To Catch a Star by Romy Sommer

though it took a little more effort. “Of course it had an impact. But I was blessed with a mother who more than made up for any lack.”
    Susanne looked down at her notes. “Did coming from a mixed-race background hinder you in any way, or did it spur you on to achieve what you have?”
    He gave his scripted answer, the one he’d given a million reporters before her. Forget potential, this interview had descended deep into dull territory. Sometimes he wondered why the reporters even bothered. They could just as easily dig a story out the archives and stick a new picture on it.
    But he smiled and held Susanne’s gaze until she blushed. She batted her long and very obviously fake eyelashes. “There’s a rumour that you weren’t born in the States as your official biography states, but that you grew up in the Caribbean. Is that true?”
    His smile no longer reached his eyes. Who he’d been before he became Christian Taylor wasn’t something he wanted out there for all to see. But if he shut her down, he’d only make her scent blood. She was a reporter after all.
    In the moment he hesitated, Teresa spoke. “This interview is over.”
    “Our time isn’t up yet,” Susanne said.
    “Christian has other appointments.”
    The reporter pouted. “But that wasn’t on the list of no-go questions.”
    Susanne looked to him for support, but she was looking in the wrong place. Christian shrugged, as if it was out of his hands.
I owe you one, Teresa
.
    “Do you know who I am?” Susanne shook back her golden-blonde curls and sent Teresa a look filled with all the superciliousness of someone addressing a menial servant.
    Teresa pushed herself away from the counter, her school-marm face on, and for a moment Christian felt sorry for Ms
I’m-a-Celebrity-get-me-out-of-here
. “I’ll give you to the count of three. After that I call Simon Beck and we’ll see if he knows who you are.”
    Both reporter and cameraman were out the trailer by the count of two, though the look of pure venom Susanne cast behind her as she exited would have made arsenic curdle.
    Christian whistled as Teresa closed the door firmly behind them. “Remind me never to get on your bad side!”
    She smiled, softening. “You do. Frequently.”
    He lazed back on the sofa, an arm slung casually across the back. “Who’s Simon Beck?”
    “Chief executive of Westerwald’s national broadcaster.”
    “Geez. The way you said his name, it sounded like you have a direct line to him.”
    “I do.” She averted her gaze. “He’s my godfather.”
    “Handy connection.” A knot he hadn’t known was there clenched in his gut. Of course all these aristocrats knew one another. She probably knew all the rich Westerwald tourists he’d served as a kid, people who hadn’t even seen him except to remark on how odd it was to see a boy of mixed race on Los Pajaros. As if he weren’t there, as if he couldn’t hear. As if he didn’t already know.
    He knew how it felt to be treated as a servant. He doubted Teresa had ever been spoken to like that before, yet she hadn’t blinked at Susanne’s lack of courtesy. And to her credit, in the time he’d known her Teresa hadn’t once addressed anyone the way Susanne had spoken to her. Teresa’s manners were more than skin deep and she noticed people. Perhaps she even noticed too much.
    He rolled the tension from his shoulders and rose. She probably also knew all the gossip of Westerwald’s upper echelons of society. Which made her more dangerous than any reporter.
    He crossed to the kitchenette, opening the fridge for a bottle of water. Teresa turned away, straightening the items on the spotless kitchen counter. “Is that how it always is? The same questions over and over again? Don’t they have the imagination to come up with anything original?”
    “There are a few rare interviewers with imagination. Ellen is always a hoot.”
    He unscrewed the lid and leaned his hip against the kitchen counter beside her, instantly