “These last few weeks… I don’t know what’s wrong with me… I don’t know what I want any more.”

“Yes?” he prompted.

“I feel like I can’t breathe.” Her eyes were so wide and deep he could drown in them, and the honesty in them took his breath away. “I suppose everyone feels this way when they’re about to be married, but sometimes I feel like I want to run away. I want to go somewhere new, start over in a new life.” She clapped a hand over her mouth. “I can’t believe I said that out loud – and lightning didn’t strike me down!”

He laughed. “Sometimes our dreams change. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

She eyed him, serious again. Perhaps she’d heard the bitterness in his laugh. “Have your dreams changed?”

He didn’t talk about his feelings to anyone. Not even to Dominic. Yet he had to answer her with the same honesty he’d demanded.

“When I started in movies it was a means to an end. For Dom, stunt work was an extension of what he already did. He liked to take dares, to do what everyone else said was impossible. For me it was always different. I was the driven one. I wanted to be someone. To prove that I was better.”

“Better than what?” she asked, homing in on his weakest point with unfailing accuracy.

“To be better than the world thought me. To be better than the kids who bullied me when I as a kid. Better than the father who abandoned us. I wanted to be rich and famous and for everyone to know my name.”

“But now that you’ve got it, it’s not what you thought it would be.” Her voice was barely above a whisper.

He nodded. “It’s not enough.” He managed a grin. “Someone asked me not so long ago if anyone would remember my movies five or ten years from now. I’ve been wondering that myself. Is this going to be my legacy – a handful of forgettable action movies?”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I said some terrible things that night. I was wrong. You’re a very talented actor.”

He shrugged. “But I’ve always taken the easy way out. The easy roles, the easy money. I’ve never put myself on the line.” Never let himself care. About anything or anyone.

Maybe it was time to change that.

He set down his coffee cup.

Unlike Tessa, who cared so much she had to build walls around her heart to protect herself from being overwhelmed. With every advantage in life, she could have taken the easy way out and lived her whole life in her ivory tower, surrounded by wealth and privilege. Instead, she took the time to know people, to care about them.

How had he ever thought her emotionless and uncaring? She cared more than anyone he’d ever met.

A tendril of hair had fallen loose from her usual neat twist. He caught it between his fingers, savouring its silky softness. “It’s time for me to do what you do and give back to the world.”

“But you do.” Teresa leaned close. “What you did at the children’s home – bringing attention to a charity that always needs more funding. That was you making a difference in the world.”

He couldn’t tell her now he’d only done it to impress her.

That was the difference between them. She was noble and honourable. He was still only just looking out for himself. He did nothing because it was the right thing to do, but because he could get something out of it. A conscience quieted, a publicist appeased, a woman seduced.

“I’m not the person you think I am,” he said. She was so close that if he just leaned forward a little, he could kiss her. “I’m not your Prince Charming.”

“I know you’re not. But what if I don’t want Prince Charming?”

He tucked the tendril of hair behind her ear and stroked a finger down her cheek to the edge of her jaw. Not cold at all. Warm and tempting as hell.

“That’s the drink talking. You need a man worthy of you, not a bastard like me. You need your knight in shining armour.”

Tears brimmed in her eyes, clinging to her lower lashes. Horrified, he brushed them away. Oh God! Tipsy he could cope with. He was more than halfway gone himself. But tears he couldn’t deal with.

“You’re the second man to tell me that,” she said. “Fredrik told me the same thing the night he left. But I’m still alone.”

“You’re about to be married,” he pointed out.

She turned her head away, and this time he could see the effort it cost her to pull herself together. When she looked back up at him, it was the cool, self-contained face he was so used to seeing, with all the warmth gone. “Please take me home now.”

The cab dropped them in the same cul-de-sac where they first met. He hadn’t had time that night to notice much, but as he stood now and looked up at the stone façade, Christian whistled.

Three storeys of elegant white stone, classically proportioned and topped by a slate roof containing dormer windows. The servants’ quarters in a more elegant time, he was sure.

“Is this your place, or your soon-to-be hubby’s?”

She entered a code into the key pad beside the wrought-iron pedestrian gate and pushed it open. “Neither. It’s been in the Adler family for generations. I grew up here. But my father prefers the apartment he keeps close to his office.”

He followed her up the neat flagstone path to the mansion’s imposing front entrance, a pair of double doors between Grecian columns marked with a family crest. She unlocked the door and held it open for him.

“So you live here alone?”

Tessa shrugged. “I’m not alone. There’s a housekeeper, a gardener, two maids.”

“Is it just you and your father then – no siblings or wicked step-mothers?” He stepped into the hall, all marble floors and a staircase to match. “It looks like something out of Disney’s
Cinderella
.”

She grinned. “I promise I won’t make you wash the floors.”

“No, you have a housekeeper, a gardener and two maids for that.”

She laughed. “Don’t pretend like you don’t have someone to do your laundry and wash your floors back in LA!”

He followed her into the living room. No, not just a living room. A
salon
. This was no shabby chic crumbling manor. There were no faded curtains or antique sofas, no inherited portraits of long-dead ancestors. The living rooms on either side of the hall looked as though they belonged in a style magazine. Neutral shades of grey and brown, accented by neat white trimmings, clean, modern lines. Uncluttered and practically unlived in.

It made his Malibu beach house seem positively homely by comparison.

She shut the door behind them and the sudden silence echoed. “Would you like something to drink? Tea or coffee? A mineral water? Or something stronger?”

“Definitely something stronger.”

She crossed the room to an elegant antique cabinet inlaid with ormolu. “Whiskey, brandy or cognac?”

“Cognac.”

Tessa removed a Venetian glass decanter from the cabinet, the kind of fancy decanter set-dressers usually placed on period film sets, and poured a generous shot into a delicate crystal snifter. He took the glass and sipped. The rich golden liquid slid down his throat.

“If your father’s still alive, how did you come by your title? Isn’t the usual way to inherit it after he dies?”

She turned away, fussing with putting the decanter back in its place. “The title of Baroness is from my mother’s side. I’ll become a Countess when my father dies.” A small smile kicked up the corners of her mouth as she faced him again. “Countess Teresa Adler of Arelat.”

He imagined Fate laughing maniacally, delighting in the huge disparity between them. The Countess of Arelat and the peasant boy of Arelat.

He swigged from the glass and her gaze followed the move. A hungry gaze, but what she was hungry for, he wasn’t sure.

“Would you like some?” He held out the glass to her.

With barely a hesitation she took it from his hand and sipped, her gaze holding his as she eyed him over the rim of the glass. Then she handed it back and wiped her mouth.

He grinned. No way would she have done that if she were sober.

The air between them sparked, not the animosity of their first meetings as much as awareness. Or maybe it had always been this heightened state of awareness between them and he just hadn’t realised it.

Her eyes darkened and her chest rose and fell with every breath. Then she cleared her throat. “Why did you leave Los Pajaros?”

It was obvious what she was trying to do. She wanted to put distance between them, to dampen this sizzle before it got out of hand.

It was the sensible thing to do.

If he were sensible, he would take her cue and escape before he revealed the secret he’d kept hidden for over twenty years. He’d seen her safely home. He should say goodnight now and head back to his hotel.

It would be the right thing to do.

Only he didn’t always do the right thing. Or the sensible thing.

And he hadn’t asked the cab driver to wait.

He sipped the cognac and sat down on the nearest divan. “Why do you want to know?”

She sat beside him. “Because tonight we’re not keeping any secrets. No more lies, remember?”

There was a reason he’d kept his past a secret. But right now, drowning in her eyes, he couldn’t remember what it was.

He might still be able to walk in a straight line, but he’d entered that careless space where inhibitions loosened, where the gap between actions and repercussions became very wide indeed and he was likely to do something he’d regret in the morning. Like his publicist.

But this wasn’t morning yet.

“I was only fourteen and in and out of trouble. Most of it not of my own making, I might add. My uncle took me on as his boat hand for the summer. He ran a fishing charter for rich tourists. Most of those tourists were so full of themselves they didn’t even see me. Riff-raff like me didn’t exist except to serve them. And those were the pleasant ones.” He drew in a deep breath. “Then there were the kids who needed to prove how much better they were.”

“What did they do?”

“When you’re a snot-nosed kid who can get away with anything… whatever they wanted. Mostly it was just verbal. But there was one kid, full of himself because his father had some title.” He dropped his gaze, not wanting her to see the bitterness, the old hatred that still burned.

“What did you do?” Her voice was so low that if the silence about them hadn’t been so complete, he wouldn’t have heard.

He lifted his chin and met her gaze. Defiant. Just as he’d been back then. “I gave back as good as I got. And unlike me, he was no street-fighter. I put him in hospital with a broken jaw and cracked ribs.”

She frowned, as if struggling to trace a memory. Then her eyes widened. “Elijah.”

Of course she knew him. Just as he’d suspected.

“He was a few years ahead of Stefan at the Academy.” Her nose wrinkled in distaste. “He came back from his summer holiday with his jaw wired up.”

Christian’s chest froze. He couldn’t breathe. But it wasn’t anger or fear that immobilised him. He’d tamed the violence within him long ago. Dominic had taught him to redirect it.

But would Tessa understand that he wasn’t that same angry child anymore? Or would she pull away, putting the distance between them that she’d so wanted? That they both needed.

He wouldn’t blame her, but the thought of losing her friendship now, over this, was a wrench. Her aloofness he could bear, but her contempt…

“Elijah was a bully. He had it coming.” She bit her lip and focused back on him. “But his father was head of the Bank of Westerwald, and in the same mould as his son. How did you get off without them pressing charges?”

“I didn’t.” He shrugged. “I don’t know what happened, but the charges were dropped. My mother said the mayor arranged a pardon for me, though I can’t think why. My uncle knew him, but he wanted nothing more to do with me after that. He said I was bad for business.” Christian frowned. “Then my mother got the job in the States and within a month we moved. She said California was a fresh start for us both and we’d left the past behind, so we never spoke of it again.”

And he hadn’t spoken of it in twenty years. Not even to Dominic.

The fear of discovery had haunted him all these years, a weight around his neck. How close he’d come to reform school, to a permanent record. How much he’d wanted to kill Elijah. If his uncle hadn’t intervened, he might have. And then there would have been no pardon.

He rubbed his hand over his eyes. The relief at having shared his terrible secret was incredible. But at what cost?

He risked a glance at Tessa. She wore that closed, impenetrable expression once again and his heart sank.

At what cost?

She took the crystal glass from his hand and downed the rest of the cognac. “Do you know that Elijah died?”

What?
Shock rocketed through him. He hadn’t been hurt that bad… he’d walked away… Christian was on his feet, without realising it.

Tessa set down the glass and jumped up too. “Not that! I didn’t mean you!” She laid a hand on his arm, distress burning through her inscrutable expression. “He was running a drug factory out of his family’s ski lodge and tried to cheat the dealers he was supplying. They killed him. They’re the ones who escaped en route to court.”

Her hand slid down his arm, until her fingers entwined with his. His heart beat erratically, a frantic, giddy pace, and he had no idea whether it was her news or her touch that caused it.

Who would have thought that the nobleman’s heir who had everything would end up murdered, and the bastard outcast with nothing would end up a movie star?

Maybe Fate wasn’t laughing after all.

She looked down at their intertwined hands, hers so pale against his darker one. Then she looked up at him, and the mix of emotions in her face scorched through him. Anxiety, sympathy, relief. And lust.

Now he knew what she was hungry for.

And she hadn’t judged him. She hadn’t mocked him. She hadn’t pulled away.

He took both her hands in his. Unconsciously she licked her lips. Whether it was the alcohol in his veins or that sensual movement that set fire to his blood, he didn’t know.

To hell with Sensible.

He let go of her hands and wove his fingers through her hair, loosening the knot at the back of her head. Pins scattered to the floor; something for the maids to gossip about in the morning. Her hair tumbled loose about her shoulders, long and straight and soft as silk between his fingers. On a sigh, she closed her eyes.

“Tessa. Tess.” He wove a strand of her hair between his fingers. God, her hair was so pale against his skin, and it smelled of flowers. A light, innocent fragrance.

He stroked a finger down her cheek, to rest at the corner of her mouth, and her breath quickened.

“Look at me,” he said. “I want to see what you’re feeling.”

“I don’t feel. I think.” But she obeyed. Her eyes opened. There was only one emotion left there for him to see. Burning, feverish desire.

The volcano unleashed.

“Tonight you’re feeling.”

She smiled up at him, eyes wide. With her barriers down and her inhibitions loosened, she was a different person. Softer, gentler, passionate. This was the woman in his dreams.

“I don’t feel numb anymore.” Cautiously, almost afraid, she reached out and laid a hand on his chest, right above his heart. His pulse kicked up at her light touch.

“I didn’t even realise how numb I felt inside until I met you. Now I’m feeling all these feelings…what have you done to me?”

“I haven’t done anything. It’s all you. You’ve left your comfort zone.” Taken a job she’d never done before, met people outside of that exclusive little clique she’d always lived in. She’d done what he was too afraid to do.

She nodded. “I was safe inside my bubble.”

“And you don’t feel safe now?” He stroked a hand down her hair and she sank her forehead against his chest.

“No, I don’t feel safe with you,” she mumbled into his sweater. “I haven’t felt safe since the day I met you.”

She wasn’t referring to being outside her comfort zone or even the distant danger from escaped convicts. He knew, because he felt the same. She tilted his world on its axis. She challenged him, provoked him, made him want things he shouldn’t want.

She was the one woman he should run from, the one woman he couldn’t have, yet he wanted her with a greater ferocity than he’d ever felt before.

In the back of his head a small voice told him ‘no’, but the magnetic pull between them was too strong to resist.

He lifted her chin, forced her to look him in the eyes. “You don’t look like a woman in love.”

She tried to look away, but he held fast.

“What does a woman in love look like?”

“Radiant. And she doesn’t look at other men.”

“I don’t look at other men.”

He leaned in close. “You’re not a very good liar, Tess.”

Something flickered behind her eyes. A mix of amusement and bitterness. “You should know. You lie for a living.”

“Yes, I’m a very good liar.” He snaked an arm around her waist. “It’s just one of the things I’m good at.”

He bent his head to trail kisses down the nape of her neck.

“I can rise above this,” she said. “I’m stronger than this.”

But she didn’t pull away. She stretched her neck, giving him better access.

“You’re wrong,” he whispered. “And I’m going to prove it to you.”

Then he kissed her. A gentle meeting of lips, a tentative touch. But then the spark flared and he lost the last hold on Sensible.

Fire and ice. Instant reaction.

She placed her hands on his chest, palms flat as if to push him away. But she didn’t. She kissed him back.

Her kiss caught him by surprise. Not the sting of burning ice, but furiously hot and bright, as if they stood in a darkened room and suddenly a spotlight had switched on.

Intense, illuminating.

His hands slid down her neck, over the soft swell of her breasts, to rest on her hips. He tugged her closer, hard against his body. She stretched into his touch.

The kiss lasted barely a moment, but it might have been a lifetime. When they broke apart, both breathless, both breathing heavily, the silence in the house was complete.

He could hear her heartbeat, was aware of every rise and fall of her chest.

He lifted her off her feet, laid her on the divan, and knelt over her, raining kisses down her neck to the tender spot at the base of her throat.

She arched against him, pressing herself into him. There was no way she could miss how much he wanted her. There was no way he could miss how much she wanted him. Not now that she’d finally let her immaculate self-control slip.

The release of all that pent-up passion was even greater than he’d imagined. She burned brighter, gave more, explored with her tongue and her hands.