Page 4 of Love, Hate, Love

Who came up with these stupid headlines? Did they not know about the internet and how to do a basic search on someone? If they’d bothered to look me up, even for a second, taken a glance at where I’d grown up andhow, it would become shockingly obvious that was a load of bull. Unless there was a new category that included former welfare recipients, I was as far as you got from a debutante.

Kade didn’t look like a regular follower of the trash mags, but he’d probably made an exception for me, theDevious Debutante. Knowing him, he’d picked it up and left it here to welcome me.

“Want to borrow it?” he asked, glancing at the magazine. “I’m finished with it.”

I could feel my first-round score slipping.

“Not really my genre. Didn’t know you were a fan of those types of magazines, but I guess reading something is a better than not reading at all.” I shrugged.

“I found this edition quite entertaining,” he said, not even flinching.

“I guess when you don’t have much going on, it scratches an itch. I’m quite tired, so if we could wrap up this reunion? I’d like to get some sleep tonight.”

He leaned back, settling in instead of speeding things up. “Before I bring you to your room, we need to be clear on a few things.”

I made a point of sitting and said, “Then please, get it all out of your system.” I rolled my hand in his direction.

It had been bad enough to be told these things over and over again by lawyers who spoke to me like I was a toddler. I wasn’t sure I could stand to listen to them again, fromhim.

“I signed a lot of papers agreeing to a load of shit to save your ass from going to prison for that painting you stole. You are going to follow those rules to a T.” He straightened and then leaned forward, his chest rising and falling visibly. “That means no cell phone. No leaving the premises. You work a full day,everyday. Other than that? You don’t take a single step unless you have my permission. Do you understand?”

“Why did you agree to this? Are you getting paid or something? What’s the deal? Just tell me so we both know the angle.” At least the pretense of whatever game we’d been playing was dropping.

There was a flicker in his eyes, a quick moment where he didn’t look quite so sure of himself, before he resettled and said, “I owe your brother.”

“No, you don’t. You don’t owe anyone anything.” Even when he was barely a man, it had taken him months to decide to try to get a loan to keep this ranch going. He’d stressed so hard over that decision that it had kept him up nights. He wasn’t the type to owe anyone anything, including my brother. “So what is it? You just get your rocks off bringing me here to torture me for some imagined slight a decade ago that you’re too petty to get past?”

“Imagined? It must be nice to rewrite history, but that’s not why you’re here. Watching you suffer is just a minor benefit to repaying your brother, who is avery good person.” He put such emphasis on those words that it was impossible to ignore the slight.

“As opposed to me, who is the scourge of mankind?” Yes, my saintly brother who always saw the best in everyone, including Kade. I’d been measured against him my entire life, but that splinter felt more like a stake right now.

Kade shrugged and threw up a hand. “If that’s how you like to define yourself.”

“You…” I shook my head, refusing to get pulled into a ridiculous argument. “Forget it. Say whatever you want. Get it all out of your system. You get a year to torture me all you want, and then I’ll go back to having a happy life and you can continue doing…” I glanced around, and then lifted a brow as I ran my eyes over him, pretending I found something lacking. “You.”

He smiled. “A year can be quite a long time.”

This was exactly what I’d expected from him, and I’d get through it. I would because I had to, and I’d be damned if I let him know he could get to me.

“Make the most of it, because it’s all you’re getting from me.” I had to bite the inside of my cheek to not tell him to fuck off.

He got up and sat on the edge of his desk, his hand out. “Give me your phone.”

My brother had said I’d have to hand it over, but this was the toughest thing I’d done yet. I was relinquishing my ties with my world.

“Per the agreement I signed, you’ll get thirty minutes a week for a monitored phone call every Sunday.”

He dropped my phone in a drawer and then walked to the door, waiting there. The only reason he held it open for me was probably to make sure he could close it behind me.

“Grab your suitcase and follow me.”

“Where are we going?” I asked. The farther we walked from the house, the more I was reminded that nothing about me was gravel friendly.

“Showing you to your cabin, since the courts didn’t think the tent option would work,” he said, pausing for me to catch up.

For a split second, I thought he was going to reach for my suitcase. It had probably just been a twitch in his arm from some evil spirit that had rethought trying to possess this particular man and was trying to make a break for it.

“A cabin?” That wasn’t how I’d have described the larger building we were approaching.

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