Bad For You: An Enemies to Lovers Romance

by Taylor Holloway

  “What’s the matter?” he asked. He knew that I almost never turned down free food.

  “I think Brandon wants to take over for Martin when he retires,” I admitted. “We’d actually been getting along better lately, but now I know he’s been plotting against me.”

  Daniel was quiet for a moment before replying. When he did speak, his voice was surprised.

  “Do you want me to go key his car?”

  I smiled and then I remembered Brandon’s car vandalism and frowned. “No. But thank you. It means even more than the buffalo chili offer.”

  “How did you find out?”

  “Lucy figured it out, of course. Apparently, Brandon has been working with Melinda, that snake from HR. They’ve been lobbying the board to put Brandon at the top of the short list to take over.”

  “You really think they’re going to pick him over you?” Daniel asked, “I mean, you’ve been preparing for this over the past few years. You know more about the hospital than anyone.”

  I shifted uncomfortably in my chair. “You don’t understand. Melinda is smart. She knows that a lot of the board members are old, traditional men. It’s a Catholic hospital. They would much rather have a nice male, military doctor than me.”

  “Are there any women on the board?”

  “There are two. Two out of nine.” I sighed. “And weirdly, one of the women is even more misogynistic than most of the men.”

  “Weird how that works sometimes, isn’t it?” Daniel, a gay man from a tiny town, knew a thing or two about intolerance and discrimination.

  “I think you mean awful.”

  “That too.” I could imagine him frowning by the sound of his voice. “How exactly did Lucy find out about all this?” he asked eventually.

  “Rumors.”

  “Are you sure they’re true?”

  I sighed. “I don’t know. I wouldn’t put it past Brandon. He’s always been an ass. I thought it was weird that he was being nice to me, and I guess now I know why. He was just trying to throw me off my guard.”

  Daniel tried weakly to get me to acknowledge that I might be wrong and started pointing out all the ways that Brandon might be innocent. Apparently, he could read how upset I was by my transparently miserable voice, but I basically just tuned him out. I knew Brandon better than he did. I knew what kind of cruelty he was capable of, and I knew he was selfish.

  I’d been working for years to be the best. The smartest. The toughest. The most driven. I worked my ass off. I worked harder than anyone I knew in high school, college, or medical school. I worked sixty-hour weeks like they were nothing. But now, because Brandon Koels was back in town, none of that was going to matter. He was going to swoop in like fucking Batman and take what I’d been working myself to death for. I’d sacrificed my personal life, most of my twenties, and some of my sanity. And if I didn’t get this fucking job it was all going to be for nothing.

  37

  Brandon

  Aimee didn’t show up at the restaurant for lunch. When I went up to her office and lied that I needed an oncology consult, Lucy told me that Aimee had called out sick. Something in the tone of her voice tipped me off. A certain open and obvious hostility. I had a bad feeling the rumors that Melinda had been busily spreading had worked their way back to Aimee and Lucy. “Maybe you should ask the board about your consult,” Lucy had taunted, as if to obviously confirm my suspicions. She was clearly also on borrowed time because she was even more outspoken than usual. “I hear you’re just best friends with them now, you back-stabber.”

  Not good. Not good at all. I ended up driving to Aimee’s house and just banging on her door.

  When I arrived at Aimee’s house, a modest two-bedroom bungalow less than a mile from the hospital, I wasn’t sure what I expected to happen. I knew I needed to tell Aimee that Melinda was plotting against her and my dad. I knew I needed to admit that I’d initially been helping her and ask Aimee to trust me. But when Aimee opened the door wearing yoga pants, all those good intentions fled. Yoga pants are a gift from God. The fact that she also wasn’t wearing a bra and just a tight tank top also seemed like a miracle. I felt my jaw go slack at the sight of her. Every time I saw her it shocked me how gorgeous she was.

  Unfortunately, Aimee didn’t look nearly as happy to see me as I was to see her.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” she snapped. “Get lost you job-stealing asshole!”

  She tried to slam the door shut and I easily caught it. She made a noise like an angry alley cat and squirmed against the door.

  “I don’t want your damn job, Aimee!” I yelled back at her. “Listen to me. This is Melinda. All the rumors are because of her.”

  Aimee had lurched forward to use her body weight to slam the door, but she paused. “Melinda?” she said, softening just the barest amount. “What do you mean?” Her angry blue eyes peeked out at me from around the edge of the door.

  Clearly, Aimee had not missed the fact that Melinda was a snake. I exhaled. “Let me in and we’ll talk about it.”

  “Fuck you,” she replied.

  “If you want to, absolutely. But I think we should talk first.” That was the wrong thing to say when she was angry. Aimee made another shrill cat noise and I backpedaled. Why couldn’t I stop being an asshole around Aimee? I’d been doing so well lately. Old habits die hard, I guess. “Please just listen to me for five minutes,” I begged. “Please.”

  Aimee took a deep breath and to my mild surprise, did not hurl her body at the door to close it. “You can’t come inside.”

  “Then can you come outside?” I asked as reasonably as I could.

  Aimee stalked out on her front porch and crossed her arms just over the threshold. “Talk,” she ordered. “And this better be good because I don’t appreciate you trying to be my friend and then stabbing me in the back. I also don’t appreciate you showing up here.”

  Aimee thought I wanted to be her friend? That was so rich I almost laughed. Friend was a four-letter word.

  “I’m not trying to stab you in the back,” I told her. “Believe me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m telling you the truth. Because I have nothing to gain from trying to steal your job. I have my own job, and it isn’t here. It isn’t even on this continent.”

  She swallowed. “Then what’s going on? Why is everyone talking about how you’re positioning yourself to steal my job when Martin retires.”

  “It’s Melinda. She’s planning… something.” God, it sounded so stupid out loud. Why hadn’t I gone over this beforehand. “She’s plotting something.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Aimee stared at me. “That’s it?”

  “I know she’s planning something tomorrow. During Lucy’s party and the board meeting.”

  “How do you know that?” Aimee’s voice was sharp.

  I took a deep breath. “A couple of weeks ago she told me that my dad had done some really unethical things. She said she had proof, but she needed my help. I agreed to help her, but when I looked through all the records, there was nothing. But she says she found something anyway and she’s going to tell the board tomorrow.”

  Aimee’s eyes widened. “You were helping her?”

  I shrugged. “I wanted to see if it was true,” I told her. “Are you really that surprised?”

  “Did you look through my records, too?” Her soft, pink mouth was set in a stubborn, furious line.

  Aimee was too smart sometimes. She was a genius, after all.

  “Yes,” I admitted.

  “And? Did you find anything particularly damning?” She raised an eyebrow at me and did her best to stare down her nose at me from six inches below. Somehow, she managed it just fine. I winced.

  “Obviously you didn’t do anything wrong either or I wouldn’t be here right now!” I was irritated with myself that I’d even looked into Aimee’s treatment records. I technically had every right to look through records, but in hinds
ight it was an invasive thing to do. Doctors didn’t regularly look through each other’s work looking for errors except during the peer review process. It was, objectively, a weird, somewhat creepy thing to do. I was not doing well today.

  “What the fuck is wrong with you?” she asked.

  “Anxiety, depression, PTSD, and mild anger issues,” I bit back.

  She blinked her huge blue eyes in apparent disbelief. “That was meant to be a rhetorical question, Brandon.”

  Oh.

  “I’m also very literal, Aimee.”

  She almost smiled. Almost. It was obvious that some part of her wanted to smile. “Why are you telling me all this now?” she asked in a less hostile tone. I took it as an opportunity to shift the conversation in a better direction.

  “Because you didn’t come to lunch,” I replied as mildly as I could. “And because Melinda is making her move tomorrow, I thought you might want to know. We can do something.”

  I didn’t know what. But… something.

  “But why tell me if you were trying to bring me down all this time?” she asked, skepticism and annoyance returning to her expression. “Why do any of this?”

  “Because it’s the right thing to do!” I resisted the urge to smack the doorframe in irritation. My voice was raised and irate and I struggled to return it to a more normal volume and tone. My therapist claimed I could control my temper if I made an effort. It appeared the arrogant prick was right. I took a deep breath. “Neither one of you deserves to be slandered, I get that now. Especially you.”

  Aimee sighed, seeming to sink into herself and become smaller. We stared at one another for a few tense seconds. I was beginning to think Aimee would never reply. Her eyes searched mine for something. I couldn’t tell if she found it.

  “I know what Melinda has on your dad,” she admitted eventually. “At least, I think I do. I’ve known for a while.”

  It took me a few seconds to even process what she was saying.

  “You mean she actually has something on him?” I asked. “Something real?” My blood pressure, which had been returning to normal, shot up again.

  Aimee nodded.

  “Something bad?”

  Aimee nodded again. Her eyes were fixed on the porch’s wooden floorboards. The porch needed to be power washed. I could do that, I thought for a fleeting second before reality sank in. I could fix this for her and make it nice again in about an hour. Then, maybe, she’d smile.

  I swallowed. Now was not the time to daydream about performing home maintenance for the woman I had a crush on. The woman who was, apparently, protecting my dad and keeping his dirty secrets. “What does Melinda have?” I heard myself asking. “What did my dad do?”

  I knew it. I fucking knew it. He was rotten all along. I’d been a fool to even consider otherwise.

  “I can’t tell you.”

  I felt my heartbeat accelerate again. “What? Why not?”

  “I just can’t tell you!” Aimee repeated. “I would if I could, but I can’t.”

  Weirdly, I believed her. Something about the way she was looking at me, I honestly thought she would tell me if she could. I had no idea what might prevent her from telling me the truth, but either way, it was unacceptable.

  “But you know,” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “So, you’re complicit. Melinda was right.” My anger was making me rude. “You’re just as bad as him.”

  “No. I… I don’t know. Nobody is bad. I’m doing what I have to do. That’s all I can say!” She looked like she wanted to tell me more, but she didn’t. We stared at one another for a few tense heartbeats. She looked away first.

  “Just tell me.”

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  “Reasons,” she replied. Her expression hardened and I knew I wouldn’t get anything else.

  “But you have been hiding something for him?! Something career-endingly bad? Are you out of your mind? He doesn’t deserve that kind of loyalty!” I shook my head at her.

  “Yes, he does, Brandon! He absolutely deserves my loyalty. He deserves yours too, although you don’t realize it.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “What could possibly even be so bad?!” I’d looked through all the records. There was nothing. No fraud. No malpractice. Nothing.

  “I obviously can’t tell you that either, Brandon!”

  We had now been yelling at one another on her front porch for a few minutes, and her neighbors were starting to get interested. A woman who’d been pruning her roses next door was staring at us worriedly. On the other side of the street, a neighbor just arriving home had paused with her grocery bags.

  “Maybe we should go inside,” I suggested.

  Aimee took stock of our surroundings and nodded. “Fine.” She frowned. “Don’t touch anything.”

  I watched her round, perfect ass twitch back and forth as I followed her in. All the anger, isolation, and frustration I was feeling had me as coiled up and tense as a cornered cobra. Then she looked back over her shoulder at me and the anger disappeared into nothing. No matter what, I was going to touch her.

  We didn’t even make it inside the door before I kissed her.

  38

  Aimee

  I wished I had the strength to resist what I was feeling, but the truth is that I was just as eager as he was. Brandon was infuriating. He was smug and arrogant. He was too damn nosy and clearly somewhat damaged, but God help me I wanted him, and he wanted me too. What happened next was just a foregone conclusion.

  Inside my little living room (my bungalow had nothing resembling a foyer), Brandon pulled me up against him and kissed me for all I was worth. I sank into the sensation, reveling in the feeling of strong arms, pounding heart, and body heat. Anything was better than the anger and desperation I was feeling. In his arms, I felt free. I wanted more of that feeling.

  My hands were shaking slightly with leftover adrenaline, but I set about the buttons on Brandon’s shirt anyway. They stopped shaking when I touched his smooth, hot skin. Whatever else he was to me or whatever we felt for each other, this was good. It was right. He kissed my neck and I sighed into him, just wanting to forget everything but what we were doing in that moment.

  Brandon seemed just as overwhelmed as me. His breathing was just as labored as my own, and I could see in his expression that he was on the same primal wavelength. We weren’t doctors, or colleagues, or friends in that moment. We were barely even humans. We were just alive.

  He pulled me closer, looping his fingertips underneath my tank top and pulling upward to strip me from the waist up. The cool airconditioned air rushed around me, but the heat in Brandon’s eyes was more than enough to keep me warm. He stared at me like I was mirage of water in a desert. His big hands cupped me from beneath and I watched in satisfaction as his pupils dilated in excitement.

  “God you’re beautiful,” he said, shaking his head as if he was almost annoyed by it. “Do you have any idea what you do to me?”

  I blinked at him, arching into his touch. How was I supposed to answer that? I kissed him again instead.

  “Where’s the bedroom?” he rasped, scooping me up and looking around. He frowned. “Actually, never mind. The couch will work fine.”

  He laid me down and leaned over me, working my yoga pants down off my body with his long, clever fingers and then sending his hands over every square inch of naked skin. The last time we’d had angry sex it had been with me bent over in front of him like an animal. This time I wanted us face to face. I wanted to see his face while he fucked me into forgetting why I couldn’t stand him sometimes. I looped a leg around him and pulled his hair to get him closer to me. He made a little surprised noise at my insistence before pulling my hair back to expose my neck and mark it with gentle, eager teeth. I distantly heard myself making breathy, helpless noises in response.

  My body was beyond ready for him, but he took his time. Brandon teased me carefully, exploring between my legs with his hands while
I became more and more aware of his erection against me. His leisurely kisses and gentle fingers felt wonderful, but I needed more. I needed him. Finally, when I thought I couldn’t stand being teased anymore and I’d just burst into flames, he reached his limit too. His hands left my body to pull at his own pants. Finally. I bit my lip and stared at him, spreading my legs further and beyond ready.

  “Tell me you want this too,” he rasped against my neck. “Tell me you need it.”

  “I need it,” I whimpered. My voice sounded nothing like me. It was pleading and breathy. “Please.”

  He pushed into me all at once and I arched my back and held onto his shoulders for dear life when he started to move with a brutal, insistent rhythm. We were so good together. Why did he make me feel so differently than any other man could? It wasn’t fair.

  I tipped my hips into every stroke, absorbing every ounce of sensation and still wanting more, more, more. He was panting against my neck, driving into me hard enough to make the couch jump against the wall and my own high, desperate noises were probably loud enough to make my neighbors wonder what the fuck was going on. He found my sweet spot easily, keeping me right on the edge of climax until I was totally out of any emotion other than need. I stared up at the ceiling above us until the picture blacked out and my orgasm focused all my higher brain function on the wave of total pleasure that overtook me in a shaking, breathless moment. I whimpered out his name through desperate lips.

  Brandon finished just a few short, hard strokes later, gasping curse words against my ear. When the moment cooled, we were tangled up in one another’s arms on the couch. My heart felt broken, but I didn’t know why until my memories returned to me in an inconvenient rush.

  Oh right. Brandon and I don’t like each other again. And tomorrow, everything in my life is going to implode.

  Even the most earth-shattering sex with your childhood bully can only keep reality at bay for so long. The seconds ticked by and the bliss receded. In the new, cold stillness, I heard my heartbeat slow. The moment changed. I looked up at him and he looked down at me. Neither one of us said a word. All the tenderness from our date night was gone, evaporated into the thick tension in the room. Reality was back, and it sucked.