P.S. I Hate You

by Winter Renshaw

  With that, she’s gone, and I reach for Mason, pulling him close so I can whisper in his ear.

  “Why the hell does everyone think I’m your girlfriend?” I ask. “I’m your wedding date, Mason.”

  He wears a shit-eating grin, smoothing the lapels of his suit coat and straightening his shoulders.

  “It’s not funny.” My brows narrow. The last thing I need is for Ford to hear through the grapevine that I’m a taken woman.

  I’m not taken. At all.

  I’ve been waiting for him all these years.

  “It is funny,” Mason says, taking my hand and placing it on his chest. “And it’ll be even funnier fifty years from now when we’re telling our grandkids about it.”

  Pulling in a sharp breath, I let it go and finish the rest of my drink. “You promised you wouldn’t do this. I agreed to come with you as your friend, your date. Had I known you were going to pull some stunts—”

  “Forgive me.” He moves closer, placing his greedy hands on my waist and tucking his chin against his chest. His hooded eyes relax. “I am completely and utterly obsessed with you, and not being able to snap my fingers and get exactly what I want isn’t something I’m used to. I don’t mean to be aggressive, I just find it difficult to contain myself when I’m with you.”

  If my sympathy is what he’s looking for, he’s not going to get it.

  I don’t particularly have a soft spot for spoiled tech-y billionaires. And his Mexican beach house, his New York brownstone, his Silicon Valley estate, and his fleet of Italian sports cars might be enough to win over most women, but not me. I need more than good looks, a nice wardrobe, and a bottomless bank account.

  Take all of that away, and Mason is mind-numbing, clichéd, and uninspiring at best.

  He hasn’t read a book since college, and my research on him has led me to conclude that he didn’t get to where he is because he’s gifted or inventive. He got there because he’s resourceful. And lucky.

  There’s nothing sexy or extraordinary about a man whose mother gifts him ten million dollars in his early twenties, which he then uses to pay some of the world’s most in-demand software developers to whip up a bunch of apps and games for a flat fee, which he then goes on to sell and take all the credit for.

  “I’m going to grab another drink.” I step away before I say something I’m going to regret. The weekend is too young to go there with him, and I’ve got more important things to worry about.

  Like finding Ford.

  A few minutes later, I walk away with a gin and tonic, heading into a sea of unfamiliar faces. Men stare when I walk past, old and young, single and married. Over the past five years, I’ve completely transformed myself, graduating at the top of my class at Welsh Academy, finishing my bachelor’s degree at the Greatwood two semesters early, and starting a PR business with my best friend, Lila Mayfield.

  And in the process, I traded in my wild blonde mane for something sleek and more refined. I learned how to do my makeup, dress for my body type, and walk in six-inch heels. I know how to eat lobster and oysters, how to prepare challenging French dishes with perfection, how to make the perfect pot of tea, and entertain guests with polish and poise.

  I’m still me. I’m still Halston. I’m just older and wiser. More confident.

  Unstoppable.

  I grew into my skin. I reinvented myself. I became the girl that everyone wants instead of the one that everyone wants nothing to do with.

  And for that, I’ll never apologize.

  “There you are.” Mason takes me by the arm, catching me off guard and nearly spilling my drink. “Thought maybe you’d dodged back to your room.”

  Stirring my drink with a little straw, I take a sip. “Not yet. But I will soon.”

  “We’ve only been here an hour.” He pouts, because Mason Foster does that. He’s a thirty-three-year-old man who pouts when he doesn’t get what he wants.

  “I’m exhausted and my head is pounding,” I say, scanning the room for the millionth time.

  He’s here. I know it. I saw him.

  I feel him …

  … that electric charge in the air.

  Mason exhales, lifting his hand to my cheek before smiling. “All right. You get your rest. Tomorrow’s the clam bake at Aunt Cecily’s. You’ll meet everyone else then.”

  Before I get the chance to rebuff him, he presses his lips against my forehead.

  Fucking jackass.

  “Mason.” I say his name through gritted teeth, trying not to make a scene and keeping my hands gripped tight around my tumbler so I don’t accidentally wring his neck.

  “It was an innocent peck,” he says, sweeping my hair over my shoulder and drinking me in like I’m a work of fucking art.

  And I am.

  “The more you push me away, the more I want you,” he says, head tilted as he studies me. “You’re the only woman I’ve ever met who hasn’t thrown herself at me.” Mason exhales. “You drive me crazy, Halston. I’d give you the world if you asked me to.”

  “I know.”

  He could give me the world and it still wouldn’t be enough.

  It still wouldn’t be Kerouac.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Ford

  “You’re not eating. Why aren’t you eating?” Nicolette pushes my breakfast plate closer, as if that could possibly bring my appetite back. “You’re going to be starving later. The clam bake takes all day with all those stupid games and stuff they make us play. We won’t be eating until later.”

  “I’ll live.”

  Arlo digs at his soggy Frosted Flakes. The hotel boasts a five-star restaurant with a celebrity-chef prepared menu, but this kid wanted cereal.

  Nicolette clears her throat. Then again. Her eyes darted over my shoulder as if to point in that direction.

  “Mason,” she says under her breath.

  “So?” I shrug, trying to ignore the palpitations reverberating against my chest wall at the thought of seeing her again.

  When I first saw her last night, I was angry. All those emotions I’d buried so long ago, the ones that had settled to the bottom in hopes they’d someday be forgotten, were stirred, rising to the surface to be experienced all over again.

  A couple drinks later, my breathing had returned to normal, but I was still seeing red, still ensuring I kept my distance if only because I didn’t trust myself not to say something—or do something—I’d later regret.

  There were things I wanted to say to her, things I’d harbored for years. Things I’d written a hundred times in letters that were eventually torn into a hundred pieces, burned in fireplaces and left in trash cans in hotels around the world.

  “Ford. Nicolette.” Mason’s arrogant burr fills my ears. I don’t turn to face him. If he wants to speak to me, he can stand in front of me. I refuse to so much as crane my neck in his direction. He moves around the table, lowering himself to my nephew’s level. “And you must be Arlo.”

  Arlo glances at his mom, silently asking who the hell this jackass is.

  “How are things?” Mason wears an enormous smile, like he’s biding his time, waiting for the perfect opportunity to rub his success in our faces. Growing up, he was always jealous of us, of our intelligence and our hardworking drive and ambition. Those things came natural to us, they were effortless. He hated us for it, but only because we made him look bad.

  Guess he sure showed us.

  “Did you need something?” I ask, refusing to make eye contact. I butter a slice of toast from my plate to make the simple point that a piece of warm bread is more deserving of my attention than he is.

  “Just saying hi.” He shrugs, not getting the hint that he’s not wanted. “It’s been, what, ten years or so?”

  “We’re not really keeping track …” Nicolette hides her smirk behind a glass of fresh squeezed orange juice.

  “I’ll have to introduce you to my girlfriend,” he says. “You’re going to love her. Smart as a fox. Beautiful too. Hoping she’s the one.�
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  My fist clenches around my fork, my jaw tightening.

  Maybe I’ve moved on. Maybe I don’t want her anymore. But I sure as fuck don’t want him to have her. He deserves some vapid Brazilian supermodel, not the woman of my goddamned dreams.

  “Best of luck to you, Mason.” Nicolette locks eyes with me. “See you around.”

  Mason lingers, and I imagine he’s disappointed that he couldn’t stand around and brag a little more, but I don’t particularly give a shit.

  “Heyyyy.” Nic kicks my leg under the table. “What was that about? I know we hate that bastard, but for a minute there I thought you were going to drive a butter knife through his carotid artery.”

  Drawing in a long breath, I shake my head. “Nothing. It’s nothing.”

  Nic is my best friend. I’ve always told her everything.

  But I never told her about Halston.

  I was ashamed. Humiliated. A fucking disgrace to everything we’ve ever stood for.

  All she knows is it didn’t work out.

  She doesn’t know why.

  Tossing my napkin over my plate, I excuse myself. I need a run, a cold shower, and a whole lot of self-restraint before we head to Aunt Cecily’s.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Halston

  “Almost ready?” Mason knocks on my hotel room door. I rise from the vanity and let him in, saying nothing as he takes a seat on the edge of my bed. Facing the mirror, I slick a coat of ruby red stain across my lips. I’ve found that if you want someone to listen to you, to pay attention to what you say and find you irresistible, you draw attention to your mouth.

  It also makes you look fearless, brazen.

  People respect you more when you’re not afraid to stand out.

  Bright red lips say, “I have something important to say, and I’m making damn sure you’re going to hear me.”

  When I’m finished, I dab perfume behind my ears—one with notes of peach, lilac, and geranium—and across each wrist, before giving myself a final glance in the mirror, tugging my sea spray peplum blouse into place and ensuring my linen shorts aren’t too revealing for a family gathering. I’ve never attended a clam bake, but it’s almost ninety degrees out and we’re going to be by the shore, so I wanted to dress light.

  “You look amazing. Car’s waiting. Let’s go.” Mason watches me with an owning smirk on his mouth, clapping his hands and rubbing them together. I can almost see the wheels spinning in his head as he fantasizes about wearing me on his arm, showing me off to his family.

  If Mason were an intelligent man, he’d realize he only wants me because he can’t have me, but he’s too fixated, too obsessed with wanting the one thing he can’t have that he neglects to see that.

  This world is full of beautiful women who would suck his dick for a ride in his McLaren, women who would give their firstborn child for a chance to spend a luxurious evening with a Silicon Valley billionaire.

  I’m not one of them.

  Slipping my bag over my shoulder, I follow Mason to the elevator. When the doors part, we step inside, squeezing in with a handful of other hotel guests. His hand finds mine, his fingers interlacing.

  I follow the path of the light as it moves from the five to the four to the three and eventually to the ground level. Harboring a breath, I brace myself for the moment the doors open.

  Kerouac is staying at this hotel. He could be anywhere.

  But he isn’t in the lobby.

  Exhaling, I follow Mason to the porte cochere and climb into the back of a chauffeured Mercedes.

  “How long until we’re there?” I ask Mason once we merge onto the highway.

  “About thirty minutes,” he says. “Shouldn’t be long.”

  I face away, smiling, keeping the reason to myself.

  Thirty minutes is nothing, especially when I’ve been waiting five years for this moment.

  A few years back, I hired a private investigator to try and find him when my own feeble Internet attempts got me nowhere. The man said there was a paper trail from Rosefield to New York, but then it was as if Kerouac had completely disappeared without a trace. Off the grid. Nowhere to be found. I worried something unspeakable had happened, but the investigator said he was likely overseas. He offered to keep looking, but it wasn’t going to be cheap and I was running out of funds so he gave me everything he’d collected on Ford Hawthorne up to that point, including his father’s obituary, which mentioned his stepbrother, Mason Foster.

  Some basic Internet research on Mason placed him in Silicon Valley, which ironically was already on my radar since Lila and I were starting up a PR firm and planning to cater specifically to the tech industry. The summer after our college graduation, we moved west, set up shop, and pitched our services to any tech giant CEO who would give us five minutes of their time.

  One of those CEOs happened to be Mason, who hired us on the spot.

  He saw. He wanted. He took.

  I now know that’s Mason Foster’s obnoxious modus operandi.

  “You’re going to meet my mother today.” He reaches out, placing his hand over mine. “She’s dying to meet you.”

  “Please tell me you didn’t give her the impression that we’re together? I don’t want it to be awkward when I have to set the record straight.”

  Mason chuckles. “What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.”

  Exhaling, I keep my gaze focused on the passing cars between miniature moments of freaking out on the inside.

  The fact that I’m going to see Ford again feels surreal and monumental, like I’ve been waiting for this moment all my life.

  Though five years might as well have been a lifetime without him.

  “She just wants to see me settled and happy,” he says, finally removing his hand from mine. “I just want to see her smile.”

  It’s a sweet sentiment coming from a man who tends to drop names, hog spotlights, steal credit for other people’s hard work, and generally only do things that benefit himself.

  “Huh. So, you do think of others once in a while.” I bite a smirk.

  His body shifts toward mine. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I’m teasing,” I say. Not really.

  “I’m always thinking of everyone else.” His brows furrow, his lips thin and tight. If he were Kerouac, he’d have met me with a quick one-liner and a half-smirk.

  “Okay.” I exhale, letting it go and melting into the buttery leather seat before checking the time on my phone.

  Twenty-five minutes.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Ford

  “Fordie! We were wondering if you were coming or not.” My overly excitable cousin, Bristol, leaps at me, bouncing on her toes and flinging her arms around my neck. “I’m so glad you could make it. I didn’t see you last night, were you at the mixer?”

  “I was. You were busy making rounds.” I give her a peck on the cheek. “Congratulations.”

  “Thank you.” She places her hand on her heart, brows raised. “I saw your sister and Arlo. He is getting so big!”

  I nod, pretending I don’t fucking hate small talk.

  “Okay, come on,” she says, pulling me by the hand toward the dining room. “Everyone’s in here. And you haven’t met Devin yet. You’re going to love him.”

  I follow her down a hallway filled with family portraits and down a couple of steps toward a sunken dining room with twelve foot ceilings, a view of the ocean, and a table that seats twenty-five. Only when we arrive, it isn’t the original Renoirs and Picassos that capture my attention, it’s the red-lipped beauty with the wild jade gaze seated at the far end.

  She smiles when she sees me, a coy, hesitant, half-turned smile.

  I look away.

  Bristol introduces me to her fiancé, and I pretend to pay attention to the generic conversational bullshit coming out of his mouth. Nicolette watches me from where she sits, Arlo to her right. I went for a jog this morning, only meaning to do about three miles so I could clear my hea
d enough to function today, but once I started, I couldn’t stop.

  I kept going, running harder and faster, pushing myself until I had no choice but to stop and breathe. Really breathe.

  The table is packed with family, some of which I hardly recognize. Others I haven’t seen since my father’s funeral ten years ago.

  “Looks like there’s an open seat down there, Ford.” Bristol points to the spot across from Halston. “Have you met Mason’s girlfriend? She’s super sweet.”

  Catherine and Mason flank her sides.

  Jaw flexing, I take a sharp breath and make my way to the seat across from the woman who singlehandedly altered the entire trajectory of my career.

  “Ford,” Catherine says, peering up at me through mascara-caked lashes. Her hand rests beneath her chin, and she still wears the diamond engagement ring my father purchased for her shortly after my mother died.

  I suspect she’s only wearing it for show.

  “Catherine.” I’m unable to hide the contempt in my tone, but I don’t fucking care. She should know by now that she disgusts me.

  “Hi, Ford, I’m Halston,” she says, a glint in her emerald irises as she squares her shoulders. “Nice to meet you.”

  Jaw slanted, I squint in her direction before relaxing enough to compose myself.

  Fine. I’ll play along.

  I’ll gladly pretend we’re strangers.

  I hardly recognize her after all.

  “Halston was just telling us she’s an avid reader,” Catherine says, grinning and twirling the diamond cross around her neck. “I told her I’ll have to show her your father’s old library. So many first editions.”

  “Yes,” I say. “It’s a shame they’ve been just sitting there. Untouched. All these years.”

  Catherine’s smile fades for a moment. “Those books meant so much to George. I can’t quite bring myself to part with them yet.”

  They were supposed to be mine. My father had always promised them to me.