Page 18 of Mr. Wrong (Hollywood Knights #1)

Eighteen

Lex

“What do you think they’re talking about?”

I toss a look over my shoulder to find Cassie where she’s been since Landon and Ellenore walked out the back door—kneeling on the window seat, face pressed against the glass, head cocked and angled so she can see the driveway.

They’re talking about me.

Even though I’d bet my left nut it’s true, I don’t say it out loud. Instead I give her a disinterested shrug. “Who knows,” I grumble. “Hey, if you’re finished with your pancakes, walk your plate to the sink.”

“I bet he’s asking her out on a date,” she says, totally ignoring me.

Deep breath, Lex. Deep breath.

“He’s not asking her out on a date,” I say, hoping to God I sound amused and not homicidal over the possibility. “He’s probably telling her about your schedule like he said or what you like to eat for lunch.”

“No, he’s not.” She shakes her head without peeling her eyes off the window. “He doesn’t know any of those things.”

She’s right. I bet what Landon knows about his daughter would fit in a shot glass and leave room for more.

“Okay,” I say, looking for another plausible, non-love connection, answer to why my brother and the woman I just spent the night fucking into a coma have been outside, talking to each other, for nearly fifteen minutes now. “Maybe he’s—”

“ Oh, shit ,” she exclaims, diving under the table. “She saw me.”

“Excuse me?” I force myself to swallow the bark of laughter that pushes its way up my throat at her curse.

“Sorry.” Her apology floats up from under the kitchen table. “I mean, oh, shitake mushrooms, she saw me.”

Shitake mushrooms.

That’s a new one.

She and Killian spend more time than what would probably be considered appropriate, discussing alternative curse words.

Before I can tell her that’s what she gets for spying, the knob on the back door jiggles and twists. A second later, someone knocks.

“It’s her.” Cassie’s head pops out from under the table. “Don’t let her in.”

Now I do laugh. Can’t help it. “I have to let her in, Cass,” I tell her, wiping my hands on a dish towel on my way to the back door. “But I’ll stall her—take your plate to the sink and then go upstairs and wash your face.”

I hear the mad scramble of kitchen chairs and clattering dishes as Cassie scurries from her hiding place to follow directions.

Opening the door, I wedge myself into the crack, barring Ellenore from entry.

“What’s the password?” I intone in my deep monster voice that always makes Cassie laugh.

Behind me I hear her giggle, her plate hitting the bottom of the sink with a sharp thwack that almost certainly means something chipped or cracked.

“First, you get your niece to spy on me and then you lock me out,” Ellenore says, glaring at me, her hands stacked on her hips. “Can you be any more childish?”

Her tone sets my teeth on edge and oddly enough, turns me on. “I didn’t—”

“He told me not to spy on you, but I don’t listen very well,” Cassie shouts on her way up the stairs. “You can let her in now.”

“I didn’t lock the door either.” Stepping away from the door, I make a sweeping gesture with my hand, inviting her inside. “Just in case you’re wondering.”

She stomps across the threshold and stops in the middle of the kitchen to cross her arms over her chest, watching while I shut the door and make my way back to the stove where I’m making the last of the pancakes. “Then why was the door locked?”

Because Cassie lives in a goddamned prison.

“All the doors and gates auto lock from the inside,” I tell her, pouring a portion of batter onto the griddle.

“You’ll need a passcode and your thumbprint to get in.

” When I aim a quick look in her direction she looks slightly troubled by the prospect.

“Like Landon said, his head of security will get you set up.”

She drops her arms and looks around the kitchen like he might be hiding somewhere. “Killian?”

I nod, refocusing on the pancakes I’m cooking.

“Killian Davis. Officially, he’s Cassie’s bodyguard but he’s really in charge of everything that has to do with security around here.

He lives over the garage.” He’s also been Landon’s best friend since they were toddlers but I don’t tell her that.

Instead, I flip the line of pancakes over in rapid succession.

“My brother likes to keep his circle small. And close.”

“I’ve noticed. Who’s Greta?”

Either I’m losing my mind or she sounds a bit jealous.

Swallowing another laugh, and the urge to tell her that Greta is a member of the Swedish Bikini Team who also happens to be Cassie’s nanny, I tell her the truth.

“Greta is Cassie’s overnight nanny. She’ll be here tonight at eight and stay until tomorrow at 8AM. ”

“Seven days a week?”

“She takes Sundays off.” I shake my head at the griddle. “She makes six-figures a year, with full benefits, to listen to Cassie snore and do some light housekeeping. She’s not complaining.”

“Your brother doesn’t make her live here too?”

Now I do laugh. “Nobody makes Greta do anything. Landon tried and he’s still scrubbing the boot marks off his ass.”

She seems to be all out of questions because the room falls silent between us. Not like last night when the two of us were lying next to each other in the dark, her hand in mine. That silence was easy. Soft.

This silence is charged. Heavy. Like she expects me to attack her at any moment.

“What are you doing?” She sounds suspicious, like I might be making pipe bombs instead of pancakes.

“I told you last night that I’d make you breakfast, Ellenore.” I shoot her a smirk over my shoulder. She’s still standing in the middle of the kitchen, where I left her. “Sit down.”

She doesn’t answer me but when I turn around again, she’s sitting on the stool she’d been perched on before my brother left.

Lifting the pancakes from the griddle, I stack them on a plate and walk them over to her.

“You told me your boss was a nobody ,” I say in a low tone while I set the plate on the counter in front of her.

Her eyes widen for a moment before her jaw sets itself at a stubborn angle that makes me want to drag her across the counter and fuck her into submission.

“You told me your brother owns a bar ,” she shoots back, snatching the fork out of my grasp when I offer it to her.

“You said your boss is a total asshole .” Leaning over, I snag the syrup and slam it down in front of her, keeping my hand wrapped around it so I can’t grab her and put my dirty thoughts into action. “At least you told the truth about that one—and I happen to have more than one brother.”

Her mouth opens, hanging there for a few seconds before it snaps shut again.

“Your brother made me sign a non-disclosure agreement. I can’t even say Landon Trask in public.

” She shakes her head, aiming those wide brown eyes at me.

“And if I even whisper your niece’s name out loud, he’s made it perfectly clear that if I do, he’ll crucify me. ”

Yeah, that sounds about right.

Ever since Rachel’s death, Landon’s been waging war on the paparazzi.

They get the occasional snapshot of him eating dinner with a co-star or coming and going from the studio but that’s about it.

As far as the general public is concerned, Cassie is a ghost. The only photograph of her that exists is a grainy, long-lens shot of Landon carrying her out of the hospital and even then, all you can see is a blanket-wrapped bundle.

“Then what are you doing here?” I tip the syrup bottle over her pancakes, dousing her stack. “If he’s such an asshole and it’s such a hardship, why are you here?” I know why someone like her friend, Dani, would be here. The same reason just about every other woman on the planet would be here.

Because my brother is Landon Trask, the hottest, richest, most famous widower on the planet and they’d all be here, looking for their Prince Charming.

Their Happily Ever After and they’d have no qualms about using Cassie to do it.

I don’t want to believe that about Ellenore, but the last thirty minutes and my wild imagination have made it goddamned hard.

“I already told you.” She shakes her head while cutting into her stack of pancakes with the side of her fork. “I need this job.”

Jesus Christ, I want to believe her. So much so that it takes me by surprise. “So, no Landon Trask posters hanging on your dorm room wall in college, I take it?”

“Of course I had a Landon Trask poster, hanging on my wall at college,” she says, forking up the mouthful of pancake she’s cut from the stack.

“They handed them out at Freshman orientation.” She rolls her eyes at me while she chews and I laugh.

Finished with her bite, she sighs and puts her fork down.

“I don’t want you to leave. I told Landon that—”

“You told Landon?” I’m not sure if it’s the familiar way my brother’s name rolls off her tongue or if it’s the fact that she’s been here for five fucking minutes and she has the power to tell my brother anything, but something tightens the back of my neck.

Grips my gut and squeezes it so hard I suddenly have to breathe through my nose.

She nods slowly, the soft tilt of her head causing her long, silky ponytail to slip over her shoulder and fall against her back. “I know he fired you because of me, but I told him we can work together. That it doesn’t have to be either or. That we can—”

“So, you want to work together. For Cassie?” That she spoke to him on my behalf sets my jaw at a dangerous angle. “Come to some sort of mutually beneficial arrangement.”

“Yes.” She nods at me, cautiously optimistic because my tone doesn’t match up with what I’m saying. “I think that our working together would be the best thing for her.”

I look at her. Her freshly scrubbed face and her perky little ponytail.

Her cute little sweater and girl-next-door sneakers.

Under all the wholesomeness I can see a grit I’m not even sure she knows she possesses.

A toughness she’s never tapped into before.

If I fight her, she’s going to fight me back.

She’s not going to tuck tail and run. I’m not entirely surprised by the realization and if I’m honest, I’m more than a little relieved.

“Is that right?” I say, aiming my gaze at the countertop while she nods at me.

“Well, that’s too bad.” I snap the dishtowel off my shoulder to swipe it over the flat surface between us.

“Because I don’t need your help and I don’t want you here.

” I feel like a liar when I say it, but I grit my teeth and force myself to keep at it.

To tell her what’s going to happen if she stays.

“And I’m going to do everything I can to get you fired.