Don't Fall For Me : An Enemies-to-Lovers Romance (Hate to Love Book 1)

by Gigi Black

  She took a step and picked it up, turning it over. Her glittering green eyes widened and her cheeks pinked.

  “I know everything.”

  “Damien…”

  “You taped us,” I said. “Gave my father everything he needed to disown me. All you ever wanted was money, and that’s proof of it. Fucking other men on camera while you’re with me.”

  “Damien. Stop,” Hazel said, and tears spilled down her cheeks. Her lips curled back over her teeth. “This isn’t me.”

  “Liar.”

  “Think about it, idiot,” she snapped. “I was with you on this day. The entire day. We were at the resort with your father and brother.” She threw the picture at me. “It’s Kara. OK? Kara is doing porn, and I’m trying to get her to stop.”

  I refused to believe it. It was all too easy for her to lie to me. There wasn’t any way that conversation between us could’ve been recorded if not for her. She’d betrayed me, and this was just another lie to cake on top of it.

  “Damien, I need—”

  “You need what, exactly?” I asked. “I’ve given you more than enough of my time and attention.” An odd feeling had started up in my chest. A ripping and tearing. An ache that was unrecognizable to me, but reminded me of childhood. Of watching my mother leave. “I want you to pack your shit and get the fuck out of here.” Shit, I had to get the fuck out of here too. This was my father’s house, technically. “Your house is ready for you to move back in to. All fixed up, courtesy of me.” Boy, did I regret that now.

  She opened her mouth and closed it, and the tears kept streaming down her cheeks. She swallowed, drily. “I didn’t do whatever it is that you thought I did,” she said.

  “Save it. I know exactly who you are, Hazel McCutcheon. You have no integrity.”

  “I have no inte—?” She cut off, smacking her cheeks. “I didn’t do this, Damien, but I’ll leave. I’ve got… other things to deal with now.”

  “Yeah, I can tell.” I nodded to the picture, still lying on the floor. “Real important shit too? When’s your next appointment? Or filming? No idea what they call it in the biz. Maybe you can enlighten me.”

  “You’re horrible,” she sobbed. “You’re just a horrible, horrible man. I should’ve known better than to get involved with you again.”

  “Ditto. Get out.”

  She took my grandmother’s ring off her finger and placed it on the entry hall table. Hazel didn’t look back at me but walked for the door, taking her coconut scent and duplicitous smiles with her. The front door shut, and I was alone and empty again.

  32

  Hazel

  Anything that had been damaged during the fire had been replaced, apart from the sentimental items that nothing could ever replace. In a way, I wished that the box of my high school memories, the same one that contained that single photo of Damien and I together, had been burned too.

  It would’ve made sense.

  But that wasn’t the case. It was still in there, in my closet, waiting on the top shelf, and I sat on my bed, trying not to feel it staring at me.

  I hated him.

  But not because of his furious tantrum about Kara’s porn career or the fact that he mistakenly believed I had betrayed him. Though his shitty actions helped.

  No, I hated him because I had done the unthinkable. I had gone against the core of our “contract.” I had fallen for him, and there was no going back.

  My heart, previously shattered by the news that I would lose my father in just a few short weeks, had been utterly destroyed by that final flow. I loved an unlovable man who would never return my feelings because he didn’t have any of his own.

  I rubbed the hollow spot on my chest, tears welling in my eyes. I refused to shed them.

  So much was wrong.

  So much.

  My father dying. My heart broken. My dreams gone. But I had to cling to a semblance of sanity, go through the motions, and keep what was left of my family together.

  “Why are you staring into space?” Kara asked, from my doorway.

  I shook my head. “Don’t you knock?”

  “I mean, I could’ve knocked but you wouldn’t have heard me. You’re all zoned out. What’s the deal?” She entered my room, wearing another barely-there dress and a full face of makeup.

  “Oh, I don’t know what the problem could be, Kara. Dad’s dying, and I don’t have a job anymore, so I’ve got to get another one.”

  “Hey, you know, you could try—”

  “I swear to God if you suggest I start doing porn…” I jabbed a finger in her direction.

  “Whoa there, easy,” she said, laughing. “You still have that stick up your ass, I see.” My sister rolled her eyes. “Dude, you’ve got to come to terms with the fact that things aren’t going to get any easier. You’ve got to suck life’s dick if you want to get something out of it.”

  “Who are you, right now?” I couldn’t deal with it. I got up and walked to the window to avoid looking at her. “Just go away, Kara.”

  “No, I’m serious. I’ve been working super hard for years at being an actress and nothing was ever easy, you know? Until I met Paul and started working with him. Super easy. Super fun too. That’s what life should be like.”

  “So, what, when things get too hard, just give up and try something easier?” I asked. “Do you hear yourself?”

  “You’re so, like, caught up in society’s expectations of what a woman should be that—”

  “This has nothing to do with what a woman should be or what she can or can’t do. This is about you changing everything about yourself in the span of a few months. This is about you deciding to give up on everything you worked for because porn is easy and fun apparently.”

  “You’re just angry because your fake fiancé dumped you,” Kara said.

  I froze. “What? What did you say?”

  “You heard me.” Kara twirled her finger at me. “You’re just mad that I was right and you got your heartbroken again.”

  “No, not that. The fake fiancé thing?”

  “Whatever. I’ve got places to be. Dicks to deepthroat. See ya!” Kara flounced toward the door.

  I caught up with her and grabbed her arm. “What do you know about Damien? About… the contract?”

  “Nothing. What contract?” Kara refused to meet my eye. “Can you let me go? I have to get to work. Paul wants to do a double feature.”

  “How did you find out about that?”

  “No idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Kara!” I was tempted to shake her. “Kara, look at me. How did you find out about that?”

  But my sister wrenched her arm free and practically ran for it. She clopped out into the hall, and the front door slammed a minute later, the noise echoing through the tiny house.

  My breathing came in ragged gasps.

  She was involved in it somehow. My sister had found out about the contract and… what? It couldn’t be a coincidence that Damien had found out about the porn. It couldn’t be that he’d just searched it up online.

  His father had told him. Could Mortimer reach that far? Had he gotten to my sister?

  The questions swirled, and I leaned against my door, horror and upset overwhelming me. It didn’t matter who had told Damien what, whether it was a lie or not. He had made the decision to kick me out of his life and end the deal, and there was no going back on that now.

  It was over.

  Whether I liked it or not, I couldn’t afford to dwell on what had happened this past week.

  My father needed help, the cost of his care had sent us back into the red, and I had to find a way to pay it off, even if that meant getting a personal loan. Or borrowing money from some comically shady character in a back alley somewhere.

  But first, getting my job back.

  Like an idiot, I hadn’t anticipated that I’d have to come back to work at the Pieslice. I’d been optimistic about getting McCutcheon’s Café back, believed that Damien would help me and that
I’d have it to run rather than people to serve in the pizzeria.

  I took a breath outside the place, steeled myself against the humiliation of being back here, then pushed the door open and entered.

  A server I didn’t recognize was behind the counter. She didn’t acknowledge me as I walked to the closed door that led to the manager’s office. Ricky was five years younger than me and the owner’s son, and he’d always hated me. Or maybe he just hated women.

  I knocked.

  His answering grunt came from within, and I entered.

  Ricky’s desk was pushed into one corner, a desk fan blowing cool air on his face, no matter the time of day. He was round as a beach ball, pink in the face, and wore his hair in a faux-hawk, his massive Pieslice shirt catching sweat in half-moons under his pits.

  The office stank. It always stank.

  “Well, well, well,” Ricky said and gestured to the plastic chair in front of his desk. “Look who’s back.”

  “How are you, Ricky?” I asked and shut the door. I waded through the sweat smell and took my seat.

  “Oh, just fine. Just fine, though I imagine you’re not doing too well there, are you, Hazel?” He laughed, jiggling like a bowl of jelly, as the cliché went. “You know, the last time you marched in here to quit, I had this feeling that your bad attitude would come back to bite you in the ass. Give me one good reason why I should take you back.”

  I didn’t need this. There were plenty of other pizzerias in town. But none were as close to home, and I knew the people here, at least. I’d hoped it would be easier to get a job here than to apply for a new one and go through an interview process that might take weeks I didn’t have.

  “My father is dying, and I can’t afford to pay his hospital bills,” I said.

  “That sounds like a ‘you’ problem.”

  “Please, Ricky. I’ve got to come up with some money soon. Have a heart.” Even if that heart did pump more cholesterol than blood.

  “You’re going to beg for your job back?” He smirked. “Well, that I’m OK with. Women like you, Hazel, they’re a dime a dozen.”

  I didn’t care what he meant by it. “Please, can I have my job back,” I said.

  “Yeah, OK. You can have it back. But you’ll be working weekends and late-night shifts. And you’ll cover for any of the others and be available whenever I need you here. Got it?”

  Could he even do that? I was desperate, and I didn’t have the wherewithal to do anything other than accept the offer at this point. “All right.”

  “What do you say, Hazel?”

  “Thank you, Ricky.” Well, that was me, hitting rock bottom.

  33

  Damien

  My New York apartment welcomed me home with silence.

  Thankfully, I fucking owned this place, and there was nothing Mortimer could do about it, short of buying the building out from under me. I doubted he’d do that—he had more important things to worry about, like fellating his own ego.

  I dropped my bags by the front door, walked to the leather sofa with its view of the city through floor-to-ceiling windows, and sat down, loosening my tie, hankering for a bourbon.

  Not that it would fix the fucking problem.

  I couldn’t stop thinking about her.

  She’d torn whatever bullshit relationship we’d built in two, betrayed me, taken my father’s side, and slept with men while we’d been together, yet I couldn’t rid myself of the aching hollow spot in my chest.

  “Get your shit together,” I muttered and pushed off the sofa.

  Half an hour later, I was back in the same spot, equipped with a drink, my laptop, and the will to break out on my own. I’d always had the plans to start my own business, one that would rival my father’s in size, if not in purpose, but I’d held off.

  I’d figured that I’d need more money, more time, and now I had all the time in the world, and some cash saved up. But my father, if he discovered my plans, would make it his life’s pursuit to ruin me.

  So be it.

  I was fucking ready to fight him. I was ready to expose him to the world.

  Expose what he’d done to get ahead. Expose how he’d destroyed our family for financial gain.

  And I was ready to do something that would uplift my mother’s memory. Not only to honor her, but to spite him so sorely he wouldn’t forget it until the day he died. And even then, when he was in the pit of hell, he’d writhe and seethe over the fact that I had done it for her, not for him.

  I popped my laptop open and set to work, typing, planning, occasionally calling an old business contact who would remain loyal to me rather than my father, to work things out.

  At 2:00 a.m., my phone rang, and I picked up without looking at the caller ID. “This is Damien Woods,” I said.

  “You know it’s her sister, right?” My brother’s tone was sharp. “The one who’s doing the porn? It’s her sister. Kara.”

  “And hello to you too,” I replied, setting down my drink. I’d had five already, and my vision had started swimming, but it was worth it. Helped dull the pain. “Nice of you to call. I assume Mortimer’s got you in meetings with directors.”

  “That’s not what this call is about, Damien.”

  “You want to talk about porn?”

  “I want to talk about you being a fucking dickhead. Kara is the one doing porn,” Seth said. “I forced it out of Dad. He was oh so proud that he managed to find out you were lying to us all. So proud that he thought lying to you was a good idea.”

  “Dude, I don’t care who did what. The porn wasn’t the problem.” Lie. It had been a part of the problem, but not the entire problem. Hazel had still sold out for money from my father.

  “You’re lying to yourself,” Seth said. “Look, I don’t want to see you unhappy. Hazel’s a good woman.”

  “Hazel told my father about the contract. She recorded us together as proof. She betrayed my trust completely.”

  “And you didn’t betray hers?” Seth asked. “You didn’t take her virginity and walk out on her? Tell her you had feelings for her and then leave?”

  “That’s ancient history. And there was a reason that happened.”

  “Yeah, you’re a prick. You had no qualms about walking out on her when it suited you,” Seth said.

  “I was eighteen fucking years old.”

  “Yeah, sure. But you still did what you did, and you didn’t feel too bad about it.”

  “You don’t know shit about shit if you think… you know what? Not discussing this with you.”

  Seth exhaled into the receiver. “Look, there’s got to be more to this than meets the eye, man. I know that you want to believe she’s some evil chick who was tricking you out of your money, but that ain’t it. That ain’t it. And kicking her out? Cutting her off? That ain’t the play.”

  “Why do you care, Seth? This has nothing to do with you. Or are you still hoping to get away from Mortimer? Hoping that I’ll miraculously get engaged so that you can escape your fate?”

  “I’m always hoping,” Seth said. “But that’s not why I care. Damien, I’ve watched you live a half-life for years, and these past few weeks? It’s the first time I’ve seen you genuinely smile and laugh about something since we were kids. You love her.”

  “Hanging up.”

  “Brother, listen to me. You’re making a huge mistake if you shut her out of your life.”

  I grunted. “It was just a deal. I hired her to help me get what I wanted out of Mortimer. That failed. It’s over. Everybody can move on.”

  “If it’s just a deal, why won’t you talk to her? Why are you so pressed? Why did you assume that she was the one who did porn when she wasn’t?”

  “I’m not pressed. I’m moving on.”

  “Bullshit,” Seth said. “Bullshit, dude. You didn’t even do your research. You want to believe that she’s the one who’s done all this bad shit, because you’re afraid.”

  “Believe what you want to believe. I don’t have time for this.”
I hung up on my brother for the first time in my life. Seth had always been closest to me, maybe even closer than Caleb, who was off somewhere saving lives, but he’d overstepped this time.

  Nothing anyone could say would change my mind about what had happened.

  He’s right, though. If it was just a deal, if you really don’t care, why are you so angry that she outed you to Mortimer?

  “Principle,” I answered my own question, and the lie tasted bitter on my tongue. “That’s the only reason. The only reason.” I lifted my bourbon glass and tossed back more of the golden liquid, enjoying the sting.

  It helped distract from how much I missed her smell, her smile, the sound of her voice. Just her presence.

  I had to remind myself that it was all a lie.

  34

  Hazel

  One week later…

  “Welcome to the Pieslice. What’s your cheese of choice today?” I asked, gesturing to the menu trapped under the clear plastic counter.

  It was a Tuesday. I hated Tuesdays.

  Then again, I hated every day because they started and ended with me either here, my feet aching, my skin reeking of pizza grease, or in my father’s hospital room, watching him waste away. He didn’t talk much anymore.

  But I couldn’t give up hope. I had to keep believing that my dad could recover.

  “Yeah, uh…” The guy at the counter was in his early twenties, a college student, I’d bet, and he wore his cap backward, his “make me a sandwich” shirt loose on his frame. “Yeah, hmmm. I want the mozzarella.”

  “Wonderful,” I said and entered the price into the computer attached to the register. “And what would you like that on?”

  The college kid eyed the menu then glanced at me. He did a double take. “No way.”

  “Uh?” I checked behind me, but there was nothing that could’ve caught his attention to this extent.

  He’d gone all red in the face and wide-eyed. “No friggin’ way, dude!”