Page 2 of Single Mom's Bodyguards
I should feel beautiful here. Or at least powerful.
Instead, I feel…exposed.
“You look stunning, Bailey.” The voice doesn’t come from behind me. It slices in from the side—too casual, too smooth, too female.
Nothim. Just my agent.
I exhale, turning to face Mira in her wide-leg pantsuit and designer sneakers, sunglasses still perched on her head even though the sun’s mostly gone. Her hair’s buzzed on the sides, a short platinum crown curled tightly on top. She’s the only person here I trust not to lie to me.
“Thanks,” I say. “I’m held together with tape and prayers.”
She chuckles and offers me her champagne. “One sip won’t kill you.”
I take it. Not because I want it, but because I need something to ground me.
“How are the kids?” she asks, voice dropping to something warmer.
“Sleeping, hopefully. Jessica said Eli had another bad dream last night, but he got through it.”
“Good. And you?”
I hand the glass back and try to smile. “It’s a party. I’m in a push-up bra. I’m living the dream.”
Mira narrows her eyes. “You look like you’re bracing for impact.”
Because I am.
I don’t say it. But I scan the crowd again anyway, eyes skimming over men in sharp lapels, women in slinky gowns, the sea of polished smiles and carefully curated drama.
“Oh, you know. Living the dream.”
“You said that.” Mira raises a sculpted brow. “Are you okay?”
I don’t see him. But Ifeelhim. The memory of him. Like a hand hovering too close to my throat. Instinctively, I gulp, preparing to speak, but?—
“Bailey,” Mira says gently, “if you want to leave?—”
“No.” I straighten my shoulders. “I need this. The producers are here. And so is Maggie Laramie.”
Mira doesn’t argue. She knows I’ve been circling the Laramie project for months—a courtroom drama with an actual role worth chewing on. Not a girlfriend. Not a mom who dies in act one. A woman with rage and complexity and a spine.
“You deserve it,” she says. “You’ve worked your ass off.”
And I have. For years, I let David tell me I didn’t. That I got things because I was “so curvy they couldn’t say no.” As if that’s ever helped anyone in Hollywood. He said that I was “lucky” to even be cast next to men who could buy and sell me. Lucky, he said.
When I met David, my luck didn’t go good or bad. It twisted. He made me feel small, then punished me when I fought to be seen. But that was the old me. I see myself now. I do. Even when the old fears crawl up my ribs like vines.
I shake off the old memories. “I’ll do a few photos, make a pass through the garden, and then sneak out the back.”
Mira knows enough about what happened with David not to question me too hard when I clam up. “I’ll keep the wolves at bay.”
I leave her near the bar and head toward the hedge wall, where the lights are softer and the photographers mostly bored. The PR intern appears again, camera ready this time, asking me to pose by a blooming orange tree. I give her what she wants. Chin up. Lips parted. Hands on hips like I’m daring someone to underestimate me.
She thanks me breathlessly and hurries away.
I stay a moment longer, breathing in the citrus. Trying to let it soothe me. It almost works. Until I hear it.
The laugh.Thatlaugh.
