Bombshell (Hollywood A-List #1)(6)

“I’ll try—”

“No maybe. Yes or no.”

“Yes, okay? Yes.”

Nicole nodded as if telling herself it was true. I’d said yes. Then she rested her head on my mother’s shoulder again.

Next to me, my father covered his eyes and shook his head.





CHAPTER 3


CARA


The morning after we met Brad Sinclair he was still embedded in my mind. I couldn’t get away from thinking about him in that bathroom doorway. He was a dude. A party animal. A f*ckaround.

“I don’t think I’m getting a callback,” Blakely said as we climbed a particularly dusty incline on Griffith Park. “I was ten minutes late.”

“But you smelled nice.”

She shook her head, swinging her ponytail back and forth.

“Can’t film a smell. But the face?” She drew her hand over her face as if she were on the floor at the Los Angeles Auto Show. “This face is instantly recognizable as the woman stupid enough to fall for Josh Trudeau.”

“Everyone forgot that.”

I was lying. No one forgot it. She’d forever be the face of a nanny who fell for a daddy. Fresh from the supermarket headcap.

“And I don’t think I got the Sinclair job either,” she said after swigging from her bottle. “Which, maybe it’s a good thing.”

It had started getting hot earlier in the day, so Blakely and I wanted to finish the hike up the hill by nine a.m. The mountain sloped and curved up to Dante’s Peak, a copse of trees smoked out but not destroyed in the 2008 fires.

“It’s kind of a disaster,” I said. “The surprise kid? Nothing good can come of it. You can tell he’s trying though.”

“He has no choice.”

“And what they say about him?” I said between gasps for oxygen, continuing as if I hadn’t heard her. “All true. It’s like so raw. The presence.”

“I thought he was shorter.” Blakely sucked on her water bottle. Her blonde ponytail swung behind her. She looked gorgeous even after two miles uphill. My bangs were plastered to my forehead, and my eyes were wet from the dust.

“Too good-looking to work for,” I said, getting out of the way of a woman in a tight leotard and her dog. “And straight. Too straight.”

“I know. And inexperienced. He’d probably think he was entitled to it.”

“Too risky. I pity the girl he hires.”

I shook my head. Brad Sinclair was a tabloid headline waiting to happen.

“I hope you get to pity me. I need the money.”

I nodded. He wasn’t going to hire her. He’d get talked out of it by anyone who cared about his reputation. After her affair with Josh Trudeau she became the nanny equivalent of box office poison. The rumor mill never stopped churning.

Raymond, my last boss, had cut me loose before the rumor mill had a chance to churn. We hadn’t done anything, but when he got engaged to Kendall, she wasted no time turning me into a problem. Executive powers came with the engagement ring. Her first order was that the other pretty woman in the house had to go. I was young and cute, and you don’t bring a time bomb into your home.

And that’s exactly what a celebrity nanny is. Not only is she attractive but she’s great with the kids. She does all the things the dad associated with his normal upbringing, which is likely the upbringing he promised himself he was going to give his children.

The nanny represents that failed promise. She kisses boo-boos, packs lunches, cooks what the children like, and sits to eat with them. His wife is usually in the business as well, and travels, works all hours, and manages a business team as well as the household team. She represents all the dad’s failures as a father, because she’s juggling everything but the children.

There were plenty of men who didn’t fall for the high-priced, educated, young, beautiful nanny, but there were plenty who did. You could read all about them while your food was on the conveyor belt at the grocery store. It happened so often it was surprising when it didn’t.

Despite Raymond’s numerous failings as a father and human being, he never hit on me. He never even looked at me cockeyed. I appreciated that, and as time went on I took it for granted. He was based in Los Angeles because he owned a conglomerate of internet and paper tabloids that fed off the very people he called friends. But because he wasn’t a celebrity himself, I could get him when the kids needed him, he respected what I did, and I loved Willow and Jedi.

“You had such a sweet deal with Raymond Heywood,” Blakely said, voice rising and falling with her gait.

“Yeah. I guess. But two gay bankers? This new family is even better. They aren’t interested in seducing women, they have no travel schedules, there are no paparazzi out front.”

“Yeah. You lucked out.”

She said it ruefully, and I understood why. She’d been caught with Josh Trudeau by his wife. Marsha Trudeau had recorded them from the bedroom closet and posted the video on YouTube. It was a mess. Blakely’s career came to an abrupt halt, but the damage to her heart was worse. She didn’t know he was a serial cheater. She’d confused a busy husband and wife with a failing marriage. She’d believed everything Josh had said and let herself fall in love. He was never going to leave his wife. They rarely do.