Flawed (Ethan Frost 4)

After closing the door behind me, I jog down the steps and do a cursory sweep of the downstairs. I expect to find her on the patio sunbathing, or maybe watching TV in the family or media room, but instead she’s in the kitchen, her back turned to me as she loads her arms up with ingredients from the fridge.

She’s dressed in a pair of black yoga pants and a plain white tank top and for a second I can do nothing but stare. Partly because of the luscious curve of her ass as she bends over in the yoga pants and partly because of the fact that she looks really vulnerable like this. I’m used to seeing her dressed in designer or punk outfits, face perfectly made up and wearing enough attitude to give a street gang a run for their money.

But like this…she looks different. Sweeter. As vulnerable as Chloe warned me that she is.

As she turns to put things on the counter, I feel like a total perv for getting off to images of her in the shower earlier. Because with her hair swept back to the side and held in place by a flower barrette and her face washed clean of the omnipresent makeup she wears like armor, she looks about fifteen.

But she isn’t, I remind myself as I clear my throat to make my presence known. She’s in her twenties, and is currently the victim of a sex-tape scandal that’s obviously shaken her. So definitely not the naïve fifteen-year-old she resembles right now, but still definitely vulnerable.

Which is why, as I walk closer, I shove my hands into my pockets to ensure I won’t do anything stupid—like slide a finger down the gorgeous swirls of ink on her bare arm or across the sliver of skin between the bottom of

her tank top and the top of her pants.

“I thought you’d still be napping,” I say as I stop on the other side of the center island from her.

“Couldn’t sleep.” She dumps a carton of organic blackberries in a bowl, then turns toward the sink to wash them. “So I figured I’d blend.”

“Blend?”

“Yep.” She nods toward where Ethan’s prize Vitamix sits in a position of honor. “Your brother-in-law is always going on about the stress-relieving properties of making smoothies—and drinking them—so I thought I’d give it a try.”

She reaches for a carton of strawberries next, and after washing them begins to clean them.

“I didn’t know you knew how to…” I trail off because I’m not sure whether or not to call what she’s doing cooking. But she is currently hulling those strawberries like a pro.

“Do anything?” She finishes my sentence with a self-deprecating laugh, but one with a slight edge to it. “Yeah, you’re not the only one.”

There’s a story there—poor little rich girl, and all that—but I’m not up for digging around to find it. And won’t be until I have a cup of coffee…or six. “I was going to say I didn’t know you could cook.”

“I know it’s a shock, but I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself,” she says with a shrug. “Besides, there’s a lot you don’t know about me.”

“I could say the same thing to you, you know.”

“As if,” she answers with a snort. “I know everything I need to know about you.”

“I’m more than the mistake I made more than seven years ago.”

“It was a pretty big mistake.”

“Yeah, it was. But yours is a pretty raunchy sex tape and I’m guessing there’s more to you than what’s on that video. Or are you really just ‘the most spankable piece of ass on the planet’?” I quote Parson’s lame bedroom talk back to her.

“Parsons is an asshole.”

“No doubt. So are my parents, obviously. I’m willing to take responsibility for being an ignorant dick who didn’t question what he should have when it came to the money my parents used to start the company, but that mistake—no matter how bad it was—isn’t all I am.” To be honest, I’m not sure if it’s Tori I’m hoping to convince, or myself. Because I’m not, I continue, “Just like that sex tape isn’t all you are, no matter what it feels like right now.”

She slams the strawberry bowl onto the counter with a thump, and I brace myself for the explosion I can see brewing in the depths of her eyes. But in the end, she doesn’t explode. In fact, she doesn’t say anything at all. Instead she grabs two bananas from the bunch and starts peeling them.

I wait a few seconds, just to see what’s going to happen. But when nothing does, I make my way around the island to the coffeemaker. After all, pushing her buttons is usually as fun for me as pushing mine is for her. But not if she doesn’t push back. Then I just feel like a bully, and that’s a feeling I can’t abide.

Tori starts the blender at the same time I begin grinding the beans, and for a couple of minutes the noise in the kitchen is bad enough that neither of us can say anything with any hope of being heard.

I watch out of the corner of my eye as Tori finishes up the smoothies, then pours them into two glasses. Before I can say anything about how I prefer coffee, she reaches past me and turns the coffeemaker off before it can so much as get started brewing.

Then she pushes a smoothie at me with a look that tells me I’d better take it. But all she says is, “Too much caffeine makes you impotent,” as she breezes past me and out onto the large patio that overlooks the ocean.

For a second, I think about brewing the coffee anyway—just for spite—but the smoothie she made looks too inviting to turn down. So in the end I grab it and follow her onto the patio. Just because I want to pass along Chloe’s message, I assure myself. Not because I actually want to talk to her.

By the time I make my way outside, Tori is already on the other side of the pool, leaning up against the waist-high rock wall that edges the patio—and the cliff that it’s built on. Beyond her is the blue Pacific, and though it’s a nice day, the water is choppy and rough, the waves pounding against the sand below us with a roar that’s impossible to ignore.