Hate to Love You Strong Brothers #4)
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Hate to Love You
Strong Brothers Book 4
Ajme Williams
Copyright © 2020 by Ajme Williams
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of authors imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. The following story contains mature themes, strong language and sexual situations. It is intended for mature readers only.
All characters are 18+ years of age and all sexual acts are consensual.
Contents
Also by Ajme Williams
Description
Prologue: Andi
1. Noah
2. Andi
3. Noah
4. Andi
5. Noah
6. Andi
7. Noah
8. Andi
9. Noah
10. Andi
11. Noah
12. Andi
13. Noah
14. Andi
15. Noah
16. Andi
17. Noah
18. Andi
19. Noah
20. Andi
21. Noah
22. Andi
23. Noah
24. Andi
25. Noah
26. Andi
27. Noah
28. Andi
29. Noah
30. Andi
31. Noah
32. Andi
Epilogue: Andi
Excerpt: Admit You Miss Me
Read The Rest Of Strong Brothers Series Here
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Heart of Hope Series (this series)
Our Last Chance | An Irish Affair | So Wrong | Imperfect Love | Eight Long Years | Friends to Lovers | The One and Only | Best Friend’s Brother
Fake Marriage Series
Accidental Love | Accidental Baby | Accidental Affair | Accidental Meeting
Irresistible Billionaires
Admit You Miss Me | Admit You Love Me | Admit You Want Me | Admit You Need Me
Strong Brothers
Say Yes to Love | Giving In to Love | Wrong to Love You | Hate to Love You
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Description
My breathing literally picked up when I saw him looking irresistible on his motorcycle three years ago.
And my heart took notice.
But my brain? Apparently, that was asleep.
I’m way smarter now.
Noah might have roared into my life and destroyed it, but I won’t let that happen again.
No matter how much I struggle to maintain the distance between us.
This business trip will be the end of me.
I don’t have a choice but to be close to him.
I don’t have a choice but to let him hold my hand.
But this trip is also showing me another side of Noah.
He’s not just a hot playboy. He’s also shrewd.
Noah holds my heart in my palm again.
But this time, I’ve got to use my brain too.
My loyalties are being tested.
It’s battle between love and common sense.
I have to do what’s best for me, so will I be the one to shatter his heart this time around?
Prologue: Andi
I was sitting in a beautiful bar in a luxurious hotel in the exotic city of Hong Kong feeling dejected and angry about it. Who did Noah Strong think he was to treat me like that? And the fact that I felt rejected by him, only served to piss me off. I was a smart, independent woman. I didn't need a man in my life. It was part of the reason Noah’s grandmother, Margaret Strong, had hired me right from my internship. She hadn't been looking for a regular secretary, she'd been looking for someone who was dedicated to her career and could be a sound advisor for the decisions she was making. She trusted me so much that she had given me her game plan as she got ready to retire and urged me to help her prepare her grandsons for the roles they were taking as they moved up in the business and she made her exit.
All the Strong men were handsome, smart, and talented. Ryan was the smart, silent, straightlaced one as dedicated as I was to the company, although now he divided that dedication to his wife, Kellie and their newborn baby, Maggie. Hunter was driven with a side helping of horndog until he met his wife, Natalie. Carter was the gentle, kind traveler, who just embarked on his latest adventure marrying Jess and getting to know his son, Tanner. And then there was Noah.
Sure, Noah was smart especially when it came to technology, but he was immature and unreliable. He behaved like a petulant child, throwing little temper tantrums every time his grandmother or his brothers encouraged him to take his place in the family business. He didn't want to be here in Hong Kong doing the Strong business, even as a consultant. I suppose I needed to give him credit for at least caring enough about his grandmother to make this trip to figure out what was hurting the business.
I'd known that coming here with him as Margaret’s surrogate was a bad idea, but I had thought it was just because he was childish and irresponsible. I fully expected him to be spending his nights carousing and his daytime sleeping it off. As it turned out, he was taking the work seriously, which was good. The bad part was that I discovered that all the negative energy between us wasn’t just irritation, it was also sexually charged. At least on my end, and that's what angered me.
I was a woman focused on my career. Over the last three years, I had no personal life by choice. I loved my work and my boss. The only time I did something that wasn't work related, I was still usually with the Strong family, either at Margaret’s son, Alex’s house at the beach, at one of her grandsons’ weddings, or at Carter and his new wife, Jess's house. I wasn't just Margaret's dutiful assistant, but she also made me feel a part of the family.
A disgusting thought ran through my head. If I was like family, that would mean Noah was like my brother or my cousin or something. So how gross was it that he and I had kissed? Not a peck, but a full blown, hot, wet tongue tangle?
I downed the shot sitting on the bar and then waved at the bartender to give me another one. I wasn't working at the moment, so what would anyone care if I drank too much? It's not like Noah would notice. God. Why would he kiss me like that and then act as if nothing happened? And why did I care so much?
What I needed to do was take my mind off of Noah. I had to consider that the only reason I was thinking about him was because we were having to spend so much time together, and he did have a certain sex appeal to him. I was a strong woman, but I couldn't imagine any woman out there that would be immune to him.
So, the answer was to distract myself. I thought of Marcus Chen, the distributor Strong Incorporated worked with here in Hong Kong. He was handsome and rich, just like Noah. But even better, he was showing an interest in me, I thought as I looked at the business card he’d given after we’d had drinks tonight.
I downed the next shot, disgusted at myself for pinning over Noah. I didn't even like him, so why was I so bent out of shape?
I waved over the bartender and this time, I ordered a mixed drink because I didn’t want to be so out of it that I couldn’t get myself back upstairs to the s
uite. As I waited, I noticed something on the television that involved people gathering in what looked like a protest. Another hotel employee went behind the bar and whispered something to the bartender, who immediately looked towards the lobby of the hotel as if he was worried about something.
When he bought me my drink, I asked, "What's going on?" I pointed to what was going on the television screen.
"There's some civil unrest, and out of an abundance of caution, the hotel is going to be going on lock down," he said in immaculate British-toned English.
"Are we in danger?"
He shook his head. "Not here at the hotel. It has nothing to do with us."
"How long will the left lockdown last?" I asked, thinking about Noah, who was in a meeting outside of the hotel. Would he be able to come back? He was with Phil, the man that ran the office here in Hong Kong, so I supposed Noah would be able to go with him if he couldn’t get back in the hotel.
"I don't know. I imagine it won't be for too long," the bartender said.
I took another sip of my drink, but then left it there, deciding I could access the mini bar in our suite. I left the bartender a tip and then made my way up to the suite.
Once back, I called Phil's office so I could let them know what was going on. There was a part of me that thought Noah was spending so much time there to avoid me. Well, he wouldn't have to bother because I wasn't going to let myself get ensnared by him again.
I told Phil what was going on and he assured me that he would get Noah back safely, so I wasn't going to worry about it.
I set my phone down next to Marcus' card and went to rummage around in the minibar. I'd make myself a drink and then I would retire to my room, so I wouldn't have to look at or talk to Noah when he got back.
I took the drink into my bedroom, and decided that maybe a long soak in the tub would ease away my tension and put me back on an even keel. I wasn't the type of woman to be affected by a man, so it was really annoying the way Noah kept coming back to my brain. It was one more thing to put on the Noah Negative List.
I filled the tub putting in some of the bubble bath that the hotel offered. I undressed and climbed in, sinking down into the bubbles. I was able to enjoy it for about ten minutes but then the quiet and the stillness started to irritate me. I remembered that I wasn't really a woman prone to long baths or idleness. I was a doer.
I reached to the side of the tub to grab my phone thinking I could run through my email to see if there was anything important that I needed to address. Then I realized I left my phone back in the main area of the suite. "Dammit."
I reminded myself that the goal of this bath was to relax and wash away Noah from my mind, if not from my life. I closed my eyes and tried to think of serene things, but of course that was nearly impossible.
Eventually, I had no choice but to give up. I got out of the tub and wrapped myself in a towel. I padded back out to the bedroom and went through my suitcase trying to figure out if I should just go ahead and put pajamas on or get dressed again. It was a little too early for bedtime, but it wasn't like I was going anywhere.
I’d just put out a pair of panties when my phone started ringing in the other room. It was Margaret's ringtone so it wasn't one that I could ignore. Clutching the towel at my breast, I rushed out into the living area and picked up the phone.
I poked the answer button. "Hello?"
The line was dead. I hurriedly called Margaret back. "Margaret, I missed your call."
"I was just checking to see if you'd gotten that email I sent you earlier today?" she asked me.
"I did, and I've been working on it.
"And everything's going alright there?" she asked.
I decided not to tell her about the hotel lockdown because I really didn't know what was going on and I didn’t want her to worry needlessly. "Everything is fine here."
"Is Noah there?"
"No, but he's on his way back from working with Phil. Do you want me to have him call you when he gets back?" Maybe I could just leave him a note instead of having to talk to him.
"No, that's all right. Just be sure to keep me updated on what's going on there."
"You know I will, Margaret."
I hung up the phone and looked out the window at the unrest below. I didn’t much like Noah, but I did hope he was able to get back here safely.
My head felt a bit foggy and I began to rethink the wisdom of drinking so much this evening. It wasn't very professional of me since I was here on a business trip. And here I was, standing in the living area in my towel, again. God if Noah walked in and scolded me about being unprofessional again, I don’t know what I’d do. I needed to get myself together.
I was turning to go back to my room to get dressed when the door to the suite opened and Noah strode in. He stopped short when he saw me, his eyes taking a long glide from my head down to my toes and back up again. When his gaze reached mine, there was a feral fire gleaming in them.
It was the same the first time he caught me in a towel, but apparently, he didn’t like what he saw, and he’d chewed me out. This time however, he didn’t appear to be angry, as his gaze took another tour of my body.
One part of me was incensed that he would look at me like he wanted to rip that towel off and lick every inch of my body. The other part of me wished that he would.
"I'm glad you made it back because it looks like there's a lot of unrest downstairs." I nodded toward the window where I could see all the people gathering and shouting.
For a minute, I thought he was going to ignore me, like he often did, and go to his room. At least he wasn’t yelling at me, I thought.
Instead, he walked over to the window and looked out.
"I know all about it. I just had to weave my way through it." He looked down at the table where my phone had been set and saw Marcus’s business card.
"Did you see him?" he asked gruffly, picking up the card and holding it in front of me like I was a child getting in trouble.
My hackles went up because Noah had no right to talk to me like that. "So what if I did?”
His gaze took another thorough inventory of my body that made me shiver. When his gaze returned to mine, his eyes were dark and fierce. "Did you bring him back here? Did you just wash him off your body?"
I was shocked by the venom in his voice. Noah and I rarely ever spoke together without there being some sort of snark, but this felt different. It was even worse than when he’d called me unprofessional.
"No. Not that it's any of your business." I cocked my hip, putting my hands on my waist, praying that the towel wouldn’t come undone. "If I didn't know any better, Noah, I’d think you were jealous," I said, trying to get us back to our usual banter.
He stepped closer to me and ran a finger along my collarbone making my insides shutter and my pussy come to life.
"What if I am?" he asked, throwing me off my game.
I swallowed hard working to find my voice. "I don't believe you. You’ve made it perfectly clear that you have no interest in all this." I said motioning with my hand over my body.
His hand snaked around my back and he pulled me flush against him. Even through the thick plush towel, I could feel that he was hard as a rock and I gasped.
"Once again, Andi, you're wrong."
Noah always liked to have the last word, and this time he ensured it by fusing his lips to mine. My world whirled away, and though I knew I was going to be so angry at myself tomorrow, I was helpless to resist him. I gripped the towel and yanked, giving him full access to me.
1
Noah
I sequestered myself away in my grandmother's office at Strong Incorporated. It was always risky to go into the company building because invariably my brothers or my grandmother's henchwoman, Andi, would start to hassle me for not coming on board with the company as a Chief Technical Officer. But my grandmother's computer was the safest and most robust place for me to work on my secret project. It was my labor of love and the main reason why I wa
sn't joining the family business.
Since my grandmother was preparing to retire, and didn't come into her office is much as possible, this was the best place for me to come and do my work. Thanks to me, her computer allowed me access to everything I needed, and also provided the enhanced security to keep my project safe.
I loved computers, coding, and program development, except in those moments when something wasn't going right, like right now. I peered at the code on the page which to anyone else would likely look like gobbledygook, but to me it was a language. Right now, somewhere in this language, we were miscommunicating.
The door opened and immediately the air in the room changed, charged with electricity that made the hair on my forearms stand up. The scent of an exotic flower wafted around me. The other reason I couldn't stay away from my grandmother's office had just walked in.
I prepared myself for the battle we were about to undertake. I had to be a sadist for the way that I always longed for these exchanges with Andi. It was like sword play. We danced around and would strike at each other, and it was the most fun I ever had.