Bombshell (Hollywood A-List #1)

by C. D. Reiss

  “Thank you, Paula. It means a lot to throw this party for Arnie. I couldn’t do it without you.”

  She blushed a little. Sometimes I thought she still had it for me, and sometimes I thought I should just up and tell her it wasn’t going to happen. But I couldn’t afford to lose her. Couldn’t risk being right and shaming her into quitting or being wrong and offending her into walking out.

  “You just have fun tonight.” She patted my chest. She was from the South. We touched each other. I didn’t think anything of it until that night when her fingers lingered a little too long.

  “I’ll try.”

  The script sat on the counter. I’d wanted Bangkok Brotherhood so bad a year ago I’d auditioned for it. I just wanted it. There hadn’t been any bad consequences to getting it. Only upside. Now I had a daughter and a schedule to keep. I had to be in Thailand prepared or, as Ken liked to remind me, I’d never work again.

  I put the script in the silverware drawer and slapped it closed.

  I needed to get back to the script when I was fresh, but in the morning I was going to get sidelined by calls and daily bullshit. Questions. Decisions. I’d seen three schools and in the end I was going to do exactly what Cara said I should have done in the first place. She was competent. I couldn’t say the same for myself. The enormity of my responsibility made me want to give it to someone else. At least when Nicole was out of the room. That was when I decided I wasn’t making another decision for or about her ever again. Then she showed up with those dimples and that sense of humor. Or she’d make a bratty demand, and I knew I could handle her because I figured it wasn’t so bad. The little crises like a bathing suit or a pair of shoes were kind of fun.

  I kind of wanted to hang out with her more than I wanted to throw a party.

  A little.

  Maybe the party could go on, and Nicole and I could go get ice cream or something. I’d get back by the time stuff started rolling and—

  “Mr. Daddy!” Britt Ravenor came in with a bottle in each hand and hugged me, landing big lipstick kisses all over my face. Her girlfriend piled on, and I forgot I wanted to hang out with my daughter.

  CHAPTER 27

  CARA

  It wasn’t uncommon for an A-list actor or studio head to have staff constantly move in, out, and about the house. Housekeepers, assistants, cooks, nannies, and security moved around freely during assigned hours. But the party I walked into was beyond what I’d seen before. Too many people in the house. Too many bikini bottoms. Too many nipples. Too many drinks. What the hell was he thinking? The music was thumping the entire house.

  Nicole and I hung out for a while building block towers and knocking them down. Doing a puzzle. Playing pretend princesses. I got her bathed and put to bed. Luckily, the swim had exhausted her. The party had become a low rumble. I didn’t realize the power of it until I got to the main part of the house. By then, I was white-hot, scanning the laughing, beautiful faces for Brad.

  Waste of time. The man had his own magnetic field. He was talking to some stunning young girl with his bare foot on the coffee table. All smiles and charm, exposed legs, and tanned hand on a beer. Sunglasses flipped to the top of his head.

  “Sinclair!”

  I couldn’t have yelled louder, but he barely acknowledged me until I was two feet away. Then he looked over.

  “Yeah?”

  “What are you doing?”

  The stunning young thing looked me up and down with an unmasked sneer. What a waste of a pretty face.

  “Throwing a birthday party.” He shrugged.

  I was dismissed.

  I had no right to do what I did next. I was an employee. I was not the mother of his child, nor was I the head of the household. I was nobody. Infinitely replaceable. Exactly nothing. Stating my opinion of him, his action, his attitude was so far out of my contractual obligations that I expected to be thrown out as soon as I finished.

  I pushed him. Literally.

  “You’re an asshole.” I had a moment where I could have paused, or run away, or calmed myself. But he looked so stricken, I saw an opening, and in my anger I went right into it. “You should have given her up for adoption if this is what you’re going to do. Because I’ve seen this go down before. I’ve seen how this shakes out. You make this her normal and she’s going to be snorting coke by middle school. In Malibu. With a driver and a Prada bag, yeah, all that. And she’s not going to know where she ends and the paparazzi begin. She’s going to be a target for the media unless you protect her. You’re the only one between her and . . .” And what? Getting pawed at by an older guy behind the hedge? “Look at you! Look at you!”

  I could have said it ten more times.

  We’d earned an audience, and though the music hadn’t stopped, all conversation had. Paula stepped between us, facing me, and held her arms out.

  “We’re all going to take a deep breath and—”

  “You want to look at me?” Brad shouted past Paula as he slapped his beer on the coffee table.

  “Look at how you’re acting!” I leaned around Paula, even as she shifted to block me. “You have a child in the other room.”

  He unbuttoned his pants. When everyone gasped, she turned and saw him over her shoulder.

  “Bradley!” Paula scolded. “Do not—”

  “Get a good look!”

  He spun around and dropped his drawers, mooning me with his perfect ass.

  The room went into uproarious laughter, hoots, and shouts. Camera phones were out. Brad shook it for me. I wasn’t angry anymore. I was humiliated. Cowed completely.

  Paula made a show of covering her eyes. “Oh my good Lord Jesus what are you—”

  For the third time, she wasn’t allowed to complete a sentence.

  “Daddy! Your butt is out!” Nicole cried in her pajamas. She obviously hadn’t been as exhausted as I thought.

  Maybe I would have gotten angry again. Maybe I would have found a way to stay and protect her. Maybe my heart would have softened another ten degrees if one of the caterers hadn’t been holding up a tray of glasses. She didn’t expect a five-year-old still in her pajamas and bare feet. She only tried to dodge a chair and tripped on Nicole.

  For a second, time stopped.

  The server kept the tray aloft while keeping her feet under her, but weight plus momentum plus the slippery wet platter resulted in a show-stopping crash.

  Nicole stood in the center of a minefield of melting ice and broken glass.

  “Don’t move!” Brad shouted.

  “Get her out of here!” Paula pointed at me with one hand and Nicole with the other.

  Before I could tell Paula that nothing would make me happier, Nicole melted into loud, blubbery sobs.

  Brad tiptoed through the glass and lifted her to safety. The staff descended on the mess with towels.

  When he turned, he and I were face-to-face, Nicole crying on his shoulder. The music rose. The chatter came back, and he and I were still locked, not speaking.

  Not with words, at least.

  His anger was still all over his face, but it veiled something else. Something deeper. Regret? Understanding?

  He just mooned you to make a point.

  “I’ll pack my things,” I said.

  He didn’t answer, and though I should have just walked off and done what I said I was going to do, he held me fast with his stare.

  “Your résumé said you have a first aid certificate.”

  “So?”

  He looked down. I looked down. A pool of blood spread beneath his foot.

  “You’re a mess,” I said.

  “Can you fix it, doc?”

  “Only if you promise to never show me your butt again.”

  “Can’t promise that, sorry. I’m just going to have to rely on the kindness in your heart.”

  I should have politely refused, because I couldn’t be in that house another minute. But what was it about mistakes? Why were they so sticky? They rolled along, picking up other mistakes, gro
wing into a ball of unstoppable bad habits on an ever-steeper incline. A dozen people could have looked at his foot, but I had to do it because he challenged my kindheartedness.

  “Lean on me,” I said, about to enter into my eleventy-millionth mistake. “I put the kit in Nicole’s bathroom.”

  He put his arm around my shoulder, while his other arm held his daughter. He smelled of pool chlorine and alcohol, leaning on me to hop to the bathroom as he fist-bumped his buddies, promising to return to the good times. When we got to the private part of the house, his hand cupped my shoulder instead of hanging off it. Like the waterline creeping forward on the beach, the dreams seeped into my mind. The pool table. His hands on me. The way I came when he entered me.

  Remember the part where he pulled his pants down like a child?

  I did. And this was a symptom of being a heterosexual woman of childbearing age who hadn’t had sex or male attention in too long. But his hand felt good on my shoulder, and after yelling at him in front of a room full of people, I needed to feel good.

  CHAPTER 28

  BRAD

  Nicole’s bathroom looked like a bloody crime scene and Cara was a sadistic fucking criminal. I sat on the purple kid-size chair. Cara sat on the pink-and-green plastic stool we kept by the sink so my daughter could reach the faucet. My foot rested in her lap as she dug tweezers into my skin. She’d put Nicole in bed and closed the door behind us.

  “Big one coming,” she said. If it was so big, why did she need the goggles? Was she trying to look like a fierce fucking human-torturing alien from Venus?

  “Ow! Jesus!”

  She held up a bloody shard, smiling.

  “Are you all right, Daddy?” Nicole asked from the other side of the door.

  “I’m fine, pumpkin.”

  Clink. The shard went into a tray. Sadist.

  “You have nice feet,” she said, angling the tweezers to grab another piece of glass.

  “Thank you.”

  “Can’t say the same for your ass.”

  “My ass isn’t nice?”

  I was actually offended. Deeply hurt. I’d been called worse, but coming from her it cut deep.

  “Nope.” She pulled at the skin on the bottom of my foot to expose the glass. Or to turn me on a little. Just a little. Between her hands on me and the way she stuck my heel between her legs, I was turned on just a little.

  A lot. If I had to split hairs, she was turning me on a lot, and I had no idea if she intended it or if this was just Cara being Cara.

  “I get paid good money for that ass.”

  “Well, it’s not nice.”

  “You’re making some comment about the circumstances.”

  She pulled the goggles to the top of her head. Her eyes were ringed red from the edge of the eye gear and her hair made crazy spikes around the strap.

  “The circumstances?”

  “You came at me like a wild banshee.”

  “. . . and so you mooned me?”

  “You treated me like a child in front of people I work with.”

  “Then you acted like one?”

  “It’s my job to make the story fun. That’s what I did.”

  She slid her goggles back down and inspected my foot, wielding the tweezers with her mouth pressed tight. She must be stung from losing the argument. I wouldn’t rub it in. I liked having her attention on me. Liked her hands. I leaned back on the plastic chair, soaking in my victory. I was going to take it easy on her. I was drunk on pain and forgiveness. Her thumb along my skin. Yeah. Gentle and confident. My dick woke up a little and I was just relaxed enough to not give a god damn that she was off-limits.

  The music still came in loud and clear from downstairs. I was torn between missing my own party and settling into the way she touched me.

  “I have a comeback for that, you know,” she said. With her eyes not grabbing all my attention, I got a chance to really look at those lips. The top one was slightly bee stung, and the bottom one was trapped under her teeth as she bit it in concentration.

  “Oh, yeah?” I linked my fingers together over my stomach. “Tell me your comeback.”

  And if it involves those lips around my dick.

  She pulled a piece of glass out of my foot. No pain.

  “That it’s my job to protect Nicole, and by yelling at you I was protecting her. It’s a pretty good comeback, as they go. But then you’d come back with, ‘No, it’s her father’s job to protect her,’ and I’d say, ‘Nice job, Daddy,’ and I’d win the battle but lose the war.”

  Too-fucking-shay.

  “No one told me there was a war,” I said.

  “There is.” She dropped the tweezers in the sink and took off the goggles, plucking a little spray bottle out of the kit. “There’s a war for Nicole. And you win. No matter what. You can and should do whatever you need to. It’s my job to make sure she doesn’t die on my shift.”

  She sprayed my foot and I jumped. She held the ankle steady while she burned the fucking skin off. All I could say was ah ah ah.

  “But I’m sorry I came at you like that. You could fire me for much less. Probably should.”

  “I guess we’re even then, from the shower.”

  She stared at my foot, but not really at it. More through it.

  “That night, you came home from the SAG event late.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Do you remember anything? How you got in the bed?”

  Oh, shit. My mouth, my throat, my guts went dry.

  “My pants were on.” My only defense.

  “You’re welcome.”

  “What happened?”

  Her eyes darkened and I panicked. I’d wanted her, but had I taken something I shouldn’t have?

  “Nothing. You talked a lot of nonsense. I got your shoes and shirt off and put you to bed.”

  “Thank you.”

  She squirted the open wounds again and I shouted.

  “Daddy?” Nicole’s voice came from the other side of the door. “Are you okay? Really?”

  “He’s fine!”

  “She’s killing me!”

  Cara cracked a smile. It was a gorgeous sight.

  “Hey! Don’t kill Daddy!”

  Nicole wasn’t kidding. Her voice was soaked in terror. We looked at each other. Right. Death should be off the table.

  I leaned for the door and swung it open. Nicole trotted in with a little drawing pad in one hand and a pencil in the other. She nearly impaled me with it as she hopped onto my lap and turned to face Cara. From my vantage point I could see her point the pencil at her nanny. I had to imagine her tough little face.

  “Don’t. Kill. Daddy.”

  “I won’t.” She split the paper off the back of a Band-Aid and stuck it on me. “But if he keeps it up, I might have to hurt him just a little.”

  “Okay,” Nicole agreed.

  “Okay?” I objected. My dad had always complained there was a female conspiracy in the house, and I started to think he might be right.

  As if she wanted to confirm the conspiracy, Nicole turned to face me, practically kneeing me in the groin. Even though she was on my lap she waved her fingers at me to get me closer. She whispered in my ear.

  “I like Miss Cara.”

  “Okay.”

  She put her finger to her lips.

  “Shush.” She ran her fingers over my lips.

  “Zip it. Lock it.” She opened my chest pocket and dropped the little pad into it. “Put it in your pocket.”

  “I’m zipped.” I looked past her and saw Cara smiling. Nicole fished her little pad back out and sat frontward. I took her hair in my hands, separating strands.

  “You always make these pretty braids,” I said, crossing one strand over the other. Then another. It made a mess. “You need to teach me.”

  “It’s easy,” Nicole said, as if she’d ever done it.

  “What are you working on?” Cara pointed to the little pad before she got another Band-Aid from the box. I settled into the painless part
of the process.

  Nicole flipped through the little spiral notebook until she found her page.

  “It’s a unicorn.” She showed me with her pencil as a pointer. “And that’s her brother. He’s a Pegasus.”

  “Wow,” I said. “It’s kind of really good.” I held it up for Cara. “Is this normal?”

  “She’s ahead in fine motor and verbal skills, if that’s what you mean.”

  “And she can read.” I kissed her nose. “You’re amazing.”

  She waved her hand in front of her nose. “Daddy, you smell bad.”

  My phone beeped and buzzed. I got it out. Arnie.

  —Dude—

  Right. I had a life I was living. The music seemed louder once the spell of these two was broken. I had friends downstairs and things I was doing. I had a movie to make and a staycation to take. I’d gotten distracted from my distractions by my favorite distraction.

  He sent me another text right after.

  —Are you fucking the nanny?—

  Fuck. What a douchebag.

  —NO!—

  I put the phone away and slid Nicole off my lap.

  “I have to go.”

  I had to prove immediately that I wasn’t fucking the nanny. And not because I cared what anyone thought about me. Shit, I’d just pulled my ass out in front of twenty people with camera phones and DMZ’s e-mail. But because it wasn’t good for anyone to think Cara was doin’ the daddy.

  Nicole flipped a page and held it up.

  “This is my pony.”

  “Nice.” I looked to Cara. “You’re on tonight?”

  “Yes,” she said with a hint of suspicion.

  “You need to buy me this pony,” Nicole said with flat seriousness.

  “Okay.” I patted her head. Literally. I patted her head and promised her a pony. That was how much I wanted to get downstairs in less time than it would take me to hop out of the nanny’s bed and get dressed. “It might get loud tonight, so bring her to the pool house if you need to.”

  Her reaction was swift and angry, and she held it back. I saw it. One nanosecond she gritted her teeth and the next she smiled like a game show host.

  “Sure.”

  I left, gimping on the sliced foot, smoothing my hair down so it didn’t suggest a just-fucked-her look. I was halfway down the stairs before I thought about that.