Page 27 of Secret Daddies

“They look like the ones Lee wears.”

My heart dropped. How the fuck did she know that? I burbled out an answer as soon as I could. “Oh, uh, I guess we must buy from the same brand then?—”

“No, Denim Central made him his own collection, when he was modeling for them. They had this…” She jabbed at a leather label that hung over the edge of my jeans—I crammed it back inside, hiding it as best I could.

“Maybe he dumped them in a thrift store or something,” I offered weakly, praying it would be enough to throw them off the scent. But I knew better than to really believe that. When people here caught wind of any gossip, that was it—they would hang on to it for dear life, and everyone would hear about the fact that I was wearing Lee’s jeans when I turned up late for work this morning. Shit—I couldn’t have made it more obvious…

Taylor cleared his throat, mercifully, and I turned my attention to him, glad for the distraction.

“Sorry to keep you waiting, Taylor,” I told him, and he offered me a slight smile in return.

“No problem.”

The rest of the artists scattered to let me get to work, and I set about putting on Taylor’s face for the day. Honestly, I was glad for the distraction from the mess of thoughts in my mind—I was sure everyone would have a million questions for me about Lee as soon as they got the chance to ask them, and the thought of having to deflect them and avoid scrutiny about my love life was already exhausting me.

I tried to keep focused on my work, but Taylor was staring at me as I applied the product. I could tell he wanted to come out and ask me if what he’d heard was true, but he seemed to sense that I wasn’t ready to talk about it. Thank God. I didn’t know what I would tell him, if he came out and asked to know the truth. I felt like he would judge me if he knew that I’d hooked up with Lee, even though I would be far from the first person to do so—and shit, maybe he thought I had some kind of fetish for the leading men in these movies and would worry that he’d be at the other end of my attraction next.

My mind flicked back to what Lana had said to me, teasing me about getting the whole set. Taylor honestly seemed like too much of a gentleman to do anything like that, especially given that he had his daughter to think about.

“Sorry, just let me…” I murmured, leaning past him to grab a sponge from the other side of the table. As I did so, the leather label popped loose from where I’d tried to hide it, and I dropped everything as I scrabbled to cram it back inside.

I could see Taylor smirking out of the corner of my eye, and I glanced around at him, my cheeks burning. “You’re not going to ask about?—”

“Hey, what you get up to on your own time is none of my business,” he replied, flashing me a grin. “But you might want to do a better job covering your ass next time. Literally and figuratively.”

I rolled my eyes at him, but I couldn’t help but laugh. Thank God. He didn’t seem to be judging me for what had happened, and God only knew how much I needed that right now. People would follow the lead of the stars of the movie, and if he treated it as a nothing-burger, then hopefully everyone else would too.

I got back to work on him, double-checking that the label was well and truly tucked inside my jeans. I’d have to return them to Lee soon enough—and hopefully when I did, he’d have as much fun taking them off as we’d had with my dress last night.

14

TAYLOR

“You have a good day, babygirl,”I told Martha, dropping down on my haunches before her and pulling her into a hug. She wrapped her arms around me and squeezed me tight, and I scooped her off the floor and spun her around. She giggled, clinging on to me for dear life, the same as she did every morning in this little ritual we’d had going since she first started school.

“You can’t drive me there?” she asked me, raising her eyebrows hopefully. I sighed and ruffled her hair.

“You know I would love to, Marths,” I replied. “But Karen is going to take you, okay? I’ll see you this evening.”

She pulled a face, but turned to follow my nanny outside to the car. I stood in the doorway and waved them both off, before I made my way into the house to get ready for my own pickup in an hour or so’s time.

No matter how many times I did this little routine, I found myself wishing I could be the one to take her to school, like every other parent. Hardly anyone at Sunnyvale Elementary even knew that I was her father, and I knew that was for the best—Iwanted her to have as normal a life as she could, and that wasn’t going to happen if people knew who I was. I was still getting used to it, the reality of having this level of stardom. Even if I couldn’t wrap my head around it, the rest of the world had, and I’d do well to catch the hell up.

I headed upstairs for a shower, putting some music on the speakers to fill the house with some noise. Ever since everything that had happened with Emily, I’d hated the quiet in here—it was like it was heavy with the reminders of everything she’d done, with the silence that had existed between us when things started falling apart. I could remember way too many tense, quiet mornings when she had been out with her friends and failed to make it home, waiting in the living room, waiting for her to come back and lie to me about what she had been doing and who she had been with.

As I stepped into the shower, I tipped my head back and let the water rush over my body. I tried not to think about her, when I could avoid it. Not like she was part of my life, or Martha’s for that matter, and I intended to keep it that way. No, she had made her decision, running off with her other man across the state to start a new life with him, and I wasn’t going to go chasing her. She’d chosen to leave her daughter, and I wouldn’t force a relationship on her if she didn’t want it. Martha was a smart kid, and I knew she’d be able to tell if her mom didn’t want to spend time with her. I never wanted her to feel that same kind of rejection that I had, and as far as I knew, I had protected her from that as much as was possible.

And Martha seemed to be thriving as she worked her way through elementary and toward middle school. I couldn’t believe how big she had gotten, how smart and how bright—she was part of the soccer team, and she played the piano, and she hada bunch of friends who she was always telling me about. They didn’t visit the house, of course, but she was always out at sleepovers and birthday parties, and she’d give me the rundown like she was a newspaper reporter the next day. I loved hearing about it.

I had never imagined that I’d be a single dad—nobody does, when they choose to have a baby with someone. When Emily got pregnant, I should have known, even then, that she wasn’t entirely convinced that she wanted this life for herself. If it wasn’t for how enthusiastic I had been, I doubted Martha would have been born at all.

And Emily had played at the dutiful girlfriend and mother for a while, at least while my career had really been getting off the ground. I’d taken on most of the childcare where I could, but when I was called away to work in another city, she had to step up—and that was where the problems started.

She didn’t really want to be a mom, she wanted to have fun with her friends, not to be tied down to anyone in particular. But the problem was, she loathed the thought of someone seeing her as anything less than perfect. So she put up the front of being this loving, dedicated parent, even as she handed Martha off to staff or foisted her on me instead of looking after her when she had free time. She’d post all these pictures on social media, talking about how much she adored her daughter, while she was out drinking and flirting with random guys she met at bars. It drove me crazy, the gap between what she let people believe she was and the person she really happened to be.

And of course, eventually it snapped, and she couldn’t keep up the act any longer. She took off with hardly a second word to me, with some real estate agent who I’d never heard about before, moving to a new town to start her life over, and telling me notto contact her ever again. Probably because she couldn’t stand the thought of me knowing who she really was—a cheat, a liar, an asshole all-round. I was better off without her, though it was hard for me to believe that in the first year or so after she left.

But that had been nearly half a decade ago now, and she had shown no signs of trying to come sloping back into our world, so I’d built a life for Martha and me that I was proud of. She was thriving, and that was all that mattered to me. My career was doing well enough that I’d be able to secure pretty much any future she wanted, along with any help or staff I needed to keep things ticking over here.

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