Chapter 3

The alarm on Joaquin’s phone pinged, but he had already logged into his laptop in anticipation. Usually he didn’t need the reminder that it was time to chat with Curlgurl since it was the highlight of his day, and he needed zero time to get into character.

Quinoa wasn’t a character. Joaquin Cortez was, and then some. Sure it was his given name, a rarity in Hollywood, but his birth certificate had come readymade with the character he played from the moment he woke up until the moment he escaped into his virtual romance.

He typed into the chat window, picking each letter carefully. Hello, darling. And hit enter.

English wasn’t his first language, but he had an ear for it, as well as a voice he could transform at will. He’d learned cadence from watching every movie and TV show he could get his hands on growing up and syntax from reading books, and then scripts and plays later.

Curlgurl is typing…

The short phrase put a smile on his lips as he kicked back in the desk chair in his hotel room. The chair was passable, just like the hotel his assistant Trevor had booked them into at Hugo’s suggestion. He missed his comfortable chair at home, which he’d ordered about two weeks into his online relationship with Curlgurl. The house he’d bought in the Hollywood Hills kept the rain off, and it was a place to crash, so the décor had interested him not at all, until he’d found himself staring for hours at a tiny pathway into the virtual world where this fascinating woman lived. A new setup had been needed stat.

Curlgurl: so happy to talk to you had a horrible day.

Quinoa: I’m so sorry. What can I do to make it better?

Curlgurl: already doing it.

There was a pause, the message that she was typing, and then another pause. She’d deleted whatever she’d been about to say, which meant she’d censored herself. Probably because she’d veered off into personal territory, which was a strict no-no between them. It hurt his heart to be so cagey with her, but even the slightest detail about his everyday life could lead her to guess his identity, and he refused to give up his anonymity if he could help it.

But right now, she needed him. And he liked being her solace. This was one time he didn’t hesitate to bend the rules.

Quinoa: What is it, darling? Tell me.

Curlgurl: I shouldn’t say.

Quinoa: You should. I want to know.

Curlgurl: starting a new job and the boss is a…

Curlgurl: jerk.

Curlgurl: sorry I had to delete the first word that came to mind.

Quinoa: Want me to beat him up for you?

There was a very long pause as the internet connection buffered. With a very loud sigh, he switched to his phone’s hotspot with a mental note to have a conversation with the concierge about the quality of their internet service provider. First world problems, he reminded himself. The studio had refused to provide a house since they hadn’t exactly been on board with changing the shoot’s locale.

Too bad. That was one of the many perks of being an in-demand, A-list Hollywood darling. You got to make snap decisions like moving an entire production company to a new city because your private investigator had a few very promising leads on the identity of the woman you’d struck up a totally implausible online romance with.

Curlgurl was in Dallas. He could feel it.

He had to find out what kind of person she was before he did something completely stupid like beg her to meet him in person. He wanted to. Desperately. If he could just get a bead on her first. He’d been burned badly enough by every woman he’d ever met in real life to be both calculating and cautious, and there was no good outcome if he rushed this.

Of course, once Curlgurl found out the man she knew as Quinoa was not only a celebrity, but also the sole heir to one of the oldest fortunes in Europe, the outcome might not go the direction he’d hoped anyway. That was why he’d kept his identity such a guarded secret. And why his relationship with Curlgurl not only worked, but it was also special. She knew the real Joaquin Cortez, the off-camera version, the one that lived beneath his skin and no one else had ever come close to touching.

It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say he had very real, very strong feelings for this woman. If she turned out to be an opportunist or completely different than she’d presented herself online, he’d be crushed.

He had to know who she was. Without cluing her in that he’d been searching for her.

Finally, the connection strengthened enough for Curlgurl’s reply to spill onto the screen.

Curlgurl: you’re so sweet. that makes me smile but no I don’t think that would be a good idea. I’ll just imagine you beating the snot out of him next time he says something rude to me.

A fierce need to fix it for her caught him up in its grip. Since he was fairly certain that Curlgurl did something in the technical field, odds were good her new boss was a pasty-faced weirdo who played video games until five a.m. and couldn’t spell the word gym. Joaquin could probably blow on him and knock him out.

But then he really didn’t know what she did for a living. She’d mentioned once that she’d been working on updating a website, but he hadn’t asked per the rules, and when he’d googled the word “curl,” some kind of programming language came up. It wasn’t hard to imagine her holed up in a cubicle somewhere pounding out code.

Curlgurl: sorry I know we aren’t supposed to talk about work.

Quinoa: It’s all right. I asked.

And he wished he could reciprocate with some stray tidbits of his own real life. He’d like to be as authentic with her as he could be. What would he tell her though? I’m filming another movie that people will clamor to pay good money to see, and I don’t really understand why they find me so appealing when most of what I’m doing is utterly boring?

No. He didn’t tell anyone stuff like that. He lived a charmed life that afforded him an extravagant lifestyle. Literally anyone would trade places with him in a heartbeat. There was obviously something wrong with him that he preferred the company of his online friend than that of real people.

And she deserved as much of him as he could give her.

Quinoa: I thought about you today.

Curlgurl: tell me.

Quinoa: My mother texted me about coming home for Christmas. I wished I could ask you to come with me. It would make the whole experience so much more bearable.

Curlgurl: did you say yes?

Quinoa: She’s my mother. I cannot say no to the woman who birthed me.

Nor could he say no to Ana Maria Dos Santos-Cortez, who regularly held meetings with the Queen consort and ran a good bit of Spain’s social scene, when she wasn’t managing Joaquin’s father, the Prime Minister.

Curlgurl: you can message me anytime while you’re there. I’ll always be supportive of your life choices.

Curlgurl was the only person on the planet who knew how much it hurt that his parents disapproved of his career. As far as the outside world knew, Joaquin relished his role as the black sheep of the Cortez family, and his success as an actor had made it a little more believable when he blew off his parents’ threats to cut him out of their will. Really, he didn’t care about the money. But his heritage meant something to him and possibly that alone had been the catalyst for telling his mother yes to Christmas despite the strain between them.

Joaquin had laid a lot of groundwork with Curlgurl to lead her to believe he was an artist of some sort, a necessary evil he hated with a passion. He wished for nothing more than to be honest with her about his artistic medium—acting. He longed to play some of the greatest roles of the century, to allow his craft to swallow him whole as he gestated a character until it emerged as a new creation that the world had never seen before.

He had a feeling she, of all people, would understand that he couldn’t just stop wanting to act. That following his father into politics held zero appeal. And if she understood all of that, she’d understand what no one else did—that the celebrity version of Joaquin Cortez was his greatest role of all.

That’s what kept him returning to his computer screen over and over, missing big ticket parties where he was the guest of honor just so he could pour out his heart into this virtual nirvana he’d accidentally found. She got him at a deep level.

Quinoa: You’re far too good for me. Tell me again how romantic you find a starving artist?

Curlgurl: I don’t think starving is romantic silly.

Curlgurl: I think that art is an extension of your soul and the romance is in seeing it come to life.

Curlgurl: it’s a travesty that you aren’t rich and famous for your art.

Yeah, that stuck in his craw too. He was rich and famous for being in shallow, vapid movies that appealed to the lowest common denominator. He’d never be honored with any type of acting award because frankly, he wasn’t all that good in his movies. They weren’t vehicles designed for craft. Just profit. It was a catch-22 that would come across as ungrateful if he ever expressed it out loud.

Which meant he couldn’t. Not really. Not to anyone, except maybe Curlgurl, and even then… Did he really want to take that chance?

The sheer frustration of his quandary had him grinding his teeth. And rethinking everything. The reason he’d been so bent on meeting Curlgurl in person was because he truly thought there was a chance she could be his soul mate.

What if she wasn’t actually like her on-screen persona in real life? He’d be the last person who could fault her for that. But did he really want to lift that veil, only to be crushed?

His phone lit up with a text message. Hugo: Landed in London. Sorry I had to dash. Carolina will take care of you in my stead.

Not one of his admins or the building management. A woman. An unlikely one at that, who was certainly pretty enough if you liked cool blondes, but definitely not one of Hugo’s normal high-maintenance, high-gloss types.

Maybe he and Hugo were both looking for something different. The difference was that Hugo likely had a shot of getting it. Joaquin, maybe not so much.

The mention of Carolina shifted Joaquin’s thoughts to the brown-haired spitfire who was apparently the production company’s new stylist. Eliza. Even her name had hard edges, just like the woman.

Curlgurl is typing…

Curlgurl: you got quiet. thinking about Christmas?

Quinoa: Thinking about you. Christmas is far enough away that I can’t worry about it right now.

Truly, it had slipped his mind. His mother was up to something or she’d never have invited him to Madrid. It wouldn’t be sporting to ruin her fun, so he’d agreed to let her unravel whatever scheme she had concocted to get him back into the fold. Not that it would work. But he’d give her the chance. Maybe this trip home would be difficult enough that it would finally allow him to stop caring what his parents thought about him.

Granted, according to his mother, if he really cared, he’d quit acting and come home permanently. That wasn’t happening. Acting was the only thing he’d found that gave him room to breathe. It was easier to pretend he was someone else when everyone expected it. Not so easy when he was being Joaquin Cortez, the persona he’d had to adopt to survive Hollywood.

Quinoa: You’ve had a long day. I’ll let you get some rest so you can be revived to deal with your difficult boss tomorrow morning.

Curlgurl: I’m making a face right now. I’d rather not think about him. But you’re probably right.

Curlgurl: sweet dreams, darling.

Joaquin logged off with a smile. He hadn’t ruined his online romance yet. It wasn’t too late. If his investigator turned up enough clues to figure out Curlgurl’s identity, Joaquin didn’t have to contact her. He could get a sense of who she was first. Feel her out. Or trash all the information and be happy with what he currently had. Nothing was set in stone.

The next morning, Trevor organized Joaquin out the door and hustled him to the arranged car idling at the curb. Trevor was new, but already deserving of a raise, which Joaquin would give him because good help was nearly impossible to find. Especially the discreet kind. Assistants were always the unnamed sources magazines and news stations quoted while breaking stories about celebrities. Joaquin’s last one had certainly done his share of blabbing about things that should have been kept private.

That’s why Joaquin hadn’t told Trevor the real reason he’d traveled to Dallas. No one knew except his investigator. As far as everyone else was concerned, Joaquin had picked up and moved an entire production company strictly so he could visit an old friend. While Joaquin didn’t like perpetuating his reputation for being difficult and demanding, it had served a purpose in this case.

The Dallas skyline had a few interesting buildings that caught his attention as the car crept through the gridlocked streets and he made some mental notes about the graceful way the structures reached toward the blue sky, just so he’d have something to tell Curlgurl later. If she was here in Dallas, they were in the same time zone for once. Sometimes he had to duck into a dark corner at some boring event to talk to her. He’d gotten extremely proficient at typing on his phone with his thumbs, though he generally refused to text anyone else. It was entirely too much trouble.

He made a lot of exceptions for her.

The driver expertly navigated the car into the parking garage at the building Hugo owned, which wasn’t far. The condo village called Vivo had a funky vibe to it that Joaquin wouldn’t have associated with his upper crust British friend. It would be perfect for filming the next few scenes in Walking Dogs. The movie Joaquin was currently shooting had, ironically, been the catalyst for how he’d met Curlgurl. He’d been researching rom-coms since this was his first one and had floated around a few online forums trying to understand what fans found appealing about them.

That was how he’d first started talking to Curlgurl—she’d readily answered some of his questions, and one thing had led to another.

When he got to the little village for the day’s filming, it was still pre-dawn, as usual. Makeup typically took a couple of hours, but moving the entire production disrupted everyone enough to shift the timeline. Joaquin Cortez didn’t put up with a lot of delays—impatience was part of his made-up persona, a quality that seemed to fit what everyone expected of him.

The new stylist Hugo had conjured up was already on set waiting. And none too patiently, judging by the tilt of her chin and the rapid tap of her toe. He hid a smile as he strolled toward the trailer the producer had set up in the parking garage since it had been too difficult to block off the street.

“Buenos días,” he said with a smirk as Eliza’s gaze clapped onto his face and narrowed.

“Maybe it’s a good morning for you,” she countered with a saccharine smile. “But some of us have been here cooling our heels for nearly twenty minutes. Nice of you to join us.”

“You speak Spanish?”

“Duh. This is Texas. Everyone speaks Spanish.”

Noted. And instantly his day got a little more interesting. “Lo tendré en cuenta.”

“You do that,” she said without hesitation, as if she had indeed correctly translated his meaning: I’ll keep that in mind. “Is his highness ready for his stylist to do her magic?”

Joaquin did a double take, totally unable to hide his sudden grin. “My father is the prime minister of Spain. Not the king. But I appreciate the royal deference.”

The expression on Eliza’s face was the visual equivalent of a snort. “Figures. I literally had no idea. Some of us don’t follow the minute details of your life, nor do we want to. Can we get started?”

Oh, they’d already started. No one talked to him like that. They wouldn’t dare. And he could not put his finger on why the whole exchange amused him enormously.

Who was this woman? Today promised to be nonstop fun of the variety he didn’t get very often. The anticipation lightened his heart all at once. Besides, anything that helped pass the time until he could talk to Curlgurl again got his vote.