Page 15 of Secret Daddies

I was trying to find a way to make it so he didn’t have to do all that for me, but I was coming up with a stone-cold blank. If I didn’t take him up on this, then there would be no way for me to get Matty out of school. And it wasn’t as though anyone on set was going to fight with me if one of the stars had been the one to suggest it. This was about the only way I was going to get away with sneaking out of here without landing myself in more trouble than I could handle.

“Yes,” I replied, dropping my chin to my chest. I wished I didn’t have to rely on anyone else for this, but I didn’t see what damn choice I had in the matter, not when I knew my son needed me. “Yes, that would be great.”

He rose to his feet. “Come on, I have my car waiting outside.” He pushed open the door to the trailer for me. “I’ll le them know that I’m going to be away for a hot minute.”

“They’re not going to get mad at you? At us…?”

“They might,” he replied, but he flashed me a grin. “But it’s not like they can kick me off, is it?”

I managed a small, shaky laugh, despite the situation.

“I guess so,” I agreed. And with that, I followed Taylor out of the trailer, thanking my lucky stars that I’d landed work with someone who totally understood where I was coming from.

8

TAYLOR

I could tellMaya was worried, as she sat in the passenger seat beside me—she kept glancing out of the window, drumming her fingers on her knee, her eyes scanning the streets as though she might see her little boy wandering alone out there at any second.

“He’s going to be fine,” I told her gently, and she jumped, her head whipping around to face me.

“I—I know,” she replied, clearing her throat and trying to gather herself. “It’s just…it’s just him and me at home, you know? And I worry about him. I worry that I’m not doing enough.”

I grimaced. That was an all-too-familiar sentiment, at least when it came to my life. Ever since Emily and I had split up, and I’d been left with Martha, I felt like I couldn’t do right for doing wrong. Every choice I made, I found myself second-guessing it a thousand times over, my mind reeling with all the ways this could go wrong, with all the ways I could blame myself.

“You are,” I told her. “Trust me. You are.”

She peered at me for a moment, probably able to sense that there was more to what I was telling her than just mere comfort.

“Is it just you at home with your daughter too?”

I nodded. “Yeah. Just me.”

She let out a whistle through her teeth.

“Damn, I have a hard enough time handling everything just being a makeup artist,” she remarked. “I can’t imagine how you balance it, being a whole movie star.”

I chuckled slightly.

“Well, I have some help,” I replied. “I’ve got some staff who do what they can to make life easier for me.”

“Some staff? As in, multiple?” she exclaimed.

I nodded. “I have to. Only way to keep on top of everything, unless I want to start bringing Martha to set.”

“I guess,” she agreed, furrowing her brow slightly. “And you don’t—you don’t want anyone to know about her, right?”

I shook my head. “Not if I can help it.”

“Why so?”

“Because I know that she’ll have a hard enough time having a normal life as it is,” I replied. “And I don’t want to make that any more difficult for her than it already is.”

“That’s really sweet,” she mused. “You sound like a good dad.”

“I try.”

“Is her mom around?” she asked, and then she shook her head, wincing as soon as the question was out of her mouth. “I’m sorry, that’s none of my business…”

---