Page 14 of Mr. Wrong (Hollywood Knights #1)
Fourteen
Lex
For one, psychotic second, I have to bite my tongue to keep from laughing out loud.
Ellenore— my Ellenore —is the infamous Ms. Pierce. The much-needed woman my asshole brother hired to replace me and generally make my life miserable.
As soon as it sinks in, the urge to laugh is smothered under a thick blanket of anger. It rolls through me, fast and heavy—so, fast and heavy I have to take a step back, away from her, so I don’t shove her off the porch and slam the door in her face.
When I opened the front door and found her hopping around on one foot, sock hanging out of her mouth, I felt a surge of relief. Every bit of reason and rationalization over why letting her go was for the best, flew out the window.
And then I realized who she is.
Who she really is.
She’s not my Ellenore.
She’s my replacement.
I watch and listen, hands shoved into the front pockets of my jeans, while Landon makes his precious initial introductions.
“Cassie,” Landon says, reaching for her hand and tugging her forward.
“This is Ms. Pierce, the woman I told you about.” When she doesn’t move or speak, impatience ripples over my brother’s face and I feel my neck stiffen and my hands yank themselves out of my pockets, ready to snatch Cassie up and take her anywhere but here.
Before I can, Ellenore squats down, bringing herself to Cassie’s eye level.
“Hi, Cassie,” she says, holding out her hand. “I’m Elle.” She smiles when Cassie reluctantly slips her hand into hers. “It’s nice to finally meet you, your dad has told me lots of nice things about you.”
“Like what?” Cassie says, pulling her hand free, her forehead crumpled into a frown.
This ought to be good. Landon doesn’t know shit about his daughter. As far as I can remember, he’s never even been alone with her. There’s always someone else around—either me or Kill or Greta—to provide a buffer between them.
“Well…” Elle flicks a quick, nervous glance at me before re-anchoring her smile to her face. “He told me you love dinosaurs, that you’re a fantastic artist and that you want to be a ballerina when you grow up.”
Cassie’s frown falls away, replaced by a cautious smile she aims up at Landon before leveling it at the woman kneeling in front of her. “I can’t decide if I want to be a ballerina or paleontologist.”
Ellenore’s face spreads into a wide grin as she swings her over-sized bag over her hip and onto her knees. Opening it, she digs around in it for a few seconds before pulling out something small. Holding it out to Cassie she shrugs. “Who says you have to choose?”
Seeing the plastic dinosaur in Ellenore’s palm, Cassie snaps it up.
“Stegosauruses are my favorite ,” she crows, turning it over in her hands to trace her fingertips along the toy’s plastic spines.
“Look, Uncle Lex—” she says, her little face lit up like the Fourth of July when she holds the cheap plastic toy up for me to see.
“Lookit what Elle—” She must see it on my face, how betrayed I feel because she stops smiling and turns away from me.
“Thanks, but I have lots of toys already.” She shoves the toy back into Ellenore’s hand before looking at me again. “Can we make breakfast now?”
“Sure,” I say, reaching down to lift her up so I can settle her on my hip. “Nice meeting you,” I toss at Ellenore over my shoulder, even though I never gave Landon a chance to make an introduction. I’ll hear about it later but right now, I don’t give a shit.
Right now, I’m going to make Cassie’s breakfast and pretend none of this is happening.