Page 2 of At Her Service (Club Velvet #2)
CHAPTER 2
“V alerie Kane.” The woman’s voice rang clear through Valerie’s earbud. “Writer and producer powerhouse, and owner of Kane Productions, the hottest film and television studio in Hollywood. And all before the age of 40. You’re a hard woman to pin down, Valerie. I appreciate you taking the time to talk to me.”
“The pleasure is mine.” The response was practically a reflex. This was far from Valerie’s first interview. But it was the first interview she’d done in the middle of a park with her daughter in tow and a Bluetooth earbud in her ear while she fielded an endless stream of emails and messages on her phone.
She peered into Hazel’s stroller. Her daughter was strapped in securely, sleeping like an angel. It was hard to believe she’d spent the hour before screaming up a storm while Valerie desperately tried to get her down for a nap.
The babysitter couldn’t have chosen a worse day to cancel. Valerie had had meetings all day leading up to the interview, which she’d already postponed three times. So she’d gone into her office with Hazel, but her daughter had been too restless, so they’d come to the park. Being outdoors had always calmed her down when she was a newborn. And thankfully, it still worked. Because Valerie had her hands full, literally and figuratively.
“Let’s refresh our readers’ memories,” the journalist said. “You started out as a screenwriter on a popular daytime soap and climbed the ladder with astonishing speed. Between your television and film work, you’ve become the most influential woman in Hollywood. What do you attribute your success to?”
Valerie rattled off a carefully prepared answer, courtesy of her publicist. She was the one who suggested that Valerie accept the interview request in the first place. It was for some magazine or another. The New Yorker, Harper’s Bazaar, Mistress Magazine —Valerie couldn’t remember which. But her publicist had told her it was important, so she’d deferred to the woman’s judgment. She didn’t have the time to make those kinds of decisions herself.
As Hazel began to stir, Valerie rocked the stroller back and forth. Once her daughter settled again, she opened her inbox on her phone. Her stylist had sent not one, but three increasingly frantic emails about her look for an upcoming movie premiere.
Valerie skimmed the attached photos and shot him a quick reply. Yes to the Balenciaga but swap out the black shoes for the ivory.
“You’ve certainly ruffled some feathers on your way to the top,” the journalist continued. “Some describe you as an interloper to Hollywood. How do you deal with the critics?”
Another predictable question, one Valerie was asked some variation of in almost every interview. It was fuel for the narrative that was her rise up the ranks in Hollywood. A gay Black woman whose films and career success represented a challenge to Hollywood’s old guard in the wake of the #MeToo movement? That was a story. And Valerie of all people knew the importance of a story.
“Quite simply, I don’t give my critics a second thought,” she said. “Grown men throwing tantrums because they have to share their toys? They don’t deserve my attention.”
Her phone buzzed. She glanced at the screen. Her ex-wife was calling her. That was someone else who didn’t deserve her attention.
Still rocking Hazel’s stroller, Valerie silenced the call and returned to her emails. The next was from the private kindergarten she’d applied to for Hazel, confirming that her daughter had been accepted. Hazel still had a few years before starting school, but Valerie needed to secure her place early. It was one of the few schools in Los Angeles that had the security required to keep children from high-profile families safe from the paparazzi, and worse.
Valerie glanced around from behind her sunglasses, one hand on the top of her wide-brimmed hat to keep it from blowing away in the wind. There were plenty of high-profile families living in the neighborhood, and now and then, unscrupulous paparazzi would stake out the park in the hope of snapping a photo of a celebrity out with their children.
The paparazzi didn’t bother Valerie. But she needed to give Hazel as normal a childhood as possible, which meant shielding her from the spotlight. Whenever a photo of Hazel got out, Valerie would call her people and make it disappear. But it was simpler to keep her from being photographed in the first place.
As she rocked Hazel’s stroller, she realized that the journalist had gone silent. Valerie asked her to repeat the question. It was yet another trite question about motherhood.
“I was under the impression that this interview was about my career, not my family,” Valerie said. “Would you ask a man in my position the same thing?”
She could almost hear the journalist grimace through the phone. “Point taken. Why don’t we move on?”
As she asked the next question, a notification popped up on Valerie’s phone. It was a message from her assistant about a minor emergency on set. The young star who had the lead role in her sapphic historical drama series had gotten into an argument with the makeup artist, who was now threatening to quit. An actor behaving badly? That was just another day for her.
Valerie gave her response to the journalist’s question, then texted her assistant back with instructions. His reply came a few seconds later. She was so focused on it that she almost missed the journalist’s next question.
“You were previously married to Hollywood darling Francesca Moreno. She’s certainly been busy in the years since you separated. Just recently, she was the subject of a scandal involving not one, but two members of the hot new indie rock band Sappho and the Poets. Do you have any comments about that?”
“No,” Valerie said firmly. “I don’t.”
“Are the two of you still in touch? You both presented your divorce as amicable, but there are rumors that?—”
“Rumors? And here I thought I was speaking to a journalist from a reputable publication, not some gossip rag.”
“Let me assure you,” the journalist said, “we are not a gossip rag. But our readers, they’re curious?—”
“Your readers will have to satisfy their curiosity elsewhere. My publicist made it clear that my previous relationship with Francesca is off-limits, did she not?”
“Yes, but?—”
“Then this interview is over.”
Valerie hung up the call. Her publicist wouldn’t be happy. But Valerie would only play nice with the press if the press played nice with her.
As she took out her earbud, she noticed a text message on her phone that she’d missed earlier. It was from her friend Simone.
Ashton wants to meet tonight to talk about investing in the club. Can you make it?
Valerie rubbed her temples with her fingertips. She didn’t have space in her schedule for yet another meeting. Simone could easily handle it on her own, but it deserved Valerie’s attention. Club Velvet was a passion project she’d started with a few friends. It had only been open for a couple of months, but between Hazel and her job, she barely had time for it.
And the stress of it all was beginning to take its toll on her. She was no stranger to hard work, but even she had her limits. Right now, she was running on empty.
She sent a reply to Simone, letting her know that she had to look after Hazel so she wouldn’t be attending the meeting. She needed to hire a new nanny, and soon. The last one had run off to Europe with her boyfriend and had no intention of ever returning. Valerie had been relying on sitters ever since, but she needed to find someone permanent.
However, finding a nanny was no easy feat. Hazel was a shy, anxious child, especially around strangers. She’d started talking late, and even now, she barely spoke more than a few words, never to anyone other than Valerie. Finding a nanny who Hazel felt comfortable with was proving impossible.
On top of that, Valerie needed a nanny she could trust to be discreet, someone who would respect the privacy she insisted upon, both for herself and for her daughter. The intimate details of their lives were valuable fodder to the tabloids and gossip sites. She hadn’t forgotten the circus the media had created when she and her ex-wife divorced a few years ago. It had been a housekeeper who spilled the news of their break-up to the press.
That had been bad enough. If the press knew what Valerie Kane got up to behind closed doors? That would be a real scandal.
She peered into the stroller to check on Hazel. It took her a moment to register what she saw.
Hazel wasn’t sleeping soundly.
She wasn’t in her stroller at all.
Panic flooded Valerie’s body. She looked around her, but Hazel was nowhere in sight. She’d been asleep in her stroller just a minute ago. How had she gotten out? Where had she gone?
Had someone taken her?
“Hazel? Hazel!” She looked around the park frantically, her pulse pounding. How could she have lost her daughter? She’d spread herself too thin for too long, and now she was paying the price. Now Hazel was paying the price?—
No time to panic. Find her, now. Valerie steeled herself, every muscle in her body springing into action. As adrenaline filled her veins, she looked around the park again, her eyes narrowed with focus. Hazel couldn’t have gotten far. She was barely two and a half, and Valerie had only taken her eyes off her for a moment. She had to be here somewhere…
There. Relief surged through Valerie’s body. At the other side of the playground, Hazel stood beside a picnic table, a young woman with a mane of copper red hair kneeling before her.
As Valerie rushed toward them, Hazel giggled, then spotted her mother and beamed.
“Mommy!”