Page 22 of The Way I Hate Him
ChapterFour
HAYES
She’s late.
Granted, it’s only one minute, but she’s still late.
I don’t know what came over me yesterday, but the moment I knew I could force Hattie Rowley into helping me, I made it happen. Sure, I could find someone else to assist me with my office, maybe someone less temperamental, but I also saw this look of desperation in Hattie’s eyes, and I felt that deep in my soul.
Desperation will get the best of us. You either rise from it or you sink, and I’ve experienced both. Desperation to prove myself, to make something of the person my parents both abandoned, to show them that I have value. And I sank before I rose.
I don’t know Hattie that well, but I do know something about the Rowleys. They’d rather sink before asking for help, especially from me.
So why even bother? Because at that moment, as fear crossed her eyes when I pointed out she didn’t have a job, and she didn’t have school, I saw myself in her, and I felt this instinctual need to toss her a bone.
Well, not really tossing her a bone but rather offering her a very unfair ultimatum.
At least that’s what I’m convincing myself of this morning—that I saw a little piece of myself inside those pools of green as she stared up at me.
It has nothing to do with the fact that if her brother found out about her new job opportunity, he’d probably murder me. Pissing off Ryland Rowley has its charms.
Or the fact that she looked incredibly hot in those spandex shorts. I hate to admit it, but I checked her ass out more than I should have.
Or the bright green of her eyes that seemed to cut to my very core. A color so green that I thought about them the moment I woke up this morning.
Nope, none of that. It was the desperationandpaying her debts because she did participate in the night my Grammy was stolen.
I rest my head against the Adirondack chair on my porch, my hand devoid of my morning coffee. Coffee that I could use right about now after a semi-sleepless night.
I’m about to check the time again when I hear the sound of a car flying down the road. I glance up over the hedges just in time to see a flash of red pull into the driveway. At least she knows she’s late.
The car turns off, her door slams, and she jogs up to the door, not noticing me once again. When she reaches the door, she takes a second to straighten her T-shirt and pat down her hair before she rings the doorbell.
She rests her hands in front of her, waiting, and that’s when I say, “You’re late.”
She flies to the side, startled to her very core. “Jesus fuck, Hayes.”
I smile and stand from the chair. In a pair of jeans and a black shirt, I stuff my phone in my pocket and move past her to open the door.
“I’ll give you the passcode to get into the house so you don’t have to ring the doorbell. I hate answering the door.”
“You just enjoy scaring the ever-living shit out of people, instead.”
“Precisely,” I say as I move toward the kitchen. “When you arrive, I expect you to come straight to the coffee maker and make my morning coffee.”
“So we’re just going to get right down to work, no pleasantries. Like a hello, how are you?”
I raise a contemplative brow. “If you expect pleasantries, you’re working for the wrong person.”
“That much is obvious,” she mutters.
I show her where the coffee pods are stashed in the drawer. “This is where I keep my coffee.”
She examines the coffee pods that are all the same flavor. The only flavor I bother drinking. “Wow, don’t care for a variety, do you?” she asks with sarcasm.
“I know what I like,” I answer. “Why change it?”
“I don’t know . . . to live life? It’s not going to kill you to try a different coffee.”
