Hard to Hate: An Enemies to Lovers Romance (Hard to Love Book 1)

by L. M. Reid

  Every day I give her the same response.

  “I know.”

  I shove my phone into my pocket and continue toward the lecture hall. Out of the corner of my eye I catch a glimpse of a man. He’s staggeringly handsome and for some reason looks so familiar, though I can’t quite place why. The woman he’s with is hanging all over him while his eyes are on every woman that passes him, throwing each of them a quick smile. What an ass. I hate men like him. He’s arrogant, self-absorbed and a complete whore. You can tell just by looking at him that he knows he’s hot and thinks he can have any woman that he wants. He probably can too. Except those poor unsuspecting women are going to do nothing but get their heart broken. Guys like him, they aren’t the staying kind. They’re good for a night, then on to the next.

  When his eyes meet mine, he stops dead in his tracks. Recognition flashes across his face. He knows me. Why don’t I remember him? I urge my feet to keep moving and my eyes to quit staring, but I can’t. Why can’t I place where I know him from?

  I hear him say something to the woman he’s with. His voice, it’s even more recognizable than his face.

  “I think you’ve had enough, Sweetheart.”

  He’s the asshole from the bar. The dick who took my drink.

  Narrowing my eyes, I glare at him, letting him know that I remember exactly who he is. The look on my face screams fuck you, but that doesn’t deter him from making his way to me, leaving his date in the proverbial dust.

  “You seem better,” he says.

  “And you still seem like an asshole,” I reply looking past him to his date and waving at her.

  He lets out a soft chuckle. “Are you always this hostile?”

  “No, just to guys like you.”

  “Guys like me?”

  “Yeah, guys like you. Rich, entitled, and full of shit. A guy who thinks he can smirk his way into any woman’s pants.”

  “I prefer skirts,” he deadpans, though he’s still smiling.

  “I don’t give a damn what you prefer.”

  “You sure seemed to when you kissed me,” he says.

  “I just wanted a taste of the drink you stole from me.”

  “I’m right here if you want another taste.” He cocks an eyebrow at me and I hate the recollection that stirs from his statement. I do want another taste, one that I can correctly remember. Though even through my drunken fog, I do remember how good it was. How good he was.

  “Not a chance in hell,” I tell him. “Is there something I can do for you?” My voice is filled with irritation.

  “I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

  “You mean after you dropped me on my ass?”

  “That, and whatever it was that you were trying to drink away that night.”

  “Don’t worry about it; I’m not your problem.” I turn to walk away from him, but he grabs my arm. It’s not a forceful touch, if anything its gentle and tender.

  That doesn't matter to me though. I hate him. I hate that he thought he could interfere in my life, good intentions or not. “Let me go,” I demand.

  He holds my gaze for a moment before doing as I ask. I yank my arm away from him before moving toward the building and not looking back.

  The man is obnoxious to say the least and I hate that I waste at least part of my therapy session today talking about him. But I needed to vent and get rid of this frustration before my interview today.

  ***

  When I arrive at Lust, there is already a short line in front of the building. There are at least two dozen other people here, each of us vying for the coveted position of bartender at the most exclusive night club in Dayton. From what I’ve heard, the only thing hotter than the club itself is its owner: the illustrious, Griffin Hayes. I’ve also heard that he’s extremely selective in his hiring. By that I mean you have to fit a certain bill, both physically and intellectually. Glancing down at my outfit then around to the others in line, I sure as hell hope I fit the bill. Nat assured me I did, but I’m starting to have my doubts.

  Between my appearance and my overly padded resume, I feel more and more like this whole endeavor is a lost cause. There are a bunch of people here, most of them much more qualified than I am. I have minimal experience in a slow-paced environment. Would I even be able to handle this?

  As fear and nerves seep in, so does the voice calling my name. The one that says it’s my turn to interview. It’s now or never, I guess.

  As much as I want this job, it’s not like a really need it. I’m not desperate for money, or needing to make the rent. Everything about it though just screams fun and excitement and I need a little of that in my life. I just need to do it smartly. What better way than to experience a place like Lust while still being able to remain in control?

  I make my way into the club toward the table where a gentleman is sitting. He’s nothing like I expected, nothing like I had heard about. Griffin Hayes was supposed to be tall, dark, and handsome with a smirk that could melt the panties off any woman passed him. This guy? He’s attractive enough, but a far cry from the panty-melting manwhore that I’ve heard so much about.

  “I’m Gabe,” the man says as I approach the table. “I’m the manager here at Lust.”

  “It’s nice to meet you, Gabe. I’m Chloe,” I tell him as I shake his hand.

  He has warm eyes and a kind smile. “Please, have a seat. Tell me about yourself, Chloe.”

  Ugh… I hate that question. Especially right now when I’m feeling so lost and so unlike myself. Sure, I’ve made some progress over the past week, but let’s face it, I’m still a mess. I’m a far cry from being the person I was before Sierra passed away. I’m okay with that, now at least. I’ve learned to accept it. A potential employer though? They wouldn’t understand and they certainly wouldn’t hire someone like me. Hell, I wouldn’t even hire someone like me.

  Gabe seems a lot nicer than me. Certainly, a lot nicer than the owner I was supposed to interview with. I’m curious why he’s not conducting the interviews, but I’m not going to complain. Something tells me I have a hell of a lot better chance with Gabe than I do the clubs infamous owner.

  “Well, I’m a student at Dayton University, I’m in my senior year. I, uh…” I had a shit year and promised my parents I would get a job to keep me from fucking up again? “I grew up behind a bar. My dad, he owns one and I tended bar there last summer. It was a great experience and I’m ready for more.”

  Gabe glances down at the resume that I made sound like I know my way around a bar more than I actually do. The way his eyes narrow as he peruses it, I start to wonder if he knows it’s all bullshit.

  He puts the paper down on the table and looks me straight in the eye. “Why do you want this job?”

  “I don’t want it, I need it,” I tell him hoping my honesty will appeal to him. “I lost my sister earlier this year and I uh, I had a hard time with that. But now, I need to do something. I need to be someone. I need something to focus on. I need this job to help me find myself again. I promise you Gabe, if you give me a chance, I won’t let you down.”

  He studies me for a minute, the look on his face giving nothing away.

  “If I do this, Chloe, if I give you a chance, can you promise me that you can handle it? Because this place it isn’t like your dad’s bar. It can be overwhelming. You’re going to be running your ass off, working non-stop the entire shift all while maintaining a sexy smile and a flirtatious attitude.”

  “I can handle it, Gabe,” I assure him. “I look forward to it.”

  He nods thoughtfully. “Don’t fuck this up, because if you do, Griffin will have both of our heads.”

  “Does that mean I got the job?”

  “You got the job.”

  I don’t know why, or how, but Gabe just hired me, and I couldn’t be happier.

  “Thank you, so much,” I tell him. “I won’t let you down.”

  After completing my new hire paperwork, I walk out of the club with a renewed sense of purpose. I have
something to do, something to ease the void that losing Sierra left me. I have a job.

  6

  Griffin

  “You’re sure about this?” I ask Gabe for the tenth time.

  After being inadvertently detained today, Gabe had to step in and handle the hiring of Lust’s newest bartender. It’s not that I don’t trust his judgement, I do, implicitly. But looking at the resume of the woman he hired, I think he may have gone temporarily insane. She couldn’t be further from being qualified for the job. Her only real experience, aside from the shit she lied about, was working for her dad at his small little hole-in-the-wall bar – a year ago.

  He sighs. “Yes, I’m sure. She might need a little time to acclimate, but trust me, one look at her and you’re going to be thanking me.”

  “You know I don’t date employees,” I remind him. I don’t follow many rules, but that one… that is one rule I never break. Well, at least not since the one time that I did, and it turned out to be the biggest mistake of my life.

  Look, but don’t touch.

  While I employ only the hottest of women, the rule itself still isn’t hard to follow. There are plenty of fish in the sea. In the sea of customers that is. And Lust, well, it certainly has the hottest customers in town.

  “She needs this, Griff,” Gabe tells me trying to further convince me he made the right decision when frankly I’m not sure that he did. Gabe is too soft, falls for too many sob stories. Sounds to me like he did it again.

  “What sob story did this one give to you?” I ask with a chuckle.

  He already hired her. Unless she gives me a reason to, I’m not going to fire her. So, I’m not exactly sure why he’s so hell bent on convincing me that she was a good choice.

  “She just lost her sister. I think she’s struggling, looking for a purpose.” Gabe holds his hands up in surrender. “I know, I know, but it was sincere man. And…”

  “And?”

  “And, she’s really hot.”

  I shake my head at him and his logic. Logic of an insane person.

  “As long as she does her job, I’m fine. But if she fucks up…”

  He nods already knowing what I’m going to say. I will kick his ass. Just like I did when we were kids.

  Gabe’s my best friend, more like a brother to me than anything else. He’s the only one I would trust my baby with. My baby being Lust, of course, because no way in hell are kids a part of the plan. Not now, not ever.

  “What happened to you today, anyway?” he asks as he takes a seat next to me at the bar.

  I’m still looking through all the resumes from today’s interviews dumbfounded by how Gabe would pick this woman over any of the others. It makes me all the more curious as to just how fucking attractive she is, because based on this resume, she better be super model gorgeous.

  “I had a meeting with my dad,” I say flatly. I don’t give him any details hoping that he won’t ask for any.

  To say my dad and I don’t get along would be an understatement. The man and I don’t see eye to eye on anything. The entire time I was in his office he belittled me, my career choice, and my lifestyle. It’s nothing new, and it rarely phases me anymore. The man doesn’t approve of anything that I do, never has. While I’m long past looking to seek his approval, his overt distaste for me, his own son, well, let’s just say it’s getting a little tiresome. For as disappointed as he is in me, the feeling sure as shit is mutual.

  My father, the great and powerful Martin Hayes, has only ever loved two things in his life: my mother and money. Since Mom died, he has become obsessed with his business and its financial portfolio. His company, Hayes Commercial Development, is the lead in real estate development in Dayton. The bastard even bought out the building that houses Lust, hence our meeting today.

  I have no idea if he conducts business like this with his other renters or if I’m just lucky because I’m his son. Every quarter we meet to go over all the details of the business. Basically, he is making me prove my availability of funds to pay rent for the foreseeable future. According to him, he needs to see that my business is profitable so that his can be. Lust is nothing if not profitable. And I swear that even though it affects his bottom line to a degree, he hates it. He hates that the club is so successful, a real-life cash cow. Even more though, he hates that Lust doing well means that I’m successful.

  Why? Because my success is in spite of him, not because of him. And that right there fucking kills his ego.

  So today he fed me some bullshit lines about how I missed an inspection, something isn’t up to code and something about tickets for fire code violations. That last one is true. Not completely my fault though. The patron count system went down, and it was an exceptionally busy night. Things got out of hand, but as soon as I realized how packed we were, I corrected it. Not before the police and fire department showed up.

  I’m pretty sure that it was him that called them. I mean, come on, who else would have? One of the hundreds of people in there having a great time? Hell no. Only a vindictive old man would pull shit like that.

  I assured him that everything was in order. I also reminded him that Gabe handles all that, not his incompetent son, so he has nothing to worry about. It’s true, Gabe handles all of that, but I’m far from incompetent. Sometimes it’s just easier to feed into him and agree rather than to argue. What should have been a thirty-minute meeting had already gone well over three hours. There is only so much verbal abuse a man can take before he snaps. So, I did what I had to do.

  “I’m not even going to ask,” Gabe says.

  Gabe’s had to witness more than his fair share of my brawls with my dad, and I’m pretty sure he hates them even more than I do.

  “He did say that you were behind on some permits, though,” I toss in there just to get a rise out of him.

  “I’ll shove his permits up his ass,” Gabe says. His face turns a bright shade of red. “How the fuck do you put up with him?”

  “Years of practice,” I say as I throw back my whiskey.

  My dad and I were never close, but when my mom died? I don’t know, something in him snapped and whatever love he may have had for me, it was gone. That was fine by me. Because the money hungry, narcissistic man he has become is not exactly someone I want to involve myself with.

  “So, when does this new girl start?” I ask, needing to change the subject.

  He nods toward the schedule on the bar. “You tell me.”

  The girl is new, fresh meat and has no idea what she’s in for. Whatever she’s expecting, it’s worse. What she thinks bartending is, it isn’t. I need to put her with someone. Not just anyone though, someone who can show her the ropes. I need to turn what I know is going to be a disaster into something that is at least manageable.

  She needs Ginger.

  I glance down at the schedule, trying to figure out the logistics.

  The bar at Lust is in four sections. Each section has a bartender and each bartender has two servers they assist along with filling the orders from the customers in their section. It sounds a little strange, I know. But it works. When the bartender and the server are in sync, orders get handled quicker, needs are anticipated. The place runs like a well-oiled machine.

  Ginger is my best server and she’s the only one who can pull this off. She’s the only server I have that could take an untrained newbie and turn her into something spectacular.

  Okay, spectacular might be a bit of a stretch.

  I make the adjustments I need on the schedule and pass it back to Gabe.

  “Tomorrow? Are you trying to make her fail?”I’m not going to be doing anything. It’s up to her. If she can’t handle a Thursday night crowd, she can’t handle working here. Gabe knows it, he just doesn’t want to admit it. Doing that would be admitting he fucked up by hiring her, something he isn’t ready to do yet.

  “I’m giving her wings to fly,” I reply pointing to Ginger’s name next to Chloe’s.

  “I’ll let her know.”


  Now that we’ve got business out of the way, I tell him my news from today.

  “Hey, remember that woman I told you about? The one who was drunk off her ass and started beating on me?”

  “Fuck I wish I had been there to see that,” he chuckles.

  I roll my eyes. “Anyway, I ran into her today at Dayton University. She just started going off on me again.”

  Gabe is full blown laughing now.

  “What’s so fucking funny?” I ask.

  “What’s so funny? The fact that after she tried to kick your ass, you even attempted to talk to her again. I think you’ve got a thing for this chick.”

  “She’s bat shit crazy, I don’t have a thing for her.”

  “In the least, you want to fuck her.”

  Recalling how she looked in that short black dress and those red heels, I admit, I wouldn’t mind giving her a try. “Don’t you think I’ve already had to deal with my fair share of crazy?” I ask the question, referencing my first and last attempt at having a girlfriend, June. The one behind my reason for look, don’t touch.

  She was a server here, a damn good one, too. Not to mention she was fucking gorgeous – sex on legs. Initially, we were just friends. We had a lot in common and were extremely compatible. One thing led to another, and we ended up in bed and then a relationship. Or at least that’s what I thought it was. Little did I know I was nothing more than a paycheck to her. My father literally hired her to try and destroy Lust from the inside out. Not to mention the things I bought her, and the access to my office which allotted her the ability to skim money from Lust. You name it, she fucked me over on it.

  When I finally figured it out, I fired her, only for her to turn around and sue me for sexual harassment. Thankfully, the lawsuit was dropped since we were dating and her social media posts made that abundantly clear. We were happy and in love. Or, rather, I was, and she was scamming me to make a payday.

  My time with June, it soured what little desire I had to have a relationship with anyone, especially another employee. So, while Gabe might be concerned that I will fall for this gorgeous woman he has hired, I sure as hell am not.