To Catch a Star (25 page)

He still wasn’t sure he could.

“The thing I’ve learned from having four sisters,” Dom said, as if discussing the weather outside the windows. “Is that girls are even more messed-up and confused than we are. And sometimes they make mistakes.”

“She was very clear about what mistakes she made,” Christian replied bitterly. Not so clear on the biggest of them all, though. “She believes she’s better off without me. She gets to have her perfect home and her perfect family.” And maybe she was right. He sighed. “I can’t guarantee any of that. I don’t exactly have a good track record when it comes to relationships. The people I love tend to end up hurt.”

“Nothing in life is guaranteed.” Frank said. He still hadn’t started driving, Christian noticed.

Dominic laughed. “You have
no
track record when it comes to relationships. But you love the woman, and that’s got to count for something. Tessa is not your mother. Besides, you’re not the one who hurt your mother. You didn’t choose to be born and you didn’t make her decisions for her.”

“What if I make Tessa unhappy?”

“Yeah, cos she’s going to be so happy married to someone she doesn’t love.”

Christian glowered at his friend. He wasn’t making this any easier. “I’m leaving because it’s the right thing to do.”

Dominic threw his head back and laughed. Long and loud.

Christian glared at him with a growing desire to plant a fist in his face. “What’s so funny?”

“You’ve spent your entire life condemning your mother for walking away without a fight, and now you’re doing exactly the same thing. You are such a wuss!”

“Am not.” The retort came automatically, through long years of practice, but Dominic’s words gave him pause. Was he repeating the mistakes of the past?

Was he doing exactly what his mother had done? When he’d only seen her through the eyes of a hurt child, he hadn’t understood the choices she’d made. But now he knew she’d had a bloody good reason for leaving. Even if his father had married her, her position in this little country would have been untenable. She might have cost Archduke Christian his crown. And their son would still have been an outcast.

She’d done the right thing.

But she’d paid a high price. She lost her family, her career, her reputation. And she’d never loved again.

“My reasons are every bit as good as my mother’s were,” he said.

Teresa faced many of the same pressures his father had. Marrying an actor, and a bastard to boot, even if his father was royal, was hardly going to go down well in her social circles. She might lose the only family she had… her home. Everything.

But this wasn’t the Seventies.

Family isn’t a place
,
it’s a feeling.
His mother had said that once.

Tessa gave him that feeling. When she’d lain in his arms, and trusted herself to him, he’d found the sense of belonging he’d craved his entire life.

Could she feel the same?

“So are you going to get your head out of your ass and do something about it?” Dominic asked.

Christian looked at Frank. “How quickly can you get us to the church?”

Dominic held up his fist for a fist-pump.

“It’ll be tight, but I’ll do my best,” Frank said. With a scream of tyres he pulled away from the hotel entrance and headed in the opposite direction from the airport.

“This is like a scene from a movie,” Dom said, flashing his grin at Christian. “Except in the movies, there’s always a massive traffic jam and the hero has to borrow some kid’s bike or a policeman’s horse to get to the church on time. I haven’t seen any police on horseback in this town. Lots of bicycles, though.”

“This better not be like any goddamn movie!” Christian said through clenched teeth.

Then he swore.

No bicycles or horses needed, but there was a damned police cordon blocking off the entire street leading to the cathedral.

“Leave it to me,” Frank said, keeping his calm. A uniformed officer waved them to a stop, and he rolled down the window. “Mr Taylor’s late for the wedding. Can you give us an escort to the cathedral?”

The guard peered into the car, and Christian thanked every god imaginable that this was such a small country.

“You again,” the officer said. “No fans chasing you down today, I hope?”

Christian shook his head and the grinning officer waved to a policeman on a bike complete with flashing blue lights to escort them through the barricades.

He’d never done anything this daft in his life. He was probably about to get himself on the front pages of the world’s papers and for all the wrong reasons. The tabloids were going to have a field day.

And his father, the father who may or may not have known he existed, must be rolling in his grave about now.

But he would never forgive himself if he repeated his mother’s mistake. He wasn’t going to die alone and pining for a lost love, and he wasn’t going to leave without fighting for what he wanted.

No matter how many good reasons they all came up with.

The car pulled up at the kerb with a squeal of brakes. “Keep the motor running,” he instructed Frank as he flung open the door and jumped out. “I might need to make a quick getaway if this doesn’t pan out.”

He took the stairs two at a time, which was difficult because they’d obviously been built in a day and age when people had shorter strides. The cathedral doors, their bronze carvings blurred by verdigris, stood open. He passed between them at a run, skidding across the flagstones of the ante-chamber. The wide-eyed usher jumped out of the way as he hurried past and into the hushed nave. A few heads turned, but most remained focused on the scene at the front of the church, where Tessa and Stefan faced each other hand in hand.

Oh God, was he too late?

His heart contracted. She was so beautiful. A vision in ivory satin overlaid with lace, fresh white buds pinned in her intricately braided hair, her peaches-and-cream complexion illuminated by the ray of coloured sunlight falling through the high windows.

What the hell was he doing? Was he really this selfish?

Yes, he was.

And this wasn’t only about him. This was about what was right for all of them.

“Tessa!” He shouted her name down the nave. The collective gasp of the assembled guests blew through the cathedral like an icy wind as several hundred heads turned to look at him. Only one he cared about.

Slowly Tessa turned and her gaze met his. Even across the expanse of the nave, he saw the light jump in her eyes and he knew he’d done the right thing. Even if he was too late, that light in her eyes gave him back his hope.

He walked down the aisle towards her and the closer he got, the more light and colour there seemed to be in the soaring cathedral. The crowd hushed, the air grew electric with tension, but Christian didn’t care.

Tessa stood completely still, her hands still in Stefan’s, her face a mask, but as he drew close he could see the pulse hammering in her throat.

He stopped a few feet away. “I love you, Tess.”

His voice reverberated into the ringing silence. A few women in the audience gasped. Someone tittered. Cameras clicked. To his right, someone rose from a pew.

“You came here to tell me that
now
?” Her voice was low and breathy, but it carried.

“No, I’m here because I’m a selfish bastard and I can’t let the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with marry someone she doesn’t love.” He glanced at the groom. “Sorry, pal.”

Stefan shook his head. “You’re too late to stop this wedding.”

Christian’s heart hammered so hard he struggled to draw breath. But he still wasn’t ready to give up. “I’m not a knight in shining armour and I never will be. I’m probably never going to change the world, but I’m asking you to take a chance on me.”

Tessa still said nothing.

A man came to stand at his right. An imposing man with greying hair who looked as though he was used to giving orders and being obeyed. Not yet evicting him, though Christian was sure his time had run out.

But he stood his ground. “I’m not going to pretend it didn’t happen. I’m not going to disappear. And I’m not going to stop fighting for you.”

Her hand fluttered to her throat. Her left hand. He caught the glint of gold and his heart shattered.

Tessa looked straight into Christian’s eyes, those mesmerising eyes that blinded her to everything else.

Stefan’s voice broke the expectant silence. “You’re too late because she already stopped the wedding. Though I’d really like to know why.”

With huge effort she dragged her gaze from Christian and turned on her high, spiky heels to face her groom.

His brow was furrowed. “I thought we agreed this sentimental nonsense about love was a bad basis for any marriage. Why are you changing your mind?”

She looked down at their clasped hands, then back up at him. “I’m not changing my mind because of Christian.” At least, not entirely. “I’m changing my mind because I’m marrying you for all the wrong reasons. I’m marrying you out of fear and that has to be the worst basis for a marriage ever.”

“You couldn’t have told me this a little earlier?”

She bit her lip. “I am so sorry.”

She didn’t need to see Christian to feel his strength at her back. She didn’t have to do this alone, after all.

She smiled at Stefan, willing him to understand. “I’ve only just started to realise who I am and what I want for my life and it’s not what I thought it would be. If I married you, I’d be living your life, pursuing your dreams. I need to follow mine.”

He nodded stiffly. “I think you’re making a big mistake, but I won’t force you into anything you don’t want to do.”

The fact that there was no shock or dismay or regret in his eyes made her decision easier. They were so much alike, too much alike. Stefan also needed to open his heart and learn to feel. But she wasn’t the woman who could do that for him.

“I really hope one day you meet someone who makes you feel the way I do right now.”

Alight. Alive. As if the world that had been painted in shades of grey a moment ago was now lit up in beautiful, bright technicolor.

She unhooked the earrings from her ears then slid the engagement ring off her finger, the gold band with its large diamond that still felt as if it didn’t belong on her hand. She held them out to Stefan and he took them.

Then she turned back to face Christian. His smile wrapped around her, warmer than sunshine, warm enough to melt the last of the frost in her heart. Who cared if the ice cracked? Beneath it lay a river desperate to break free and plunge headlong towards the sea.

Careful of her long train, she descended the shallow stone steps to stand in front of him. “You don’t need to change the world. You changed me, and that’s enough.”

And then in front of everyone, in front of the cameras and the stunned guests, she kissed him.

“I thought we’d decided on a small wedding?” Christian looked around at the crowd assembled in the clearing.

Teresa had to lean close for him to catch her words over the roar of the waterfall. “This
is
a small wedding.”

He’d visualized them alone with the minister on a beach. Instead, ten of their closest friends sat on picnic blankets on the grass, sipping champagne and looking for all the world as if a picnic in the middle of the jungle on a cursed Caribbean island was an everyday thing.

Dominic, his best man.

Anna, now assistant to them both and not a whoopee cushion in sight.

Lee, hand in hand with Anton.

Robbie and his friend the screenwriter, whose script Christian had agreed to produce. Though he still wasn’t sure why the hell he’d signed on so quickly when he’d barely decompressed from his role in
Pirate’s Revenge
. So much for taking a break to re-evaluate his career.

Max and Phoenix. Rik and Kenzie. His new-found family.

Emotion clogged his throat. He and Rik weren’t related by blood, yet Rik had accepted him as a brother. They were even going to produce this new movie together. Heaven help them and the poor investors who’d agreed to back them.

The minister cleared his throat. “I’ll keep this simple. Do you, Christian Hewitt Taylor, take Teresa Amalia Charlotte Clara Adler d’Arelat as your wife?”

Christian resisted the urge to roll his eyes. He really needed to get over this aversion to all things aristocratic. Not only was he marrying one, but Max had insisted on giving him a title too. Apparently it was a time-honoured tradition for royal bastards.
Margrave of Neustria
. It sounded like something out of a history book.

He looked at his bride. Not in white today, or grey or brown or beige, but in a summery halter-neck dress the same Arctic blue as her eyes. Radiant and shimmering. He’d never seen her so happy or so relaxed.

He’d never loved her as much as he did right now. Every day he loved her more. “I do.”

“And do you, Teresa…”

“I do.”

Their audience laughed.

‘What’s the hurry?’ he mouthed.

She arched an elegant eyebrow.
No shit
, it said.

No shit
indeed. He couldn’t wait to get back to the privacy of their cabin on the yacht either. He doubted they’d be seeing much of the Caribbean during their honeymoon.

“Then I now pronounce you man and wife.”

It started as a tremble beneath their feet. Tessa grabbed his arm for support and Anna shrieked.

The tremble became a roar that overshadowed the thunder of the waterfall cascading into the rocky pool beside them. The ground shook, and it was all Christian could do to keep them both standing.

A champagne glass crashed to the ground, shattering into pieces.

A boulder tumbled from its perch on the bank, splashing into the river and sending a mini slide of smaller rocks and pebbles after it.

The earth’s vibration rocked through him, up through the soles of his sneaker-clad feet, through his very bones. He grasped Tessa’s hand and held it tight.

Then just as suddenly, the tremor stopped.

“What the…?” this from Max.

The minister was white-faced. “I’ve never heard of an earthquake in Los Pajaros before.”

Rik stood, dusting off his jeans, his smile broad. Every face turned to him, most of them perplexed, all still more than a little shaken.

“It’s the end of the curse.”

Stunned silence.

Then Kenzie rose, slipping her hand into her fiancé’s. “Of course. The pirate and his princess have returned to Tortuga.” She sent Christian and Teresa an impish smile. “You’ve broken the curse.”

Christian turned to his bride. His
wife
. The daughter of the Count of Arelat, betrothed to another man, swept away from the altar by her pirate lover. He laughed.

And he kissed her.

Don’t miss the first two books in Romy’s gorgeously romantic Westerwald series,

Waking Up in Vegas

The Trouble with Mojitos

‘
A fun, sexy romance filled with every emotion… a well written modern day fairy tale that will leave you with a smile on your face.
’ ~ Harlequin Junkie