Hating Him Wanting Him : A Contemporary Romance Collection

by Summer Brooks

  Nonetheless, what happened between Mia and I couldn’t be taken back, but I was pretty sure it couldn’t be taken forward either. She was the enemy, and not just in a competition type of way, but in a deep-rooted family feud sort of way. I didn’t have anything against her, I was just a kid. But my father was an important man, both in my life, and to my business and I couldn’t imagine him ever letting go of that anger long enough to see Mia as an actual person and not an extension of her father.

  The worst part of the day was the car ride. We sat across from each other, both refusing to look at each other, and not speaking a word. I wish I could say we were ignoring each other, but the tension in the car was enough to make it explode. Both of our minds were on the other, but we were too stubborn to attempt to talk about it. I didn’t even know what we would talk about. How do you fix something like that?

  On a business level, Mia was probably one of the biggest assets I had at that point. Her mind was technologically amazing and she excelled at almost every part of the job. I tried to tell myself to put it to the side and deal with it later because in reality, the client required her to be there. We were far too involved at that point in the contract for me to replace her. Not to mention the fact that her design was so intricate that I needed her to be the one to implement it.

  The teams were coming along awesomely. They were getting the system so easily. It was probably because Mia had a way of teaching it that not only covered every single step and inch of the software and the hardware, but she was able to do it in a way that almost anyone could understand. This was a new piece of machinery, something the staff hadn’t seen before, but she explained it in a way where no experience was necessary. And the software was the same, she made it in-depth and specific, but at the same time, so user-friendly that my own mother could’ve worked it.

  In some ways that was an excellent thing. If the staff knew how to use it and they knew how to implement it, that meant I didn’t need to keep Mia with me. But thinking about it, that just didn’t seem like a realistic option for me at that moment. In my mind I tried to justify it, telling myself that I would need her there in case anything went wrong. In reality, that wasn’t the reason at all. I just didn’t know if I was ready to let her go yet. I was pretty sure by the time I got back she would no longer work for us, and I didn’t blame her. I hadn’t reached a point where I felt completely comfortable severing ties with her.

  Talk about confusing.

  When we got back to the condo, I made sure that my movements were gentle and calm. I didn’t want her to think that I was still fuming mad like the day before. “I might order something from the Italian restaurant down the street. Do you want to let me know what you want and I’ll order it for you?”

  She slipped her shoes off and leaned over picking them up by the backs. Her eyes shifted from the floor to mine as she stood up straight and paused for a moment. I could tell she was thinking about it. “No thanks. I think I’m just gonna retire for the night. Maybe catch up on emails and check in with my family. I know my roommate’s gonna freak out if I don’t call her. I had a big lunch anyway.”

  I nodded, trying to hide my disappointment. “Okay. I’m sure there will be leftovers from whatever I get so you’re welcome to them. They’ll be in the fridge.”

  She nodded her head, her eyes shifting uncomfortably back and forth. “Night.”

  I let out an easy sigh. “Good night. See you in the morning.”

  Without another word she turned and walked from the room. I stood there, not moving, until I heard her door snap quietly shut. The truth was, I wasn’t even hungry. I thought maybe eating together would give us a chance to at least smooth things over enough to work with each other. I hadn’t given her enough time though. I was starting to think there wouldn’t be enough time in the world for us to be agreeable with each other again. It made me think that I was just prolonging the inevitable, that maybe I should just tell her she could go home.

  I groaned, running my hands through my hair and walking into the kitchen. I slung open the fridge and grabbed a beer from inside, popping off the cap. I stood there in the silence of the condo, scanning around the room looking for anything to keep my mind off of what was going on. I didn’t feel like watching television, or doing any more work, so I headed out onto the balcony and pulled a chair up to the railing. The air was warm and nice even that high up.

  It had been a really long day and it was already nighttime. I could hear the cars in the city honking, and could make out just enough stars over my head to give me a focal point for my eyes. Part of my problem was that I hadn’t told anybody about what happened. I hadn’t asked for advice, I hadn’t thought about what I should do more than just running the same thoughts over and over again in my head. I knew I needed to call Conner and at least tell him about what was going on.

  Grabbing my cell phone out of my pocket, I paused, taking in a deep breath. I needed to try to get through the conversation without telling him what happened the other night, but he knew me so well it was going to be hard to hide it. Putting the phone to my ear I started to hope he didn’t answer.

  “Well hello there,” Conner said with a chuckle. “I was starting to think that you ran away and left the business all to me. I even started moving my furniture into your office.”

  I smiled and shook my head, taking a sip of my beer. “Don’t tempt me. I’m just about to hand over the keys to you.”

  Conner went quiet for a moment. “What’s wrong? Is there a problem with the client?”

  I shook my head wishing it was that easy. “No. Hashimoto is more than excited. He loves the whole system and everyone’s getting it down really fast and really simply. Mia is doing a great job teaching everyone, and she was so concise with her software development, coupled with the company’s program creation, there have been very few bugs or issues with the trial run.”

  “Okay,” Conner said slowly with confusion in his voice. “What’s wrong?”

  I leaned my head back against the balcony chair and puffed out a long deep breath. “So, Mia really knocked it out of the park from the first moment that she got here. She’s been amazing with the client, on top of work, and even gets her hands dirty putting the hardware together. And then my father called me yesterday morning…”

  “Oh man,” Conner laughed. “Let me guess, he’s not thrilled about someone that’s been with the company all of three days working one of your biggest projects ever.”

  I scoffed. “Please, my father would let a nine-year-old implement a system if he knew he could make money off of it. No, this was far worse. Apparently, my father did a little snooping into Mia’s file. I’ll be honest I hadn’t read it yet. I knew that her name was Mia Crosswell and that she had several internships here. Other than that, I knew she was straight out of college so I didn’t really think of looking at her resume. Turns out, she doesn’t have the same name as her father.”

  “Please tell me you’re not about to say what I think you’re going to say,” Conner groaned.

  I rubbed my face with a cold bottle. “Trust me I wish I wasn’t about to say what you think I’m going to say.”

  “She’s Cuthbert’s daughter?” Conner asked with disbelief. “How did you miss that? What in the hell is she doing working for you?”

  I shrugged. “Apparently she didn’t realize who I was until I introduced myself in the office the other day. You know how private I am about my information and how I want the company to be about technology and not who owns it. There’s nothing in the indoctrination papers that talks about me. It was a shock to her but she decided to not tell me. Ever since I confronted her, things have been really weird between us.”

  “Wait, wait, wait,” Connor hissed. “What do you mean things are really weird between you two? Why in the world have you not fired her yet?”

  “The client requires her to be here and she’s really excellent at this job,” I said in defense. “I just don’t know if the answer is firing her.”
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br />   Conner was silent for several moments and I had this distinct feeling that he was figuring it out. Finally, he came back over the line. “You slept with her, didn’t you?”

  If only he knew how much deeper it went then that.

  17

  Mia

  “In other news, the President and his Joint Chiefs of Staff met today to discuss the pending nuclear agreement with…” I clicked off the television and dropped the remote on the bed.

  The last thing I wanted was to listen to more depressing news about how the country was struggling and how divided everyone was. There was enough division inside the condo at that moment to meet the country’s quota for the entire year.

  Things had been better that day, but I knew it was mostly because I refused to fight with him. I needed to get work done, and our feud was just a distraction. I had never let anything distract me from school or work before, and I wasn’t about to start letting a man mess things up for me. Of course, I couldn’t help but think that maybe I was the one that messed things up for myself. I was trying to see his side of things. It was true, I had hidden my identity from him. But what was I supposed to do? I was being handed a promotion and a leadership role within the first three days of working for the company full-time. I was terrified that my father’s history was going to ruin my future.

  I flopped back on the bed throwing my arms out to the sides and staring up at the ceiling fan. I needed to talk to someone about it. I didn’t want to admit the mess I had made for myself, but if anybody could understand making a mess of things, Lily would definitely get it.

  Grabbing my phone and hitting the speed dial for her, I put the phone to my ear. I wanted to video chat her, but I didn’t want Evan to hear our conversation. It rang several times and when I thought it was about to go to voicemail, she finally picked up. “Well, well. Look who’s calling. I honestly thought you decided to just ditch everything and go live on an island somewhere. I thought to myself, ‘Yep. Mia has finally overdone it. She had a nervous breakdown and she’s gone off to become a hippie on some tiny island in the South Pacific.’ I hope you know, I was about three minutes away from turning your room into a new spa.”

  I smiled for the first time in two days. “Lily, I’ve made a mess.”

  I could hear Lily taking in a long deep breath. “All right give it to me straight. Tell me everything that’s happened.”

  “Well,” I began. “I told you about the project that I was getting ready to work on, and how I would be out here with the owner of the company who happened to be the guy from the bar.”

  “Mhmm. Go on.”

  Wrinkling my nose, I was almost hesitant to go on. I knew she was going to flip out. “What I didn’t tell you, was that when he broke the news to me that I had been awarded the project, I also happened to find out his last name.”

  “Okay? What? Is he like, someone famous or something?” Lily asked, not picking up on what I was trying to put down.

  “I guess you could say that,” I replied. “At least within my family. His name is Evan Lagrange. The kid I used to play with, the son of my father’s mortal enemy.”

  “Holy shit balls,” Lily yelled out. “I don’t even know how you did that. How do you go to work for company and not know who the owner is? You know what, never mind. That’s not important right now. So, is that it? Is that what you’re freaking out over?”

  “Not quite,” I sighed. “When I found out who he was, I neglected to tell him who I was. No problem at first. We got here we had this amazing meeting with the client, and then we came back after dinner and were drinking and celebrating and having a great time. Somewhere in there, several glasses of alcohol later, I…”

  “You dog,” Lily laughed. “You totally had sex with him. You, safest girl in the world, not only lost your virginity, but you lost it to your family’s mortal enemy. This is some great shit. I really wish I was a writer.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Lily, this is serious. Everything was perfect. But the next morning, after eating breakfast, and being all cutesy, I went and jumped in the shower. When I got out, he was a completely different person. We argued and bickered all day long. Finally, when we got home, I called him out. I wanted to know what the hell his problem was. Well, apparently his father had read my file and figured out who I was. So, it turned into this huge fight where he was talking trash about my father, and I was talking trash about his father, and then I ended up locking myself in my room until we had to go to work this morning. And then this morning at work, it was so weird. We didn’t speak to each other at all, which was better than fighting, but still awkward. He asked if I wanted to eat food with him but I turned it down and just came back to my room. Part of me wants to hate him, and leave him high and dry and come back home. But the other part of me doesn’t want to leave. I need your expert advice.”

  Lily cleared her throat and I could tell she was sitting up straight and proud that I was asking her for help. “Okay, here’s the deal. Both of you are acting like children. And I don’t want you to defend yourself. You have spent your whole life trying to make a world for yourself outside of your father. You kept your mother’s last name so that people wouldn’t treat you differently because you were a Cuthbert. Why in the world, now, would you start giving in to the stupid family feud?”

  She didn’t even give me a chance to respond. But she was on her soapbox, and unfortunately everything she was saying was making perfect sense.

  “Mia,” Lily continued. “You can’t sit there and continue to let your father and his father control the rest of your life. If you like this guy, like really like him and not just because it’s forbidden, then you need to let it go. If you want to continue working for his company, and you want to continue either being friends, co-workers, or even lovers, sitting in your room and talking to me is not going to fix it. You gotta work it out with him.”

  I groaned loudly knowing she was absolutely right. “I know! God, I know. I never meant for any of this to happen. And in all honesty, I should have told him who I was from the moment I realized who he was. I just got so scared because I worked so hard to get exactly what I wanted, only to have my father’s name ruin it for me. I knew I wasn’t gonna get away with it forever. But I hoped to have enough time to prove that it didn’t matter what my last name was. Unfortunately, three days with the company and two days with the owner was not quite enough time.”

  “So, get off the phone with me,” Lily replied. “And go talk to him. It’s the only way that you’re going to get through this project, much less work anything out with him on any other terms. Be an adult here. Let your parents be the children.”

  “I love you,” I told Lily. “I’ll call you back later and let you know how it goes.”

  “I’ll put the bill on your bed,” Lily laughed as she hung up.

  I pulled myself together, knowing I had to put my ego aside, and headed out to the living room. The lights were all on but he wasn’t there. I caught a breeze from the cracked balcony doors, and saw him sitting outside with his head leaned back staring up at the sky. I grabbed a beer from the refrigerator and headed out. As I pulled a chair up next to him, he opened his eyes and glanced over at me, giving me what felt like an actual warm smile.

  I plopped down in the chair next to him and leaned my cheek on my shoulder, my eyes tilted up towards his. “So, I think we need to talk. But if you wouldn’t mind, I’d really like to start.”

  He nodded and took a sip of his beer. I took several gulps of mine, trying to get my courage under wraps. I had never really done anything I had to apologize for, at least not since I was a child. And I managed to stay out of the drama enough to not be in real awkward situations. “The truth is, I should’ve told you who I was when I found out who you were. And that by the way, was about 30 seconds before I walked into your office. I wasn’t trying to hide it at first, I put it on my resume. But when I was standing there in front of you, being given this amazing project, and meeting goals that I had set for myse
lf three years from now, I clammed up. I knew that even if you were okay with it, your father and my father would definitely not be.”

  He chuckled and shook his head, looking down at his beer. “It’s funny how we work so hard to grow up and become independent of our parents, yet as adults we’re still making decisions based on what they would think. I’m sorry I said those things about your father. I don’t think I have any right to say anything because I was just a kid when it all went down. And I know my father can be… Not the greatest guy sometimes. So, I’m not sitting here saying he was blameless but what I am saying is, it shouldn’t affect you or me.”

  I smiled at him bringing my beer bottle up and tapping his. “I agree with you. And I’m sorry for the things that I said too. I want this project to go great, and I want things to be fun and exciting for both of us.”

  Surprising me a bit, he sat up and turned toward me, reaching out and putting his hand on top of mine. “Mia, I want you to understand that my feelings toward you have not changed from the other night. Your name didn’t make me suddenly not like you anymore. That’s one of the biggest things I’ve been struggling with, today. I knew we couldn’t continue arguing like we were, but the thought of sending you back home, it was miserable. I didn’t want to send you home. I don’t want to send you home.”

  I could feel my cheeks growing warm and a smile curving on my lips. “I feel the same way. I don’t want to leave you. Even if you fired me today because your father just couldn’t deal with it, I’d want to stay here with you.”