by C. D. Reiss
“I’m sure. Spit it out.”
She didn’t. She took another second to look toward the pool where the party was in full swing, then back at me.
“Anything I say is said because I care.”
“Got it. Moving on.”
“And because I want you to succeed.”
“Train’s pulling out of the station, miss. Better get on it.”
“Okay. First off. You really haven’t dealt with this at all. Not that I blame you. Having a child dropped in your lap out of nowhere is an adjustment even for people who are prepared. But you haven’t stopped the partying or the working one iota since she arrived.”
I bristled, but acted like I didn’t. Good thing I was an actor.
“I’ve cut the partying by a lot, I’ll have you know.”
“Well, I’ll trust you on that. But all these people make it hard for you to get to know each other. And the work. Whenever Paula’s over, you chase Nicole out, and Paula’s over ten hours a day.”
“I have to work. I’m not the only one in town working.”
“You’re the only one in town with a kid you never met.”
Man, she was so close to the line where I’d tell her to pack up. She was right on the fucking thing. But the other side of that line was a cliff. She had no idea what was at stake—everything I ever worked for and wanted—because Nicole had shown up.
“Your parents did a great job while they were here, but they’re from a different world and all their kids are adults. They didn’t set you up with routines. Habits. Events she can count on. And now you’re going to take her to Thailand with you?”
“What am I supposed to do? Leave her here?”
“Stay home.”
Stay home. Sure. And let a $120 million movie fall through. Tell them to just cast another bankable guy who happened to be available right now. Because anyone who’s bankable isn’t scheduled a year in advance. Yeah. That was going to work out great when I couldn’t get another picture because I was a flight risk.
I think I laughed, or some snide version of it.
Her face went soft, dropping from hard truth to a malleable reality I didn’t understand.
“I can’t watch this. It’s too much.” She paced across the dark path, tripping the lights as she walked.
Jesus. She kept moving that god damned line.
“You’re not supposed to get emotionally involved, you know!” I called out.
She stopped and stayed still long enough for the lights to flick out. I held my breath. The moonlight fell blue on her hair, and she looked like she could just fold into the darkness.
I kept my breath. Didn’t need air. Wouldn’t know what to do with it.
She turned so slowly the lights didn’t register it.
“You’re right,” she said. “That’s why this is temporary. That’s why I didn’t want to work for a celebrity household. Because I can’t stand seeing kids getting dragged all over the world or orphaned by their parents’ jobs. I’ve seen it done well and I’ve seen it done right, but it’s not often.”
She walked down the path and the lights followed.
This was bullshit. I ran out and got in front of her.
“Lady. You have no idea what you’re talking about. I’ve done the best I can. I was going along pretty-as-you-please before this bombshell dropped—”
“She’s not a bombshell. She’s not a problem to solve. She’s a human being you made. You don’t see her. You don’t see how hard she’s working to deal with what happened.”
“What about you?”
“What—?”
“What are you dealing with?”
“As your consultant, I advise . . .” She stopped talking, letting her advice hang midair. I wanted it. I wanted to pluck it out of dead space and take it, whatever it was.
“What?”
“I advise . . .” She took a deep breath. “You seem all right.”
“What kind of advice is that?”
“What do you want for her? For you? What were you hoping for?”
The idea that I was hoping for anything was ridiculous. I laughed. It had a sardonic edge, what my grandmother would have called “laughing outta two sides of your face.”
“I ain’t had a chance to hope for much, ma’am. I was just going about my business. I was a happy guy, you know? All I had to do was work and be nice to people. So you’ll excuse me if I have to adjust.”
“You never thought about it? When you saw your friend Michael Greydon adopt six kids, what did you think? Anything?”
I didn’t know if she was implying I was deficient. Would she? And what did I think of my buddy marrying a lady-pap and adopting six kids?
“Figured it would happen at some point. The normal way. Girl, then wife, then baby. And I think he’s crazy. Fucking nuts. He can’t go out without asking his wife. Can’t take a dump without having a kid banging on the door. He had a career . . . a real career. Now he’s doing one movie a year and spending the rest of the time in legit theater so he can be home. What the hell is that? Is that me? Is that Brad Sinclair? Mike didn’t work his way out of a lumberyard in Arkansas, all right? He was born royalty. That’s not even an option for me, so this little girl? She’s gonna have to roll with it.”
Cara tapped her finger against her bicep and watched me as I had a mini meltdown. Didn’t move. Jesus Christ, she was so in control. How did she do that?
I should have been ashamed of having a tirade. Mom had a way of making me so embarrassed of my tantrums that I stopped. How do you like that now? Everyone seeing your insides? Pretty as a wild boar, I’d say.
Somehow, Cara didn’t make me feel like that. I felt safe. Weirdly safe. Uncomfortably safe.
“What?” I asked.
“I was an afterthought. My parents love me, but they didn’t know what to do with us. We were an inconvenience. That was how I felt. And when I see other kids having to bend their lives around their parents’ careers? It makes me sad, and I want to solve it for them. But there’s no solving it. And here I am again.”
“Wow.” That was more information than I ever thought she’d give about herself, and I wanted to answer every word. I wanted to tell her that she wasn’t anyone’s inconvenience. Her parents loved her. They had to. Who wouldn’t?
“Do all the nannies talk like that?”
“Only the ones with thirty-day contracts.”
She was leaving. I kept forgetting that. Figured it would work itself out so she’d stay. Obviously, that hope was one-sided.
I wasn’t used to chasing women. They chased me or appeared right and ready where I needed them. But this one was different in every way. One, not a woman in the strict sense because she was staff. I was paying her to do a job. She wasn’t a hanger-on or a costar. She wasn’t available. I wasn’t supposed to go near her. Not in that way.
But, man. Shoot me in the face. The way she ran her fingers through her hair to get it out of her face, and the way it just flopped over it again? And the crickets? And the smell of bluegrass like home. It just looked right.
For the first time, it made sense.
And fuck sense.
“You’re a time bomb,” I said. Filter-free Brad in full effect.
Her jaw set, and for the second time we stood still long enough for the path to flick into darkness. Her lips parted, and before another word left her mouth I was in motion.
I kissed her. I didn’t know why. To smash the barrier of her hardened jaw. To sweep away the bullshit talk of consulting. Whatever. It was wrong. But at the time it seemed like the only thing to do.
She pushed me so hard I fell back a step. Disappointing, but not unprecedented. She stood back, panting. Took a gulp. I had to work hard not to smile.
I still had it.
CHAPTER 31
CARA
His lips were heaven. His hands on my face were Planet Dream and Planet Real crashing, fusing, pulling both out of orbit. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t even gr
oan how good he felt touching me. Better than the dreams, better than the morning orgasms he inspired.
Oh God, I was falling for this. In half a hot second, my defenses dropped with a clang and I let myself get hurled into deep space by that kiss, spinning and twisting, reality and fantasy joined into a single burning body.
Cara.
You’re not supposed to do this.
A single, small voice threaded through my consciousness.
Then regret.
Then anger.
At him. At myself. At my body. I had to push him away violently or the push was going to turn into a caress. He took a step back and I caught my breath.
“Jesus Christ, Sinclair, what do you think you’re doing?” I didn’t feel bad about pushing him because the anger was still in my veins. I had to stop myself from pushing him again. I didn’t think I’d be able to walk away. “Do you think I want to end up on the cover of some magazine? You think I want to get dirty looks up and down Sunset?”
This guy could ruin me. He had all the tools to do it. He was gorgeous and laid-back. He listened when I spoke and had a daughter who was just about perfect.
But I’d be on the cover of tabloids. I’d become an ugly stereotype. I’d get ditched with nothing but a bad reputation to show for it. I’d cry. I hated crying. Children cried and I soothed them by not getting all weepy myself.
There he stood, with the pool party behind him. A movie star. The most eligible bachelor in Hollywood and to me, he was an overwhelmed father with no clue how to manage his daily tasks, but formidably lit by stars. An awe-inspiring display of power and presence with a magnetism that led right to him.
Hollywood stars weren’t stars just because of their light. They had a gravity generating mass and unbearable heat. Something coded in their genes, like hair color or height. I’d seen it before from the diplomats I met when I was a kid to the moms and dads I worked for in Los Angeles, and having identified it, I resisted it. Easy.
He was different. His heat seemed made for me.
It wasn’t.
It was a trick. That kiss, as short and inappropriate as it was, had vibrated every cell. His taste, his scent, the feel of his lips.
I had to pack. Just pack and go. This job was tainted. Everything was tainted now. Head down, I walked to the pool house, my sexless shoes pumping in and out of my vision.
I had to go.
Never see him again.
Maybe once.
Stopping dead in my tracks with my hand on the doorknob, I laughed.
“What’s so funny?” Brad asked from ten feet behind me. He held his shirttail to his lip, exposing a flat, tight washboard stomach and that god damn muscled V-thing at the waist of his low-hanging shorts.
“I’ve lost my mind, that’s all.”
“We have something in common.”
“No. Let’s not do this. Look—”
“Look, I—”
He stopped himself when we said the same thing at the same time . . .
“I’m sorry.”
What was I apologizing for? Being kissed? Being watched in the shower? What the hell was wrong with me?
“You keep having to apologize for inappropriate behavior,” I said, then I opened the door and walked in. He stood just outside, backlit by the front light. It came to me that we were alone. It was dark. He’d just kissed me in a moment of weakness. I could claim weakness too, because I was weak. My knees barely held me, and my body gushed with desire.
“Don’t be done,” he said, his voice stroking under my clothes. Which was all in my mind. The result of a year without a date. But I couldn’t breathe right, and my nipples got hard under my cotton bra.
My feelings were as inappropriate as his actions, and I had no control over either.
“I don’t know what to do,” I said. I was being too honest. I was about to cross into unprofessional.
“Tell me what to do then.”
I don’t know where I got so bold. Something in me was pushing him away because he scared the hell out of me. Or I scared the hell out of me. When he raised his eyebrow as if I’d crossed a line, something in my chest shrunk. I didn’t want him to be displeased, even though I wanted him to make it easy for me and throw me out right there and then.
“Kick everyone out,” I said.
He didn’t hesitate to take his phone out, which was unexpected. The light shined in his face as he tapped and swiped the glass, the light casting shadows from below and lighting his blue eyes to light gray. He put the phone in his pocket, and the light under him snuffed.
“Five seconds.” He didn’t explain further. If he’d been unsure of himself, he wasn’t now. His feet spread apart, arms crossed, chin high, music thumping behind him.
Five. Four. Three. Two. One.
Nothing changed.
“Ten, then.”
Five seconds later (give or take) the music abruptly stopped. A chorus of aws went up, but still, we didn’t move. The pathway lights flicked out. Then the voices and splashing were over. Then the undulations of the turquoise light slowed. Still we said nothing, just regarded each other. I didn’t know what he felt. Couldn’t have guessed at it. He could have any woman he wanted, any time he wanted. The most glamorous, sophisticated women in the world were at his beck and call.
But maybe the things he didn’t remember saying were true. Maybe he did want me.
I took care of children for a living. In order to do my job, I had to wear sensible clothes and speak in a lilting singsong voice. Nothing about me could have been desirable to a man like him.
Yet, in those seconds, with his eyes on me in the darkness, I tingled everywhere my skin was covered, as if his vision burned through my clothes.
“You have the monitor,” he said, fully stepping into the house. In the new silence, his voice resonated against the sound of the crickets and the pool filter.
He stood still, bare feet spread, arms crossed.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m not making this easy for you.”
“It’s not your job to make it easy for me.” I shifted the little speaker from one hand to the other nervously. It hissed and crackled when it moved. “You need to start looking for new staff.”
I held the monitor out. He put his hand over it, but didn’t take it.
“Stay. You should really stay.”
“I can’t—”
I was interrupted by an ear-splitting scream from the monitor.
Nicole.
Brad spun around and bolted. I was right behind him. Out the door, running faster than the motion sensors could react, he took two long steps and vaulted over the fence. I went through the gate and skidded on the wet tiles around the pool, while Brad kept his bare feet on the grass, running across the patio, through the kitchen, past tipped bottles and a bra and a sock from somewhere. He and I ran up the stairs, down the hall, and through the white door where—
Nicole. Tears streaming, curled in a ball of pink ponies and white ruffles.
Brad scooped her up, and she screamed.
“Cara! Miss Cara!” She wiggled out of his arms, and he dropped her in mine. She wrapped her legs around my waist and her arms around my neck like a hungry boa.
She smelled of soap and powder, and she fit in my arms like an egg in a carton. There was something decidedly uncomfortable about the comfort, especially with her father standing there like a right fielder in a Little League game.
He gave half a nod and turned to exit the room. This was too easy. It was too easy for him to walk away; it was too easy for me to hold Nicole in my arms while she calmed down. It was all too facile, and it was the start of a downhill slope that led to him not being the parent he needed to be.
But that was none of my business, now was it?
Many people say that children are very intuitive. Another easy assumption is that they just know things that we don’t know, and they sense what they need without ever verbalizing it. It’s all too easy . . . but then something happens and all
of the assumptions seem incontrovertible.
“Daddy,” she cried, lifting her head. “Stay here please.”
I could believe he wanted two things at once. He wanted to get out of that room and let me handle it, and he wanted to stay there just as much. The conflict wasn’t in his face, because I couldn’t see his expression, it was in the resigned slouch of his shoulders and the quickness with which he turned to walk back into the room.
He laid his hand on her back, and she returned her head to my shoulder.
She yawned and pointed to the bed. “It’s time to sleep now.”
Brad and I looked at each other in the dark room. Nicole just waited. And when we did not react quickly enough, she picked her head up and pointed to the bed again and said exactly nothing.
“Say good night to Daddy,” I whispered.
“No,” she demanded. “He needs to stay. You need to stay. I had a very scary dream. I am not joking.”
I held my mouth tight so that I didn’t laugh at her fear, but she spoke like a little adult and it was so damn cute.
“It’s a twin bed, sweetheart,” Brad said.
“We can fit,” Nicole insisted. “Miss Cara is skinny. I’m skinny. Daddy, you can take up more room.” She pointed to the bed. “Go go go, Miss Cara. Just go!”
I didn’t look at Brad. I didn’t even want to know what he was thinking. I just had a job to do.
I laid Nicole on the bed and tucked her under the covers. In my peripheral vision I could see Brad standing on the other side of the bed, hands in his pockets. Still couldn’t see his expression. I guess I was okay with that. I had every intention of wiggling out of this.
I laid next to Nicole right on top of the covers.
“See?” Brad said. “There’s no room for me.”
“Miss Cara has to get under the covers.” She said it as if the space between the sheets was actually some alternate dimension where I had a third of my actual mass. “We can be like a real family.”
I glanced up at Brad, with his arms folded and half a smirk on his face. The perspective from below made him seem taller, broader, more confident and cocky than ever. Maybe it was having a woman in a bed, any bed. Or seeing that I was about to obey a five-year-old when I’d been so eager to tell him what to do.