Page 17 of Secret Daddies

She hesitated before she responded, clearly not wanting to promise anything that she wouldn’t be able to follow through on.

“We’ll see,” she told him, and she buckled him in. “Just take a breath, sweetie, please. You’re not well…”

She gave me directions to their place, and soon we arrived outside their apartment building—it wasn’t exactly the nicest place, but I guessed that was what she could afford for them, especially if the father wasn’t part of their lives. I felt a twinge of sadness for this little boy, who’d lost out on having a father figure in his life, one way or another. He deserved better than that, better than to just be dumped by the person who was meant to be there for him, no matter what.

As she fussed and got him out of the car, I gently caught Maya’s arm and drew her in close to me. She stared up at me, confused—I noticed, close-up, that her green eyes were marked with little flecks of gold that glistened under the midday sun.

“I can get him in to set, if you like,” I told her quietly, not wanting him to overhear and get too excited if that wasn’t something she wanted to go through with. She frowned at me, shaking her head.

“You don’t need to do that. He’s just excited because?—”

“No, I know,” I replied. “But if he wants to visit for a day, I could make that happen. The studio’ll pretty much let me do whatever I want, as long as I make sure shooting stays on schedule. If he wants to come down for an afternoon, meet the three of us, I could fix it for him.”

A small smile curled up the corners of her lips. I couldn’t help but notice what a cute smile she had—the way it seemed to brighten everything about her, like the clouds had moved and allowed the sun to shine through.

“He would love that,” she admitted, biting her lip. “Let me…let me think about it, okay? I don’t want to say anything to him before I know for sure. And he’ll probably run riot around that set, he’ll be so excited.”

“I have a daughter,” I reminded her. “And I’ve thrown nine birthday parties for her. I know how to handle some overexcited kids.”

She laughed. “Well…thank you,” she murmured, finally. “For helping me out today, I mean. It’s really…it means a lot.”

“Anytime,” I replied, and I meant it. To my surprise, she leaned up and wrapped her arms around me, giving me a tight hug. The smell of her perfume, something light and sweet, briefly clung to me as she pulled back, and I realized in that instant just how long it had been since a woman had hugged me like that.

“See you soon,” she told me, and she took to the stairs to take her son inside. I watched her as she went, the scent of her still filling my senses, before I climbed back into the car and headed back to set. I knew I would have to invent some reason as to why she hadn’t come back with me, but I was happy to cover for her. God only knew how hard it could be in this industry as a singleparent, and if I could help her get through it a little easier, then I would do just that.

And if I could spend a little more time with her in the process? Well, that would just be the cherry on top.

9

MAYA

“You ready, honey?”

As we made our way toward set, I could tell that Matty was practically about to explode with excitement. I was surprised he had managed to contain himself thus far, but the moment we set foot on set, I was expecting him to launch into hyper mode, and I couldn’t blame him.

If I were his age, and on the way to meet some of my favorite movie stars, I was sure I would be just the same way. He had been bugging me nearly nonstop since Taylor had done me a solid and helped me pick him up from school when he was ill, and I knew there was no way he was going to drop it until he got what he wanted.

And honestly—there was a part of me that wanted nothing more than to be able to indulge him. God only knew how little I’d been able to give him over the years, all the things he’d had to miss out on. If I could gift him something as incredible as this, then who was I to argue with it?

Taylor had been the one to get it all set up, clearing a half hour on my day off so Matty could meet Taylor, Lee, and Devon properly—and trust me when I say it was not lost on me that he was going to be meeting his father for the first time, even if neither of them knew it.

I had tried to figure out some way I could do all of this without having to introduce him to Devon, but I couldn’t think of any way to pull it off without making it clear that there was some kind of history between us, and that was the last thing I needed right now. Things had been getting complicated enough as it was with the three guys, and I didn’t want to draw any suspicion that there might be more going on beneath the surface than I had made clear—as far as everyone knew, Devon and I had only just met each other on this set, and I wanted to keep it that way.

Yes, I knew it was reckless, letting Devon meet Matty like this, but I just didn’t have it in me to deny my son the chance. Maybe I wanted Devon to look at this kid and realize that he was his son—I didn’t know what I intended for him to do with that information, exactly, but I would figure that out if the time came. I just needed to see them together, to remind myself that this was real—that he really was his son, and that Devon and I had really had something, even if it felt so far removed from everything going on between us now.

We arrived at the entrance to the closed set, where Nathan, the security guard, was waiting—he was an imposing guy at first glance, but the moment he saw me with Matty, a smile cracked wide over his face.

“You’re here for the visit, right?” he greeted us, leaning down to greet Matty with a playful handshake. Matty pulled back a little behind my legs, clearly not entirely sure how to interact with this giant of a man, but I laughed and nodded.

“Yeah, we are,” I replied. “I think we’re meant to be meeting them in the production trailer. Can we head straight through?”

“Sure thing,” he replied, stepping aside and gesturing for us to head in. I took Matty’s hand, and he hung on to it tight, as though making sure I wasn’t going to go anywhere—he might be excited, but he was nervous too. I couldn’t blame him. All of this could be intimidating when you were new to it, let alone when you were such a fan of the world it was helping to bring to life.

I glanced down at Matty as we made our way toward the production trailer. He was wide-eyed, staring around at everything he could see. People were hurrying past with costumes draped over their shoulders, a few actors were in costume as they hung out near the coffee machine, and the director was deep in conversation with one of the special effects guys near a set that depicted this crazy alien world. I guessed, to Matty, it must look something like magic. To me, it was only work, but I loved catching a glimpse of it through his eyes, a swell of pride rising through me.

“Pretty cool, huh?” I remarked to him, and he nodded, clearly a little too dumbstruck to speak.

I led him through the buzzing set toward the production trailer, which was at the back of the lot, hidden away from most of the chaos. Hardly anyone seemed to notice that I had my son in tow, too caught up in their day-to-day to care much about anything else that was going on, much to my relief. I knew I was getting some seriously special treatment here, with Taylor going out of his way to set this up. There were probably dozens of people who worked here who had kids who would bite their hands off to get a chance to meet the stars, but I was the only one, as far as I knew, who’d actually gotten to do it.

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