Page 25 of Mr. Wrong (Hollywood Knights #1)

Twenty-Five

Ellenore

When we finally get to Dani’s, I tell Lex to wait in the car.

“This is where you’ve been staying?” He turns his head, watching a couple of men in dark hoodies and suspicious glares skulk their way into the alley by the dumpster. “I thought your friend was a working actress.”

“She just got signed onto her soap as a regular,” I tell him, feeling defensive of Dani and her crappy one-bedroom in North Hollywood. “I’ll be right back,” I say, popping my door open to step a foot onto the cracked asphalt of the building’s parking lot. “I don’t have much. Just a few—”

He’s out of the driver’s seat and slamming his door on my protests before I can even finish my sentence.

It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell him to just leave me here.

That I give up. That I didn’t take this job so I could become the surrogate mother of some movie star’s kid or so I could let his brother screw me blind whenever the mood struck him but I don’t because I’m a coward.

A scared, sniveling coward whose biggest risk to date has been going home with the hot, random stranger I met in a bar less than 24-hours ago.

And we all know how well that turned out.

“Just wait here. I can get my things on my own,” I tell him again, slamming my own door before stomping my way to the front of the SUV. “Really.” I give him a firm head nod to show him I mean it. “I’d hate for something to happen to Landon’s—”

“Fuck the car,” he growls at me, shoving its keys into the front pocket of his jeans before giving me a look that’s almost hostile it’s so exasperated. It’s an expression I recognize and for just a second, he looks exactly like his brother.

Leading him through the parking lot, I take him up a set of stairs to the second floor and down an open-air corridor. Rounding the corner, I stop in front of the apartment marked 210.

I start digging in my purse for the set of spare keys Dani gave me and give getting rid of him one last try. “You can go wait in the—”

“If you think I’m letting you run around this dump by yourself, you’re out of your skull.” He steps closer to me and meets the bleary-eyed glare of one of Dani’s neighbors while he heads for the stairwell. “So, quit being stubborn and concentrate on getting the door open.”

Finding the key ring Dani gave me, I separate a key from the pack and aim its blade at the lock. Before I can get it in, the door flies open on its own.

“ Where the fuck have you been .” Dani is standing in the doorway wearing yoga pants and a baggy sweatshirt, her long auburn hair piled on top of her head in a sloppy bun.

Barefoot. Not an ounce of makeup. Despite the fact that she should look sloppy and unkempt, she looks gorgeous.

“I’ve been texting you all day and—” Her glare bounces up to settle on Lex and as soon as she realizes who she’s looking at, her mouth drops open before her eyes narrow down to slits. “Oh. Hey, Renaldo .”

“My phone died and—” and what? Things got really, really weird, really, really fast?

“Dani, this is Lex—” I feel him stiffen behind me and I stop myself from announcing his last name.

His reaction makes me wonder why he told it to me in the first place.

“He works for my new boss.” I give her a look when I say it, hoping she’ll keep her mouth shut and stop asking questions. No such luck.

“ You work for Landon Trask?” Dani shoots him a quick, critical glare before looking at me and sighing. “Honey, this guy is taking you for some sort of—”

“Actually, he’s my brother.” Lex grabs my hand and pushes his way through the door and past Dani to stand in the living room. “Is this yours?” He points to my suitcase next to the couch. When I nod, he picks it up and heads for the door. “Wait here.” He gives me a warning look on his way out.

As soon as he’s gone, Dani looks at me like I’m the most gullible creature that’s ever lived. She shakes her head at me. “Elle…”

“I know how it looks, Dan,” I tell her, shaking my head at her reproachful tone.

“Trust me, I know.” I make quick work of explaining it all to her—waking up late.

Lex, putting me in a cab. Me, giving Landon Trask’s address to the driver.

The driver telling me that I was already at the address I provided.

Every crazy thing that’s happened since—minus the mind-blowing sex.

“And you saw Landon Trask,” she says, giving me a critical once-over like she’s looking for signs of brain injury.

“Spoke to him.” When I nod my head, she shakes hers.

“Are you even sure you know what he looks like, Elle? I mean this is Hollywood. A girlfriend of mine was at the club last month and thought she’d spent the night partying with DeCaprio—until his card got declined and—”

“Are you kidding?” I laugh at her. “I know what Landon Trask looks like. I had to stare at that poster of him from that ridiculous space movie you stuck above your desk for four straight years of college.”

She blushes at the reminder. “Okay, okay—” She waves at me to shush me when the sound of Lex’s heavy footsteps start echoing down the corridor. He pops in a second later and grabs my second suitcase and a box of books.

“This it?” He’s avoiding Dani’s assessing look. Probably because he knows I explained everything while he was gone but he’s not sure to what level of detail.

“Yes,” I say, giving him a nod. “I mean, I have a cat but…”

“But what?” He frowns at me, surly and impatient when I don’t finish what I’m saying.

“But your brother said he’d prefer it if I didn’t bring him so I’ve made arrangements with Dani to leave—”

Lex laughs and aims a look at the large orange tabby lounging on the arm of Dani’s sofa. “Fuck my brother, get your cat.”

“Uhhh…” I aim a helpless look at Dani and shrug. “Okay. I’ll get him and be down in a few minutes.”

As soon as he’s gone again, Dani gives me a wide-eyed look. “This is crazy,” she says, lowering herself onto her couch slowly. “Like Gary Marshal-rom-com crazy.”

Lowering myself to sit next to her, I laugh.

“Tell me about it.” I don’t tell her the rest of it.

That even though Lex can’t seem to keep his hands off me, and despite the fact that he just made an executive decision to rescue my cat, he also hates and resents me.

Told me straight out that he’s going to do everything he can to get me fired.

“Did you guys…” She lets the question trail off. Not because she’s shy but because she knows me. Knows I don’t like to talk about my sex life—or up until now, my lack of sex life.

“Yes.” I nod, answering her question with a sigh.

“ Annnd ?” She waggles her eyebrows. “How was it?”

Laughing at her because she’s ridiculous, I give her what I hope is a nonchalant, I have sex with strangers all the time shrug. “I haven’t talked to her but I’m pretty sure my grandma’ll be walking funny for a week.”

“ Hell yes ,” she crows, giving me a grin. “You fucked Landon Trask’s brother, so genetically speaking, you had like 25% of Landon Trask’s penis inside you—it’s science.”

“That is not how genetics work,” I say, laughing at how utterly ridiculous she is. As soon as the laughter dies down, she levels me with a pointed look.

“Derek called me this morning,” she tells me, her gaze shifting toward the door we’re both waiting for Lex to walk through because even though I told him to wait for me downstairs, we both know he won’t listen. “Your mother gave him my number—why didn’t you tell me he was texting you?”

“I don’t know… I guess because you don’t like him.

” It’s a lie. A big, fat lie and I can’t look at her while I tell it because the truth of it is that I didn’t tell her that Derek was texting me because I was afraid if I did, Dani would encourage me to go back to him.

That despite all of her teasing and the fact that she always told me I could do better than him, that funny, fearless, beautiful, vivacious Dani would remind me that I am none of those things.

That I’m the human equivalent of vanilla pudding, just like Derek, and that vanilla puddings should stick together. “What did you tell him?”

She cocks a rusty brown eyebrow at me and smirks. “That I haven’t seen you since you went home on the back of a motorcycle with the hottest guy at the bar.”

“Jesus…” I feel my cheeks go up in flames even as a strange thrill passes through me at the memory because I did that. I climbed on the back of Lex’s bike and let him take me home without even knowing his last name. “This is a mess, Dan—a huge, messy mess.”

“Why?” That smirk on her face falls into a frown. “You’re not actually thinking about going back to that toolbox, are you?”

“No.” I shake my head, wincing at the defensive squeal in my tone. “No—I’m not. No way.”

Are you sure about that, Elle?

Wouldn’t it be better if you just packed it in and gave up? Went back to Mr. Vanilla Pudding before you get yourself hurt?

You could be in New York by this time tomorrow. Back with Derek, where you belong.

Dani throws a nervous glance at the open front door and the sound of Lex coming up the stairs. She knows I’m lying but doesn’t have the time to confront me about it so instead, she just sighs. “Are you going to be okay?”

I give her a reassuring nod and stand. “I’ll be fine,” I tell her, reaching for Morris when he follows suit, walking the length of Dani’s sofa to bat at my hand—his signal to me to pick him up.

“I’ll be better than fine. It’s only for the summer,” I remind her and myself at the same time, hefting my overweight cat into my arms and holding him against me like a shield.

“After that, I’ll be able to put this whole thing, and Derek , behind me. ”