Bombshell (Hollywood A-List #1)(3)

Brad looked at his daughter, the guys in the dark shirts, Laura, and then me, eye to eye. A man who projected star power like a lighthouse, but for the moment he was just a guy totally out of his depth.

“Okay. Thank you.”

I reached for the child, and she fell into my arms. The screaming slowed as soon as I bore the full weight of her, and stopped completely when she was on a clean part of the floor.

I addressed my agent. “Can you grab some underpants and have housekeeping bring some towels?”

She nodded. The security detail backed out, and Brad Sinclair gave me one look, one burning look that took the breath out of me before I closed the bathroom door and kneeled down to face his daughter.

“Do you want to start over?” I asked the girl.

“Okay.”

“My name is Cara. It’s nice to meet you. What’s your name?”

“Nicole Garcia.” She sniffed and wiped her nose on her sleeve.

“Nice to meet you, Nicole. Wanna help clean this up?”

“Can we do my butt first?”

“Great idea.” I liked this little one. Good thing I already had a job lined up or I could have fallen for her and her dad in a heartbeat.





CHAPTER 2


BRAD


“Buck up, son. Not a man born is ready for fatherhood when it comes. Best just to set yourself to getting it done.”

My dad had a f*cking positive attitude. Better than any of the “fruits and nuts” of Los Angeles with their pet therapists and white smiles. I grew up with “Stop yer bitchin’ and get in the kitchen.” I had no idea what the kitchen had to do with anything, but it was a good, solid southernism, one of many he launched like rockets right in front of the entire staff of West Side Nannies as if he didn’t know I was a f*cking superstar.

Dad had had his share of surprises, including knocking up Mom when they were dating for a week. He just put on his grown-up boots and started walking. And when he lost two fingers, pinkie and fourth on his right hand, to a circular saw at Redfield Lumber, he had it sewn up and went to work two days later. There was no patience in the Sinclair family for whining, bitching, or moaning. Slap a smile on your face and put your head down to work.

Like when your son discovers he’s a father, you get on a plane within the hour and haul ass to Los Angeles. My parents were here so fast I barely had time to get my people in to clean the house.

I met Nicole at Protective Services after the DNA test was positive. She was crying. She was always crying. She was a bag of flesh, bones, and tears. I was sure she was cute. Hundred percent sure. But her mom had died while Nicole was reading (I confirmed, actually reading) in kindergarten and here she was, as if picked up and thrown over the fence with no way to get back in. I’d cry too.

The only time she wasn’t crying, or almost crying, or breathing between sobs, was at West Side Nannies, in the bathroom behind a closed door. I told Laura there was no way she was in there, because I didn’t hear sobbing.

But, lo and behold, Nicole was in there, not crying even though she was stick-dipped in her own feces.

It wasn’t because she was sick of crying. It was because of the woman with the snotty tissue and the rock-steady mood ring eyes. The nanny . . . who was, I was told . . .

“Unavailable,” Laura said. My dad grumbled disapproval and my mother tsked. They were really messing with my mojo. I couldn’t be a celebrity and that-no-good-Sinclair-boy-who-spilled-paint-on-my-lawn-now-who’s-gonna-pay-for-that at the same time.

“What’s that mean?” I objected. “She’s in the bathroom cleaning her up as we speak. What’s she doing tomorrow or the next day?”

“We just signed her to a family full time. We’ll find you someone, Mr. Sin—”

“I don’t know if you know this, Miss, but I don’t take no for an answer. That one in the bathroom is the one I want. She’s the only one who’s been able to stop that little girl from crying since she landed in my hands a week ago.”

I’d never wanted a woman so badly in my life, and though she was definitely hot, my dick wasn’t even involved.

I was going to have her. I needed her.



Two weeks earlier I’d been twenty-four hours into the most epic party of my life. My house was upside down, populated with a few hundred friends and a dozen security guys.

“Chill out, Gene,” I’d said over the music, walking away from him. No one walked away from Superagent Gene Testarossa. Except me. “This is the same runaround as that girl last March.”

“The one who said you gave her herpes?”

“Yeah. That one.”

“You gave her herpes.”

I spun on him. I poked at his Hugo Boss jacket with the beer bottle swinging between my thumb and the jabbing finger.

“The other girl gave her herpes, and it was oral herpes. I was clean. I’m still clean.”

He shook his fat, pink-gold watch until he could see the face.

“Ken’s on his way,” he mumbled.

Ken Braque. Damn. I couldn’t turn my back on my PR guy as easily as I turned my back on my agent.

I walked out to the pool. Everyone was dressed for summer except Gene, who always looked like a Wall Street banker.

“I have a month and a half off to do nothing but sit in this house and do what I want. I scheduled it. I made it happen. Moved heaven and earth. The mountain came to f*cking Mohammed. And you’re crashing it with what? Who? A girl named Brenda? Brenda?”