Bombshell (Hollywood A-List #1)(67)

He slapped his hands together as if getting the dust off them.

That was a lot of travel for a kid, and his solution solved nothing between us.

I started to object, then remembered my place as far as Nicole went. If he wasn’t harming her or making poor decisions, I didn’t have a thing to say. As far as he and I went, I didn’t have a better solution. So I’d go with him to his parents and then to Thailand, where I’d metamorphose from nanny to “not her nanny.” Nothing. Zip.

“Should we eat first?” I asked, trying to get back to business if not in my mind, at least in my actions.

“We’ll get something on the way.” He smirked at me, gorgeous thing. I never thought it would last, but I never thought it would be so short.

“I’ll pack up.”

I went into my little studio. The bedsheets were wrinkled, and there was a damp spot where my wet hair had been.

I collected my toiletries from the bathroom, swiping the soft soap and little bottle of conditioner.

“Are you all right?” Brad said from the doorway. He’d put on a sports jacket. I didn’t know he even owned a sports jacket.

“Yeah. Confused. But I’ll be all right.”

“What are you confused about?”

I blurted it out, running the words together. “We have about ten days left and then Thailand and then I’m nothing except what I’m not so I don’t want to think it’s me or what just happened here that’s making you leave but I do have to think that.”

He stepped forward, and I held my hand up.

“Don’t.”

“What?”

“Don’t kiss me or anything.”

He took out his phone. “I wanted to show you this away from my daughter.”

STORM IN A TEACUP

It was the headline I’d just seen.

“Scroll,” he said. I put the shampoo down and drew my finger across the glass. A picture of the teacup ride appeared. I was throwing up on Nicole.

I hadn’t ever wanted to see myself in the paper. My perverse imagination built the scenario into the thing I thought about when I wanted to horrify myself. To be flat, oversexualized, called names, and surrounded by strangers who hated me.

Now it was right in front of me. I was in the paper, and laughter was the only appropriate response.

Without sexual connotation it was just funny.

“All right? That’s the reason. I just want to get out of here until this blows over. I mean I know it’s funny, and you can stop laughing now.”

“I can’t. It’s too good.”

“I’m trying to protect you from embarrassment here.”

“I know, I know. I feel like I have no control. I mean—” I waved my hands between us, trying to swat away misunderstanding. “I go where you go because I work for you, and after that what do we call it? And what do we tell Nicole because we can’t say we’re just . . . you know.”

“What happened to the dirty mouth?”

“I’m on duty.”

He pocketed the phone. “We’re going in half an hour.”

I got my stuff together in five minutes and went to Nicole’s room to pack her up. I passed the dining room table so I could text Blakely and let her know I was going to Arkansas.

“Have you seen my phone?” I asked.

Brad and Nicole were on the couch watching a show about cheetahs.

“Nope.” He popped an O in his mouth. “Look in the foyer.”

“I had it here.”

He shrugged.

I figured it was in my bag, and went to Nicole’s room to get her ready to go.





CHAPTER 50


CARA


I was Nicole’s primary caretaker by default, and I was going to be harder to replace than ever.

Sex complicated everything about this. When I was gone, was I really gone? If Brad and I were working toward something, then I’d be around Nicole and the new nannies. Would I have a say in what they did? I’d be the girlfriend. Girlfriends didn’t raise their boyfriends’ children.

This is why you don’t fall in love with kids or daddies or families. This is why I did this in the first place, because I loved children but didn’t get close. And here I was. On a train between stations, going too fast to stop. In the car. To the helipad. Over Orange County. Landing in Santa Monica. Getting on the charter plane.

When the laughter over my teacup ride died down, what would the media say?

Stop worrying.

Nicole looked a little green on the helicopter. I gave her seasickness medicine. We didn’t need two people puking in a day.

Brad focused on Nicole, who regaled us with tales of a land of ponies made of pasta and their queen of tomato sauce. We deduced she was hungry, and I rummaged around the galley for snacks. It was a long flight, and he’d arranged the plane on short notice. We had no attendant and no catering.

“I found some stuff.”

I dumped juice boxes, bags of peanuts and chips, two sugary granola bars, and an apple on the little table between leather couches. Nicole reached for the juice box and held it out for her father, who was sitting across from her.

“Open, please.”

He cracked open the box and pulled out the straw. I sat next to her and handed it over when it was open. Brad pulled open the peanuts, glancing up at me.