Chapter 12
M y heart is racing like crazy right now. Strong beats pumping the blood through my veins. My last two patients of the day were a husband and wife, and they canceled this morning. I was grateful. It allowed me to leave work earlier than I typically would on a Wednesday.
Summer rolls and shrimp lo mein for Stella—it’s her favorite. Sushi for me because I can eat it while looking over patient charts.
Only, I knew before I arrived home what I would find.
I watched Stella bring Elle inside on the cameras I have set up. The rest of my drive home, I deliberated what I should do. My entire walk through our house and out through the yard to the doors of the greenhouse too.
What the hell was she doing here?
Why would she come?
For Stella… or for me?
That’s what drove me mad, right up until I opened the doors and saw the answer for myself. She was not there for me. And when I should have felt relief—part of me did—the larger part of me felt this inexplicable rush of anger. Of heat.
Goddammit, why wasn’t she there for me?
And why did I care that she was staring at me like a street kid caught stealing? Nervous yet defiant.
I turn my glare away from the bane of my existence over to my daughter. “Hey, Bellas. What’s going on here?”
“Elle walked me home from school, and I wanted to show her my greenhouse.”
Elle walked her home, but there’s more to it than that.
I can see it in the way Stella swivels around to ensure Elle meets her eyes.
To ensure whatever message she wants to relay, Elle reads.
And the second I see the recognition of it flicker over Elle, I know the two of them already have secrets I’m not privy to.
“Great,” I say when I think it’s obvious from my tone I find it to be anything but.
“Dad?” Stella turns back to me. “Elle likes to cook. Remember, I showed you some of those recipes on our wellness chat. She’s going to teach me how.”
Fuck.
“How about you go inside and start your homework. I’ll be in in a few minutes. You’ll see Miss Wilde tomorrow at school.”
I can feel Stella’s frown, her unhappy face imploring me. She wants to ask if Elle can stay for dinner but knows enough not to ask in front of her. If it were Layla, I wouldn’t hesitate to say yes or even offer it myself. But Elle is not Stella’s friend. Elle cannot be Stella’s friend.
Stella straightens her spine and clears her throat, likely throwing me a death glare I can’t meet because I’m too busy, locked in a visual duel with her wellness and history teacher.
“Sure. Of course. Good night, Elle ,” she emphasizes her name, showing me there’s more to this than a student-teacher relationship. “Thank you again for everything today.”
“Always,” Elle promises, and I hate that fucking promise more than I hate her being here.
A blink of an eye. A wrong word. A patch of ice. That’s all it takes. Doesn’t she understand that? There is no always. There is no forever. And certainly not with her.
Stella scurries out, attempting to force my gaze to hers one last time, and I finally relent at the last second before she brushes by me. “Don’t be a jerk,” she hisses under her breath so only I can hear.
Her words hit me like a sucker punch. Still, I make no promises.
I watch as Elle steels her spine, her chin lifting contemptuously.
She’s gearing up for a battle I have no interest in fighting.
I’ve already lost. Which somehow is more than I can tolerate from her, so I decide maybe I should go a few more rounds because I’ll be damned if I allow her to chip away at more of me.
“I wasn’t planning on being here when you got home. Stella said you work late on Wednesdays. Usually not home until after seven.”
“Typically, I’m not. What are you doing with my daughter? You don’t belong here.”
She makes some kind of annoyed sound in the back of her throat, folding her arms over her chest as she leans back against a table full of potted plants.
“You know what I’m doing here. Don’t make it out to be more than it is.
She invited me in to see her greenhouse because gardening is obviously something she and I both have in common. ”
“Doesn’t mean I want you here with her.”
Pain flashes across her face before she quickly tries to tuck it away. “Why did you say that?”
“Because I’m an asshole,” I tell her simply so she knows. It’s not an act. It’s a fact she can rely on. “What happened today with her?”
She shakes her head. “Nuh-uh. That’s something you’ll have to get from her. I will not betray her confidence in that. She was not a threat to herself or to others, so I’m not obligated to say a word.”
“I don’t like you having secrets with my daughter.”
“Sucks to be you then.”
Damn her.
“She asked me to teach her how to cook, and I’d like to, Landon. I think it would be good for her.”
I take an involuntary step forward, my blood heating, my body humming with a steady cocktail of endorphins. “You’re in no place to tell me what is good for my daughter.”
She puffs a sigh, her head falling back as she stares up at the glass ceiling, muttering something I can’t hear under her breath. It’s likely a dig at me, so I don’t ask.
The problem is, I know she’s right.
Stella has wanted to learn how to cook for years.
My human dumpster will eat anything she gets her hands on, but I’m not stupid enough to pretend I don’t know why she wants to do this.
She even subscribed us to a mail order thing for a while that shipped boxes of food and recipes to follow.
But she was only eleven then, and I wasn’t much help, though I tried to be.
I offered to have someone cook our meals for us in the past, and Stella dismissed the idea.
I should kick Elle out—out the door and out of our lives—but now there’s no way I can.
Stella’s obsession with her has me grasping at straws, searching for loopholes when I already know there are none.
Stella is making her move, and as always, it’s checkmate because I’d do anything to make her happy.
Even if it’ll cost me dearly.
“She knows how to make enchiladas,” I throw out. Carter taught her that since it’s his specialty.
“And what else?” Elle challenges.
My parents don’t cook. They have Sophia, their personal chef.
She’s been with the family for years. That’s how I grew up, so I don’t know how to cook either.
Reese did all of that, and if she were still alive, Stella would be doing that with her mother.
Not seeking misplaced attention from a virtual stranger.
The truth remains, no matter what I do, I can’t bring her mother back, and one day when Stella realizes she should hate me, I hope she clings to this.
I’d build her a thousand greenhouses. Hire a James Beard winning chef to teach her.
But she wants Elle.
“Why do you care? What’s in it for you?” I question instead, shutting the doors behind me for no real reason other than I don’t want Stella to watch as I prowl toward her teacher like a tiger after its prey.
Elle visibly swallows, taking a step back and bumping into the table behind her, her hands flinging back, grasping on to the edge as it shakes. Her pupils dilate as if she knows I’m thinking about stripping her naked and devouring her.
I make you nervous, Elle. I make your heart flutter. Your skin heat. Your pussy wet. Fuck, I can practically smell how turned on she is as I get closer. See how aroused I make her as it darkens her eyes.
“I know what it’s like to lose someone you love and feel like you have no one else.”
That’s when I freeze. Dead in my tracks. The blood that was funneling south turns to ice in my veins.
“You’re not her mother.”
Hackles rise. “I’d never try to be. But she needs a friend.”
“You’re her teacher. Fourteen years her senior. Are you that out of options?”
She lets out a humorless laugh as she folds her arms over her chest and glares.
“Yeah. Maybe I am. Maybe my only friend has a family of her own. Maybe I ran out of a bad situation and now I find myself here with not a whole lot going on other than my job. But Stella asked me to help her learn how to cook, and she has a greenhouse you built for her, loaded with fruits and vegetables. I like cooking. I like Stella. I don’t like you.
With your permission, I’d like to teach her how to cook. ”
“I can’t have you here, Elle. I can’t smell your perfume in my house when I walk in the door. The last thing I can tolerate at the end of a long day is how your smile makes your eyes more green than brown or the way your hair looks when you play with the ends of it—the way you’re doing now.”
She releases her hair instantly, her hands going back to the table, but it makes no difference. It’s already mussed. The way it looked after my hands ran through it. Sexy. Disheveled.
“Believe me, the last thing I want is to be anywhere near you.”
I do believe her, which is why I’m taking another step, anxious to prove her a liar.
Suddenly I’m hovering over her, my size and proximity a likely weapon when she’s the one disarming me completely.
“So how do we solve this?” My voice is a whisper, the sound husky.
Hoarse. I want to wrap her hair around my fist and yank her toward me.
Spin her around in place and spank her ass red.
Her pussy would drip for me, but only after she begged me to would I fuck her like the world was ending, putting us both out of our misery. Or maybe that misery is all mine.
“You trust me—”
“I don’t.”
“I won’t hurt her.”
But she has so much power to. More than she even knows.
My hand comes up, my fist curling until my knuckles graze the soft flesh of her cheek, gliding up along the fragile bones poised beneath her silky skin.
Every night I jerk off. To her. Her alone.
The way she stares up into my eyes. Headstrong.
Surefire. Brazen. Her gorgeous mouth. Those full lips. My cock slurping between them.