His blue eyes traced the rim of her scoop neckline. “I’d rather talk about how a grown man wearing makeup and playing pretend gets to spend his afternoon with a beautiful American heiress.” His plastic smile and Hollywood white teeth hid things Corina could not quite discern.
“For this afternoon, I’m a plain ole journalist.” She scanned the tables under the awning, then moved to see inside the café. Moderate-sized crowd inside and out. “Do you want to go inside or sit out here?”
“I’ve a table all picked out.” Clive tipped his head toward a cozy spot on the far side of the café, near the street but obscured by a lush array of foliage.
Corina followed him, weaving through the tables. The few guests sitting outside, with their heads bent together in conversation, seemed unaware of the star power among them.
Clive whistled at a waiter, motioning for him to come over. “What’ll it be, love?” Clive said, leaning into her, holding out a wrought iron and mosaic tile chair, his breath too warm and too close.
She leaned away, her attention on the waiter. “Latte, skim milk.”
He turned to the young man who’d answered his beckoning. “She’ll have a latte with skim milk. I’ll have English Breakfast tea with cream, thank you, my good chap.” Clive, he flirted with everyone.
“Right away, sir. You’re Clive Boston, aren’t you?”
Clive sighed. “This again? No, dear lad, I’m his cousin. The more handsome cousin, but what am I to do?” He grimaced and sat in the chair opposite Corina. The waiter started to say something, then turned for the café door, shaking his head.
“You’re bad,” Corina said.
“Just having a bit of fun. Corina, you are more beautiful today than you were last night. That dress is amazing on you.” Clive twisted sideways in his chair and draped his arm over the back, breaking out his big cinema charm.
He was too much. Really.Ignore him.Corina retrieved her iPad as well as a pen and paper. She’d record the interview but take notes on things that stood out to her—the atmosphere, key statements, Clive’s outfit.
Dressed for the street, he looked more like a New England blue blood from Yale than a British-Italian actor who grew up in London’s East End.
His khakis were crisp and pressed, his pale blue Polo, lightly starched. He wore loafers with no socks. And his rogue dark hair waved freely.
He was a commitment phobic, skittish about domestic life, trading out his women every few years, each one younger than the last.
Corina launched a recording app, then tapped the screen to open her questions. “I’ve been thinking all morning about how to approach this interview and—”
“What’s the story between you and the prince?” Clive drew a cigarette from the crumpled packet he retrieved from his pants pocket and touched the end with a lighter flame. He squinted through a slither of smoke, invoking his trademark, smoldering expression.
“We’re friends. The End.”
“Very clever. Love, I know when a man is marking his territory, and if we’d been outdoors in the wild kingdom last night, the prince would have pummeled me.”
“We’re just friends.” She smiled.Okay? Are you done?“I read some of the reviews of the film this morning while writing my own, and I loved what theLiberty Presssaid.” She read from the iPad screen. “ ‘Boston transcended his pop-icon image to become one of Europe’s most—”
“ ‘Heroic heroes.’ Yes, love, I read the papers too. What are they teaching film critics today? Heroic heroes? What sort of drivel is that? Can a hero be unheroic?” He arched his brow, anticipating her response.
“I suppose. If the hero is merely the protagonist. He can want to be heroic but end up failing. King Stephen I faced his fears and the insurmountable odds to defeat Henry VIII and win Brighton. He never backed down.” Corina propped her arm on the table, feeling the breeze of her words. She had to be as brave as the old king to love well. “His mission was so clear to him and nothing else seemed to matter. Not even his own life.”
“Did I portray all of that in the film?”
Clive appeared surprised at his own question.
Corina smiled. “I think so, yes.”
“Bravo me. I should get an Oscar nod. To be honest, I thought I was a bit too Scott Hunter.” Clive took a long draw from his cigarette.
“Maybe.” She laughed. “A little.”
Clive tapped the ashes from his cigarette. “I read up about you too, Corina Del Rey. I’m sorry about your brother. Is that the dark rainbow I see in your eyes?”
The waiter arrived with Corina’s latte and Clive’s tea.
“Yes, my brother had the courage of King Stephen I, I think,” Corina said, staring briefly through the leaves toward the busy side street. “But he died doing what he believed in. Fighting for freedom.”
