Page 24 of The Way I Hate Him
“Oh damn.” She snaps her finger in irritation. “And here I was about to stir your coffee with my nipple. What is a girl to do now?”
Let me lick the excess off . . .
“Follow me,” I say. I take her down the opposite hallway from my office toward my bedroom.
“Are you taking me to your dungeon for mouthing off? Because any torture you might have in mind will never match having to sit through a night of Matt trying to figure out where my clit was.”
That pauses me.
I glance over my shoulder and catch the way she’s worrying her lip. Before I can say anything, she says, “I don’t know why I said that. I’m feeling a little unhinged at the moment from this hostile environment. You bring it out in me, but if you must know, which I know you didn’t ask, but I will tell you anyway because of that look on your face, I think I’m bitter about the whole situation with Matt. I mean, if it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t be standing here, paying his dues for something he did, and of course you wouldn’t realize that because all you see is someone to blame for what happened to you, but in reality, I was just doing a good deed.” Her eyes line up with mine. “But you know how it is. Karma never comes back to bite the right person in the ass. It always seems to sidestep and grab the innocent. It’s just like when I found a twenty-dollar bill on the ground at the grocery store. Instead of keeping it for myself, I paid it forward and stuck it on someone else’s windshield to brighten their day, and then do you know what happened to me five minutes later? A cop pulls me over. If that wasn’t karma slapping me in the face, then this surely is because all I wanted was to—”
“Get your boyfriend who broke up with you fired,” I say before she can finish her tirade. She stares at me blankly. Got her. I know exactly what she was doing coming here. Sure, she returned my Grammy, but there was a motive behind it. “Looks like karma chose the right person.” I continue to move down the hall, and reluctantly, she does too.
“He deserved to be fired,” she whispers, not sure why. “He was stealing from you.”
“But you purposely tried to mess with someone’s life, and the universe didn’t like that.”
“What about you?” she fires back. “You’re messing with my life. Where’s your slap in the face by the universe?”
“Am I messing with your life?” I ask as I turn around and lean against the doorframe that leads to my bedroom. “Or am I giving you an opportunity to hide from school, hide from the truth, and earn some cash while doing it?”
“Ohhhh, no.” She shakes her head. “Do not play the saint card with me. I know enough about you to know you’re anything but a saint.”
“Is that right?” I ask. “Tell me, what do you know about me?”
She goes to open her mouth and then closes it as she takes a second to think.
“That’s what I thought,” I say as I push my bedroom door open.
“You’re an ass,” she says quickly. “A jerk. You take what you want without any thought of the people around you.”
“Do you know that firsthand, or are you just hearing stories from your brother?”
“Given my current predicament, I know that firsthand.” She raises her chin, as if she got me. Little does she know, her assumption is the furthest thing from the truth, but she doesn’t need to know that.
Ignoring her, I push the door to my room open and walk in.
“This is my bedroom,” I say. She peeks inside, and I watch her carefully as she observes the dark, almost midnight room—concrete floors, nearly black walls and molding, and a black-framed bed with gray velvet bedding. The only light in the room comes from the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the ocean.
“Uh . . . why are you showing me your bedroom? Because if you expect me to—”
“So you know where to bring my drinks,” I say, exasperated. “Jesus, are you paying attention?”
“Oh, that’s right.” She nervously smiles. “You just get my feathers all ruffled. And I know you have a reputation, so—”
“If there is one thing I can guarantee, it’s that you’re not here as a fuck toy. I have no interest in taking your clothes off, so whatever reputation you think I have, it doesn’t apply to you.”
“Well.” She crosses her arms. “Can’t hear that enough.”
I raise a brow. “Really? Angry that I won’t fuck you?”
“No . . . I mean . . . no.” She shakes her head. “But you don’t have to make me feel like a troll.”
“You’re a child,” I say as I move past her. “I prefer women with more experience.”
She chases after me. “Twenty-four is not a child, and I have experience.”
I turn on her and say, “Not five minutes ago, you told me Matt had a hard time finding your clit. Do you really consider that experience?”
