Bombshell (Hollywood A-List #1)(92)

He put the phone to his ear. Security found us. Radios squawked and sharp voices called off the search. Travelers dropped their suitcases to take pictures of us, and I was concerned about Nicole’s reaction. She had her cheek on her father’s shoulder.

I was going to suggest he get out of the way of the impromptu paparazzi, but the knee-jerk fear of exposure got very far away when I heard who he was calling.

“Gene,” he said into the phone. “You sitting? . . . Good, because you’re about to fire me.”

What the heck?

“I’m not doing Bangkok Brotherhood.”

“Brad!” I shouted louder than I intended.

He winked at me. Was he joking?

“Never . . . yes, I’m sure. I tried, but I’m not dragging my family onto a movie set right now. I need time to get to know my daughter.”

“You can’t!” I said, probably echoing his agent’s sentiments. “It’s a hundred-million-dollar movie! They can’t shoot it without you! You’ll—”

“—never work again,” he said into the phone and to me at the same time. “I can live on what I have for the rest of my life. I don’t care . . . No,” he said, stopping himself. Nicole looked up at him and their eyes met. “I do care.”

He took the phone away from his ear and held it up for me.

“—the studio? They won’t even make the bond. Overland is going to make sure you’re over. Do you know what over means? You won’t get a line in community theater in Buttf*ck—”

I grabbed the phone before Nicole heard any more foul language.

“Hello?”

“Who the f*ck is this?”

“This is Cara.”

“That answers nothing. Nothing. Whoever you are, you’re standing next to nobody. He’s flipping burgers in three months. Three weeks.”

“Wait—”

Brad snapped the phone out of my hands. “And tell Roger his project is a maybe. Me going to a shoot in Argentina during the school year isn’t happening. I’m reassessing all my future projects against how it affects my daughter.”

He held the phone to his ear as Gene ranted and raved, but Nicole was telling him a secret in his other ear, and he seemed to be listening to that with real interest.

“Why don’t you ask her?” he said.

Nicole nodded.

“Miss Cara?”

“Yes, Nicole?”

“Are you coming with us?”

“Where are we going?”

We both looked at Brad.

“We’ll talk later, Gene.” With that he hung up the phone and looked from me to Nicole and back. “Where do you want to go?”

Nicole shrugged and looked to me for corroboration.

I didn’t know what to say or think. His agent had said it all. He’d sunk his career with a phone call. “You’re freaking me out.”

“Kinda freaked myself out,” he said. “But I lost everything today and got it back. I might not be so lucky next time.”

“Mr. Sinclair,” the gray-haired security guy said, “your flight is boarding.”

“Wherever you go,” I said, “I’ll go with you. But I’m confused.”

“Well,” he said, lifting Nicole onto his shoulders. He held her ankles, and she covered his eyes. “Why not take a family vacation in Thailand? I hear it’s nice and relaxing. Away from it all.”

“We need to renegotiate our agreement,” I said, moving Nicole’s hand off his eye. He leaned down and kissed me. I let him.

I let Nicole see it because I wasn’t going anywhere. She could depend on us. Not me. Not Brad, but us. I was there, with her, with him, forever.





CHAPTER 72


CARA


“How do you fly to heaven if you’re old?” Nicole asked. This latest salvo in her attack of unanswerable questions had started as soon as she got up in the morning. “Does someone come and fly you?”

Actually, the barrage had begun the moment we entered the monastery with men in saffron robes. She’d tapped a little gong at sunrise and asked questions we couldn’t even answer for ourselves.

“What is exist and not exist?”

You try explaining what “exist” means to a five-year-old.

“Her grandpa’s not gonna like it,” Brad said over breakfast on the patio. There always seemed to be chimes and bells in the little Buddhist resort.

“He’s going to be thrilled.” I sipped my tea. Little sticks swam at the bottom of the cup. I missed coffee. “He can answer all these questions the way a good Southern Baptist would. She’ll believe her grandparents. Trust me.”

Milton was about to have a month to revel in his lovely granddaughter too. We were spending all of August in Arkansas. Then we were back to Los Angeles, and reality. Nicole would be off to school, her father would be unemployable, and her nanny would be in limbo.

“Is there a last number?” Nicole asked, lining up sweet dates and picking them off one by one as she counted them.

“One,” Brad said. “The last number is one.”

She screwed her eyebrows into a knot and tightened her lips.

“No,” she said. “Not one. That’s first.”