As Long As You Hate Me Read online

I feel the hatred so deep in my bones for him that I want to scream.

  “Those were photographers … they must have followed me from the airport.” Dean paces in a circle, his hand rubbing his strong jaw.

  Photographers. The word clicks in my head finally, the flashbulbs still burning my retinas; my stomach plummets to the bottom of these damn heels.

  “Photographers … as in, paparazzi? They just … oh God, they got photos of us.” Dread fills my mouth like the taste of blood after biting your own tongue.

  Dean just nods.

  Tears really do form at the back of my throat now, clogging it. “So, I guess all those years of ‘protecting me’ have ended? Now everyone will know who the girl in the songs is.”

  Chapter Three

  Dean

  It’s way too damn quiet here.

  No bustling sidewalks, no traffic noise or late night partiers making a scene. There are no homeless people fighting at three in the morning, and not even an errant Uber honking for its passenger.

  Unless you count the ghosts in this house whispering their curse words at me, my ears ring with the silence. I’d forgotten what suburban New Jersey was like since I’d last left seven years ago and never looked back.

  The three-bedroom ranch was in worse condition than I’d left it in, and the place had been far from a palace back when I attended high school in this town. The carpet was now torn up, or pissed on, in multiple locations. The screens in the windows, or the actual windows, had been broken from what looked like shards of liquor bottles. The Formica countertops were scratched and burned, cabinet doors hung off their hinges, and the same ratty plaid couches were bottoming out in the living room.

  Lying on my childhood twin bed, basically just a piece of plywood and a mattress, I notice that my room has remained untouched. Band posters plastered over every inch of wall, lyrics scribbled onto the desk and nightstand, what trophies I hadn’t thrown out still line the shelves. In the corner still sat my textbooks from senior year of high school, relics of days past that breathed as much of my history into this house as my father’s absence did.

  The bastard. Didn’t even have the decency to burn the place down before he died.

  I scroll through Hollywood Gossip’s website on my phone screen for the millionth time, waiting to see the pictures of Kara and I splashed all over the headline spot. It would be mere minutes now, the flock of seagulls, my name for paparazzi, waiting for us at the wedding venue were all too greedy for their next paycheck not to share those immediately.

  The pictures must tell some story. If only they’d been privy to a bit of the conversation, heard the venom in Kara O’Connor’s voice. The fury in her pale purple eyes got me hard, my cock straining against my sweatpants even now. She could say she hated me until the cows came home, but there was no denying the sexual chemistry still buzzing around us like a swarm of dangerous wasps.

  I can’t lie here any longer, so I rise, walking the house like a zombie. My feet lead me to the backyard, the quiet echoing in my ear drums. How many nights had I spent here, lying in the grass, watching the fireflies? Or sneaking through the back window. Not that it mattered, my old man had been too drunk most of the time to even care if I walked through the front door at three a.m.

  My childhood memories had been pushed down to the bottom of the barrel in the last few years … but it didn’t mean they hadn’t risen to the surface after I’d stepped into Elm Hill this afternoon.

  The late nights, the victorious football games. The shitty days at school, doodling lyrics in my notebook until every single teacher yelled at me. The stares that said I’d turn out to be nothing more than my deadbeat of a father. The fury that roiled in my gut knowing that one day I’d prove them all wrong.

  And all of it had been with her by my side. Her pretty clothes muddied by the dirt of my broken-down truck. Her tan arms wrapped around mine as our classmates drank and skinny dipped in the pond we’d commandeered as our own. The mornings she’d sneak out of my window, running around the corner to be picked up from Marie’s house when she’d actually slept at mine.

  Clicking on the website again, I refresh it. And finally, it’s there. The picture of Kara and I splashed across the header in full color, our bodies leaning toward each other as if we were the most intimate of lovers.

  At one time, we had been.

  My phone buzzed just as I began to read the first line of the story.

  “Patrick.” It was a hello, a question, a demand for answers.

  “They’ve identified her. I’m going to be paying the right people to keep this buzz circulating for weeks. Good work, now keep it up.” My manager of five years clicks off without so much as a goodbye.

  Relief filled my system, but guilt crept in as well. I’d expected that, seeing as I was using her yet again for my own personal gain. But this was going to put me back on the right track, help to get the critics and womanizer naysayers off my case.

  Plus, selfishly, I wanted to see her. I had spent years dreaming about her face, those violet eyes, that slim, petite build … I’d imagined so many times what I would say if I ever got the chance to stand in front of her again.

  I hadn’t expected her to slap me, but I can’t say I didn’t deserve it.

  My mission was to keep deflecting, keep gnawing at her. Get down so deep into her marrow that by the time I executed the plan Patrick and I had plotted out, she’d have no choice but to go along with everything I was proposing.

  Chapter Four

  Kara

  Beep. Beep. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

  The alarm clock chimes incessantly in my ear until I slap a hand over it, silencing the Goddamn thing.

  “Jesus Christ …” I mutter to myself, rolling over as my head feels like an entire pound of bricks was dumped on it.

  Light pours in from behind my beige curtains, tinting the room a spectacular color of summer sun yellow. I’m sure it’s beautiful outside of those windows, but right now, the idea of lying in this bed with a big fat greasy omelet sounds like the best idea in the world.

  Unfortunately, that is not an option. As a resident, read that as dermatology bitch, I am the lucky recipient of the Sunday shift in the private office I’ve been working in for my clinical. So, I’ll have to settle for a cold cup of coffee on my drive in, because looking at the clock, I realize I’m late.

  So late, in fact, that I hope my makeup and hair are still semi-intact from the wedding last night because I’m definitely not going to have time to shower.

  Fuck. Last night. It all comes rushing back to me like a waterfall being poured over my head, leaving goose bumps in its wake. Dean Jacobs, in the flesh. Saying things, that Goddamn song playing in the background of our reunion. And fuck, those photographers. My drunk memory tries to scramble to keep up, because sober me this morning does not have all of the details.

  Kicking my feet out of bed and onto the cream-colored carpet, I pick up the dress I must have stripped myself out of before I’d tumbled into bed. The Uber home was a blur, and it was a miracle I’d gotten out of the wedding venue with my purse. Why can’t I focus on the task of getting dressed for work?

  Oh right, because the only thing I can see are those fuck-me tattoos that now covered Dean’s arms.

  “Get a grip, Kara.” I talk to myself as I round to the mirror.

  The damage actually isn’t too terrible, and with a few rubs of a tissue under my eyes, some mascara, and a strategically placed bobby pin or five, I’m looking work-ready in about twenty minutes. I don my black professional slacks, a sleeveless yellow turtleneck sweater, and slide my Fitbit onto my wrist. Because after all, if you’re not tracking your steps, did you even take them?

  Sliding my feet into black leather flats, I assess myself before walking out of my bedroom door. I’d looked better, but I’d definitely looked worse.

  Opening my door, the sound of Mom’s morning news program hits my ears as I descend the stairs, the smell of coffee and bacon making my hungover stomach weep
. My childhood home is on the “nice” side of Elm Hill, a product of my dad’s IT management job and mom’s successful home baking company. An only child, I was never denied what I asked for, but we weren’t rich by any means. We were what Americans called “well off,” but still middle class.

  Case in point: while my parents were amazing enough to pay for my undergrad out of their own pockets, they didn’t have the cash to be able to send me full ride to graduate school. And so here I was, loans up to my ears fighting the clock until the day I could get a real paying job in the medical field.

  “We missed you at the end of the wedding! When we got home, your father found you snoozing in bed like a cute little bear.” Mom kissed my cheek as I sped around her all-white kitchen, looking for a travel mug to pour coffee into.

  I’d forgotten I was supposed to go home with my parents. I guess seeing the boy, who was now a rockstar, that had broken your heart while six drinks deep could do that to a girl.

  “Sorry about that, I was just tired and wanted to go to bed. It was a nice wedding though; did you guys have fun?”

  I seal the lid on the car cup, spotting my dad out the window as he fired up the lawn mower.

  “Your father learned something called the Cupid Shuffle, which was quite fun. It was beautiful, I’m so happy for Marie. Oh, to have your daughter be a married woman …”

  Mom looks off dreamily as I almost spit the non-existent coffee out of my mouth. Imagining my typically straight-laced, but loving, father doing the Cupid Shuffle makes me want to roll on the floor laughing. Literally.

  I completely ignore Mom’s comment, knowing that as I creep closer to thirty she wants nothing more than a grandchild to fawn over. I don’t have to infer that, she’s flat out told me. Screw medical school or having a successful career, no … this woman would rather I have a ring on my finger and push a child out of my vagina.

  “Sounds great, Mom … but I’m late. I’ll see you tonight, let me know if you need me to pick up anything on my way home.”

  Somehow, I sprint to my car and get to the office with two minutes to spare before I’m actually supposed to be there. For a Sunday, the parking lot is oddly full, but maybe there are a lot of teenagers requiring acne medication today. Who knows.

  I grab my oversized purse, filled with mostly items that I never use but am too lazy to clean out, off the passenger seat of my midsize, used Acura and start across the pavement.

  “Kara! Kara O’Connor!” Someone is shouting my name across the blacktop, a bunch of figures appearing from behind parked cars.

  “There she is!” These people, a random grouping of ethnicities, builds, genders, start to run toward me.

  I have got to be in an alternate universe. What the hell is happening? Who the fuck are these people, how do they know my name, and why are they stampeding at me like I’m Simba’s father in the Lion King?

  “Are you Dean Jacob’s latest girlfriend?”

  “Did you two go to the wedding together?”

  “Are you the one he’s always singing about?”

  “Tell us, how big is his dick!?”

  The last question makes me rear back, my brain finally clicking into place. The wedding, the flash outside the reception hall when Dean and I had been talking. The way I’d smacked him in the face. Remembering that one felt good.

  But I don’t hesitate for more than a second before they’re taking my picture. Flashing in all of their greedy delight, and now I know exactly what they are. Paparazzi. Me, being stalked by paparazzi. What in the world was happening?

  I run into the office, locking the back door behind me, not knowing if they’re allowed to come into the building or not. You’d think there were laws against it, but my brain isn’t processing that on all cylinders at the moment.

  Brianna, one of the clinical assistants in the office, happens to see my frenzied entrance into the office as I stalk up the hallway toward the staff room.

  “Girl, what the hell did you do yesterday? Who even are you?” She looks at me with a new expression on her face, as if she doesn’t even know me.

  “What do you mean?” There is no way she caught that scene in the parking lot, there are no windows near the back staff entrance.

  “Have you even seen all of the articles online? Not to mention news outlets have been calling here all morning. Dr. Furman threatened to cut the phone lines at one point, and you know how greedy she is for emergency patients.”

  Articles? “What are you talking about?”

  I shake my head like I have water in my ears, trying to make out her words in my head again. I’ve asked it now ten million times in my head, but what was going on?

  “You and Dean Jacobs? How the heck did I not know that you were his high school sweetheart? The girl in all of the songs. I’d be kind of pissed at you for not disclosing all the juicy details, that is if I didn’t want those details so badly. Please tell me everything.” She props her chin on her hand, her light brown bangs fanning over her eyes.

  Without even setting my things down, I race around the desk she stands in front of. Typing in one of the only gossip sites I know into the URL bar, I wait for it to load while all of the nervous butterflies converge in my stomach.

  And then my heart sinks. Splashed across the front page, our picture covering every inch of the browser, are Dean and me.

  After seven years, they’ve finally figured me out.

  Instantly, I want to smack my ex-boyfriend in the face again.

  Chapter Five

  Dean

  She has a right to hate me. I know that.

  We were in love until I fucked us all up, but Kara also isn’t an innocent bystander in our downfall either. The one person I loved more than anything on this earth, the person I trusted implicitly, turned her back on me the minute things got hard.

  Fury, rage, misplaced loyalty … I’d never felt those stings of emotions from that beautiful black-haired girl until it had been too late. The seed of doubt had been planted all those years ago, and it led to our ultimate crash and burn. I’ve never forgotten that explosion, the arson leaving burn marks on my heart that still to this day can’t be rubbed out.

  No matter how many women I’ve fucked, and trust me there have been plenty, I could never get her out of my head. There has never been another female to own my heart as completely as Kara had, and now that I’m back within reaching distance of her, my body buzzes like a live wire.

  “You motherfucker!”

  Loud bangs from a fist pounding on the rickety ranch door have me smiling, because I know she’s seen the articles. Slowly I walk to the front door, hoping her anger turns up from a simmer to full-on boiling over.

  Her fist keeps slamming against the door, and she almost punches me in the nose when I swing it open.

  “Hi, gorgeous, long time no see.” The smarmy grin feels good on my lips.

  Kara dons professional clothes, and it occurs to me that I don’t fully know what she does. Something in medicine, I gained that much from the file that the private investigator gave Patrick before I okayed his idea. Her long hair has been twirled up at the nape of her neck, and God do I want to suck on the soft skin there.

  Her face however, is anything but graceful and gentle. A shade of deep red, her violet eyes sparkling, she looks like she could spit nails if she tried hard enough.

  She storms into the house without an invitation, waving her finger in my face. “Spouting all of this bullshit about ‘protecting’ me last night … what a crock of shit! They showed up at my work, Dean! The place I do my residency … I was being chased down in the parking lot by human vultures with cameras. Now they know where I live? Who I am? You never could make anything easy for me. You’re a fucking disaster zone, and you bring the demolition wherever you go.”

  Shit. My conscience grimaces for just a brief second as I realize that I didn’t quite prepare for how this was all going to go down. The two sides of me, the one that needed her salvation and the other that got sick
pleasure from seeing her as hurt as I still was, war over each cell in my body.

  “Come on in. Want a beer?” I motion for her to sit on the couch, knowing there was probably piss stains all over it.

  Kara looks at me like I’ve lost an eye or just said that I prefer to fuck clowns, and then her gaze falls to the house. A quick inhale tells me that she forgot about this place, forgot where I came from. The filth of my past sits under our feet, and the quick flit of sympathy that passes through her irises doesn’t escape my notice.

  “I’d better not take a drink from a stranger. First rule of college. But then, you wouldn’t know that.” Her backhanded comment has no effect on me.

  I’d known from the start that college wasn’t going to be for me, but it was always her dream. The bitterness tinging her voice also comes from the fact that I didn’t visit her in the two years we were dating while she attended. I guess that was still going to be a point of contention between the two of us.

  “Suit yourself.” I shrug and walk to the kitchen, grabbing an IPA from the fridge. Who knows how old these are, since no one has occupied the house in about eight months.

  Cracking it open, and walking back to the living room, I take a long gulp and sit, eyeing her. “We should talk.”

  “Psh, literally the last thing I want to do in the world is talk to you. Why are you back here, Dean?”

  Should I be up front? Lie? My options are few and I need her to listen, to really grasp everything that I’m saying.

  With Kara, you should always be direct. If not, I’d land myself in the choppy water that had led directly to us drowning in the sea of our breakup.

  “Have you seen the news stories about me lately?” I tick my finger against the beer bottle, nervous to know if she thinks the rumors are true or not.

  She crosses her arms over her chest, and her tits smash together in that little librarian sweater she has on. “You mean the ones claiming that you’re dating me? The ambush of pictures that those photographers got at the wedding? Because yeah, I just had to sneak out of my workplace and drive an extra forty minutes out of the way to make sure no one followed me here.”