Page 35 of Love Felt Like This

“Don’t you control what he says?”

“Absolutely not,” she says. “He has a mind of his own.”

Beverly might be one of the more fascinating people I’ve ever met.

“So,” she says. “How long do we hide from the paparazzi for?”

I almost forgot about that. The man at the restaurant seems so inconsequential now.

I’m leaving town. I’m going somewhere new—somewhere secluded—where I can write and explore and be with my daughter.

Goose bumps shiver down my forearms. I clench my fists tighter together.

Beverly needs to know about Ava sooner rather than later. Realistically, I should get her to sign an NDA first, but Beverly doesn’t seem like the NDA-required type. Jimmy will kill me for ignoring paperwork, but Jimmy won’t be around the next few weeks—or months, who knows—to chastise me anyway.

“You should know something,” I say.

“About the paparazzi?”

“No, about me.”

“All right…” she says, her tone shifting into skepticism.

“When I go, I won’t be alone.”

Her lips dip into a frown.

“You’re seeing someone,” she announces so matter-of-factly that just the idea has my heart sinking.

“I have a daughter.”

Her head jerks back, as if the sentence bumped into her.

“Oh” is all I get. Those blond eyelashes flutter; then she squints. “Wait, you’re a dad?”

“Nobody knows.” I hop down off the counter and take a tentative step forward. “Nobody, Beverly.” I don’t miss the slight shiver in her shoulders at me saying her name as I come close to towering over her. Maybe I’m intimidating her, so I halt mid-step. “My daughter means the world to me. And you can’t tell anyone, understand?”

“I would never,” she says plainly.

“I know.” I don’t know, but I have a feeling.

Ava and I haven’t met someone new as a team since she arrived in LA one year ago. It’s always Ava with the nanny. Never Ava and Griffin Harvey. It can never be that way. So this—this confession—steels my nerves and makes every passing second feel like a heated spotlight over my head.

Did I make the wrong decision?

Would Robin be upset?

Beverly focuses on me again. Her green eyes are always searching. I don’t like how she looks like a surgeon with a scalpel, cutting apart to find the core of me.

She stands up, and her hand shoots out toward mine. “I promise I’ll keep it our secret. I’ll shake on it.”

Her eyes are hardened, and it might be the most serious I’ve seen her so far.

I reach out to engulf her hand in mine. The tips of her fingers are rougher than I expect as she shakes my hand with vigor.

“I promise,” she repeats.

Without thinking, I nod and say exactly what she’s said to me so far: “Okay.”