Page 4 of Secret Daddies

“I can’t travel?—”

“You won’t have to,” she replied smoothly. “It’s in the city. Most of it, at least. What they’ll need you for, you won’t have to leave the county. Swear.”

She held her hand up in a scouts-honor salute.

“And what about the pay? Is it going to be enough for Matty and me?”

“Oh, yeah,” she replied, with a grin. “You should see what these studios pay—it’s crazy. You get a stipend up front and then hourly after the fact if you have to work outside your assigned hours. It’s more than enough.”

I drummed my fingers on the table before me. I didn’t know if this was a good idea—if this was all too good to be true, or if I should be more careful about the way I moved forward with this.

“Matty’s gotten used to me at home,” I countered. “I don’t want to screw up his routine like that.”

Lana pressed her lips together for a moment, and then reached across the table and gave my hand a squeeze.

“Hey,” she murmured. “I know you love that little boy. I love him too, babe. But you know as well as I do that you’re never going tobe happy just staying at home all day, giving up on the career you dreamed about for so long, are you?”

I chewed my lip. I wanted to argue with her, but I knew she was right. She’d seen the passion I had at the start of my career, how excited I was about this job. How I’d slowly, slowly had to let go of so much of that passion for the sake of getting through a tough pregnancy, and then moving to the city, and then supporting Matty in those first few years. But I missed it—God, I missed it—the rush and thrill of the set, the sense that you were in the midst of something so exciting and so fresh. Like you were in the front seat of a ride that could take you anywhere in the world, and you got to be a part of it.

“I know,” I admitted. “And I appreciate you thinking of me, I do. I just…I don’t think any major studio would want to work with a single mom like me. We’re not exactly known to be reliable.”

“Well, the good news is, you don’t have to tell them every person who’s come out of your womb at the first interview,” she teased lightly. I couldn’t help but laugh.

“Hey, I’ve been out of the game for a while,” I joked. “I don’t know what’s normal these days.”

“Well, I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt, that’s not,” she assured me. I reached for my coffee and took a long sip, trying to put off what I knew she was going to say next—but just my luck, Lana cared about me way too much to let it drop there.

“I’m not saying you have to do this,” she told me gently. “And I’m not saying that I’ll think any less of you if you don’t. But I know how passionate you are about this work, and I know how good you are at it too. And this is about as perfect a position as you’re going to get. So just…think about it, okay?”

“I will,” I promised her, and I meant it. “Thanks, Lana. I—it’s really kind of you to put my name forward like that.”

“Just wait until you see everything else I’ve signed you up for,” she shot back, kicking me lightly beneath the table. “You might not be thanking me then.”

“Oh God, don’t tell me there’s another blind dating night coming up…?”

“No. After the way the last one went, you have my blessing to steer clear of those things for the rest of your life,” she replied, pulling a face. The two of us had made a few attempts to get out into the dating scene, but none of them had come to much—usually, we’d end up back at my place, giggling over a bottle of wine and trying to keep our voices down so we didn’t wake up Matty.

Before I could say another word, I felt my phone buzzing in my pocket. I reached in and snatched it out, my heart skipping a beat in my chest. I always worried when I got a call in the middle of the day, thinking it was going to be Matty’s school or something, telling me something awful had happened.

Instead, it was from a number I had never seen before. I stared down at it for a moment, confused, and Lana leaned over from the other side of the table to see what was going on.

“Oh my God!” she exclaimed. “It’s them! It’s the studio!”

“Holy shit,” I muttered. “You’re sure?”

“I know it,” she replied, scrabbling in her pocket to pull out her phone and show me. “See? They called me on this number to organize my interview. Answer it, Maya!”

I stared down at the screen a moment longer. Was I really going to do this? It felt crazy. Dangerous, almost. Picking up that phone, it might change everything—it might throw everything I knew about my life into chaos. Or, I might be rejected, because of the huge gap in my resume, and I wouldn’t be able to delude myself any longer into believing I could ever come back to this business after so long away…

The phone continued to ring. Another couple rings, and they would give up. And probably call someone else instead. If I wanted this job, then I had to snatch up this call right the hellnow.

Before I could stop myself, I answered the call.

“Hi,” I greeted the person on the other end of the line, as Lana triumphantly punched the air on the other side of the table. “This is Maya Simmons…”

3

MAYA

---