At First Hate, page 3
“Hey, who were you talking to?” Lila asked, coming back with drinks.
“No one,” I said, putting Derek out of my mind. I took one of the drinks out of her hand and sipped. Then I sputtered around the harsh taste. “You’re right. This tastes horrid.”
She laughed. “Right?!”
Despite Derek being a dick, the party was actually—as much as I hated to admit it—fun. Local Carnage played a full set, and then a DJ showed to play dance music. Maddox tried to talk to Josie and failed. Josie was too busy flirting with half of the room to notice or care. Lila and I danced our asses off. Both of my friends had probably had too much to drink.
“I’m going to find the bathroom,” I yelled to Lila.
She nodded. “Want me to come with?”
“I’m good. Just stay with Maddox.”
Lila grabbed my twin’s arm and put her head on his shoulder. “Got him.”
I laughed and went in search of a bathroom. But the house was enormous, and after a few minutes, I gave up and asked someone. The girl pointed me in the other direction, and I headed that way, only to stop and curse. There were at least ten intoxicated girls in the line for the bathroom.
“Motherfucker,” I said under my breath.
There was no way that I was waiting in that line. There had to be more than one bathroom in this huge house. I backtracked to the main foyer and ducked under a rope that blocked off the stairwell. I assumed it was to keep drunk people from having sex in the upstairs bedrooms. Not that it likely did a good job of that either, but I was here for the bathroom.
I just made it to the second-floor landing when I heard a thunk. I turned around and found Derek holding a guy up against the wall. The pretty girl from earlier was standing behind him, crying.
“Derek, stop it!”
Derek ignored her protests. “Don’t ever let me catch you touching my sister again.”
Sister.
Oh! Well, that explained everything. No wonder he’d looked so pissed when he saw her.
Whoever the guy was, he looked a lot older than her, which was a red flag.
“Derek!”
“Mia, shut it,” Derek snapped.
“What the fuck, man?” the guy said.
“Did you fucking hear me, Chuck?” Derek snarled. “Nod your head if you can’t open your big fucking mouth to do anything but shove your tongue down her throat.”
He smartly nodded his head once. “I hear you.”
I obviously wasn’t supposed to be witnessing this. But as I stepped backward to find my escape, the hardwood under my foot squeaked. I winced at the noise.
But all three of them whipped their heads in my direction.
I cleared my throat and waved awkwardly. “Uh… sorry to interrupt. I was looking for the bathroom.”
Derek released Chuck with a shove. “We were just finished. Weren’t we?”
Chuck glared at Derek and then brushed out of the upstairs, passing me and darting down the stairs. He all but ran down them. Personally, I thought he was getting off easy. Derek looked half-ready to kill him.
His sister swiped at her tears. “You’re such an asshole, Derek.”
“Fine, Amelia. I’ll be the asshole, but Chuck Henderson is not good enough for you.”
She shoved his arm, and as she rushed away, she said, “God, I hate you.”
Derek watched her leave with his jaw clenched. A door slammed hard from somewhere down the hallway. He winced at the sound and then closed his eyes. He stayed that way for a few seconds before releasing the tension from his shoulders and finally turning to face me. All of it had happened so quickly that I’d been too frozen to move.
“Uh…” I managed.
Because the Derek Ballentine that I’d seen at the football game and downstairs in front of his row of adoring fans was not the person standing in front of me right now. This Derek only cared that he’d saved his sister from a creep. And then tried to act as if he didn’t care that she was mad at him, but he did. He definitely cared. For some reason, that made him twice as hot.
So now, my words were fractured and forgotten. So much for all the SAT vocabulary prep.
Our eyes met across the distance, and my face flushed at the attention. I’d found guys hot before. I’d even found Derek hot before. But in that one interaction, something shifted. I witnessed something private. A side of himself that he clearly didn’t show everyone else. That he cared… even if throwing a guy against a wall maybe wasn’t the best way to show it.
“Sorry you had to see that,” he said.
“Yeah. Well, that was my bad. There are a dozen people in line for the one downstairs.”
“Sounds right.”
He pointed down the hall, the way that Amelia had gone. “The bathroom is the second door on the left.”
“Um… thanks.”
“No problem,” he said and then sank into the sofa in the second-story landing. It was large enough to be a whole other living area, complete with a giant television and all the video game consoles.
I scurried past Derek and found the bathroom with ease. I took my time in the bathroom, hoping that I could avoid any more of the awkwardness. After I finished, I peeked back out to find him still sitting there, staring off into nothing. I could scurry away like Chuck Henderson and not ever have to talk to Derek again. It would be easy.
And somehow, it wasn’t.
I bit my lip as I walked out onto the landing and then took the seat next to him. He looked up in surprise. Those hazel eyes searching mine for an answer for my continued appearance.
“That was a nice thing you did for your sister,” I said.
He chuckled, a low rumble in the back of his throat. “She sure doesn’t think so.”
“I’m well acquainted with the Chucks of this world. Seen a bunch of them up close and personal.”
He arched an eyebrow, and my cheeks heated again.
“My mom,” I said quickly. “She’s dated her fair share of jerks. I’m usually pretty good at spotting the Chucks. Which is kind of why I was like that with you.”
“You thought I was a Chuck?” he asked. “What a pickup line.”
I laughed. “I’m not trying to pick you up. I’m trying to say that I think maybe you’re not as terrible as you make yourself seem.”
He straightened on the sofa next to me and swept a curly lock out of my face, tucking it behind my ear. “I wouldn’t go that far.”
“Oh? You think you’re terrible?”
“I know what I want.”
I laughed and pulled back. “You were doing so well.”
He arched an eyebrow. “So why are you still here?”
“Really asking myself the same question,” I admitted. “You’d think I was smarter than this. I’m in Duke TIP and everything.”
“Ah, good old Duke TIP,” he said with a sneer.
“What?” I asked, automatically offended. “You have something against smart kids getting opportunities for one of the best schools in the South?”
“Nah. Now, hold on. I didn’t say that. I was offered for TIP, but we don’t do Duke in this house.” He grinned broadly. “Go Heels. Go America.”
I snorted. “Oh, I see. You’re a UNC fan.”
“Tar Heels all day, every day, baby.” He leaned back on the sofa and stretched his arms out wide.
“That’s nice and all, but Duke is a better school.”
He snorted. “No.”
“No, what? Objectively, that’s true.”
“Meh.”
I shook my head at him. “You do realize that rivalry is clouding your brain so that you can’t think clearly about this.”
“You can say that, but I will continue to disagree. UNC is better than Duke on every metric.”
“Wow. That is blatantly false.” I threw my hands wide at his rejection of the one thing that had made me special for so long. The one way to get out of this town. My brain, my supposed brilliance, the scholarship that would put me on the road to bigger and better.
“Look, Marley, you’re hot when you’re all riled up,” he said, tipping my chin up. “But UNC is just better at basketball, and that’s a fact.”
“Basketball,” I said slowly with a disbelieving head shake.
“Priorities.”
“You’re absurd.”
He grinned. “I’ve been called worse.”
“I don’t—”
But I didn’t get to finish my sentence.
His hand slid back into my wild brown curls. His perfect lips formed the word, “Shh,” and then he fitted his mouth to mine.
My brain malfunctioned at the touch of his lips against mine. Those damn lips that I’d thought were too pretty and perfect for one person. Now they were touching mine, and fuck it, they were even better in person. Soft and tender.
My heart raced as he dragged me closer. He laughed softly when I didn’t immediately respond and pulled back to look deep into my eyes. When I didn’t run in the other direction, he slid his thumb across my bottom lip. I shuddered at that touch. God, he knew what he was doing, and I was so inexperienced. This was my first kiss, and I was sure that I was botching it.
“Should I stop?” he asked sincerely.
Though he’d stolen my first kiss, he was offering me my second.
And to my surprise, I responded, “No.”
He tugged me forward, harder this time. And I forgot all else but the feel of his lips against mine. I moved against him, letting instinct take over. For the first time in a long, long time, I didn’t think at all. Not even a little. I just gave myself over to the moment.
He dragged his tongue across the seam of my lips, and I gasped. I felt his smile against my mouth at my response, and then his tongue moved forward and brushed against mine. I moaned at that first sweep of him inside my mouth. Everything felt so amazing and overwhelming. I was hot all over, and his hand moved from my neck down my back. I could feel every point that our bodies touched like it was superheated. A small inferno down my back, all the way to my hip, and then across my thigh to the hem of my skirt.
I gasped as he slipped a hand under the tiny St. Catherine’s skirt and pulled back. His breathing was ragged as he stared down at me. He didn’t apologize, but his hand moved back on top of my skirt.
“I should probably…” I managed.
“Marley,” he breathed my name like a prayer. His hazel eyes swirling all over my face.
I didn’t want to go. My lips felt swollen. My body hummed in a way I’d never experienced before. Was this how I was supposed to feel? It was exhilarating. And I was going to make a huge mistake if I stayed.
I tried to stand, and he tugged me down into his lap. My eyes widened as I felt exactly what our kiss had done to him.
“Stay,” he pleaded.
I shook my head, even as I leaned forward and kissed him hard and in earnest. In that moment, I understood drug addicts. Because Derek Ballentine could very easily be the most addictive substance on the planet.
“Derek, I…” I tried again.
“Keep kissing me like that.”
And so I did. I’d always followed logic. I’d always been the smart one. And I didn’t want to be.
But I wanted to be my mother even less. With twins at eighteen, right out of high school, and no husband to show for it. A desperate need for love, chasing stupidity around every block and never taking responsibility for a damn thing in her life.
I pushed him backward, ignoring the pitter-patter of my heart and the ragged quality to my breathing. “I should get back to my friends.”
“Marley…”
I stumbled to my feet. “I should go.”
I didn’t wait. I just hurried back down the stairs. A second later, a hand grabbed my elbow at the base of the stairs.
I whipped around to find Derek had followed me.
“What?” I got out.
“I just…”
“Yeah, Derek!” a group of guys yelled nearby.
I jolted at the noise, sharply bringing me back to reality.
Derek laughed and shouted out to them. I looked up at him and saw the same guy that I’d seen at the football game yesterday. It hardly mattered that he’d given me my first kiss and made me lose my ever-loving mind. We existed in two separate worlds. And I couldn’t end up like my mother.
So, I snuck away while he talked to his friends and headed back to Lila, who was still attached to Maddox.
“You were gone forever!” Lila said. “Did you find the bathroom?”
I glanced backward to make sure Derek hadn’t followed me again. “Uh, yeah. Yeah, I found it.”
I’d found a whole hell of a lot more than the bathroom.
4
Savannah
Present
“Come on, Mars!” Derek yelled from the other side of the door.
I leaned back against the front door and squeezed my eyes shut. I didn’t need this. I didn’t need Derek Ballentine in my life especially right after Gran’s funeral. I had hoped to be in Savannah and never, ever have to see him again. Ever. Not after all the shit we had gone through together for years. I couldn’t lose Gran and deal with him at the same time.
“Open the door.”
I didn’t move.
Maddox peeked down at me from the stairs. “What’s going on?”
“It’s Derek,” I told him.
He grimaced. “Oh. Want me to tell him to leave?”
“Do you think that would work?”
Maddox shot me a disbelieving look. “I’d do it anyway.”
“No. It’s okay. It’s my own mess. I’ll clean it up.”
“Yell if you need me.”
I nodded at him, took a deep, fortifying breath, and then yanked the door back open. Derek stumbled forward a step and then righted himself immediately.
“What do you want, Derek? This isn’t a good time.”
“Yeah, I heard about Gran,” he said. His hazel eyes crinkled at the corners in sympathy. “I’m so sorry. She was a great woman.”
“She… was,” I said, stumbling over the past tense.
“I always think of her fondly.”
“Thank you,” I ground out. “That doesn’t explain why you’re here. I thought I’d made it pretty clear that I didn’t want to see you.”
“I understand. But can we go somewhere and talk?”
I blinked at him. “On what planet do you think I’d say yes to that?”
He shot me a look that I knew well. It was a mix of exasperation and just a hint of desire. How many times had I heard him say that he liked me riled up? Well, that part had never been our problem anyway.
I swallowed hard and backed up a step. “It’s a no. Just go.”
“All right,” he said, running a hand back through his dark hair.
Then, those hazel eyes met mine again, and something hardened in them. I wouldn’t have noticed if I wasn’t so attuned to his various looks. But he almost looked like he was psyching himself up for something.
“What?” I asked. “Just spit it out.”
He smirked. “I forget that you know me so well.”
Which only made me scowl and cross my arms. “Fine. Don’t.”
I started to shut the door in his face again, but he reached out and stopped me.
“I came for this.”
When he was sure I wasn’t going to close the door, he extracted an envelope from his briefcase and held it out to me.
I narrowed my eyes at him and took the packet. “What’s this?”
I broke the seal on the large envelope and pulled the stack of papers out of the inside. My eyes scanned the top of the document in confusion. They were court papers. Derek’s name was on it. But that didn’t make sense.
“You’re… suing me?” I asked in disbelief.
“Keep reading,” he said softly.
And for some reason, the softness in his voice made me realize that this was a lot worse than I’d thought. I ripped the entire thing out of the envelope and let it flutter to the ground at my feet. Then, I read the top document. My eyes widened and then widened further.
I looked up at him with uncertain eyes. “My mom and aunt are suing me? What the hell, Derek?”
“Technically, they’re contesting the will.”
The world dropped out from below me. My vision dipped, and everything felt momentarily disorienting. As if up were down and down were up. Not a thing about this made sense. Not the paperwork. Not the words coming out of Derek’s mouth as he explained to me in legalese what was going on.
I held my hand up to get him to stop fucking talking as I tried to hold down the scant breakfast I’d had this morning. I put a hand to my mouth. I wouldn’t throw up. I wouldn’t cry. I’d had enough tears. I just needed to fix this.
“Mars?”
“Just shut your fucking mouth,” I snarled.
I shook my head and righted myself again. My mom—who had never been there for us, who had all but sent Gran into an early grave—thought she deserved a cent of Gran’s wealth? My aunt—who I hadn’t seen in a decade despite living in the same small town—thought she deserved Gran’s house? Were they out of their ever-loving minds?
Derek straightened at my words, swiftly dropping back into his attorney mode. “I’m here on behalf of my clients—”
“I said, shut up. I don’t need any of your bullshit, Derek. I certainly don’t need you to explain what this is to me. I understand completely. What I don’t get is why the fuck it’s you.”
“I’m an attorney.”
“You’re the owner’s kid. You have a Harvard law degree. Why are you taking this on? Is this about me?”
His eyes narrowed. He always hated the reminder that he’d only gotten what he had because of his dad’s money. Tough shit. “No. Contrary to what you think, not everything in my life is about you.”
I laughed harshly once. “Nothing in your life is about me. I remember that all too well.”
“My dad gave me the assignment. I’m up for partner, and when he says to do it, I do.”
