Page 3 of Better Hate than Never

Christopher Petruchio.

“What thehell, Christopher?” I wrench my arm out of his grip, stepping back and stumbling into the reach of the streetlamp’s glow.

“Kate?” His eyes widen, wind whipping his dark hair, sending his scent my way, a scent I’d give anything to forget. Some criminally expensive cologne evoking the woodsy warmth of a fireside nap, the spiced smoke of just-blown-out candles. Resentment twists my stomach.

Every time I see him, it’s a fresh, terrible kick to the gut. All the details that have blurred, carved once again into vivid reality. The striking planes of his face—strong nose, chiseled jaw, sharp cheekbones, that mouth that’s genetically designed to make knees weak.

Not mine, of course. And strictly objectively speaking, merely from a professional standpoint. As a photographer, I spend a lot of time analyzing photogenic faces, and Christopher’s is unfortunately the epitome. Slightly asymmetrical, the roughness of his severe features smoothed by thick-lashed amber eyes, the lazy sensuality of that dark hair always falling into his face.

God, just looking at him makes my blood boil. “What are you doing here?” I snap.

He rubs a hand along the side of his face, eyes narrowed. “Thank you for asking, Katerina. My jaw is fine, despite your hard head—”

“What a relief,” I say with false cheer, cutting him off. I’m too tired and sore to spar with him. “Though if you’d simply been where you’re supposed to be, we wouldn’t have had this collision in the first place.”

He arches an eyebrow. “Where I’m ‘supposed to be’?”

A flush creeps up my cheeks. I hate my telltale flush. “The Friendsgiving thing.”

Christopher’s mouth tips with a smirk that makes my flush darken. “Been keeping tabs on me, have you?”

“Solely to avoid the displeasure of your foul company.”

“And there she is.” He checks his watch. “Took all of twenty seconds for the Kat to find her claws.”

A growl rolls out of me. Hugging my sore arm to my side, I start to walk past him, because he has this infuriating ability to get under my skin with a few well-placed words and that aggravating tilt of his damn eyebrow. If I stay here, I might actually turn as feral as he’s always accused me of being.

But then his hand wraps around my good arm at the elbow, stopping me. I glare at him, hating that I have to look up in order to meet his eyes. I’m tall, but Christopher’s towering, his body broad and powerful, his arms thicker than I can get two hands around.

Not that I’ve thought about that. No, if I’ve thought about wrapping my hands around anything, it’s been that neck of his, giving it a good hard squeeze—

“What happened to you?” he says.

I blink, yanked out of my thoughts by the sharp tone in hisquestion. Feeling defiant, I lift my chin and dare him to look away first.

He doesn’t.

My breathing turns unsteady as I realize how close our faces have become. Christopher stares down at me. His breathing sounds a little unsteady, too. “Lots happened while I was gone,” I finally manage between clenched teeth. “Sort of unavoidable when you step outside your tiny world. Explore new places. Encounter obstacles.”

Such as a bit of rocky Scottish landscape that led to a now-mostly-healed broken shoulder two months ago.

Not that I admit that to him.

Still, his jaw twitches. My dig’s landed where I wanted.

For all his sophistication and success, a corporate capitalist’s wet dream, Christopher has never left the city. Without stepping so much as a toe outside his kingdom, he’s simply crooked his finger and success has come tohim. His world is contained and controlled, and he knows I judge him for it. Just as he judges me for how carefree—and in his eyes, reckless—I am, for how quickly I walked away from my hometown and family the moment I graduated.

After losing his parents as a teen, he doesn’t have a family of his own, besides his grandmother, who acted as guardian until he was eighteen and has since passed. My family is his, and he’s protective of them, which is fine, but he doesn’t see my perspective. He doesn’t understand that I feel like an outsider in my own family, that I know I’m loved, but I don’t often feel loved the way I need to. He doesn’t get how much easier it is for me to feel close to those I love from a distance.

Finally he glances down, once again frowning at the arm I hold against my side. My shoulder’s healed—despite what I told my family—but it’s still tender enough that ramming into the brick wall of Christopher’s chest has it throbbing.

A notch forms in his brow as he examines how I’m clutching it.

“You do realize,” he says, his voice low and rough, “that you don’tactuallyhave nine lives to burn through.”

Before I can answer with some stinging reply, his thumb slips along the inside of my arm, making my breath hitch. My voice dies in my throat.

Releasing me abruptly, he steps back. “I’ll walk you home.”

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