Bombshell (Hollywood A-List #1)(31)

They’d forgive me because I was like them. No matter what I said, the thought of that bothered me. I’d worked too hard to be better. Do better. Make more of myself.

And I didn’t care what they thought—but I did.

I couldn’t pull it apart. I was getting tense. I hated being tense.

“What’s on your f*cked-up brain, Brad?” Arnie asked after missing the seven. I’d taken too long to think about it.

“I forgot your birthday,” I said.

“It’s tomorrow.”

I leaned down to take my shot.

“Party, then. Right here.” Sunk the seven. “But swear, Arnie. You keep your hands off the help.”

“On my honor, dude.”

I nearly laughed out loud.

Nicole’s voice came from the kitchen as she ran into the billiards room.

“Daddy!” She said the word like a demand, both feet planted. She had an open blue Sharpie in one hand as if she’d been in the middle of drawing.

“Yeah, sweetheart?”

“Miss Blakely says we got invited to Sam and Bonnie’s?”

It took me a second to remember Sam and Bonnie were two of Mike and Laine’s kids.

“If she says so.”

“I want to wear the suit with the flower right here.” She pointed to her neck, getting a blue dot on her chin. Arnie laughed and bent over the table. I put the pool cue down.

“Can I have that?” I held my hand out for the marker. She twisted her whole body to keep it away from me. “Nicole. Sharpie doesn’t come out. Give it to me.”

She pursed her lips and held her chin out like a weapon. Did she get that stubborn pride from my side or Brenda’s? I’d never know.

“Do you need help?” Blakely asked from the doorway, reaching for the marker. “If you take it, the waa-mbulance is going to pull up.”

I held my hand out to stop her. “I got it.” Flipping my hand around, I put it out to my daughter. “The pen. If you want to wear the bathing suit with the flower right here.” I poked where she’d left the blue dot. She softened a little, but not much.

“Miss Cara and Miss Blakely hid it.”

Blakely cut in. “It’s a size eight. It looks like a shopping bag on her.”

“I grew!” she shot back at her nanny before turning to me and holding her hand up as far as it would go, the Sharpie wedged between thumb and forefinger. “I’m so big. So so big.”

Behind me, I heard clacking balls and the hollow sound of one of them sinking. I lost interest in nine-ball and Arnie. I just wanted to see how big that suit was.

“Okay, big girl. Give me the marker and let’s go take a look at the suit.”

“Pinkie promise I can wear it.”

I held my pinkie out and Nicole hooked hers over mine. How bad could it be?

She passed me the marker and I gave it to Blakely.

“Nice work negotiating the hostage, sir,” she said, snapping the cap on.

I winked at her and took Nicole to her room. I went to her dresser, but Cara and Blakely were lousy at hiding things, because Nicole knew exactly where the bathing suit was. She scrambled under her bed and pulled out a blue zip-up bag with a handle.

“It’s in here.” Pulling the zipper around the top, she opened the flap. I recognized all the things my parents had bought before they met her and figured out her size. Too big. Too small. Wrong color. Wrong cartoon.

Kneeling next to the bag, she stuck one hand deep into it, wiggled, and came up with a pink, white, and blue one-piece with a poufy three-dimensional flower at the neck.

“This one. See the flower? I want this one. It’s not too big.”

I held it up.

“It’s fu—” I caught myself. “It’s huge.”

“It is not.” She snapped it away and stood so she could put it up against herself. The leg holes were halfway down to her knees. I took a closer look at it. It hadn’t been in the stuff my parents bought. I’d remember.

“Where did you get it?” I asked.

“Mom bought it for me on sale. She said I could wear it.”

Nicole hadn’t come with much. A plastic bag with Pony Pie and some clothes. I’d never inventoried what was in the bag, but at that point, I would have let her wear a size-eleven men’s shoe if it came out of that bag. It had been all she had, and I wasn’t going to deny her a single item.

“Well, if your mom thinks it’s all right, I guess we’ll figure it out.”

She clapped and jumped up and down, then flung herself around me, squeezing for all it was worth.

“Mommy said I had a nice daddy! She said it and she knew it and I knew it!”

“Oh, she did?” I sat on the bed, ready to hear more.

“She did!” She put her hands on my cheeks and pressed in. “She said you were nice.”

The worst word in the English language. I didn’t remember if Brenda was subtle enough to know that nice could be a compliment or an insult. I didn’t remember anything about her besides her smile.

“What else did she say about Daddy?”

“You lived far away and you were the handsomest.”

Harmless little lies. Right? But inside them, I wondered if Brenda thought I was unfit to raise Nicole, and wanted nothing to do with me because I wasn’t stable enough. She would have been right. She’d been right about a lot and still, I didn’t know her.