“Trevor Montgomery was her hall pass?”
“It’s only a hall pass if your spouse is in on it. In this case, she wound up pregnant and tried to pass me off as her husband’s. I was two when she died, and the guy had a paternity test done. When he found out I wasn’t his, he started asking around. Wound up calling the location scout who got a hold of my dad’s agent. As soon as he got the results of a paternity test, my dad flew out there to pick me up, and that’s that.”
“So, with your dad gone so often, you were essentially raised by nannies?”
He gave a slow nod. “Yep.”
“Home must’ve been a lonely place.”
“I mean, my nannies were paid well to hang out with me, so I always had someone to play with.” And there was that cavalier guy she’d known in high school. Everything was a joke, covering his emotions with jokes and charm.
But she knew him better now. She could picture Cole as a little boy, alone in a mansion, and she ached for him.
I wish I’d been kinder to him. I wish I hadn’t rejected him so meanly.
“So, you had decent nannies at least? They were good to you?”
“Mostly.”
She didn’t like the way his gaze ticked away from her. “What’re you not telling me?”
“Nothing. One of them wasn’t great, but the others were fine. I was close with the last one.”
“Define ‘wasn’t great.’”
“She didn’t hurt me. Nothing like that. She just ignored me. My dad was gone for months at a time. It’s not like he came home at the end of the day, and he could see how she’d treated me.”
“Cole, what are you saying? Did she not take care of you?”
“No, no. She did. She just couldn’t stand to be around me, so she was always on the phone or watching TV. She liked to hang out in the screening room and watch movies.”
“You didn’t tell your dad?”
“I honestly didn’t know. I was a kid. And not an easy one, at that.”
He was only confirming her fears about this meeting tomorrow. It made her sick to think they could drop these girls off with people who seemed good but wound up being neglectful.
“And also, she came from a respected agency in Los Angeles. She had great credentials and references. So, my dad trusted her.”
“How did he finally find out?”
“Teacher conference. She mentioned my dirty clothes and hair.”
“God, Cole. It literally makes me ragey to think you were neglected.”
He gave her an affectionate grin. “You gonna kick her ass?”
“If I’d known you back then, I sure as hell would have. What a horrible person to treat an innocent child like that.”
“In any event, after that, my dad put in a nanny cam, caught her fucking off, and hired someone new. He felt like shit about it and was pretty hard on the next couple of nannies, but then we found Miss Mary, and she stuck. She was great.”
“Well, that’s good. How long did you have the bad one?”
“A couple years.” With a thoughtful expression, he gazed at the navy blue comforter. “The truth is, I was always a pain in the ass, always getting into trouble. So, it wasn’t entirely her fault. If you knew the things I’d done…”
“Like what?”
“Too many stories. I wouldn’t know where to start.”