Free To Catch a Star by Romy Sommer Page B

other on. Tessa learned to tell where they were on set by the sound of laughter.
    Their pranks had become legendary. One of her tasks was to provide a steady supply of whoopee cushions and fake turds – and then there was the day she had to scour every pharmacy and supermarket across town for a very specific brand of condom that didn’t appear to exist. She was sure the errands were designed for her maximum embarrassment.
    At least she found a ready supply of fake blood in the make-up trailer and saved herself a trip when Christian decided to prank the director into thinking Dominic had wounded him during rehearsal.
    But that was by no means her least-favourite task. That honour went to screening Christian’s calls. While he was on set she kept his mobile, answered his calls and took messages. The press phone calls were a pain, but easy to deal with. She simply said “no” and “no comment” unless they were on the approved list.
    The requests for charitable donations, memorabilia and signed autographs to auction, and the “please endorse my product” calls, were equally easy to deal with.
    The incessant phone calls from women were not.
    The worst of them was Christian’s publicist. The poor woman was clearly desperate to talk to him. He was equally determined not to. Instead, Pippa turned to Tessa as her confidante, pouring out her heart and the minute details of their affair.
    Having never been the confiding type, it was all Tessa could do to stop herself from telling the woman to get over herself. If there was one thing she’d learned in this first week, it was that Christian wasn’t the type to stick around. He was the proverbial social butterfly, darting from one pretty flower to the next.
    All a woman needed to do to make him run in the opposite direction was to expect him to return her calls.
    The quicker his publicist learned that, the quicker her heart would heal. Or her ego. Tessa couldn’t work out which had been hurt more.
    “Who was that?” Christian poked his head out the door of his trailer’s bedroom.
    “Pippa. Again. Just Jared posted a picture of you leaving a restaurant with Nina and she wanted to know how serious it was.”
    He grinned. “What did you tell her?”
    “I told her you were probably more serious about the Brazilian model whose name you couldn’t remember that your pimp set you up with last night.”
    “You should be kinder to yourself.” He laughed and ducked out of sight, which was just as well since the hand holding his brand-new iPhone itched to throw it at him.
    Making the call to set him up with some woman he’d seen on page three of the morning papers had definitely been one of the lower points of her week.
    Five minutes later Robbie knocked on the door to escort Christian back to set. Tessa sank down on the sofa in the trailer’s living room. The sudden silence boomed loud.
    After five days in his presence, twelve hours a day, she still didn’t know much more about Christian than the way he liked his shirts pressed or how much he loved sweet seedless grapes. From her spot in the corner of the make-up trailer, she’d heard all his old “war stories” – adventures he’d had on various movie sets – and she’d learned way more than she wanted to about his love life. But nothing her father would consider useful.
    Even the gossip she picked up on set wasn’t of any use. Most of it was as contradictory as his interviews had been. At this rate, she’d be a married woman before she learned what they needed to know.
    She dialled her father’s private mobile number.
    “Anything new to report?” He sounded eager.
    “Nothing new.” She definitely didn’t feel eager. This job should have been over for her by now. “I haven’t seen the ring once. I’m not even sure he has it. And aside from the fact that he was very close to his mother, he’s never once mentioned her living here in Westerwald.”
    “It’s been a week already. You need to get closer to