Under Her Skin

teenage girl lay on the leather sofa, C.C. curled up on her stomach.

“Can I help you?” Lexi asked, annoyed that some neighbor’s kid had just strolled into the house. Now what? Did she just let her go? Call her parents?

The girl looked up and saw her, then muted the TV. After moving C.C. off her lap, she sat up and stretched.

“Hi,” she said. “Who are you?”

“That would be my question. Who are you and what are you doing in this house?”

The girl was maybe fourteen or fifteen, with long, dark, wavy hair and big brown eyes. If she’d backed off on the makeup, she would have been pretty. As it was, she looked like a caricature of a hooker with thick eyeliner and too much lip gloss. A too-tight T-shirt rode up on her stomach.

The girl stretched again, then yawned. “Let me guess. You’re the new flavor of the month. That is just so typical. And does my dad bother to mention me? Of course not. Why am I surprised? It’s not like he remembers me when I’m not here.”

Lexi put up one hand to steady herself against the doorframe. The room seemed to tilt a little, then straighten.

“I’m Kendra, by the way,” the girl said, studying her. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” Lexi whispered. “Cruz is…”

“My daddy. I can tell he didn’t say anything. You don’t look so good. Jeez, the man has the sensitivity of a cockroach.” Kendra sighed, then stood. “I’m his daughter. I don’t see him very much, but my mom has a business trip to Europe and she doesn’t think I’m capable of staying by myself.” The shocking statement was accompanied by an eye roll. “I’m fifteen. I’m practically an adult. But does anyone notice? Of course not. I’d normally go to my grandma’s but she just had knee replacement and is staying with one of her friends, so Dad was stuck with me.”

She scooped up C.C. and cuddled her. “Is the kitten yours? She’s really sweet.”

“He,” Lexi said automatically. Cruz had a daughter? He had a fifteen-year-old kid and he’d never mentioned it? Ever?

“Oh. What’s his name?”

“C.C.”

“For Cruz Control?” Kendra shook her head. “Man, you have it bad. Seriously, you’ve got to play hard to get. Guys respect that. If you give too much, you lose everything. At least that’s what my mom says. I don’t have a boyfriend. I’m not allowed to date. I can go out in a group, but that’s beyond lame.”

Lexi couldn’t take it all in. There had to be a mistake. Cruz had a child?

“So you’re, ah, staying here?” she asked.

“You catch on quick, don’t you? Yes, I’m staying here for a couple of weeks. We’ll be like a family. Won’t that be great?”

Lexi felt her stomach turn over.

Kendra pointed to her hand. “Nice rock. You’re engaged?”

“What?” Lexi glanced at the diamond ring on her left hand. “Um, yes.”

“Interesting. I wouldn’t get your hopes up, if I were you. He’s been engaged before. It doesn’t usually last.”

This was way too much information. “Do you have a room you usually use?”

The teenager’s expression turned pitying. “Hey, look, you don’t have to worry about me. I’m fine. I’ll stay out of your way and you stay out of mine. I’ve done this before. It’s not like you’re going to be sticking around very long, so we’ll never have to do this again. Okay?”

“But he knew you were coming?”

“Ye-ah.” She drew the word out to two syllables. “I think the only one who didn’t know was you.”

CHAPTER TEN

LEXI PACED IN THE kitchen until she heard the garage door, then raced out to confront Cruz. She waited impatiently while he got out of his car.

Thoughts swirled in her head, none of them making sense.

“You have a child,” she said as he approached. “A daughter. She’s fifteen.”

He frowned. “Are you telling me or asking me, because I already know.”

“I didn’t. You have a kid. And apparently she’s staying with you, with us, for a while, and you never bothered to mention it. We were together for the entire weekend. We talked about our past. We shared our lives and you never found a single moment when you could mention you had a daughter, and hey, she’ll be staying here for a few days?”

He walked toward the house. “I was trying to make alternative arrangements so she wouldn’t be here.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” She grabbed his suit jacket sleeve and tugged until he stopped and faced her. “Cruz, you have a daughter.”

“You keep saying it.”

“I want you to say it.”

He looked impatient. “I have a daughter. Sixteen years ago I got a girl pregnant. We were both kids, we didn’t want to get married. She decided to give up the baby for adoption. So we did the paperwork, but when the time came, she wanted to keep the kid. I didn’t. We made a deal. She would handle all of it and I would send money. Every now and then Kendra comes around for one reason or another, but that’s it. Nothing more. She won’t be here long.”

Lexi couldn’t believe they were having this conversation. Later she would wrestle with the specifics of what he was telling her.

“But she’s here now and you didn’t tell me.”

“I’m not going to stick you with her, if that’s what you’re worried about. I’ll take care of her.”

Lexi wished she was big enough to shake him. “That’s not the point. You didn’t tell me she was coming. You didn’t tell me she existed.”

“You didn’t need to know.”

There was a slap that would leave a mark, she thought, feeling the blow down to her stomach. “Apparently I did because she’s in the house.”

“Fine. I should have mentioned it. Is there anything else?”

There was a world of things they had to discuss, but it could all wait.

She held up her hands, releasing him so he could go inside.

He turned from her and walked out of the garage. She stood there, wishing she didn’t see so much of her father in him. Jed was another man who hadn’t much bothered with his daughters. Not until they were old enough to be of “value” to him. Cruz obviously didn’t care about Kendra.

He might have made a deal with the girl’s mother, but he hadn’t made a deal with her kid. Every child wanted a father-how was Kendra handling having one who obviously didn’t care?

LEXI OPENED THE freezer and poked around at the various containers. “It looks like we’ve got some shrimp. I could make rice.”

“No, thanks,” Kendra said from her place on the counter.

“There are a couple of frozen dinners, or we could have leftovers.”

“Oh, so appealing, but no.”

Lexi closed the freezer and did her best not to stomp her foot. The situation was awkward and the teen wasn’t doing anything to make it better. Worse, Cruz hadn’t mentioned his daughter’s arrival to the housekeeping service so they hadn’t brought in any extra food.

“You have to eat something,” Lexi told her.

Kendra flicked a long curl over her shoulder. “You’re not like the others. You know where the kitchen is and that kids should eat. Interesting. Does my dad know you think and everything?”

Lexi leaned against the counter. She wasn’t going to be baited. Not when she knew the girl had to be hurting