Hate to Want You

by Alisha Rai

  “A tragedy, that’s what it was.”

  “Yes. A tragedy.”

  Nicholas reentered the room, his gaze softening as it rested on her and his grandfather. The old-fashioned tea cart he pushed didn’t distract a bit from his rugged masculinity.

  Nostalgia shot through her. The delicate porcelain tea set was white with pink roses on it. “Grandma Barb’s tea set.”

  John’s wife had been a kind, matronly sort who had adored having all the grandchildren over for tea. She’d passed away when Liv was a child, but she’d had a few years to get to know the woman.

  John’s age-spotted hands curled in his lap. “I barely use it now. I don’t have many visitors.”

  Nicholas snorted and set the cart in front of them. “You could, if you weren’t so grumpy every time one of your old friends came to see you.”

  “I barely liked most of those bastards,” John grumbled. “Can I be blamed for preferring the company of my garden?”

  “Then don’t complain you don’t have any visitors,” Nicholas said calmly.

  “Asshole,” John said affectionately.

  Livvy grinned, glad to see age hadn’t taken any of John’s sharp tongue. The words this man had taught her.

  John accepted the teacup and turned to her, a gleam in his eyes. “Now, tell me some sordid stories about life as a tattoo artist.”

  LIVVY HADN’T come home looking for a grandfather’s love, but she’d found it. And she’d never be able to express how grateful she was.

  She could easily have stayed on this couch for hours. Nicholas and his grandfather’s relationship was as easy as it had always been, half joking, half loving. Nicholas barely swore, but he had no problem matching the elder man’s salty tongue.

  There was only one spot of tension, when John brought up some sort of media hubbub. “We’re handling it,” Nicholas said.

  “I want to make sure we aren’t slipping, Nicholas. People. Quality—”

  “I know, Grandpa.”

  “Your father will want to pursue the bottom dollar. Well, that’s not what Sam and I . . .” He paused and shot a guilty look at Livvy, who pretended not to have noticed the slip. “We didn’t start this company with an eye toward only making a profit.”

  “Dad would say we’re in a position to make the world a better place if we can make a profit.”

  “I—”

  “Grandpa.” Nicholas gave a single, firm shake of his head. “Not now.”

  His grandfather sighed, long and heavy, but subsided. “Very well. Keep me informed.”

  Livvy tried to pretend she wasn’t absorbing this unusual new dynamic between grandfather and grandson, but that would be a lie. She guessed this was what Nicholas had been talking about when he said he was often in the middle of the two older Chandlers.

  Nicholas took a bite of his cucumber sandwich, his big hand practically dwarfing the tiny, crustless sandwich. “I always do.”

  John grunted and nudged the plate of lemon squares toward Nicholas. “Here. I made your favorite dessert.”

  “Lemon squares aren’t his favorite dessert.”

  Both men looked at her, and she ran her tongue over her teeth. “Or at least, they weren’t.”

  Nicholas shook his head, taking the attention off her. “No, thanks, Grandpa. I’m good.”

  “You remember the sweet tooth he had, Livvy?” John mused. “He barely eats the good stuff now.”

  “You don’t like sweets anymore?” He’d used to gorge himself on anything remotely sugar filled. He’d been lucky to have an equally fast metabolism.

  “They aren’t good for you,” he said briskly, and picked up a cucumber sandwich.

  She met his gaze. “Do you only like things that are good for you?”

  “I try.”

  “Boring,” John muttered, and passed the plate to Livvy. She picked up the lemon square and ate it slowly, catching the surreptitious glance Nicholas cast at her mouth as she nibbled on the tart sweet.

  They talked more, Livvy relating a couple of the lighter, funny stories about her travels. She finally noticed the sun slipping away and checked her phone, wincing. “I have to get going.”

  “Is Tani by herself?” John asked.

  “No, my aunt’s with her, but I didn’t tell them I’d be out so late.” Tani probably wouldn’t notice, but Maile would worry.

  John looked disappointed, but nodded. “Of course.”

  “I can come back,” she said tentatively, heartened when John beamed.

  “Yes. Please.”

  Nicholas pushed his chair back. “Let me make sure Chad knows we’re leaving, Grandfather.”

  He left the room, and Livvy watched him go.

  “Do you know what Sam and I used to joke about?”

  Livvy turned back to John and shook her head.

  “That Tani and Brendan would grow up and fall in love. I even told Sam we should have betrothed them when they were young.” His smile faded. “That wasn’t to be. But then, you and Nicholas . . . ah, I had such dreams for you two. Uniting the two families would have been magnificent.”

  She licked her suddenly dry lips. “John, you understand, we’re not back together.”

  “Nicholas grew up into a fine man,” John replied, with enough hopeful eagerness that Livvy grimaced.

  “He did.”

  “Of course, you already know that.”

  There were a million benign ways to read John’s words, but a shiver ran down her spine. “What do you mean?”

  John regarded her sympathetically, but there was a certain shrewd quality that reminded her of a fact she bet a lot of people overlooked. Yes, Brendan and Nicholas had been the ones to expand their empire, but John had been the one to lay the first brick. “I know your birthday, Livvy.”

  That shiver turned into a tremble. “So?”

  “In the beginning I thought . . .” John stroked his finger over his late wife’s teapot. “Well. Chandlers fall hard when they fall in love, after all. I assumed Nicholas was going off to mope somewhere. Then, one year, I happened to look at our flight records. He was flying somewhere, a different destination each time. All over the country.” He inhaled. “I assume that was to see you?”

  Her body ran hot, then cold. Mortification and panic mingled. “It meant nothing. Don’t tell him you know about this. Don’t tell anyone, please.”

  “I’ve kept it a secret, haven’t I? Even covered for the boy when he got sloppy. I’m not telling you to embarrass you now, my dear.”

  “Then why?”

  “I’m telling you if something were to develop between the two of you, I would approve. In fact, I would assist, in any way I could.” He patted her hand.

  “Nothing’s going to happen.” She thought of her and Eve’s tussle at the bar. Of Brendan, and how he had coldly taken the company from her mother without a shred of remorse. “And I don’t think the rest of your family would echo that sentiment.”

  Pain flashed in John’s eyes. “If Nicholas didn’t make it clear, my son and I don’t speak to each other much anymore. I don’t care what he thinks. I would protect you both from his foolishness for as long as I have breath in my body.”

  His generosity made her want to weep. “He mentioned you were estranged. I’m sorry. I know how that feels.”

  “I’m sure you do.” John’s shoulders hunched forward. “We’ve had a rough time of it, haven’t we? Sometimes I wonder what Sam would say about all of this.” John looked out the window, toward her old house. Sam’s old house.

  “He’d ask why we quit, maybe.”

  John turned to her. “You remember, huh?”

  “Nothing’s over until you quit,” Livvy intoned.

  John’s smile was nostalgic. “Sam really was a rebel in certain ways. Like you. But no, I think he’d say something more along the lines of, how the fuck did you all get here?”

  “Is that what he’d say, or what you would say?”

  “One and the same, love.” John sighed. “We
were one and the same.”

  Chapter 14

  NICHOLAS SHOT Livvy a glance as they walked out of the house, trying to read her expression. He wanted to ask her how she felt, if she was overwhelmed at seeing his grandfather, what the man had said to her. He wanted to gather her close and smooth her tangled hair. He wanted to do every damn boyfriendly thing under the sun he didn’t have the right to do.

  They reached his car, and he beat her to the passenger door. He opened it for her and waited, but she’d turned away to look west. The sun was setting over where Sam’s house was hidden by the forest.

  “Do you know who lives in our old home?”

  “No,” he answered honestly. “It was a family directly after it was sold. Then an elderly couple, but they left. I think it’s been vacant for a while.” He hadn’t checked the property records, though that would be easy to do. He hadn’t particularly wanted to know.

  She only nodded, but didn’t move.

  Nicholas had used to sneak into Livvy’s room in that house. The walls had been painted blood red, her comforter and furnishings all shades of black and white.

  She wanted to die because you didn’t love her anymore.

  Jackson’s words had been looping in Nicholas’s head all day. He hadn’t been able to concentrate on work, or his father’s latest demands. All he could think about was a younger Livvy sobbing on the bed he’d lain in countless times.

  She shifted, cocking her hip, a power pose she often adopted. Like him, she’d been raised to be assertive, powerful, certain of her place. She’d also been raised to keep a part of herself away from the outside world, visible only to the inhabitants of their privileged sphere.

  No wonder she didn’t betray the depth of her pain when you helped yank that place away from her.

  He’d tried ignoring his own past and history, burying his emotions so deep he could go long stretches without feeling anything. He’d tried binging on her in secret, stolen, isolated bites, telling himself that the small hit of excitement was enough.

  It wasn’t now. He couldn’t roll away and walk out the hotel door, shove her in a compartment and move on with his life. He’d been taken out of that box and wound up so tight he wasn’t sure if he’d ever be able to go dormant again.

  That didn’t scare him, oddly enough. For all his worries over the cauldron of emotions inside him, for the first time in a long time, he felt as though he was on the right path. Not the perfect path. But the right path.

  He pulled his phone from his pocket.

  Her cell beeped, and she took her time getting it out of the back pocket of her low-slung jeans. Her fingers hovered over the message and she glanced at him.

  The silence grew heavy and weighted, but then she gave a single nod and started walking toward the woods. He knew she wouldn’t need to look up the coordinates he’d texted her. The numbers were burned into his mind as well as hers. She’d whisper them to him when they were kids, from the time they were fifteen and eighteen and wanted to go for a swim or hang out or meet up to chat. It had been innocent then. After they’d started dating, it had stopped being innocent.

  He shut the car door and caught up to her, keeping his strides short. Funny how some things came back to him so easily, like how to match his walk to hers.

  She looked up at the sky. “It’ll be dark soon.”

  He gauged the remaining time they had. “Will your mother need you?”

  “No. Aunt Maile’s always home, and Mom’s actually pretty self-sufficient.” She shrugged, but the action looked heavy, like her shoulders weren’t well equipped to carry the weight they did. “I’m not needed.”

  He curled his fingers into his palms, the sadness in those words making him ache. Did her family know? Livvy thrived on feeling needed. He used to murmur the words in her ear, simply to watch her blossom. I need you. I want you.

  She grew stiffer as they drew closer to their special place, but she didn’t demand they turn around. When they walked into the clearing, he caught the nostalgia and pain on her face. It was gone quickly, replaced by a blank stare.

  She’d worn the same look when he’d told her they were finished.

  Told her. It had been a speech, in the truest sense of the word, hadn’t it?

  She strolled around the small pond in the center of the clearing and knelt to run her fingers through the water. They’d played here, loved here. And in the end, they’d broken up here.

  He hadn’t sent her the coordinates that last time. He’d merely told her to meet him in the woods.

  “Have you ever brought anyone else here?” she asked, staring at the water trickling through her fingers like they held the secrets to the universe.

  He wasn’t fooled by her nonchalance. “Of course not.”

  Another handful of water, seeping through her closed fingers. “Why not?”

  “I would have felt like I was cheating on you.”

  Her throat worked as she swallowed. “That’s dumb.”

  “It’s probably why I haven’t been able to maintain any long-term relationships,” he said conversationally, pacing to the tree opposite the pond. “You either, right? You bristled when you saw me kissing Shel today.”

  “We have no claim on each other.”

  He chuckled, but he didn’t feel any humor. The words he spoke were naked and revealing, and he couldn’t stop them. “Livvy, for God’s sakes. How can I be with anyone else when I spend three hundred and sixty-four days waiting for you to draw me a map?”

  She went statue-still. “Is that what you do?”

  “Yes. It’s exactly what I do.”

  Her light brown skin paled. “I—”

  “It’s what you do too, isn’t it?”

  “It might be what I did.” She shifted. “I stopped. Like I said, ten years is long enough to get it out of our systems.”

  “Yeah.” He traced the letters carved into the tree. “You’d think so.”

  The soft pad of her footsteps behind him made him ache. Her smaller hand came to rest just above the inscription. “I can’t believe it’s still here.”

  “Where would it go?”

  “Thought you might have chopped the damn thing down.” There was a quiver to her tone, belying her cockiness.

  The words were carved in deep, made in the first flush of their love affair, not long after the first time they’d had sex.

  NICO + LIVVY = 4EVER

  A childish sentiment. A promise they’d made when they hadn’t understood what forever was or how it could be destroyed. “Remember when I carved this?”

  “Yes.”

  “You said the only bad part of our relationship was that it was so easy. We slipped from friendship to lovers so quickly. We never had to woo each other.”

  Her lips trembled into a smile. He doubted she was aware of how wistful it appeared. “Could you blame a girl for wanting a grand declaration of love every now and again?”

  “No. I could never blame you for anything.” His hand dropped away from the tree. “Why’d you agree with me, that night?”

  “What night?”

  “The night we broke up.”

  Her guffaw was loud. “I don’t want to talk about this.”

  “Why not?”

  “It wouldn’t change anything.”

  “The past can never be changed.”

  “Right. So why bother tearing it apart now?”

  One feeling. “Someone smart told me talking about stuff can help.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest. “Has a pod person taken over your body? I’d like to speak to Nicholas, please.”

  “Livvy, I’m not going to move until you tell me why you agreed with me back then.”

  “Then I’ll walk home,” she snapped and pivoted.

  “Why don’t you want to talk about this?”

  She stopped, her shoulders hunched. He kept forgetting how small she was. Her personality was so big. “It’s not something I like to think about.”

  “I need to know
.”

  She looked at him. Annoyance, fear, and, finally, resignation flitted across her expressive face. “What you said made sense. Being together would have been too hard after everything.”

  No, he hadn’t said being together would be too hard. He’d said it would be impossible. It’s impossible for us to be together now. They won’t let us. “Did you want to end things?”

  “No!”

  He couldn’t breathe. “No.”

  “No, okay? I wanted to fight. I wanted to fight for you, and I wanted you to fight for me, and that didn’t happen, because that shit only happens in fairy tales.”

  He was choking under the weight of their history. “You lied. You told me I was right. You agreed it would be impossible.” Every time he’d doubted himself, he’d tell himself she’d wanted their breakup too. That it had made rational sense, even without his father’s meddling.

  “Fighting for someone only works when the other person wants to be saved. I couldn’t fight for you knowing that you’d already given up.” Her smile was bittersweet. “Nothing’s impossible until you quit, remember?”

  Chandlers aren’t quitters.

  She took a deep breath as if to brace herself. “You did quit, didn’t you?”

  “I had to.”

  “No, you—”

  “I had to.” His raised voice startled the birds in the trees, sending them flying away in a great flock.

  A line formed between her brows. “Because of the accident? It colored your feelings for me.”

  “No.” He licked his lips. His heart was beating fast, his blood rushing in his veins. It felt . . . it felt so right. Tell her. “I didn’t end things with you because my feelings changed for you. The last time we stood here, I loved you. I honestly did.” I never stopped loving you.

  No, too soon.

  She didn’t look impressed. “You loved me but—”

  “My father made me.”

  Livvy drew back. “What?”

  Nicholas ran his hand over his mouth, the words tasting like betrayal.

  Family came first.

  He knew that shouldn’t apply when that family was abusive. His brain was at war with the reflexive instincts that had been honed in him since he was a child.