It’s already warm as I climb out of my car just after eight and start the walk from the third-floor terrace of the garage to the lobby. Making a right turn instead of a left, I head into Building A, site of our new endeavor.
I make a quick check of my reflection in the door. Hair: good. Tie: Ol’ Lucky this time around, not some fancy new mistake. I burned that one.
It’s mid-March, but I’m hit in the face with the same rush of refrigerated air as soon as I step inside. My blood feels carbonated; my stomach is tied in a hundred knots as I cross the marble floors.
In Building B—owned entirely by P&D—there are giant screens with scrolling head shots and posters for some of the larger clients the firm represents. But in Building A, it’s more subdued. A simple gold plaque affixed to the wall lists the several offices housed inside the building, and there we are, Abbey & Aaron: Suite 303. Whereas P&D required floors and floors of staff and a step short of a retinal scan just to get into the elevator, it’s pretty much just the two of us, a legal adviser we keep on payroll, Becca and Jess, and hopefully Steph, if we can ever convince her to come over with us.
I haven’t seen Evie since I left her apartment this morning, and my fingers already itch with the need to touch her. We all met up yesterday for Morgan’s birthday in Griffith Park, complete with food trucks and the biggest bouncy house I’ve ever seen.
Evie’s favorite people hung with my favorite people, and seeing them all together—my future and my past—felt like stretching out a leg and putting my foot down on the right path. Michael Christopher is already planning my bachelor party. Which . . . isn’t official or anything, but . . . you never know.
I followed Evie back to her apartment at the end of the night. Her kisses still tasted like sunshine and birthday cake, and she giggled while I checked every other inch of her to see whether the rest of her tasted like frosting, too. I left this morning just before five, feeling the best kind of exhausted, pressing kisses to her mouth and saying I’d see her at our office. Which is a really great thing I get to say now.
Becca is there when I step off the elevator; a strange sense of nostalgia and hope fills my chest.
“Here’s your schedule,” she says, handing me a few slips of paper from her desk. I can barely read any of them, but pocket them happily. “There’s a phone call you’ll want to get on right away. One of Jamie Huang’s friends wants to talk to you, and Allie Brynn is about to have kittens in her excitement over it.”
“Awesome,” I say. “Is Evie here yet?”
“Conference room,” she says, looking up at me through narrowed eyes. “It’s so weird seeing you like this again, in your suit with that familiar, crazy caffeinated glaze to your eyes. It’s pretty great. Or maybe I’m just jazzed to be in an office with an In-N-Out down the street.”
I grin. “I am so fucking happy you’re here.”
“Same,” she says, glancing down to her desk before handing me a small stack of mail. “Now get to work.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
It’s quiet as I make my way to the conference room. The door’s ajar, and I poke my head in when I knock and wait for Evie to look up.
She’s sitting on a ledge that runs along the window, sun in her hair and a contract in her lap. She looks beautiful and confident and happy, and while I’d (probably) never engage in workplace PDA, there are only a handful of us here. We could revisit my earlier fantasy and make out on the table if we wanted, and only have to suffer Becca’s fake-horrified groan. I’ve heard conference tables are good for that sort of thing.
“Hey, you,” Evie says, and motions me inside.
I’d like to say I keep it cool, but I practically jog over, bending at the waist to press a warm, lingering kiss to her lips. “Hey.”
She runs her fingers down my chest and to my tie before looking up at me with a smirk.
“This tie works,” I insist.
“I have an important meeting with Paramount in an hour,” she says, smoothing it down again. “If it works as well as you say it does, you can wear your lucky tie every day and you won’t see me complain.”
“Maybe you can wear it later. And I’ll get lucky?”
She grins. “Maybe.”
I tap the pages in front of her. “You ready for this?”
“I have a kickass package and just need their yes. Hey, did you hear that Seamus hit a photographer outside LAX last night?”
My eyes go wide. “Like with a fist?”
“Like with his car. P&D can have fun with that one; he’s their problem now.”
“I think they have a long list of problems. I’m just glad not to be one of them anymore.”
She straightens my tie and lifts her chin. “Amen.”
“What do you think about going to New York with me this summer?” I ask her. “It’s miserable and hot, but it’s my parents’ anniversary, and I want my family to embarrass me in front of you. It might be awful.”
Evie tilts her head and studies me for a moment. “Maybe you could come to Burbank with me this weekend? The TV will be on too loud and my dad will hassle you about how much he hates the Yankees. My mom will probably tell you that you need a haircut. You’ll probably have a terrible time.”
Her eyes meet mine, and I don’t have to have known her a long time to know she’s never been this happy, or this secure.
“We’ll just have to make the worst of it,” I agree, smiling as I lean into her kiss.
acknowledgments
We often get asked how we write so quickly. Obviously, it helps that there are two of us, but even so some books come out faster than others. Wicked Sexy Liar, for example, seemed to almost fly out of us. Dirty Rowdy Thing, too, we wrote in a matter of weeks.
Alas, Dating You / Hating You . . . was not one of those books.
Our first draft was completed in December 2015 and looked almost nothing like the book in your hands. We had such a clear idea of what we wanted—two Hollywood agents fall for each other and then have to battle it out for a job—but the book that came initially didn’t look like the one in our heads. It was sort of like we attempted to bake a cherry pie and pulled a meatloaf out of the oven. And let’s be real: no one wants meatloaf when they’re expecting cherry pie.
Enter Adam Wilson, Holly Root, and a whole lot of tracked changes in a Word document. Seriously—there were times when this book looked like someone went to town with an entire box of crayons on it. Our editor and agent, respectively, have spent nearly as much time with this manuscript as we have. Hopefully they know that every time we sit down to write we realize how lucky we are to have such an involved and supportive group of individuals helping us.
Erin Billings Service reads every word about seven thousand times, giving feedback from the earliest terrible versions to the final polished one, and she still manages to help us find typos in the pass pages. Seriously, Smister, you are a rock star.
Kristin Dwyer, we dedicated this to you because the adventures we’ve already had seem unreal. Can you imagine the ones yet to come? This is our first book baby we’re doing with the new venture, and we are so excited for all parties involved. Let’s do this!!
Thank you to our Gallery team: Carolyn Reidy, Jen Bergstrom, Louise Burke, Paul O’Halloran, Theresa Dooley, Liz Psaltis, Diana Velasquez, Melissa Bendixen, the Gallery sales force that works their butts off behind the scenes to get our books in stores and with online retailers, and the wonderful art department who so perfectly captured the next step in the CLo look. You are all fantastic, and we hope you’re coming for dinner because we made extra lasagna for everyone.
We can’t do any of this without the romance community. Seriously—the strength and enthusiasm of this group is astounding, and we are so grateful for readers, bloggers, graphic artists, and anyone out there who takes the time to send us a tweet, email, or review. You keep us going, and we mean that with all sincerity. We love this job, and we love you.
Finally, to our husbands, who are both patient and luck
y. Patient on the days when the words are flowing, and lucky on the days when they’re not and we decide to bake all day instead. Thank you for being so proud of what we do.
PQ, this one was a doozy, but I feel like it clicked something between us, made us even stronger. Holy smokes this is fun. Let’s do it again.
Lo, this book, man. Some books are easier than others and some are like giving birth. I’m pretty sure we both had to bite down on a piece of leather with this one. I love you like Bella loves McFlurries, and anyone who knew us in 2009 knows that is a LOT. Thank you for being the Lo to my C. Meet you in the front row.
About the Author
© ALYSSA MICHELLE 2013
CHRISTINA LAUREN is the combined pen name of longtime writing partners/besties/soulmates and brain-twins Christina Hobbs and Lauren Billings, the New York Times, USA Today, and #1 international bestselling authors of the Beautiful and the Wild Seasons series, Sublime, The House, and Autoboyography
You can find them online at christinalaurenbooks.com, Facebook.com/ChristinaLaurenBooks, or @ChristinaLauren on Twitter.
FOR MORE ON THIS AUTHOR: Authors.SimonandSchuster.com/Christina-Lauren
MEET THE AUTHORS, WATCH VIDEOS AND MORE AT
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BOOKS BY CHRISTINA LAUREN
The Beautiful Series
Beautiful Bastard
Beautiful Stranger
Beautiful Bitch
Beautiful Bombshell
Beautiful Player
Beautiful Beginning
Beautiful Beloved
Beautiful Secret
Beautiful Boss
Beautiful
Wild Seasons
Sweet Filthy Boy
Dirty Rowdy Thing
Dark Wild Night
Wicked Sexy Liar
Young Adult
Sublime
The House
Autoboyography
Stand-Alone Romances
Dating You / Hating You
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Gallery Books
An Imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2017 by Christina Hobbs and Lauren Billings
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Gallery Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.
First Gallery Books trade paperback edition June 2017
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Interior design by Davina Mock-Maniscalco
Cover photographs © Feedough/Getty Images and © Ridofranz/Getty Images
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Lauren, Christina, author.
Title: Dating you / hating you / Christina Lauren.
Description: First Gallery Books trade paperback edition. | New York : Gallery Books, 2017.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017004596 (print) | LCCN 2017010979 (ebook) | ISBN 9781501165818 (softcover) | ISBN 9781501165825 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Man-woman relationships—Fiction. | Dating (Social customs)— Fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Romance / Contemporary. | FICTION / Contemporary Women. | GSAFD: Love stories.
Classification: LCC PS3612.A9442273 D38 2017 (print) | LCC
PS3612.A9442273
(ebook) | DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017004596
ISBN 978-1-5011-6581-8
ISBN 978-1-5011-6582-5 (ebook)
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