Hate F*@k: part three

by Booth, Ainsley

  Once we’re clean again, Hailey sits at her dressing table and starts putting on her makeup. I slowly put on my boxer briefs and dress pants, but I keep getting drawn back to my fiancée, perched on a stool in a black slip.

  I quietly come up behind her, leaning over to kiss her shoulder before she can stop me. “You’re breathtaking,” I tell her under my breath, and she smiles.

  “I’m not even wearing my dress yet.”

  “It’ll be stunning, too.” I want to kiss her again. There’s nothing I like more than seeing Hailey breathless and aching. She licks her lips, and I get it—I want more, too. “Come on, beautiful, we’re going to be late.”

  “You’re so mean,” she says with a smile, turning her attention back to the mirror.

  I cross our new bedroom to my closet and pull on my shirt, buttoning it neatly before sliding on my jacket. “Tie? No tie?”

  “Tie,” she calls out. “Let’s pretend we’re civilized tonight.”

  Overrated, but maybe I’ll use it to tie her up when we get home.

  We’re going to a restaurant with her friends from work—she’s now a full-time junior employment counselor at the agency she did her internship at—as well as my partners, and her younger sister and brother.

  Her older sister has moved to Los Angeles, but they’re slowly rebuilding a relationship of sorts. I’m not sure Hailey and Taylor will ever be close, but everything is different now.

  Almost normal. It’s weird and kind of wonderful.

  “What are you thinking about?” Hailey asks as she hands me her necklace. She’s wearing a dress now, black silk, and my diamonds flash on her left hand. The necklace is a hand-crafted twisted metal piece she bought at Eastern Market a few weeks earlier for twenty bucks. That’s Hailey in a nutshell.

  “How lucky I am that I have no will-power when it comes to resisting you.” I kiss her cheek, and offer her my arm.

  When we get to the restaurant, we run into her friend Tegan at the entrance. There’s some squealing and ooohing and ahing over outfits, then we head inside, where everyone else is gathered. Everyone except one of my co-workers.

  Once I’ve shaken hands and accepted congratulations from Hailey’s friends, I find Jason and Wilson at the bar. “Where’s Ellie?”

  Jason’s clenching his jaw so hard I think he might crack a tooth. Wilson’s the one who finally answers. “She quit. Left a resignation letter on her chair at the end of the day today.”

  “What?” Well, shit. That puts a damper on things. “Any clue why? Can we get her back?”

  Wilson opens his mouth, but Jason interjects before our hacker can say anything else. “Leave it alone.”

  “But I don’t want to get a new receptionist if we can woo her back. Is it money? When was the last time we gave her a raise?”

  “That would just make it worse,” Jason mutters, shoving his hand through his hair. His top button is undone and his eyes are a bit wide.

  “Are you drunk?” I don’t mind, as long as he doesn’t make a scene, but Jason rarely drinks, and never to excess.

  He pins his gaze darkly on me for a minute before reaching for his glass again. He raises it in the air. “Only a little bit, my friend. We’re celebrating.”

  I exchange a look with Wilson, but there’s a limit to how much digging I’m going to do at my engagement party. “As long as we do it safely.”

  He gives me a look as if to say, yes Dad. The role reversal isn’t lost on either of us.

  Tag joins us next, and we have a more genuine toast to my future bride, but even as we all sit for dinner, I can’t shake that look on Jason’s face. I know that look. I’ve worn it before.

  Things for Jason are going to get worse before they get better.

  — —

  One week later, Tag and I are standing together just off the dais at the Washington Club. He’s going to give a keynote address to a monthly luncheon put on by the Chamber of Commerce. A pretty regular event, but Tag’s no public speaker. Jason was supposed to do it, but he’s such a fucking curmudgeon again, he can’t do it—when he flew to Dallas for work, we all let out a sigh of relief.

  I should do it, I’m more comfortable up there, but I just don’t want to anymore. I shrug at Tag as he stands in front of me. He looks older. We all do, I’m sure. “It’s a good speech.”

  “You should know. You wrote it. You sure you don’t want to deliver it?”

  I nod. “Never been more sure of anything in my life.”

  He gets it. Maybe if things had gone differently with Kendra, he’d be doing the same thing.

  I pat him on the shoulder. “This was never the life for me. We probably should have seen that from the beginning.”

  I’m not quitting. I’m just stepping back—into the shadows. Most of the time I’ll be looking for clients. Sometimes I’ll draw on my old skills, and strike when I’m needed. I’ll do it anonymously, and I’ll do it for good.

  The rest of the time, I’ll be Hailey’s.

  I'm no longer a gladiator. I’m not sure what I am, yet, but my battles aren’t for public consumption.

  Tag makes his way to the podium and I slowly walk to the back of the room, listening to the words I know by heart. I look at the faces of Washington’s business people, watching them react. And when Tag pauses before delivering the last line, I stop watching them and I zero in on him.

  His shoulders are square, his head is tall, and he looks determined as fuck. It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks. We’re all in on this.

  He looks around the room, then finds me and nods. His voice rings loud and clear, hopefully striking fear in the hearts of our former clients. “The Horus Group is no longer for hire by the wealthiest and most powerful. We're no longer in the business of making excuses. We're here to make things right.”

  THE END

  (for now…)

  Stay tuned for more Horus Group stories by signing up for my newsletter at http://ainsleybooth.com/newsletter/

  —also by ainsley booth—

  contemporary military romance

  writing as

  — ZOE YORK —

  PINE HARBOUR

  Pine Harbour is military small town romance, full of angsty history and secret desires. Each book is a standalone story about a different couple, but two families—the Minellis and the Fosters—weave through-out the series. And for the summer of 2015, the first book in the series is FREE!

  I hope you enjoy!

  ~ Zoe York (Ainsley Booth’s contemporary romance alter-ego)

  PINE HARBOUR

  Love in a Small Town - Rafe & Olivia

  Love in a Snow Storm - Jake & Dani

  Love on a Spring Morning - Ryan & Holly

  — LOVE IN A SMALL TOWN —

  Six years. Two break ups. One divorce. They should be over each other.

  Police officer and army reservist Rafe Minelli knows better than to tell his wife no, particularly since they aren’t married anymore. She can’t hightail it out of town, though, not when they’ve finally broken through the post-divorce cold war status quo.

  Olivia Minelli needs to leave Pine Harbour. It’s just too hard to see Rafe moving on without her—even if he says he doesn’t want to. But when a new and exciting job falls into her lap, she needs to choose: protect her heart, or take the new job and risk getting emotionally entangled with her ex-husband. Again.

  — AN EXCERPT —

  It was bad enough that after going through a very public divorce from the man Olivia still loved, she had to serve him breakfast four times a week. That she looked forward to those mornings…well, that wasn’t great either. But Rafe worked two jobs and lived in a tiny one-room apartment. And the other option for eggs and bacon was his mother’s café.

  Liv shuddered at the thought of spending even one morning a week with her ex-mother-in-law. So she couldn’t fault Rafe for keeping his regular stool at the diner she worked at, even if it didn’t help the official party line held by all six hundred people in the
ir small town of Pine Harbour—that their split had been her fault and Rafe was completely innocent.

  The former point was true. The latter was not. Parsing the difference with the town busy-bodies was a futile effort though, so she let the whispers slide. They just added to the steaming pile of crap that was her life.

  But the absolute worst was that today, Rafe had brought a date to breakfast.

  And she’d serve him eggs and paste on a smile, but then she was calling a real estate agent. Whatever cosmic joke had made her fall in love with Rafe Minelli had delivered its final punch line.

  He wasn’t in uniform today—either of them—but he still looked achingly good. Faded blue jeans that she recognized from the irregular rip on one of his solid thighs. Old enough that she’d washed them many times. The denim would be soft, and when he turned around, his wallet would be clearly imprinted in his back right pocket. And even though she wanted to grab a butter knife and gouge his heart out, first she wanted one more look at his magnificent ass.

  Because she was a glutton for punishment, and Rafe delivered in bucket loads. Tall, dark, and handsome didn’t do him justice. Olivia grabbed a washcloth and wiped down the counter as she watched him guide his date to a booth under the window.

  No! She wanted to shout. You sit at the counter and ask me if it’s been busy. I bug you that you need a haircut and we both remember that time I gave you a trim in the bathroom. How you slid your hands under my shirt and teased my nipples while I squealed for you to hold still. The walk down memory lane cut sharper than usual because it wasn’t shared. Even though she knew she needed to move on, let go of Rafe and start dating again, she wasn’t prepared to see him do just that. And the pretty blonde woman sitting across from him twisting the shit out of a sugar packet was wearing one of his plaid shirts, so Olivia couldn’t even pretend it was a breakfast meeting—not that Rafe would ever have business that needed to be discussed in a diner.

  He was a full-time police officer and a part-time soldier. Had been a full-time son and a part-time husband, too. No room for a wife, definitely no room for a side job. No, this was definitely a morning-after-a-sleep-over breakfast and Olivia had to serve him fucking coffee. She wrenched the carafe from the warmer, grabbed two menus from under the counter, and pasted on her sweetest eat-shit-and-die smile before squaring her shoulders and approaching the couple.

  “Coffee?”

  They both nodded and Olivia silently lifted each of their white ceramic mugs and poured. For someone who just got laid, Rafe didn’t look happy. His eyebrows were pulled together, hooding his gaze, and he had faint dark circles under his eyes. Maybe he was realizing just how awful a human being he was to bring…

  “Do you need to see a menu, Natalie?” His voice sounded strained too. He dumped two creamers in his cup and stirred roughly.

  Natalie, huh? Olivia swung her gaze to the other woman. She looked nervous. Had he told her that he used to be married to their waitress? Used to wake her up with his tongue and his hands and his love, but not as often as he didn’t—he’d have to be home for that—and now they pretended to be friends a few times a week?

  “I’ll just have some toast, please,” she said quietly.

  Rafe sighed. “Don’t be silly.” He looked up at Olivia, his dark brown eyes unreadable. “Two breakfast specials please, one with bacon, one with—” He broke off and turned back to Natalie. “Sausage? Ham?”

  “Sausage, I guess. Look, I can just wait for my friend outside, we don’t need to have breakfast.”

  “It’s fine.” He reached across the table and squeezed her hand before looking back at Olivia again. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

  “We’re swamped,” she said breezily, waving at the mostly empty diner. “I’ve got ketchup bottles to refill and napkins to stack, so—”

  “One minute, Liv.” He pushed out of the booth and towered over her. “In private.”

  He didn’t wait for her to respond, stalking to the small office behind the washrooms like he owned the place. Well, he could wait. She had a job to do, even if it wasn’t exciting or overly important.

  “Natalie, is it? How did you want your eggs?” Rafe wanted his over-easy. At some point in the future, she’d forget all the stupid little things she knew about him. She hoped. Hadn’t happened yet.

  “Scrambled. And rye toast if you have it.”

  “Sure thing. Be right back.” She went straight to the pass-through window, dinged the bell and tacked the order up on the carousel. Frank gave her a knowing look from his perch at the grill. “Shut up,” she told her boss without malice. “I need five minutes.”

  “I’ll holler if anyone comes in, I guess.”

  If anyone came in, they’d pour themselves a cup of coffee and wait. She wasn’t worried. It wouldn’t be the first time Pine Harbour had heard Rafe and Olivia Minelli have a knock-down, drag-out fight. Probably wouldn’t be the last. Another reason she needed to leave. This couldn’t be her future—petty jealousy and tension-filled terse conversations with her ex. She took a deep breath and shoved the office door open.

  KEEP READING!

  Love in a Small Town is FREE!

  —acknowledgments—

  Sadie Haller and her husband get first props—Sadie because she finds all the little things that don’t make sense, and her husband because when one of those things was some kissing choreography, he helped her figure out where I went wrong. Three-dimensional fact checking, people! How amazing is that?

  My Ainsley’s Angels Facebook group, who held down the fort while I locked myself in the writing cave—thank you for all the entertaining memes and man candy pictures and polite reminders that it was April. I love you guys.

  Friends, family, writing buddies all got nods in the last two instalments, so I guess the last thing I need to say is to you, the reader, especially if you’re one of those quiet people who isn’t on social media a lot, and you found my book and decided to give it a go. Thank you, seriously. You are are why I write books, you are me a few years ago, and I hope Cole and Hailey’s love story gave you the escape you were looking for.

  There are more Horus Group stories to be told. Thanks to everyone who has asked about Wilson, Tag, and now finally Jason—still an asshole, but maybe there’s some hope for him, yes?

  ~ Ainsley

  www.ainsleybooth.com

  —copyright—

  All Rights Reserved

  Copyright 2015 Ainsley Booth