Page 24 of Mr. Wrong (Hollywood Knights #1)

Twenty-Four

Lex

Holding Ellenore, feeling her shudder against me, her arms tight around my neck while I come inside her, I can feel it.

Killian is right.

I’m falling for her.

I can feel it, balled up in my gut. That light-headed, tingling you feel, right before the fall.

And that can’t happen.

Because falling for Ellenore would change everything and even though I want to, even though I want her, I can’t let it happen.

Which makes what just happened a mistake because women like Ellenore don’t just fuck for fun.

Saying yes to a stranger was an anomaly.

Something she’d never done before and will never do again.

I was someone she could walk away from by telling herself that it was fun but that I’m all wrong for her.

That the kind of guy who lives in his brother’s guest house and fucks a random woman he found in a bar is not the kind of guy who is built to last. Eventually, I’d become just a memory she blushed over while sharing it with her best friend over a glass of wine.

But saying yes to me again changes everything. It opens the door to the possibility of more . And that makes me the worst kind of asshole, because more isn’t something I’m prepared to offer her.

“Hey.” I can feel how rough my voice is, the grab and pull of it in my throat and I try to soften it by running my hand down the length of her back and up again. “We need to go get your stuff before traffic gets bad.”

“Traffic’s always bad here.” Her lips brush against the base of my throat when she says it and she lifts her head from the crook of my shoulder. “But okay.”

She was right.

Traffic has been horrible. We’ve been stuck on the 405 for nearly an hour now and neither of us has said a word since we left.

As soon as she climbed into the slick, black Range Rover Killian moved out of the garage for the occasion, she fastened her seatbelt and dug a thick paperback out of her bag and started reading.

“What are you reading?” I ask because I suddenly can’t take the silence between us.

Lifting her head, she gauges how far we’ve moved since the last time she checked. Noting that we’re at a dead stop, less than a half mile from her last checkpoint, she lifts the book from her lap and flashes me its cover.

Needful Things by Stephen King.

“I didn’t peg you for a King fan,” I say, trying to pull something out of her. Make her talk to me.

“Why would you peg me as anything ?” She says it to the book, right before she flips the page. “You don’t even know me.”

“I know enough.” I sound defensive when I say it. Almost angry, like the fact that she’s right makes me feel that way.

“What’s my middle name?” When I don’t answer her, she keeps talking. “What do I like to eat when I’m sick? Where did I go to college? Where am I from? Do I have any siblings? Do I get—”

“I get it,” I say, finally cutting her off with a sharp look that plunges us back into silence, this one heavier and more negatively charged than the one before.

Finally I clear my throat and try again.

“How did you know all that stuff about Cassie? That she likes dinosaurs and wants to be a ballerina—and don’t tell me my brother told you because he doesn’t know shit about his daughter. ”

It takes her so long to answer me that I think she’s not going to answer me at all.

Finally, she sticks her finger in between the pages of her book and looks up again.

“She was wearing a pink sparkly tutu and a matching leotard when Landon brought her to the front door this morning—the thing is pretty ratty-looking. Looks like she lives in it.”

I laugh a little at her assessment because she’s right. Greta can barely get it off of her to get her in the bath at night. “What about the other stuff?”

She shrugs. “You have about a dozen crayon drawings on your fridge. All of them are of dinosaurs.” Thinking my curiosity is satisfied, she starts to open her book again. “Unless you’re a crayon art hobbyist, I’d guess Cassie gave them to you.”

“Why do you have dinosaurs in your bag?” I don’t know why I keep bugging her. Why I can’t leave her alone. She’s trying to pull away from me. Trying to put distance between us and I should let her because we both need it.

Yeah, I need it—but I don’t want it.

“I wrote my master’s thesis on how socio-economic stressors impact learning and developmental patterns in pre- adolescents,” she says, this time not even bothering to look up from her book.

“I spent a lot of time interviewing and observing kids.” She shrugs and turns the page.

“I liked them and I learned that things like plastic dinosaurs and glitter erasers make them more willing to talk to you.”

“What about Cassie?” I catch movement from the corner of my eye and I cut her a quick look to find her looking at me. “What did you observe about her.”

“It’s not my job to observe your niece.” She sounds like I feel. Defensive. Like she’s been caught doing something she isn’t supposed to do.

“Yeah, but you did it anyway, so just tell me.”

More silence stretches between us before she finally sighs.

“She’s very bright. Curious. Outgoing. A little spoiled, but that’s to be expected, considering her circumstances.

” She gives up on her book completely and tucks it back into her bag.

“She’s well-adjusted. On track, developmentally—maybe even a bit ahead of the game.

Children at this developmental stage tend to find a center—someone to build their lives around.

Look to for guidance. Social and behavioral clues.

Morals and principles. Most kids usually center on their mother.

In Cassie’s case, she’s centered on you. ”

“And that’s bad, right?” Something hot and ugly flares in my chest. “I’m not someone a kid should be looking to for anything.”

“I never said that.” She jerks away from me like I took a swing at her.

“It doesn’t matt—” She stops talking, cuts herself off abruptly when it all comes together for her.

When she remembers what I told her this afternoon.

That Landon hired her because she’s a woman.

Cassie asking her if she was here to date her father.

“I was hired to spend the summer with Cassie and to make sure she’s ready for Kindergarten in the fall,” she says, her tone so low and quiet it’s barely more than a whisper. “That’s why I’m here. The only reason I’m here.”

She can deny it all she wants. She doesn’t believe what she’s saying and neither do I.