Bombshell (Hollywood A-List #1)(28)

It was Blakely’s shift, but she just shrugged.

“Okay,” I said. “Let me get my shoes on.”





CHAPTER 21


CARA


Celebrities living in Los Angeles drive more often than you think and do everything else less than you think. Driving is an entitlement. It means you have control. And Brad I-Didn’t-See-Anything Sinclair was trying to prove he was in control.

Nicole sat in the backseat humming. She had a book on her lap and her leotard under her summer dress.

Brad leaned on the wheel of the Range Rover, arms toned and tan, sunglasses glinting, looking disaffected and in charge. It was hot, but for my part he needed to cover himself all the time, every second of the day. With a tarp. Because the night before came back to me full force. Starting with the dream of him in the shower, the imagined feeling of his skin against mine. The erection on my soft bottom. His lips on the back of my neck . . . all the way up to his very real questions about how I like to f*ck.

“Yesterday . . .” I started but couldn’t finish. I knew what I wanted to say, but the thought of him watching me froze my tongue.

“You know, the steam coming out of that bathroom, I thought the place was on fire.”

Jefferson Avenue at midday was clear, and we were going to be at the gym in ten minutes.

“Mr. Sinclair. Really?”

“Oh it’s Mr. Sinclair now? Listen. I didn’t see anything, ma’am.”

“I need you to really not just come in the back house again,” I said. “Where I’m from, when you come to someone’s house, you knock. You put your fingers together in a fist and—”

“Where I’m from,” he started with full good-old-boy accent, “we don’t leave the doors unlocked unless we want people running through.”

His tinge of Arkansas accent implied a superior upbringing with traditions buffed with time.

“Knock anyway.”

“Believe me,” he said, flipping his blinker and changing lanes for no apparent reason. “I’m never going in that house again without an engraved invitation.”

“Okay. Good. No more peeking.”

So. What do you remember?

“I wasn’t raised like that.”

“You keep saying that.”

“When did I say that?”

He’d said it last night, at my window. But if he didn’t remember, I didn’t want to remind him. We’d crossed a line. If he blacked out, then what had happened the night before was mine and mine alone. If he remembered, then between the shower and the fantasies? I’d have to resign.

“Some interview, I think. Did you have fun last night?”

He smiled and made a pfft sound. “Sure. After I sent Nicole home I had a few drinks and woke up in the guest room.”

Did he remember the water and aspirin? Did he assume Paula had left it? Or was it just an empty glass when he woke?

“Daddy told jokes the whole time!” Nicole chimed in. We both turned. She bounced her little light-up toes. “Like . . . Ask me if I’m a tree!”

I obeyed, reminding myself to keep it clean in the front seat. “Are you a tree?”

“No!” She laughed. “What’s brown and sticky?”

“I don’t know.”

She and Brad answered together, “A stick!”

Nicole was beside herself with laughter.

“Where are you from, anyway?” Brad asked me.

“Everywhere. Nowhere.”

“You trying to get mysterious with me?”

“I grew up on air force bases. Diplomat housing. That kind of thing. There really is no, ‘Where I’m from the gates are locked and the doors are open,’ because it changed all the time. But mostly we were behind big walls with guards. I needed an escort in some places. Pakistan. That was crazy.”

I shook my head and looked out the window.

“How crazy? You get kidnapped?”

“No. I wore a head scarf whenever we left the base because I wanted to fit in. There was no Lycée so I didn’t go to school. I had this nowhere feeling. I guess that doesn’t sound very crazy.”

“How old were you?”

“Twelve. I bet you were doing something completely different when you were twelve.”

He laughed to himself.

“Shit. Yeah. That was my first summer working at the lumberyard. Hot as f—heck. The sawdust stuck to me everywhere. Every night I had it in my butt crack.”

I laughed, but it was only to cover up the fact that I was envisioning his gorgeous ass filled with sawdust. Nicole had her own reasons for cracking up.

“Daddy said butt again!”

“Again?” I said. Brad shrugged and Nicole just kept laughing. At least they were getting along.

He pulled into the lot and put the car in park.

“I’ll get her,” I said, opening the door. “You lay low before the paps find you.”

“Cara,” he said, taking his sunglasses off.

“Yeah?”

“It won’t happen again.”

The way he looked at me—he meant it. Every word came from a deep well of sincerity and regret.

“I know,” I said, dealing with my own well of regret.