Bombshell (Hollywood A-List #1) Read online

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2017 Flip City Media Inc.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Montlake Romance, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Montlake Romance are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781503943544

  ISBN-10: 1503943542

  Cover design by Shasti O’Leary Soudant

  For my daughter.

  If you want to know how incredibly smart, funny, warm, and beautiful you were as a little girl, read this book.

  It’s a love letter to you.

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  CHAPTER 46

  CHAPTER 47

  CHAPTER 48

  CHAPTER 49

  CHAPTER 50

  CHAPTER 51

  CHAPTER 52

  CHAPTER 53

  CHAPTER 54

  CHAPTER 55

  CHAPTER 56

  CHAPTER 57

  CHAPTER 58

  CHAPTER 59

  CHAPTER 60

  CHAPTER 61

  CHAPTER 62

  CHAPTER 63

  CHAPTER 64

  CHAPTER 65

  CHAPTER 66

  CHAPTER 67

  CHAPTER 68

  CHAPTER 69

  CHAPTER 70

  CHAPTER 71

  CHAPTER 72

  EPILOGUE

  EPILOGUE TO THE EPILOGUE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CHAPTER 1

  CARA

  —Wipes. Please say you have wipes—

  —Now—

  The two texts came rapid-fire. Ding ding, really loud in the waiting room. The walls, the floor, the ceiling, and the lighting were hard, cold white, and the sound bounced off them like a gong. The receptionist with the bun and black tailored jacket looked up at me disapprovingly. I made an “I’m sorry” face, then clicked off the sound. The five other well-groomed women in their twenties and thirties ignored me.

  —What’s happening? Where are you?—

  —Hallway ladies room. Bring wipes. I’m out—

  Everything about the text was weird. Why was Blakely in the bathroom? She was supposed to be on the other side of the glass doors, interviewing for a nanny job.

  I smiled at the receptionist as I walked out. She knew me. I’d worked with West Side Nannies for years. I spoke French, navigated private school applications, wiped noses, helped with pre-calc homework, managed ancillary staff, and kept the little ones safe.

  My last job had ended amicably but suddenly. My agent, Laura, shrugged it off and told me she could get me anything. So I made demands. I wouldn’t work for absentee parents. No actors. No celebrities. No Hollywood hangers-on. Just vanilla rich. Or vanilla well-off. Glamour came at too high a price. A nanny didn’t even have to sleep with a daddy to end up on the front page of some rag, and if there was anything that terrified me, it was seeing my face on the magazine racks at the grocery store checkout.

  In an hour she found me something so perfect I nearly fell off my chair. Two gay bankers in Hancock Park. I’d met their son, had coffee at their house, and accepted an offer. I was at the office to sign the contract and keep Blakely company as she sat for her kid-meet with a family who wouldn’t give their name.

  Apparently, the meeting wasn’t going well.

  I could hear the screams and cries of a child from down the hall.

  I knocked softly and the door swung open. I got hit in the face with a wall of poop stink and the teary screams of a little girl.

  Blakely crouched on the tile surrounded by a ring of white-and-brown-streaked wads. The expensive toilet paper disintegrated when it was wet. Her hair had started falling out of her perfectly professional blonde chignon. She turned to me and stuck her hand out, snapping her fingers for the wipes.

  She was an actress first, nanny second. Taking care of Hollywood kids was easier than waitressing, paid very well, came with rent-free housing, and sometimes—if you were lucky—the schedule was flexible enough to audition.

  But she had a hard time finding work these days. Money was getting tight. Blakely had been my first friend in Los Angeles. We’d met at a birthday party and she’d taken me under her wing. So when her name got dragged through the mud, I was the one to grocery shop for her so she could avoid seeing her distorted face at the checkout and I was the one who defended her to the other caretakers at events.

  Now I was going to bring her wipes because it was the least I could do.

  The toilet seat was covered in brown streaks. The little girl standing by the throne with her stained pants around her ankles was crying so hard her face looked like a wet tomato.

  Blakely was holding a wet wad of toilet paper with her fingertips. The door clicked closed behind me. She wiped the little girl’s tears with a disintegrating piece of toilet paper and gently shushed her. The shushing didn’t quiet her. I handed my friend the wipes and wet some overpriced hand towels so I could wipe down the poop.

  “It’s all right,” she said in a gentle-but-firm nanny voice. “We’re going to get you cleaned up in a jiff.” Blakely stood, fell halfway out of her pump, and skidded on a soggy wad of toilet paper and poo, landing on her butt.

  The little girl went from big-fat-tear-weeping to screaming in terror. I stepped over Blakely and kneeled in front of the little girl. I felt my chest expand as soon as I looked at her. My heart swelled and broke a bit. I’d do or say whatever I had to to soothe her.

  “Are you all right?” I asked Blakely in a singsong so the little girl wouldn’t get upset.

  “I think I fell in poop,” Blakely said from behind me. “Yuck. I did.”

  I turned back to the little one.

  “Hi,” I said, hoping she’d hear me through her wailing. “My name is Cara, what’s yours?”

  Blakely interrupted, “Nicole, it’s—”

  “How old are you?” I asked. She snarfled, making a massive effort to get herself together. I’d seen men dig ditches with less struggle. Good kid.

  “F-f-f-f—”


  Blakely broke in. “—Brad Sinclair’s daughter.”

  Talk about grocery store fodder. The A-list Oscar nominee had had a five-year-old from a short fling dumped on his doorstep a week earlier. If I were this kid, I’d shit myself too.

  “Five,” the girl spit out.

  “Five?” I acted surprised and impressed. The fact was, Brad Sinclair’s bodyguards were going to bust in here in a minute and arrest both of us. This girl needed to calm down. “So big! Wow.” I snapped a few wipes from the dispenser and handed them to her. “Do you want to wipe your eyes or can I do it?”

  “You,” she sniffled. I patted her cheeks. News of her had been all over the internet. Notorious Hollywood playboy Brad Sinclair had knocked up a girl six years before, when he was working in a little crystal store in Venice Beach. Right after he got cast in his career-making role. She’d put his name on the birth certificate but never told him. When she died in a freeway accident, the state contacted him, DMZ got wind of it, and no one had been able to talk about anything else for a week.

  “Are you feeling sick in your belly?” I asked.

  She nodded.

  “And your head?”

  “It hurts right here.” She put her hand on the front of her head and moved it back. Top of the head. Not neck. That was good. “And it smells really bad in here.”

  Her face screwed up. She was about to cry again.

  “You’re right,” I said. “It does. Should we clean up a little?”

  “Yes, please!”

  The mother, whoever she was, had raised her well so far.

  Blakely cut in, “I have an audition in an hour.” She tossed the wad of paper in the toilet.

  “You smell like a colon.” I looked at my watch. “And you don’t have time to get home and shower.” I pointed to the seat and addressed the little girl. “Hey, great job cleaning up. My name is Cara. Do you want to tell me your name?”

  She shook her head. Her face had gone from red to pink to normal, revealing brown eyes big as cups of black coffee and thin eyebrows. Her coloring was nothing like Sinclair’s, but the lines and planes of her face were so similar, she could have been his clone.

  “That’s all right. You don’t have to tell me. Let me see what we have back here.” She bent over in the shameless way of children so I could see that the backs of her thighs were covered in brown stink.

  “Not so bad,” I said. “Blakely, can you toss these and grab me a fresh one?” I handed her the wad, keeping my eyes on the child. “This is a nice shirt. Who is this?” I pointed to a pink horse with kitten ears.

  “Pony Pie. Her nature symbol is joy.”

  “We could use some of that.”

  “We could,” Blakely said, handing me a wipe. “But this sweetheart really is a joy. Just having a hard day.” She leaned forward to make eye contact with the girl and winked. Nicole wiped her nose with her sleeve.

  “I agree,” I said. I got to work on the girl’s bottom while Blakely wiped down the bathroom.

  Blakely whispered, “I’ll never make it home to shower and get to Culver City in—”

  She gulped her words back when there was a hard knock on the door.

  “Blakely Anderson?” a male voice barked from the other side. My friend and I looked at each other.

  “We’re in here,” I called.

  A key slipped in the lock and the door slapped open, revealing two huge guys in dark shirts with radios squawking. The little one started screaming again, stamping her feet in poop streaks.

  “Close the door close the door close the door,” she shrieked. Blakely threw her hands up. The guys came for the girl, who was getting more upset by the millisecond.

  What I should have done was step back and let them take her, shitstains and all. I would have had far less trouble. But I didn’t have time to think it through. The bathroom was small, the guys were big, and the girl sounded irrevocably hurt and upset. I didn’t have cerebral cortex time. Only lizard brain time.

  I stood up with my hands out.

  “Stop!”

  They stopped. I had three seconds to talk over her screams.

  “This little girl is upset because she’s dirty. You two taking her out of here like this is going to make it worse so—”

  My three seconds were up. Guy number one pushed me out of the way while guy number two picked her up under the arms just as she kicked off her stained pants, shoe landing in filth, ear-splitting screams. Blakely stood in the hall feverishly talking to someone. My heart fell apart for the little stinker.

  “Whoa, whoa!” A male voice echoed above the din. “Can we all chill out for a second?”

  Everyone froze except the child, who was upset past obedience.

  In the doorway stood my agent, Laura, and Brad Sinclair. But honestly, Laura was a footnote to his presence. We all were.

  I was used to celebrities and actors. Star power had no effect on me anymore.

  But he was different.

  Burgundy button-down and jeans. Blue eyes and brown hair that needed a brush. Six-two-ish. A jawline that may or may not have been geometrically possible. Sure. Those were all words that described what I saw, and I could have come up with a hundred more the next day.

  But at that moment, with his shoulders filling the doorframe and Laura behind him, clutching a folder, he wasn’t just a collection of perfectly fine features. He was action and motion. He projected himself outward, emanating heat. My ears turned red. Half a second turned to minutes. He was the hurricane and the eye of it. A constellation of angles and planes that curled around the world and complemented it.

  Get a hold of yourself.

  He was just stunning. One of a thousand like him.

  Maybe a hundred.

  A dozen.

  Fine. You could count the number of men that gorgeous on one finger.

  “Mr. Sinclair,” I said, giving him my most authoritative tone. “There’s no way out of here besides that door. I’m not going to take her. Just let me clean her up and bring her back.”

  “Who are you?”

  I had to shout over the nonstop loop of the girl’s screams. “My name is Cara DuMont. I was nanny to Ray Heywood’s kids.”

  He knew Ray. Everyone knew Ray. Brad looked me up and down as if taking stock of my soul. I continued. “I’m not here for the job. But she’s upset. I’m fingerprinted and background checked, and I’m not afraid of a little poop on the floor.”

  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 fucking 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 fucking 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.”