Love to Hate You: a Hope Valley novel

by Prince, Jessica

  I sucked in a short gasp when he gently brushed the cloth over my folds. He stopped instantly, his eyes darting up to my face. “Was I too rough?”

  I smiled at the concern chiseled into his handsome face. “No, honey. I’m just a little sensitive is all. But in a really good way.”

  The worry melted away, replaced with a triumphant smile as he finished cleaning himself from my skin. He tossed the rag across the room, and I was way too blissed-out to give him shit for not putting it in the hamper. Instead, I stretched my limbs, grinning at the dull aches and throbs in my body from Micah’s ministrations.

  My stomach chose that moment to let out a little growl. We’d been so desperate to tear into each other that I’d forgotten all about eating dinner, and my body was letting me know it now needed to be taken care of in a different way.

  Rolling across the mattress, I climbed out of the bed and grabbed my panties from off the floor, stepping into them and pulling them up my legs before snatching up Micah’s discarded shirt.

  “For the love of God, why are you putting on clothes?” he grunted, looking like a mopey teenager as he stared at me from the bed.

  “Because I’m starving,” I told him as I did a few of the buttons up and untucked my hair from the collar. “You’re welcome to stay in here and pout, but I need sustenance.”

  I let out a little squeak and jumped back on a giggle as he lunged for me, attempting to grab my arm and pull me back.

  “Uh-uh. Food. Then play.”

  With that, I darted out of the room on a peal of laughter as he ran after me.

  * * *

  Micah

  I wasn’t sure what woke me, but when I blinked my eyes open, Hayden’s brightly decorated room was bathed in darkness, only the faint white glow of the moon filtered through the window.

  Movement at my side pulled my attention to Hayden’s sleeping form. She’d been curled against me the entire night, her long, silky hair fanned out across my skin. I’d never considered myself a cuddler, but as she rolled to her other side in her sleep, the space she’d just occupied and the skin she’d been pressed against suddenly felt cold.

  I wanted her back against me, but before I went about seeing to that, I felt a need that couldn’t be ignored. Carefully sliding out of the bed, I quietly padded out of the room and down the stairs. I checked the locks on all the doors and windows and shut off the few remaining lights still on throughout the house. Standing at the living room window, I stared out at the street, my eyes scanning as if I were looking for some kind of hidden danger lurking in the shadows that I needed to protect the woman upstairs from.

  It was a sensation I’d never experienced before. I was protective of my family and the people I loved, sure. But I’d never had someone in my life who made every protective instinct I had thrash inside of me with the need to get out. She was completely safe, tucked away upstairs, fast asleep. Even though there was no threat, I still stood there, the muscles beneath my skin twitching with anticipation like a guard dog prepared to strike out at anything that could possibly cause her the slightest hint of harm. For the first time in my life, I had someone I’d fight to the death and bleed myself dry to protect.

  Once I felt the house was completely secure, I moved back up the stairs. Hayden’s soft floral scent invaded my senses as soon as I entered the room, loosening the ball of tension I hadn’t realized had formed in my chest.

  Sliding back beneath the sheets, I reached for her, wrapping my arms around her belly so I could pull her into me, pressing my chest to her back. Burying my face in all her incredible hair, I breathed her in deeper and felt myself settle.

  She let out a little hum as she nuzzled deeper into me, sleepily mumbling, “Where’d you go?”

  “Just checkin’ to make sure everything was locked up. Go back to sleep, baby.”

  “’Kay,” she murmured. Seconds later, she was out again. And as I lay there, holding her tight, I felt pressure building in my chest unlike anything I’d ever experienced.

  This had to have been what the guys at work were talking about when they said I’d meet a woman who’d knock me on my ass one day, because as I pulled her even closer, I couldn’t shake the sense that wrapped in my arms was the most important thing in my life.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Hayden

  My phone started to ring again. Letting out a sigh, I pulled it from my purse and checked the screen, seeing the same name I’d seen twice already in the past twenty minutes.

  Silencing the call, I flipped it over face down on the table and picked up my coffee, taking a long sip.

  McKenna looked at me from across the table we were sitting at inside Muffin Top and lifted her brows quizzically. “You need to take that? That thing’s been blowing up since you got here.”

  “Just ignore it.” Right on cue, the cell chimed with an incoming text.

  We’d met at Muffin Top not only because the coffee was exceptional, but because Dani would come over to chat with us whenever there was a lull. It was supposed to have been my own personal time, where I got to hang with a couple of my new friends, shooting the breeze and talking about nothing in particular, but every time that stupid phone rang, my shoulders bunched up, knotting with tension.

  “Whoever that is, they’re pretty damn persistent,” Dani stated.

  Propping my elbows on the table, I let out a little groan and massaged my temples. “It’s Alex.”

  When I’d refused to talk to him the day he brought Ivy home, he’d taken to calling and texting nonstop. It was a major annoyance for me, but it was really starting to piss Micah off.

  “Maybe it’s important?” McKenna queried. “What if it’s about Ivy?”

  “It isn’t,” I replied flatly. “This has been going on since he brought Ivy home three days ago.”

  Dani crossed her forearms and leaned closer to rest them on the table, lowering her voice so people couldn’t eavesdrop. “What’s going on?”

  I told them all about what had gone down during his pickup the Friday before. From Micah showing up and staking his claim, to Alex’s insistence that we needed to talk.

  “Oh damn.” McKenna dropped back into her chair with wide eyes. “I bet seeing Micah Langford all territorial like that was all kinds of hot.”

  I sighed dreamily, thinking back to how sexy Micah had been.

  “Stay on track,” Dani demanded, pulling me from the lusty fog that filled my head every time I thought about Micah. “So, what happened on Sunday?”

  “Nothing. Like I’d already told him, we had nothing to say to each other, so I refused to have a little sit down with him when he dropped her off. But I noticed Ivy was in a mood when she got home. She was mopey and quiet all evening, and when I finally got her to talk to me about it, she told me he and Krista fought pretty much the whole time she was with them, and that Krista had been mean to her.”

  “God, what a bitch,” McKenna seethed.

  “Pretty much. I’d been ignoring his calls until I found that out, so when he called the next time, I answered and ripped into him about letting that woman be mean to our daughter.”

  “What did he say?” Dani asked.

  “Basically that he was leaving Krista and wanted me back. That he’d made a huge mistake divorcing me, and he wanted Ivy and me to ‘come home.’”

  The sweet, smiling coffee shop owner slammed her palm down on the table, making us jump. “What a fucking dick!”

  “Obviously, I told him he could go straight to hell, but he’s got it in his head that if he keeps reminding me about all the good times we had, I’ll change my mind and come back to him. That’s what the texts are about.”

  I flipped my phone over and swiped the screen, going to the text chain that contained one long-ass message after another. I slid it to them and let them read about our weekend at Virginia Beach for the Fourth of July, the Christmas we spent in a secluded cabin together in the mountains, and all the other memories that didn’t mean a thing to me anymore.


  They both leaned over my phone, their attention rapt as McKenna scrolled so they could keep reading.

  Dani’s curious gaze returned to me once she finished. “So, none of these are getting to you? Like, you don’t feel yourself softening at all?”

  I jabbed my finger at the phone. “That family trip to Disney World he mentioned? I didn’t know it at the time, but his affair with Krista was already in full swing by then. I can only assume that at least a few of the ‘business calls’ he’d taken every evening, locking himself in our room for at least an hour so I wouldn’t interrupt, were her.”

  McKenna cleared her throat in an attempt to mask her laugh. “I know this isn’t supposed to be funny, but come on! The fact that this guy’s that stupid is pretty damn hilarious.”

  The thought of finding Alex’s lame attempts funny hadn’t crossed my mind until that very moment, but now that my friend had pointed it out, it was pretty hilarious.

  “Oh my God,” I choked out through a giggle. “You’re right!”

  We all fell into a peal of laughter that lasted until I had tears in my eyes. “All right, so enough about that jerk-off,” Dani said after pulling in a deep breath. “Tell us about you and Micah. Everyone’s still buzzing about the fact the town’s biggest playboy finally found a woman he can’t get enough of.”

  I got that same sinking feeling in my stomach I felt when McKenna had brought up Micah’s bachelor ways. As much as I tried to tell myself I was being ridiculous, that things between Micah and me were fantastic, since that little bug had been placed in my ear, I occasionally caught myself playing the what if game. What if he cheats? What if he ends up realizing he doesn’t want to be in a relationship? What if I have too much baggage?

  I tried to keep my mind from journeying down that dark path, but sometimes I couldn’t help it. We hadn’t been together very long, but the intensity between us made it feel like I’d known him forever, and each day I woke up to find he’d taken another piece of me.

  I was falling for him faster than I’d ever fallen before, and to think I could be taking that dive all by myself was terrifying.

  “We’re good,” I replied, making sure to inject cheer into my tone. “Everything’s good. It’s still early, you know? We’re just taking one day at a time.” And maybe if I kept saying that enough, my heart would stop jumping ten steps ahead.

  “I’m so happy it’s you,” Dani said on a sigh. “I mean, he’s always shot me down any time I mentioned setting him up, and, God”—she rolled her eyes dramatically—“the women he’d pick up at the bars. It was ridiculous. We were all worried when he finally did set his sights on someone for good, she’d be someone none of us could stand. But you’re you, and we love you.”

  The compliment buried in there didn’t quite penetrate, so the smile I gave her felt stiff and brittle.

  She kept going, oblivious to the turmoil roiling around inside of me. “Leo says now all that’s left is for him to pay up on the bet.”

  “Bet?” I asked, my ears perking up. “What bet?”

  She tried waving it off like it was nothing. “Oh, it’s just this stupid thing. Trick and Hayes were giving him grief, saying sooner or later he’d fall on his ass for a woman. Micah was so confident it was never gonna happen, he said he’d split his paycheck between them if that day ever came.”

  A cold chill pricked at my neck, and the sip of coffee I’d just taken turned to cement in my stomach. If he was refusing to pay up, that couldn’t mean good things for the future of our relationship.

  Before I had a chance to twist that into something nasty and painful in my head, my phone went off. I glanced down at the screen and let out a sigh of relief that it wasn’t Alex’s name I saw, and quickly engaged the call. “Hey Sylvia, what’s up?”

  “Hey, darlin’ girl. Just wanted to check and make sure you weren’t already on your way back to the shop.”

  There was something about her tone that made my brow furrow. She sounded on edge. “Well, no, not yet. But if you need me now, I can head that way—”

  “No, no!” she blurted quickly. “No, don’t do that. As a matter of fact, maybe just take the rest of the day off.”

  “Sylvia, what’s going on? Are you all right?” That question caught my friends’ attention, and they stopped the whispered conversation they’d been having to listen more intently to me.

  “I’m fine. Just dealin’ with a little issue here at the shop. But don’t you worry, the police should be here soon enough.”

  My back went straight. “The police?”

  Before she could get another word out, I heard a familiar voice shouting in the background. “Is that her? You tell her to get down here right this instant!”

  “Oh my God,” I breathed. “Is that—?”

  “For the love of Christ, Krista? Will you just shut the hell up?” a masculine voice growled through the line.

  “Are you kidding me?” I snapped.

  Aunt Sylvia let out a defeated sigh. “Believe me, lovely. I wish I were.”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  Disconnecting the call, I dropped the phone back into my purse and shot to my feet.

  “What’s going on?” McKenna asked as she and Dani followed suit.

  “Alex and Krista are at the shop,” I seethed. Their mouths dropped open, their eyes bulging in shock. “I have to go. I need to get there before the cops do so I have a chance to tear them both a new asshole.”

  “We’re going with,” Dani called, scrambling to follow after me.

  “Hell yeah we are,” McKenna agreed. “No way I’m missing this.”

  I made it the few blocks from Muffin Top to Divine Flora in record time, having power-walked at an Olympic speed. I spotted Alex’s Mercedes right away. There was also a police cruiser sitting outside the shop by the time we hit the parking lot, and next to it, surprisingly, was Micah’s truck.

  I could hear the raised voices before I yanked the door open, and what I saw when I stepped inside would have been laughable if I wasn’t so pissed off.

  Sylvia stood behind one of the counters with Sonya and Raul. The three of them were bent at the waist, elbows to the counter with their chins in their hands, watching the scene in front of them like they would watch a cage fight. With rapt fascination. All they were missing was a bucket of popcorn.

  Front and center were Krista and Alex, engaged in a shouting match as a uniformed officer stood between them, arms out to keep them separated. Micah and Leo stood off to the side, with much the same demeanor as my aunt and our employees, only I could sense an undercurrent of anger radiating from Micah.

  “What the hell is going on?” I cried just as Dani and McKenna came stumbling in behind me.

  “You!” Krista shouted, pointing an accusatory finger my way.

  My chin jerked back in bewilderment. “Me?”

  “Why can’t you just stay gone?”

  McKenna leaned in and stage-whispered in my ear. “Is that your ex-best friend?”

  “Yep.”

  “He traded way down, babe.”

  Krista heard that and slapped her hands down on her hips. “And who the hell are you?”

  “I’m her new best friend,” McKenna offered snottily.

  “Yeah? Well no one was talking to you, so stay the hell out of it.” She turned her venomous gaze back to me. “You need to leave Alex alone. You two are over! Just accept that and move on already. This is just pathetic.”

  “Krista,” Alex growled in warning, but we both ignored him.

  I tried to hold back my laugh, which resulted in me letting out a loud snort. “Are you serious? Krista, sweetheart, you may want to get a few things straight with your man before you drive forty-five minutes out of the way to confront someone,” I said condescendingly. “You’re just embarrassing yourself, because it’s obvious you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

  “I’m not her man,” Alex blurted before she could get a word out. He started toward me b
ut was stopped when Micah moved fast, cutting off his path.

  “That’s close enough.”

  My ex’s face grew red, his features twisting up with anger. “You need to stay out of my way. This is between me and my wife.”

  “Your wife?” Krista shrieked.

  “For the love of God, I am not your wife!” I cried in frustration.

  Meanwhile, Micah moved closer. It was only one step, but it was more than enough to scare the hell out of any regular person. “Gave you one warnin’ already, pal,” he snarled. “That’s all you’re gonna get. You call her your wife one more time, you’ll be eating all your meals through a straw.”

  “You can’t threaten me!” he blustered, looking to the uniformed officer. “Did you hear that? This man just threatened me.”

  I didn’t recognize the man, but I knew instantly that I liked him when he scrunched his face in confusion. “Huh? Sorry, didn’t hear that.”

  “This is outrageous! I’ll be calling your superiors—”

  “Alex!” I shouted, cutting him off while sidestepping Micah so I could get this whole thing over with. “Just say why you’re here and leave. This is my place of business, not the set of a goddamn soap opera.”

  “Hady Cakes, I want you back,” he blurted. “I made a huge mistake, honey. I didn’t appreciate what I had when I had it—”

  “Well no shit,” Aunt Sylvia muttered loudly.

  “I still love you,” he continued. “I never stopped. You have to believe me. I know we can get back to where we once were. Remember all the good times?”

  “You mean like that trip to Disney you texted me about?”

  He smiled wide, his gaze filling with hope as he took a step closer. “Yeah. Exactly! Remember how great that was?”

  “Actually, we were just talking about that, weren’t we, ladies?” I glanced back at Dani and McKenna. “You know, I’m curious about something. Did knowing your wife and daughter were just on the other side of the door make it difficult to get off when you were having phone sex with your slut? Is that why your “business calls” took so long?” I scrunched my face into a mock look of pity. “Did you have a bit of stage fright?”