Page 31 of Mr. Wrong (Hollywood Knights #1)

Thirty-One

Ellenore

I almost chase after him. Demand that he answers my question. Tell me what to do. How I’m supposed to behave. What happens next.

Because I have absolutely no idea.

When I step out of the shower, it’s to find the bathroom door firmly closed and a huge, fluffy towel waiting for me on the counter next to the sink.

Using it, I take as much time as I can to dry myself off before I pull on the bathrobe I hung on a hook last night.

Using the towel, I squeeze and rub as much water from my hair as possible.

Finally, with nothing left to do, I hang my towel on a hook to dry and tell myself it’s perfectly safe to open the door because Lex isn’t even here anymore.

He got what he wanted and now he’s gone again.

Back to hating me and blaming me for everything that’s gone wrong in his life over the last seventy-two hours.

I’m sure of it.

So, why am I not surprised that when I finally push the bathroom door open, it’s to find him standing near the side of the bed, looking like a walking, talking sex fantasy in nothing but a pair of faded gray sweats and a whole lot of tattoo ink.

“You quit.”

It’s what he said to me in the bathroom. Right before he pushed his way into the shower and...

“I don’t understand,” I tell him, reaching up to catch the lapels of my robe and pull them together, over my chest. “Is that a question or—”

“No, it’s not a question,” he bites back. “It’s a statement of fact and you’ll stop doing that if you have any hope of leaving this bedroom today.”

“Doing what? What did I do?” I say, panic fluttering in my belly because that’s what the thought of taking a wrong step does to me. It sends me into a tailspin.

“You’re thinking about fucking me—” He gives me the same kind of smirk he gave me in the shower. “and before you ask, that’s not a question either. I know you’re thinking about fucking me because you’re blushing.”

I drop my hands away from my chest and give him what I hope to god sounds like a haughty scoff because I don’t want to be the kind of woman who blushes when she thinks about sex.

I want to be casual and blasé about what we just did.

I want to be like Dani. She’s as frank and matter-of-fact about the men she sleeps with as she is about everything else.

Truthfully, right now, I’d settle for being just about anyone other than me.

“I am not,” I say, reaching up to push cold, wet hair out of my flaming red face.

“I am not blushing.” When that stupid smirk of his holds I drop my hand and frown at him. “Why are you still here?”

That wipes the smirk right off his face. Something dangerous flashes in his eyes, darkening the blue of them in an instant. “Because you still haven’t answered my question, Ellenore,” he informs me while lifting his arms to fold them over his chest.

“Stop calling me that. My name is Elle ,” I hiss at him. “My grandmother’s name is Ellenore and you haven’t actually asked me a question, remember?” I tilt my head and stack my hands on my hips. “All you’ve done so far is make a few statements of fact and some veiled—”

“Careful, Ellenore .” He growls it at me before dropping his arms away from his chest to take a half step in my direction. “You’re edging dangerously close to that spanking we talked about.”

Because the prospect of being turned over his knee excites me almost as much as it terrifies me, my brain gives up entirely and hands the reins to my mouth. “Jesus Christ, can you please put a shirt on?”

Lex blinks at me—once, twice—before he turns away from me and toward the bed to swipe something off the mattress.

A T-shirt. I watch with equal parts relief and disappointment while he lifts it and yanks it on.

Fully dressed, he turns to look at me again, his dark blue eyes narrowed down to slits. “Better?”

“No.” Looking at him, I shake my head and sigh. “No, not really.”

Like he expended all of his energy listening to me talk us in crazy circles, Lex lowers himself to sit on the side of the bed, shoulders slumped, forearms braced on the tops of his thighs, hands hanging between his knees.

“You quit.” He says it to his hands, carefully and quietly, his face tipped toward his bare feet.

“Landon woke me up this morning and told me that you—”

“Where?” I have no right to ask but I do anyway because I laid awake all night, imagining him in bed with some bouncy, blonde extra from one of his brother’s movies and— “Where did you sleep last night?”

His brow furrows slightly like he doesn’t quite understand the question. “I crashed on one of the lounge chairs by the pool.”

“Oh… okay.” Relieved, I nod, forcing myself to move away from the bathroom doorway, toward the dresser across the room.

“Well, that’s not necessary, you know?” Turning my back to him, I open one of the drawers he was thoughtful enough to clear out for me.

Reaching in, I pull out a neatly folded pair of beige cotton underwear.

“This is your place. I’m perfectly capable of—”

“Goddamn it, Ellenore.” He says it quietly but he may as well have screamed it at me because he sounds like his patience is worn thin. Like he’s seconds away from giving up. Like trying to have a conversation with me isn’t worth the effort.

“Yes.” Still wearing my robe, I shake out my underwear and hunch over to step into them.

“I quit—not that it did me any good.” Straightening, I pull my underwear up and reach back into the drawer to fish out one of my equally boring cotton bras.

“Your brother made it clear that while I’d be well within my contractual right to hand in my resignation, that doing so would be a very bad idea. ”

“Why?” He’s closer. Not sitting on the side of the bed anymore. He’s standing behind me, less than a few feet between us. “Why did you quit? You said that you needed this job. That you—”

“Yeah?” Tossing my bra on top of the dresser, I reluctantly tug at the belt of my robe.

“And you said you were going to do whatever it took to get me fired.” Belt loose, I peel out of my robe, letting it drop to the floor.

Lifting my bra, I feed my arms through the straps and secure it in place.

“You told your brother that if he didn’t fire me that you’d leave and I couldn’t let you do that to Cassie. I couldn’t be the reason she—”

“It worked.”

I stop moving for a second. Forget that my goal is to get dressed so I can get away from Lex and this conversation as quickly as possible. “What worked?” I ask but don’t turn around. “What are you talking about?”

“The little I’m a selfless martyr routine you pulled with my brother last night,” he tells me. “It worked—he woke me up this morning before he left to let me know he changed his mine. I won—you’re done here. As soon as he comes back from his trip, he’s going to fire you.”

He's going to fire you.

The words slam into me with the force of a slap, so hard and sharp, I feel the sting of them between my shoulder blades.

“Oh...” I nod my head, like it makes sense. Like it’s exactly what I want. “Good—that’s good. I’m glad he—”

“Good?” He makes the word sound like a curse. “Did you just say that’s good ?”

“Yes, Lex—I said good .” Sighing, I feel my shoulders slump because I’m suddenly tired.

It hasn’t even been three days and I’m already tired.

Tired of the fighting. Tired of the heavy feeling in my chest that only goes away when he’s touching me.

Tired of the fact that Lex hates me. Blames me for everything that’s gone wrong in his life and that for some reason that doesn’t stop him from wanting to fuck me, every chance he gets.

“I’m not built for this. I’m not made to—”

“Bullshit.”

The word is a whip lash across my back. A challenge to turn around and stand my ground. Stop letting people push me around. Start taking control of my own life.

Instead of meeting it head-on, I dodge and duck like I always do. “I can’t talk about this right now,” I tell him, snapping open the drawer where I stowed my jeans. “I have to finish getting ready and feed my cat and if I don’t get a move on it, I’m going to be—”

“ Bullshit .” He says it again, louder this time. “You’re not going to be late and you didn’t try to quit because it’s what’s best for Cassie. You did it because you’re scared.”

That’s what does it. That’s what turns me around to stare up at him because what he just said wasn’t a whip lash, it was the verbal equivalent of a bullet train, smacking into me at the speed of sound.

“Scared?” I say it like it’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard and not the absolute truth.

“Seriously? What’s to be scared of? Working for the most famous man in the world?

Making so much money I’d need an armored car to haul it all away?

Living on a multi-million-dollar estate? ”

“Me.” He says it like it’s true. Like it’s an absolute fact. “You’re afraid of me. Of this,” he says, lifting a hand to gesture it between us. “Of us.”

“Us?” The word almost strangles me. That’s how big it is. How hard it is to push out of my mouth. So big and impossible I almost choke on it. “There’s no us , Lex. We barely even know each other.”

“Yeah—” He nods his head in agreement, giving me a small, tight smile. “and you’ve made sure it stays that way, haven’t you?”

“You don’t want me.” I shake my head, swiping another frustrated hand across my face because I meant to say you don’t want me here but my stupid brain is starting to panic and nothing I say is coming out right.

“What?” he says, like I’m speaking in tongues turning his head to look at the bathroom. “That was you, right? In the shower?” Looking back at me he cocks his head. “That was—”

“I don’t know who that was,” I say, my voice so sharp and loud, it snaps his mouth closed.

“I don’t know who that was, but it wasn’t me…

” I shake my head and wince a little because I know I’ve stopped making sense.

“Look at me, Lex.” I say, holding my arms away from my body, showing him my beige cotton briefs and full coverage bra.

“I’m vanilla pudding.” Dropping my arms, I sigh because my dumb brain has given up completely and left my mouth to fend for itself.

“Guys like you don’t actually like vanilla pudding. ”

“Is that right?” He gives me another smirk but it looks more like a grimace. Like it hurts. “And what do guys like me like?”

“I…” The question pushes me back, away from him until my ass hits the edge of the dresser. Leaning against it for support, I give him a helpless shrug. “I don’t know. Seventy-two hours ago, I didn’t even know that guys like you existed —at least for girls like me.”

“Girls like you?” He says it cautiously, like he’s making a real effort at making sense of my rambling. “Pudding girls.”

“Yes.” I nod, feeling a little miserable because he understands what I’m trying to tell him. “I’m weird, awkward, boring pudding and you’re—”

“Just some loser you met at a bar?”

My mouth falls open and my gaze darts past him to find my phone.

It’s where I left it, charging on the nightstand.

But that doesn’t matter. He read them. The texts from Derek.

I know he did because when I look back at him, he’s watching me quietly, like he’s waiting for me to accuse him of something we both know he’s guilty of.

“You’re not a loser.” I don’t even care that he read them. That he invaded my privacy. What I care about is that when I say it, he looks at me like I’m lying to him. “You’re not—”

“Sure I am.” He gives me a shrug before shoving his hands into the pockets of his sweats.

“I’m a college drop-out who’s spent the last six years of his life hiding in his brother’s mansion, living off his money so I wouldn’t have to get a real job or live a real life .

” He takes a step back and looks away from me.

“It’s okay, Elle—I get it. I wouldn’t want to be with me either.

” Swiping a rough hand over his face he sighs before turning toward the door.

“Take your time getting ready. I’ll get Cassie going for the morning—she’ll be ready to start by nine if that’s okay. ”

Because I don’t know what else to say or do, I just nod. “Nine is perfect.”

Before I can think of the right thing to say he stoops down to pick up my robe. “I’ll save you some breakfast,” he tells me, walking my robe to the bathroom where he hangs it on its hook.

“Lex—”

“Do you want him back?” He stops in the bathroom doorway, hand still attached to my robe and looks at me. “Derek—do you want him back?”

“No.” I shake my head, swallowing hard against the lump his question lodges in my throat. “No, I don’t.”

He lets his hand drop to his side and his mouth quirks a little like he’s not sure he believes what I’m telling him. “Then why haven’t you told him that?”

“I—” I shake my head because I don’t know. I don’t know why I haven’t told Derek to leave me alone. To stop texting me. “I don’t know.”

Lex barks out a harsh laugh when I say it. “You don’t know.” He nods his head. “Okay…”

I hurt his feelings. I don’t know how or why but I did. I can see it on his face. Shaking my head, I take a half step forward. “Lex—”

“And just so you know—” He shows me his hands and shrugs, stopping me cold. “I happen to be a big fucking fan of pudding.”

Before I can say anything or even register what he just said to me, he’s gone. Disappeared through the open bedroom door. A few seconds later, the clap of the front door being slammed tells me he’s gone.