Love Hate Relationship (a Colors novel)

by Jessica Prince

  Taking Lauren’s words to heart, I tried my hardest to give Rowan the benefit of the doubt, telling myself that once he realized I was trustworthy, the chilly armor would crack, revealing the normal, pleasant man underneath.

  Yeah, not so much.

  I tried. I really, really did, but after thousands of thinly veiled insults, being bossed around by a rude, inconsiderate ass, and being talked down to, I’d finally had enough.

  I lasted six days before I finally blew.

  And I went up like a damned volcano.

  Using the key I’d forced from an all-too-reluctant Rowan after quickly discovering he and I didn’t function on the same schedule, I unlocked the front door and stepped into the apartment, trying to be as quiet as possible so as not to wake the hibernating bear too early.

  I made a beeline for the kitchen to start a much needed pot of coffee. I’d grown hopeful that if I had it ready and waiting in the kitchen, he wouldn’t require me to drag my butt down to The Bean day after day. It hadn’t happened yet, but I still held out hope.

  Rowan and I had managed to work out some semblance of a schedule over the past five days. I started work by checking his calendar to make sure his schedule was up to date before moving on to his hundreds and hundreds of emails. I trashed all the hate mail—of which there was a ton—and all the naked pictures sent in by female fans—of which, shockingly, there were more—and typing up a generic thank you to those who weren’t rude or wildly inappropriate. Those tasks alone took over two hours, and in the past week, I’d learned things about Rowan I’d never be able to unlearn.

  After that, I went through the invites he received to different charity functions or galas. Who knew an author got invited to so many important black-tie events? I worked with Lauren to accept those he needed to attend and decline those he didn’t. I handled any and all social media, seeing as how the ‘uncle fucker’ scenario was still fresh in people’s minds. Then there were the errands that never seemed to end, keeping in contact with all the other players: his agent, a weasely, beady-eyed man I’d quickly grown to dislike; his personal stylist, a young, peppy girl only a year or two older than me I seemed to have a lot in common with; his housekeeper, an older Hispanic lady named Rosa, who I found to be quite intimidating after a run-in that involved a glass of spilled orange juice on my part; and the rest of the PR team at Enterprise.

  I’d gotten a pretty good feel for Rowan’s day-to-day life and I was feeling better about my position. He locked himself in his office, working on his next book, while I went about my ever-growing list of tasks. There was limited contact between the two of us, but what there was wasn’t pleasant. So I tried my best to steer clear of him as much as possible.

  Pushing through the swinging door into the kitchen, I closed my eyes on a yawn and stretched my arms over my head, completely innocent in my actions and unaware of what I’d just walked in on until I opened my eyes.

  “Oh, my God!” I shrieked at the sight of Rowan’s buck-naked body standing in front of the opened refrigerator, one hand holding a bottle of orange juice to his lips while the other hand was much… lower, scratching at a certain body part that no employee should ever see of her employer. No matter how… well-endowed said employer was.

  Holy shit on a shingle, I did not need to see that before being properly caffeinated.

  “What the hell!” Rowan bellowed, startling me from my momentary stupor.

  “Sorry, sorry, sorry,” I spouted, frantically spinning in a circle, trying to make a split-second decision between shielding my eyes and getting a better look. A startled yelp escaped me at the brush of Rowan’s naked flesh against my arm as he moved past me and into the living room. I couldn’t help but notice just how perfectly sculpted his butt was as I followed behind, enjoying the view a little too much. I had to bite down the sigh of displeasure as he snatched a pair of boxer briefs off the back of the couch and yanked them up his thick thighs, covering up what, in my opinion, should have been made available for all the world to see.

  “Jesus Christ!” he shouted, pulling my eyes up from the decent-sized bulge behind the gray fabric of his underwear. “Do you have any sense of personal boundaries?” he asked sarcastically, running a hand through his messy black hair agitatedly. “How you managed to convince Lauren you were a professional is beyond me. From what I’ve seen since you started working here, you don’t know your goddamned ass from your elbow!”

  And that’s when it happened. I snapped.

  “That’s it!” I yelled at the top of my lungs. “I’ve had it with your narcissistic, self-centered ass! My work day starts at eight-thirty in the morning. Eight. Thirty! Not nine, not nine-thirty. Eight-thirty! It’s been that way for six days, so if you made the decision to wander around with your beans and franks hanging free when you know damn good and well I’ll be showing up at any minute, that’s your problem, not mine! I’m sick and tired of putting up with your whiny, bitchy attitude. And I lived in a dorm full of girls, all on the same damn menstrual schedule, so the fact that you’re worse than all of them combined speaks volumes about your character.

  “I’ve given you six days to come to grips with this new arrangement and pull your head out of your ass and start acting like a normal human being, but seeing as that’s not going to happen any time soon, here’s how it’s going to be from here on out. I’m your personal assistant, not personal bitch, so starting now, you’re going to treat me with the level of respect I deserve, and in return, I’ll do the same. You want to keep acting like an asshole? Go for it, but believe me when I say I give just as good as I get. There will be no more insults. You are never to talk down to me ever again. I graduated summa cum laude from NYU. I’m not an idiot and won’t tolerate being treated like one. Any and all activity that requires you to be in any state of undress will be done on your time, not mine. Because believe it or not, I don’t get paid nearly enough to have to watch you scratch your balls.

  “I am damn good at my job, whether you’re willing to admit that or not. And I’m tired of dealing with a petulant child masquerading as a grown man. This bullshit ends now. Do you understand me?”

  By the time I was finished, my breathing had grown ragged, my chest rising and falling as though I’d just run a marathon. Rowan stood there staring at me, mouth agape, hands planted on his sexy, tapered hips. Damn it, Navie! Get your shit together. He’s not attractive, he’s an asshole!

  “Well?” I asked haughtily when the silence had grown too thick.

  “You expect me to believe you graduated with honors and the best you could find was a job as my personal assistant?”

  I wanted to stab him in the eye with a pen so bad. “Believe what you want,” I seethed. “Not that I owe you an explanation, but the company I did my internship with had a hiring freeze, and the job market in New York isn’t exactly stellar for recent graduates. Everyone wants someone with experience,” I grumped sarcastically. “So I’m stuck with your cranky, narcissistic ass, because clearly, I’m being punished for something I did in a past life. Either that or karma’s just a raging bitch who likes to pick on the innocent!”

  “You finished?” he asked casually.

  “You know what?” I fumed, “I’m not. From here on out, the only way I’m doing another damn coffee run for you is if you give me enough money to buy myself one as well. And if you aren’t being a complete asshole, I might consider giving you back your change when I’m done.”

  “Now you finished?” was all he said.

  “Yes,” I bit out.

  “Good. I need coffee.”

  And with that, he turned and headed back into the kitchen.

  I was pretty sure my head exploded.

  Fuck me.

  I shouldn’t have gotten a semi from her smart little mouth, but damn if my shorts hadn’t started feeling a bit tighter. And it had everything to do with the tiny spitfire standing in my living room, giving me a ration of shit like she owned the place.

  I had to admit, seeing her
all fiery and pissed off like that really did something for me. I didn’t just want to press her buttons; I wanted to jab on those motherfuckers until they stuck in place. Getting a rise out of her got a definite rise out of me.

  That was not good.

  I wasn’t the type of man to enjoy a woman beyond the one thing I truly needed her for, one thing that typically only lasted a few hours before we parted ways. Yes, I was aware that made me sound like an inconsiderate asshole, and yes, I also knew I lived up to that title spectacularly. But when the love of your life chewed you up and spit you out in the worst possible way, it had the power to leave a man seriously jaded about the opposite sex.

  That was why I had desperately needed to escape the little minx, each angry inhalation causing those mouthwatering tits to rise and fall beautifully.

  Christ, I hadn’t even known the girl was built like that. Her wardrobe had left little to be desired over the past few days, but the t-shirt she was wearing that morning was much more form-fitting than anything she’d worn before. How had I not realized how hot she was until that very moment?

  And her ass in those jeans.

  Lord, help me.

  I was in serious fucking trouble.

  “Excuse me?”

  I rolled my eyes at her biting tone when she pushed into the kitchen as I hit the switch on the coffee maker. “Look,” I started, turning around to find her with her hands propped on her curvier-than-expected hips and murder in her denim-colored eyes. I had to clear my throat and give my head a little shake to dislodge the thought of what she’d look like naked from my mind. The only reason I was looking at her with even the slightest bit of lust was because I hadn’t gotten laid in the past five days.

  That had to be it. There was no way I’d be attracted to a woman like her if I was in a rational frame of mind. No way at all…. right?

  Her snapping voice pulled me back into reality. “What?”

  “Huh?”

  Her eyes narrowed as she regarded me like some sort of science experiment gone wrong. “You started saying something, but then you trailed off.”

  “Oh, yeah…” I tried to get my brain back on track, but with how full her breasts looked in that goddamned t-shirt, I couldn’t think straight.

  “Oh, for the love of God,” she grumbled as she stomped in my direction, pushing past me to grab a mug and fill it with coffee. I followed suit, thinking lack of caffeine was just another reason for the major mental malfunction I seemed to be having in her presence.

  “First off,” she started after taking a gulp from her mug and setting it on the counter. “They’re called breasts,” she said, waving her hand in front of her chest. “They’re something I’m willing to bet you see on a daily basis.” I couldn’t help the smug grin that pulled at my lips—that was, until she continued on. “Although, I don’t see how you manage to pull in the kind of tail you do. Yeah, you’re hot and all, but the moment that mouth of yours opens, all that good flies out the damn window.”

  “Pot, meet kettle,” I deadpanned, more than slightly insulted, even though I couldn’t understand why. I was more than aware of my reputation. And up until just then, other people’s opinions of me hadn’t mattered much. So, why was Navie’s judgment rubbing me the wrong way?

  “Look, it’s more than obvious that we don’t like each other, and that’s fine. But I need this job, Rowan. Can we just… I don’t know, call a truce or something?”

  As I studied the woman in front of me, I was hit with an emotion I hadn’t experienced in what felt like forever. An emotion I’d worked diligently over the years to tamp down whenever it started bubbling up inside of me—guilt.

  Could I say with all honesty that I didn’t like her as she’d claimed? The answer was no, I couldn’t. For the past several days, I’d tried to convince myself that was the case. That her being an annoyance was the reason for my bad behavior, but that wasn’t the case. The longer I found myself in her presence, the more drawn to her I seemed to be. And that was a problem… a huge problem.

  But I couldn’t, in good conscience, deny her request for a truce when she looked so sincere, staring up at me with those unusual blue eyes.

  Just as my lips parted to answer her, the loud trill of my cell phone broke through the moment. With a deep sigh, I stepped from the kitchen to where my phone lay charging in the living room. The name that flashed across the screen shot a bolt of anxiety through my body.

  “Mom?” I answered nervously, and for good reason. My mother and I only talked once, maybe twice a month. There were no unscheduled phone calls between us, so the fact that she was calling me out of the blue didn’t bode well.

  “Rowan, sweetheart,” she spoke through the line. “How are you, honey?”

  “I’m good, Mom. Is everything okay?” I heard Navie’s delicate footsteps coming into the room and I quickly retreated down the hall to my study, not willing to risk her overhearing my conversation. Just because I was willing to come to a grudging truce didn’t mean I trusted her with the very personal aspects of my life. There were things about my past that I’d busted my ass to keep out of the media.

  The lock clicked into place as silence resonated through the phone line. “Mom? You there?”

  “Oh, yes. Sorry, dear.”

  “Something’s wrong. What happened?”

  A ball of dread lodged firmly in the pit of my stomach as my mother hesitated before finally saying, “It’s Richard.”

  My jaw clenched as fear and anger coursed through my blood at just the mention of his name. In all the conversations I’d had with my mother over the years, there was one unspoken agreement we had. We never brought up his name.

  “Is he hurt?” Just saying those three words caused nausea to roil in my stomach. I didn’t want to worry about him. I didn’t want to care.

  “Oh, no. Richard’s fine, honey.”

  In the same instance my chest loosened, the anxiety lessening its hold, frustration took its place. “Then can you please explain to me what the hell is going on?”

  Once again, Mom remained silent on the other end for several seconds. I could only imagine her hand on her chest, twirling that ever-present strand of pearls. “Richard and Bree are getting a divorce.”

  And with that, I saw red.

  “And you’re calling to tell me this bullshit why?”

  “He’s your brother, Rowan,” Mom spoke incredulously, as though she couldn’t understand the disdain I held for my brother, a brother I’d shared a womb with. Twins were supposed to be closer than any other two people on the planet, after all.

  “Are you serious with this shit right now?” I bit out, the frustration in my veins quickly turning into rage as my vision clouded with red.

  “Rowan Anderson Locklaine!” Mom chided. “You will watch your language when you’re speaking to me.”

  Usually, a quick reprimand from Marie Locklaine was enough to put me in my place and leave me feeling like an insolent child, but not at that moment.

  “You’ve got to be kidding!” I laughed sarcastically. “You call me up to inform me of my brother’s divorce from Bree, and you don’t think I have a right to be pissed off? Fuck that!”

  “Rowan, please. He’s your brother. He’s hurting. Would it kill you to reach out to him? Be there for him when he needs you?”

  “You’re asking if it would kill me to call the man who slept with the woman I loved, the woman who was supposed to be the mother of my child, the woman he then married after she crushed my fucking heart, and offer up my support? Is that what you’re asking?”

  “Rowan,” she whispered through the line heartbreakingly. Hearing the tears in her voice only added to the burning sensation I felt at the wounds of my past being sliced back open.

  “Yes, Mother. As a matter of fact, it would kill me. I couldn’t give two shits what happens to either of them, or how badly they’re hurting. And I can’t believe you’d even ask that of me.”

  “Rowan, please,” she pleaded, but I was do
ne.

  “I have to go, Mom,” I said before disconnecting the call without letting her get another word in. My blood was boiling, my heart pounding in a rapid staccato. My chest heaved with each breath I pulled into my lungs. Before I could register what was happening, the phone in my hand flew through the air, smashing into the wall with a pleasurable crack as it shattered against the drywall. I had no idea how long I stood there, staring down at my mangled phone, the broken pieces scattered across the dark hardwood floor. It wasn’t until I heard a faint knock on the door to my office that I was pulled from my silent rage long enough to remember that Navie was there… in my house… invading my space when all I wanted was to be left the hell alone.

  “What?” I spit as I yanked the door open.

  She jolted back slightly in surprise, or it could have been fear, I wasn’t sure. But I had no doubt I looked positively feral as I stared down at her across the threshold.

  “Uh…” She looked up at me with uncertainty, a mug of warm coffee in her extended hand. “I-I brought you your coffee.”

  I sidestepped her small frame and started toward my bedroom. “Don’t want it,” I grunted. “And get me a new goddamned phone,” I barked at her from over my shoulder before slamming my bedroom door. I quickly changed into my workout clothes and headed for my home gym.

  I knew the only way to expel the fury inside me was to beat it into submission by working out, taking my anger out on my body physically in the form of exercise.

  My truce with Navie was long forgotten as I passed her in the hall without as much as a word in her direction. Fuck a truce. If she was going to work for me she’d just have to take me as I was. I’d already altered myself for one woman in my life, and look where that had gotten me. If she couldn’t hack it, that was her own damn fault.

  “You know I hate you a whole lot right now, don’t you?” I ignored Harlow’s grumbling as I moved to the next vendor. New York street fairs were my crack. I was addicted to going from booth to booth, finding hidden gems I could turn into the most beautiful jewelry.