Page 37 of Mr. Wrong (Hollywood Knights #1)

Thirty-Seven

Lex

Incoming.

The text from Killian comes through about five seconds before I hear the rev of what sounds like Landon’s Porsche engine outside.

A few seconds after that, I hear the door slam and the alarm chirp. Twitching the curtain away from the front window, I expect to see Landon, home a week earlier than expected and stomping his way up the walk.

Instead, I see Ellenore.

Shit.

Letting the curtain fall back into place I stab out a quick text in response.

Me: You’re a dick.

You know that, right?

Kill: Old news.

Now quit being a fucking

baby and open the door.

There’s a half beat worth of silence before someone knocks on the front door, right on cue.

Me: We’re fighting when

this is all over.

She knocks again while I stare at my phone, waiting for Killian’s reply.

Kill: Come get it, bitch.

Me: I hate you.

She knocks again.

Kill: She’s not going away.

Trust me. Your girl’s a

honey badger.

My girl.

Ellenore isn’t my girl.

She isn’t my anything.

Never really was.

Kill: I sent Greta home.

Cass and I will be fine.

Handle your shit.

Tossing my phone on the coffee table, I stand and force myself across the living room to pull the door open.

Ellenore is standing on the other side of it, cheeks flushed, dark eyes narrowing slightly when she sees me.

“Good luck?” She holds her phone up like it’s a key piece of evidence in a capital murder trial.

“Good luck ? What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

Like every other time I’ve looked at her, I’m completely floored by how absolutely gorgeous she is. How she can make a pair of ironed jeans and a soccer mom sweater look so goddamned good is something I’ll never understand. It’s so fucking unexplainable that there’s really only one explanation.

She’s magic.

Ellenore is fucking magic.

“What?” I tear my gaze away from her face and look at the phone in her hand, trying to make sense of her. As usual, I can’t, so I just keep looking at her while I shake my head. “I—”

That’s as far as I get before she pushes her way past me and into the little beach bungalow I exiled myself to five weeks ago.

“ Good luck today. I hope everything works out the way you want it to .” She gets as far as the couch before she turns to brandish her phone at me again.

“I tell you I’m meeting my ex for coffee and your response is to fuck me and the morning after, wish me luck like I’m going on a job interview? ”

Shutting the door, I frown at her. “What was I supposed to say, Elle?”

“I don’t know…” She gives me a helpless shrug, her eyes narrowing again. “You kissed me last night.”

“I did do that,” I say, getting ready for the round of mental gymnastics she’s about to put me through.

“And then you—”

I hold up a hand to stop her because I’m already on the verge of losing it and I don’t know what will happen if I have to listen to her say it twice. “I know—I did that too and I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?” She advances on me like she’s thinking about hitting me. After what I did last night, I kinda wish she would. “You’re sorry for fucking me?”

“Jesus—can you stop saying that?” I swipe a rough hand over my face. “I know what I did and I know that you’re probably—”

“You don’t know shit, Lex.” Her gaze drifts across my shoulders before dipping down to my bare chest and abs. “You’re not wearing a shirt again.”

“Nope.” I give her a flat smile. “You want me to put one on?”

“No.” She shakes her head, swallowing so hard I can see the inside of her throat working against her neck from across the room. “What are you doing here?” she asks, looking around the room for clues.

“I live here.” I give her a shrug, taking a few cautious steps in her direction.

“No…” She sighs and looks at me like I’m being obtuse on purpose. “What are you doing here, now ? Why aren’t you at the house with Cassie, making breakfast like you’re supposed to be? When I left, Greta was there and she —”

“Because I would’ve followed you,” I say, telling her the truth.

“Because if I’d have been there when you left to meet that fucking douchewad I would’ve done something stupid like follow you or—” Barricade us both in the pool house.

Get you naked and keep you that way for the rest of your life.

Now it’s my turn to swallow hard and sigh.

“It was just best for everyone if I wasn’t there. ”

“Is that why you didn’t stay last night?” She blushes again and it takes everything I’ve got in me not to tackle her onto the couch and get her out of that soccer mom sweater. “Because you didn’t want to watch me leave to meet Derek?”

No.

I didn’t stay because if I’d woken up next to you, I’m pretty sure you would’ve woken up tied to the bed.

Instead of saying it out loud, I give her a jerky head nod.

“Yeah.” I swipe a hand over my face and force myself to be her friend and not the guy who can’t stop thinking about getting her naked.

“How did it go? Your coffee date?” Saying it out loud makes me want to put my head through a wall.

“It wasn’t a date,” she says, looking at me like I just whipped my dick out and shook it at her. “And I…” She looks away from me, down at the coffee table she’s standing next to. “What is that?” she asks, lowering herself slowly to sit on the couch I was camped out on.

“It’s a book,” I tell her, slightly irritated when she jogs a disbelieving look upward before refocusing on the open book and the stack of index cards on the table in front of her.

She reaches for it without asking, careful to wedge her finger in between the pages to hold my place while she flips it closed so she can read the cover.

CHILD DEVELOPMENT: AN ACTIVE LEARNING APPROACH

“You’re going to school?” I feel my gut clench when she says it because I’m sure she’s going to start laughing at me, but she doesn’t. She just beams at me like it’s the greatest thing she’s ever heard “Lex, that’s fantastic!”

“Just a few summer courses at a community college.” I rub a self-conscious hand over the back of my head. “It’s not a big deal.”

“It’s a huge deal,” she says, gesturing toward the stack of notecards on the table in front of her. “Why didn’t you say something? I could’ve—”

“The book can wait,” I tell her quietly. “Right now, I need that brain of yours to focus. How did things go with Derek?”

“They went great.” She gives me a watery laugh, looking up at me while she lets the book fall open again.

“Better than great—I didn’t go.” She laughs again, brushing her hands over her face to wipe away what looks like tears.

“He’s been texting me all morning and I was pretty sure I was going to end up strangling him when I saw him again because Jesus Christ, he so annoying and I don’t know if he was always that annoying or if—”

I’m across the room in a flash, so fast that neither of us have time to think before I’m on the couch beside her and I have her face in my hands. “You didn’t go.”

Even though it’s not a question, she answers me anyway. “No, I didn’t.”

Something stutters in my chest, pressing against my lungs so hard I can’t take a full breath. “Why not?”

“Because you kissed me last night and then you…” Her cheeks go warm under my hands at the memory of what I did to her and she sighs.

“And when you texted me this morning, I thought you were Derek, and I was irritated but then I saw it was you and I wasn’t irritated anymore, I was furious .

” Her eyes flood with tears again. “You said good luck , Lex.” She rolls her eyes at me like I’m too stupid to live. “ Good luck ? Who says that?”

“Apparently, I do,” I tell her, giving her a crooked grin.

“I can be pretty lame sometimes.” When she doesn’t laugh at my joke, I sigh.

“What was I supposed to say?” I give her a shrug and let my hands drop away from her face because we’ve finally circled back to the beginning of this crazy conversation.

“ Don’t go? That asshole is all wrong for you? He’ll never love you like I do? He —”

I realize what I said too late.

That I love her.

And even though it’s true, I do love her, I know it’s too soon to say it out loud.

Something I should keep to myself for a little while longer.

Even though I know she heard me, caught what I said to her, she doesn’t call me on it.

Tell me I’m nuts or that I can’t possibly love someone like her.

She just looks at me, chewing on that bottom lip of hers.

“Going to meet with Derek would’ve been a waste of time.

All I was going to do when I got there was tell him to his face that I never want to talk to him again.

” She gives another helpless shrug. “Because as it turns out, I’m not a big fan of pudding. ”

“That’s okay—” I say, laughing a little because I’m so relieved I’m almost dizzy with it. “I can love pudding enough for the both of us.”

“My middle name is Hope,” she says, doing another mental leapfrog.

“There was an unfortunate period in the seventh grade when I decided to change my name to Hope because I hated Ellenore and Hope sounded so much cooler than my dumb grandma name but it didn’t take—everyone just laughed at me.

” She gives me an embarrassed smile. “I tried again in college. Shortened it to Elle but that name never really fit me either.”

“I happen to like the name Ellenore,” I tell her, my voice squeezed tight by the riot going on in my chest because I want to tell her that I like everything about her.

Her sweaters and ponytails. Her weird relationship with her cat and her purse full of plastic dinosaurs.

The way she makes me laugh and the fact that she’s a Stephen King fan.

That she loves Cassie almost as much as I do and that she has no idea who she is when she’s with me.

I like all of it.

But I love her.

“So do I,” she whispers back, her gaze dropping to my mouth. “We’re all wrong for each other, aren’t we?”

“Yes,” I say, reaching for her again, snaking an arm around her waist to pull her against me, loving the way she opens her legs to straddle me without prompting, her knees tightening against my hips when I slide a hand over the curve of her ass as I lift her over me. “Completely and totally wrong.”

“I like that too,” she says softly, her mouth moving against mine while she lifts her arms so I can take her shirt off. “It might actually be my favorite thing about us.”

“Mine too,” I whisper back, right before I kiss her.