Bad For You: An Enemies to Lovers Romance

by Taylor Holloway

  I’d get to see Aimee in a pretty dress instead of a white coat. That was almost enough to convince me on its own.

  “Do I have to make a speech?”

  “Yes.” He told me. “An absolutely glowing one. All about how great I am. At the reception. I want to approve it beforehand.”

  God, his ego knew no bounds. Bile rose in the back of my throat.

  “Anything else?”

  “No.”

  “What are the exact timeframes?”

  “At least three hours at the rehearsal dinner, the full ceremony, and three full hours at the reception.”

  “Fine.”

  He raised an eyebrow at me. “Fine. Don’t fuck it up.”

  And that was that.

  15

  Brandon

  I went directly to Aimee’s office after my father’s nuptial bargain. I sat in her chair and impatiently awaited her return. When she appeared, her eyes narrowed irritably and her breath huffed out of her.

  “You’re in my office,” she said. Her voice was horrified. “Why are you in my office? Why are you sitting in my chair?”

  I cocked an eyebrow at her and stood up from her chair. Was it weird to sit in her chair? It looked like the most comfortable one. The others looked like they had poor lumbar support. It wasn’t meant as a power move or anything, although in hindsight I could see how it might be interpreted that way. “Sorry I didn’t make an appointment. I promise to keep it brief,” I said apologetically. Aimee’s eyes narrowed like she thought I was being patronizing. We weren’t off to a great start.

  “Your dad was hurt by what you said yesterday,” she told me, looking in the direction of my dad’s office like she could see through the walls. Her voice was scolding. “I know he can be a handful, but he just wanted you to be happy for him and to meet Rosary. And Rosary wanted to meet you, too. You didn’t have to act like a spoiled brat.”

  I rolled my eyes and was rewarded with an angry little noise. She was so protective of my dad. He definitely didn’t deserve it.

  “He wanted free labor and I have less than zero interest in meeting Rosary,” I replied with a shrug. The fact that I was about to have a new stepmother made me feel vaguely ill. Rationally, I knew my mom had been dead for a long time and my dad was a sad, lonely old man, but I hated him. I didn’t think he should be happy, and I didn’t think poor Rosary deserved to be shackled to him, either.

  “She’s very nice,” Aimee said. She seemed a little shell shocked, too. Maybe that was why she wasn’t yelling at me. “Rosary really seems like a great person and she clearly adores him.”

  “Then I pity her.” I paused. “At least she’s an appropriate age for him. I’ll give the old bastard that, I suppose. He doesn’t chase younger women like a creepy pervert. Maybe I’ll put that on his tombstone one day. ‘Here lies Martin Edward Koels, MD. He wasn’t a creepy pervert, or at least we had no evidence.’”

  “Why are you being such an ass about this?” she hissed. “He’s your dad. You know he didn’t kill your mom either. She died of cancer. Inoperable, aggressive, metastatic lung cancer. It was tragic, but it was not murder.”

  “Whose secondhand smoke do you think caused her lung cancer?” I asked her. How could she not connect the dots between my dad’s chain smoking and my mom’s death? He was still smoking as she was dying. “He smoked at her funeral.”

  Her expression froze and then a hint of empathy entered it. “You know that’s not fair. Even if it’s true, and you can’t know for sure, he couldn’t have known how dangerous the secondhand smoke was. Everyone used to smoke.”

  “Please. People knew about the dangers of smoking in the eighties and nineties. Especially doctors. My mom never smoked. He always did.”

  “She might have just had a genetic predisposition. There are lots of risk factors that lead to someone getting cancer--”

  I waved a hand to cut her off. “Stop. I’m a doctor too, you know. I know a thing or two about cancer. Are you seriously going to defend him?”

  “Yes. I am.” She spread her hands wide. “He’s not a murderer and that’s an awful thing to accuse him of. He loved your mom. Why do you hate him so much?”

  “Because he’s a horrible person. He’s rotten to the core. His whole thing about having us at the wedding? It’s for him. Everything he does is self-serving. Maybe you haven’t figured it out yet, which is a bit surprising because I think you’re pretty clever, but he’s a real, live monster. He killed my mother. And he replaced me with you when I called him out on it.”

  Her mouth opened in shock. “You don’t really believe that, do you?”

  “Trust me, people are disposable to him. He picked you because you were poor and because you’d be grateful and loyal to him. He never loved me, and he doesn’t love you.”

  She shook her head. “What a fucked-up thing to say.”

  “It’s a more fucked-up thing to be true, but here we are.” I felt like I was shattering her happy little lie, but it was kinder than letting her go on living in a dreamworld that would one day collapse painfully on her. I’d been there, and it sucked. I’d thought he would care about me when the sky fell and my mom got sick, but he didn’t. “You deserve to know the truth about him.”

  It was dawning on me that I really didn’t want her to get hurt. I didn’t know why I felt that way, but I did. I wanted to protect her from all the creepy patients and petty torments and my dad most of all. I wanted Aimee happy and safe. It was a strange thing to want to protect someone. I’d never felt that way before outside of a clinical setting. It was vaguely uncomfortable, like my insides had been turned out.

  Aimee certainly didn’t seem to appreciate my concern or confusion. She shook her head again, sending her blonde hair flying back and forth. “You’re wrong, Brandon. I feel sad for you that you think he’s so horrible. I feel sad for you that you choose to hate someone who loves you.”

  “Spare me your pity. I feel sad for you that you think he cares about you. You’re nothing but a chance for him to make a better, more obedient protégé.” I couldn’t understand why she wouldn’t see reality. “You don’t need him anymore. You’ve grown beyond him and you don’t owe him anything. You could just walk away.”

  “He loves you,” she told me. “Not that you deserve it.” She looked like she pitied me, which made me feel irritated and helpless.

  My default in that situation was to be cocky and rude.

  “He doesn’t love anything.” I smirked at her. “Maybe himself. I doubt it though. He probably hates himself, too.”

  We stared at one another for a long, tense moment. It lengthened and became awkward. “This isn’t what I came in here to talk about,” I said eventually. I aimed for a conversational tone, but I don’t think I nailed it.

  Aimee laughed a small hysterical laugh. “Oh?” she pulled a hand through her hair again and looked at me like I was nuts. All her hair pulling had made hers look a bit messy and crazed, but I wasn’t going to mention it. “What was?” she asked me. “Were you here to apologize more for being a dick to me when we were kids?”

  I sat up straighter. “Do you want me to? I will if you want me to.”

  She rubbed her temples like she had a headache. “Not really. No.” She took a deep breath. “Then why are you here?”

  “Do you want to be my date for the wedding?”

  She turned around and walked out.

  16

  Aimee

  “It’s good that Martin’s finally moving on though, right?” Lucy asked me. “I mean, he’s been alone for years, hasn’t he?”

  I swallowed my bite of rye toast and nodded. We were having brunch after seeing a movie on a rare Saturday we both had off. “Yeah, I think it’s probably good. Very sudden though. And totally unexpected. I had no idea he was even dating anyone.”

  Not that Martin told me everything. He guarded his secrets carefully. Although, as far as I knew, I was the closest person to him emotionally speaking. I was still reeling from
the news that he was going to get married.

  “So, he’s marrying Faith’s mom? I met her, you know. A few months ago, when she was at the hospital.” Lucy was always fascinated by the developments as the hospital gossip mill. She had a talent for stories, I was realizing, and an understanding of how they could be put to use. It’s why she liked movies so much. At last, Brandon was not the number one gossip topic at the hospital. His father had taken his spotlight. I wondered if Brandon felt relieved, or if he had even noticed.

  “Yeah,” I answered, pulling my brain back from Brandon to focus on the matter at hand. My thoughts always seemed to drift to him, even at inopportune moments. “Apparently, they met when Rosary was admitted for a panic attack.”

  “That’s got to be odd for poor Faith. Her mother is marrying her boss.” Lucy looked concerned on Faith’s behalf. “Actually, I think maybe Eric has it worse. His mother-in-law is marrying his boss.”

  I blinked at her. “I hadn’t thought of that, but you’re right. Poor Eric.” The young surgeon seemed resilient enough to me. He’d be fine.

  Lucy laughed. “Well, considering your surrogate father is your boss, it probably didn’t occur to you. You’re used to the weirdness.”

  I shrugged my shoulders and took a sip of orange juice. Hanging out with Lucy outside the hospital made me feel more normal and relaxed than I had in a long time. We should do this more often. “I’m just happy for him. I’ve been worried that he was lonely.”

  Martin, like a lot of doctors, was a bit of a loner. I was the same way. Brandon seemed to be too. But it wasn’t a conscious choice, at least for me. I wanted more social contact, more friends. I just didn’t know how to make that happen. Back when I should have been making friends as a kid, I was skipping grades and being a prodigy. I never developed those skills. Now it was too late. I was lucky that Lucy had befriended me, whether I liked it or not.

  Martin, meanwhile, had a very challenging personality that made it hard for him to make friends even if someone was really determined. His position at the top of the hospital hierarchy probably created a barrier too, but he was also just… him. Martin was kind of a pain in the butt. There was just no denying it. Plus, he had his secrets. Things that made him push people away intentionally…

  “Does Rosary know about Martin’s—” Lucy trailed off significantly.

  The secret. Lucy was alluding to the one thing Martin and I never talked about unless absolutely necessary. I tensed just thinking about it.

  I frowned. “I don’t know for sure, but I’m sure he’s told her. I’m not going to ask.”

  She nodded. “Makes sense.” She paused. “If I hadn’t found out by accident, you never would have told me, would you?”

  I shook my head ruefully. “It’s not my secret to tell.” I would confide a lot in Lucy, but not everything. She might have a reputation as a bit of a gossip, but it wasn’t deserved at all. In reality, her people skills and talent for storytelling were what made her such a stunningly effective executive secretary. What other people thought of as gossip was actually her way of shaping public opinion and staying on top of things that could affect hospital politics. Still… I wasn’t going to tell her about me and Brandon.

  “What does Brandon think?” Lucy asked next, perhaps proving she could read my secrets whether I liked it or not.

  I shook my head at her. “He’s being a complete asshole. As usual.”

  Brandon’s immaturity really knew no bounds. His outburst at his father was awful and incredibly rude.

  “I guess it makes sense. It is rather sudden, like you said.” Lucy seemed determined to defend Brandon and play devil’s advocate. I think she did it to gauge my reactions.

  “He yelled at his father and told him not to murder this wife like he did the last one.”

  Lucy winced. “That probably wasn’t the best way to react.”

  I spread my hands in frustration. “You think?” I sighed. “His mom has been dead for more than a decade. His dad deserves to move on.”

  “You’re right, but sometimes people don’t think rationally when it comes to their parents. Especially when they’ve been through painful trauma, like losing a mother. Maybe he’s probably still dealing with her death.”

  “My family is hard to deal with too and I’m not an asshole.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Is there a prize for whoever survives family issues the best?”

  I frowned, suddenly feeling foolish and immature. “I just don’t see why he has to be such a jerk all the time.”

  “I get that but hating him this intensely can’t be healthy for you. It seems like an awful lot of work to me.”

  I paused and then nodded. She was right about that. Brandon occupied way too much of my brain’s time and processing power. “He apologized to me,” I admitted uncertainly.

  Lucy straightened up in her seat. “Brandon did? Really?”

  I was still vaguely surprised by it too, but I nodded.

  “Yeah. He apologized for bullying me when we were kids.”

  Lucy blinked. “What did you say?”

  “I forgave him.” I shrugged it off as casually as I could. “Unlike him, I’m not an immature loser who can’t move on.”

  I thought about Brandon’s inability to forgive his father. I didn’t want to be like that. I wanted to think that I was not the sort of person that spent decades harboring negativity for no purpose other than self-pity. Lucy was right, it couldn’t be healthy. I was better than that. I could be the bigger person.

  “Then what happened?” Lucy asked.

  I blinked. “What? When?”

  “What happened after you forgave him?”

  I frowned. “Nothing,” I lied. He’d asked me to Martin’s wedding, but I wasn’t going to admit that. “I still don’t like him.”

  “I thought you were being the bigger person.”

  “That doesn’t mean I have to like him.”

  “Of course, you don’t,” Lucy’s smile was indulgent. “But maybe it wouldn’t be the worst thing if you copied Martin and moved on.”

  “I’m moving on,” I argued. “I forgave Brandon for being an asshole and I’m living my life free of giving him a moment’s thought.”

  Lucy smirked at me in a way that said she didn’t believe a word of that. “Okay, Aimee. Whatever makes you happy.”

  17

  Brandon

  My new mission was Aimee Ford. I wanted her. Now that I had an exit date, I had to act. Before leaving, I wanted her and I wanted her to want me back. I wanted her as my date to the wedding. I’d never been in love, and this wasn’t it, but it was a compulsion I couldn’t ignore and didn’t want to.

  Aimee had taken hold of me somehow and gotten under my skin, and the worst part is that I liked it. Even though I was fairly certain that she hated me more now than she ever had before, I liked thinking about her. Like a parasite that convinces its host that it wants the infestation, Aimee was deep in my nervous system and pulling all the strings.

  There’s a particular type of fungus called cordyceps that infects insects throughout Asia. Usually caterpillars. We learned about it in medical school because of its unique properties. Medicinally, it can be used to help slow kidney failure. But it was always the actual fungus I found interesting, and now, particularly relevant to my situation.

  A caterpillar, once infected with the cordyceps fungus, quickly falls prey to its influence. The mycelium invades and eventually replaces the host tissue. But before that happens, strange behavioral changes take place in the host. The nervous and sensory systems are hijacked. The brain is reprogrammed. It doesn’t know why, but the caterpillar suddenly feels a biological imperative that is completely new to its previously tranquil, leaf-eating life. All at once, it no longer wants to do normal caterpillar things. Like eating. Or sleeping. It only needs to climb.

  Even though climbing to an exposed vantage point is usually suicide to a caterpillar that relies on being inconspicuous to avoid being eaten, the c
aterpillar is powerless. It has to climb. And climb it does. Up and up until it finds the highest branch.

  Then its head explodes. The fungus erupts from the head and releases spores to the environment from above, completing the life cycle of the fungus and going forth to infect the next generation. Nature is hardcore.

  Aimee was my head-exploding fungus, and, even though she was probably going to destroy me, I was just an infected caterpillar with a terminal infection. I didn’t want to be a butterfly. I just wanted her. It’s much more romantic than it sounds.

  I even liked fighting with her. Unlike most people, she was not intimidated by me. She used to be, but maybe she’d reached peak Brandon saturation and was now immune to my effects. People can become immune to certain poisons by slowly building up an immunity to them. They can even learn to like them. If that was the case with Aimee and her feelings for me, I was already halfway there, because she could tolerate me already.

  My father didn’t attempt to patch things up after my poor reaction to his happy bargain. In all honesty, I’m not sure what he expected. It’s not like we were on great terms. I was working at his hospital, but it wasn’t like we spent a lot of time together. Other than emails in which he relentlessly offered me feedback and advice on my patients that I mostly ignored, we had no real contact. The small amount of contact we did have was purely professional. He was probably closer to his secretary, Lucy, than he was to me, and by all accounts, he wasn’t that fond of her, either.

  The days dragged by, filled with my ill-fated attempts to try and connect with Aimee.

  “Can I sit with you?” I asked on one morning when I caught her alone in the cafeteria.

  She looked up at me tiredly. “I thought you were banned from the cafeteria.”

  I shrugged. “I got un-banned. I bribed them with cookies.” I said it casually, but it had actually been a long, elaborate undertaking to get them to allow me back in. I was now on a first name basis with most of the nearby bakeries.