Free To Catch a Star by Romy Sommer

volumes. Christian grinned. Nina was definitely his kind of woman, and a man had to keep his options open, after all.
    “Back to the top,” the AD shouted out to the room, and there was a mad bustle as everyone returned to their starting places amidst the AD calling out instructions for tweaks to the lights, a slower zoom in by the camera and “why the hell is there a wristwatch on that extra?”

Chapter 5
    If she’d thought Christian was grumpy that first morning, it was nothing on his mood the rest of the week. Until he’d had his second espresso, he could barely manage a grunted greeting.
    And every day he got grumpier.
    Teresa took it in her stride. She made sure his espresso was ready, that the car was out front, that his script sides were on hand, and she avoided conversation. She sipped her tea, read the morning papers and enjoyed the peace and quiet while it lasted.
    “Didn’t you sleep well last night?” she asked on the fifth morning as Frank drove them to the palace. The sun wasn’t quite up yet, the sky lightening with a smudge of pink in the east. Though the morning rush hour had yet to start, she felt wired and ready to go. It was good to have a reason to get out of bed in the morning, even if that reason was something as trivial as making a movie.
    Christian scowled back in answer.
    As soon as they arrived on set he was hustled into his trailer, dressed by his wardrobe stylist, then handed over to the make-up artistes who had their own special truck, ready rigged with basins, mirrors and bright lights.
    It was warm inside the trailer, crowded and noisy with voices and music from the make-up artistes’ MP3 player. Since it was still too early to run Christian’s errands, Tessa sat quietly in a corner and read the script as his make-up artiste Marie readied him for the cameras.
    With Christian’s hair trimmed so short, she couldn’t figure out what took so long.
    “They’re getting rid of my excesses,” Christian said, catching her eye in the mirror as Marie massaged moisturiser into his skin. He held her gaze a second too long, so that the blood in her veins began to fizz and bubble until she forced herself to look away.
    “You really should sleep more and drink more water,” Marie chided. “All that partying is damaging your skin.”
    “It’s the film lights that damage my skin.”
    Marie giggled and glanced at Tessa who’d reached the last page and closed the script.
    “If you want something else to read, there’s a pile of magazines under the basins. They’re mostly local rags, but I love all the pictures of the who’s who of Europe.” She sighed. “We don’t have any Dukes or Counts or Princes in the States.”
    “And thank heavens for that.” Christian’s expression shifted from amused to bitter in a heartbeat. “Bunch of inbred brats.”
    “Why do you say that?” Tessa asked, keeping her voice level.
    “I met my fair share of them when I was a kid working for my uncle’s fishing-charter business. Self-indulgent and self-absorbed, the lot of them.”
    It was the first time he’d mentioned his childhood on Los Pajaros. She should have pushed, widened the crack, but she was side-tracked by the sting. He’d said it like a barb, as if he’d known she was one of them. And resented it.
    She returned to her seat and opened the magazine, paging blindly past countless faces she recognised. Her social circle was certainly incestuous. Everyone knew everyone. And yes, there were parties and social events, so many they seemed to blur together these days, but in that respect her life in Westerwald wasn’t much different from Christian’s life in Hollywood.
    Except for one big difference. The people she knew were no more self-indulgent than she was. With privilege came responsibility and duty, and no one knew that better than the descendants of lines that had served their nations for hundreds of years.
    Besides, who was Christian to lecture her about self-indulgence? He partied as