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  Hate the Game

  Copyright © 2019 by Holly Hall

  [email protected]

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The use of any real company and/or product names is for literary effect only. All other trademarks and copyrights are the property of their respective owners.

  Cover design by Jersey Girl Design | www.jerseygirl–design.com

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Somewhere Between Us Excerpt

  Stay Connected

  More Books by Holly Hall

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  To the hopeless romantics.

  It’s not hopeless. Don’t ever be afraid to try again.

  Chapter 1

  Ava

  To my clients, I was a hero. The warrior fighting on the battlefield of the dating world for their chance at feeling the butterflies. The chemistry.

  The love.

  But, to this guy? The one who’d hoodwinked my client, Janelle? I was about to become his mother-effing nightmare.

  That’s how I liked to view myself, at least.

  Presently, I waddled through the richly appointed country-club lobby and fetched the legal envelope Janelle had dropped off at the front desk earlier. Then I fought the urge to pace beneath the porte-cochere outside, because that would be impolite. Given the upper-class company I was keeping, I settled for tapping my foot. I’m not sure my inflatable sumo-wrestler costume helped the matter.

  When my client invited me to her costume party, she’d failed to mention the rest of the guests would be wearing outfits more suitable for a big-budget movie set. Mine, I purchased online for less than fifty bucks, two-day shipping included. In hindsight I doubt I’d accomplished the objective of laying low. Still, the show had to go on. I had a job to finish.

  As Janelle said it would, a black Lincoln cruised into view, and the driver came around to open the door. I could’ve expected Pierce Pressinger wouldn’t be lifting a finger. He was in the car under the guise of taking a “business call,” which meant he was probably chatting up one of his other marriage prospects. Problem was, he was already engaged to my client.

  I was about to drop a bomb that would shit on his whole night. Whole year, if his diabolical fiancée planned this carefully enough.

  I ducked inside the shadowy confines of the car and watched his megawatt smile morph into a confused sneer. He’d expected Janelle, but instead, he got me.

  And the delivery of this envelope was me hitting the time clock.

  “Who are you?” Pierce’s tone was as petulant and privileged as I imagined it’d be.

  “Your reckoning,” I said, my own voice reminiscent of a billionaire/philanthropist hero. Maybe I’d been watching too many movies.

  I opened the flap of the envelope and dumped a flurry of documents onto his lap.

  “Janelle says it’s over. I’ve made copies of everything, so don’t bother destroying these. And if I hear you’re doing this to anyone else, the photos and screenshots will go public. I’m not just referring to the tabloids. Maybe those financial magazines you’re always on the cover of will be interested.”

  His lips managed to press into a single line, and he ripped at the tie around his neck, loosening it. “What do you want? How much?”

  It was almost sad how predictable that was, for him to expect he could throw money at everything and have it simply go away. He could be charged with something just for the photographs depicting an expensive and very much illegal habit of his, but I wasn’t a cop or a lawyer, and I wasn’t interested in a citizen’s arrest. To be honest, I wanted to be at home with a pint of Ben & Jerry’s, but I had to finish up here first.

  “This isn’t about money, Pierce. All I need is your word.”

  “It’s always about money,” he spat, frantically surveying the scene as more party guests trickled out the front doors. “Get in the car,” he said, sliding across the seat towards me and attempting to grab my wrist. I stepped back, offering any bystanders an unobstructed view of what was happening. This was the very reason Janelle had employed me to do her dirty work. Well, one of two.

  The first being she didn’t want to ruin her manicure lifting a finger on account of this asshole.

  The second being that she—in her mind—was above causing a scene, including one so necessary as throwing evidence of her fiancé’s sordid flings in his face. So little ol’ five-foot me was going toe to toe with the big guns and sweating in my sumo suit in the process.

  “It’s done. I won’t be going anywhere with you, and neither will Janelle or the other four women you’ve been rotating on the backburners. Have a nice life. Tracy, Bethany, Carla, and Nic send their love.”

  Mentioning the other inheritresses he had scattered across the U.S., in addition to the fiancée who’d hired me to serve this plate of justice, was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Pierce’s jaw dropped, his hands fisted, and I stepped aside to cue the driver to close the door on the impending eruption.

  My final glimpse of Pierce was him balling up a handful of documents and throwing it to the floorboard, his face screwed up in rage. Cue golf-clap.

  I spun on my heel to stalk off into the night. Or I would’ve, if I hadn’t been wearing a ridiculously large costume that made me even more graceless than usual. The unnatural way my arms were held out from my body, thanks to the generous torso of the suit, threw me off balance, and I stumbled for several precarious moments in front of Janelle’s very wealthy guests. Fortunately they’d been drinking bottles of imported wine and decades-old Scotch all night, and aside from earning a few chuckles, I made it to the car I’d ordered with less heckling than I deserved.

  Taking down the golden boy of Chicago’s investment industry wasn’t a typical night’s work. As lifestyle blogger Leigh Everstone’s “relationship guru” and head of her Dating with Purpose program, my nine-to-fives involved coaching clients through the arduous task of finding love. It was less adventurous and more formulaic than it sounded. Janelle had been the exception.

  It’d taken hours of coaxing, on her part, and an invitation to her party at one of the most exclusive clubs in the country, plus several wine-fueled rants about the absolute scumbag that was Pierce, and here I was. He’d messed with the wrong heiress. Gone were the days where you broke up with someone through text message.

  Maybe a better person would feel guilty, meddling like this, but I was no stranger to hurt. I was familiar with heartbreak. And I imagined that for someone like Janelle, a “catch” who’d been trained to be someone like Pierce’s complementary other-half from the time she exited the
womb, what he’d done behind her back had been outright offensive.

  Lucky for Janelle, she had me.

  Unlucky for Pierce, he also had me.

  Chapter 2

  Ava

  As my ride approached the city and one skyscraper could barely be distinguished from the other, I felt myself shedding each piece of the façade I’d constructed especially for this job. My goal was never to fulfill a role remotely close to this one; I was supposed to be writing content for LoveLeigh Lifestyles’ voracious online readership, specifically the Hosting and Entertainment branch. That was what I’d interviewed for, three years ago. But LoveLeigh had needed a face for the Relationship branch, and somehow, Leigh found the squatty girl sweating through her interview to be the perfect candidate.

  So, here I was. Official title: Relationship Consultant. There really is an industry for everything nowadays. If this path was what I had to take to reach my dream job as a content creator, then dammit, I was going to be the best RC there ever was.

  And that involved catering to my sometimes-demanding clientele. Case in point: Janelle.

  I sat up with a start when the interior lights came on, and I realized we were idling in front of my Wicker Park apartment. I must’ve dozed off. Then the driver was coming around to open my door. He’d probably taken pity on me when he realized I was passed out and drooling in his backseat.

  “Thanks,” I said, squeezing out of the car. I walked gingerly through pools of sallow city lights into the lobby of my building. Tonight had been nerve-racking. The effects of adrenaline on my normally non-adrenaline-hyped body left me feeling deflated. The same couldn’t be said for the sumo suit.

  I unlocked the door to my apartment and shoved it open—it’d stuck for as long as I could remember—and immediately groaned when I set eyes on two bags of laundry. The ambitious person I’d been when the day was still young, and I hadn’t been waddling around for hours in an inflatable suit, left the bags as a reminder that I desperately needed clean clothes. But I was no longer that person, dammit.

  I wanted a spoonful of Ben & Jerry’s on the way to my bed, where I planned on passing out with my makeup on until tomorrow morning, when I’d then curse myself for doing just that. So I shut the door and dropped my head against it, as if that would make the chore I’d put off disappear.

  Theo

  There was a human-shaped balloon in my hallway. Annika eyed it as we exited my apartment and I walked her to the elevator.

  “Thanks again for squeezing me in so late,” she said, pressing the button before turning to me. “It was just too easy to fall into the all-inclusive trap in Cabo. Buffets galore. Who knows where I’d end up without you.” She swept a hand down her body, as if emphasizing all the weight she’d supposedly gained on vacation. I wasn’t sure she had an extra ounce to spare, but it wasn’t my job to judge.

  “No problem. Like I mentioned before, don’t be afraid of your favorite dishes. You can almost always alter them to fit into your macro-count, but you can afford to splurge here and there too.”

  “Next you’ll be telling me I need a cheat day. But I guess that’s how you stay in business, huh?” She arched a brow and then nudged me teasingly in the chest. “I’m kidding. You’re as honest and up-front as they come.”

  Annika stepped into the elevator and placed her palm between the doors, halting them. “Can we do this again sometime?” Her tone made it clear she wasn’t referring to another nutrition session. Distance yourself, I recited mentally.

  “Of course. Get with Ralph whenever you have a date in mind and he’ll put you on my schedule.” The mentioning of my admin guy at the gym I owned made her lips flatten. Women like Annika—women like my ex—are used to getting what they want. As if a pretty face entitles them to have everyone else eating from the palm of their hand. But I’d built my business from the ground up, and professionalism was not only necessary, it was a quality I prided myself on.

  “Have a good night, Annika,” I said with finality, leaving her to make the trip downstairs alone. The balloon was still in place across the hall from my apartment when I returned.

  Balloon being my across-the-hall neighbor.

  “Hey,” I greeted politely, propping myself against the opposite wall. She’d been glaring at her door, but when she looked over at me and blinked in rapid succession, I got my first introduction to her bluer-than-normal eyes. Wide and innocent, set off by dark hair and milky skin that was reddening by the second. We rarely saw each other in the hallway, but now, up close, she was not at all as I expected.

  And she seemed to be dressed up as a . . . sumo-wrestler? “Special occasion?” I prompted.

  Her eyes flicked to her outfit, and her arm bounced when she tried to drop it to her side and the inflated suit got in the way. “Yeah, kind of. Not really. It was a birthday party.” One word tripped over the other, and it all came out like a collection of Scrabble pieces that weren’t yet arranged into coherence.

  “Interesting attire for a birthday party. Where’d you go?”

  “A country club. It was awful.”

  I wasn’t sure what was stranger: the way she was dressed, or that she’d chosen that outfit to wear to a country club. Either way, I was intrigued. The only glimpses I’d had of her thus far, she was always in blousey tops or dresses, business-casual workwear-type stuff. This was an anomaly.

  My lips tilted, betraying the smile I was trying to keep at bay. “Why’d you go, then?”

  “I had to. For work.”

  A birthday party, for work. So she was, what, a mascot or something? You didn’t see that every day. I gave her a slow nod and polite smile to let her know I wasn’t judging. Maybe she’d tell me more about it when she wasn’t so flustered. I needed to make it a point to see her again—I wanted to know more.

  Seeing my expression, she said, “Not that . . . I’m not,” she flapped her hand around, “like, a paid entertainer or anything. I don’t have to dress this way for work. I just. . .”

  “Uh huh.”

  “And that probably sounds super convincing. So, that’s great.” She then fixed her gaze on the floor, like she wanted nothing more than to be swallowed by it, and then jutted her elbow toward her door and banged it in the process. “I’m gonna go now. Get out of your hair. Whatever,” she said with a wince.

  But when she jiggled the knob, her door didn’t budge. She adjusted her suit and put her shoulder into it, really giving it her all, and then it opened abruptly and she stumbled inside.

  I could’ve guessed what happened next.

  She tripped right over a bag in her entryway, going down like a sack of flour. And with that suit on—like a turtle on its back—she wouldn’t be getting to her feet anytime soon.

  I crossed the hall and offered a hand without being prompted, because I’m from Texas and was raised to be a damn gentleman, then hoisted her to her feet. It was tricky, with the suit and because I’d startled her, swooping in for the rescue like that. She was still making delayed sounds of protest when I stepped back.

  “That was . . . unnecessary. I had it,” she said hurriedly. “I mean, thank you. Thanks a lot.”

  The third thing I noticed about her—after the fact that she was wearing a sumo suit and she blushed on command—was that she was a tiny thing. Barely five-foot, by my estimation. And every time I looked at her to commit more qualities to memory, she seemed to grow more flustered. I was bothering her, that much was clear.

  I tossed a, “No problem,” over my shoulder as I made my way across the hall to give her some space. I still had an entire kitchen to clean after my cooking session with Annika.

  The fourth thing I noticed was that I’d failed to ask for her name. But the second I turned back and made eye-contact across the empty stretch of hallway, she closed her door between us and therefore eliminated my chance.

  But I’d see her again. I had to.

  Chapter 3

  Ava

  I waited with pen poised as I listened to the woes
of one of my clients at a charming coffee shop, where I regularly held consultations. Given the lack of privacy at LoveLeigh headquarters and the nature of my work, it was necessary to meet outside the office; hence the homey setting I often tucked away in.

  “Let me stop you there,” I interrupted, just as Rebecca started verbalizing her plan of a complete appearance overhaul.

  She was a serial people-pleaser, someone with a million different versions of herself that fit what she thought each person around her wanted. I could tell within minutes she was headed down a self-destructive path.

  Her hands froze where they’d been fidgeting in her lap, and she looked up at me, startled.

  “How long have you been considering this? The extensions, the waxing, the spray-tans?”

  “I-I’ve always cultivated this image of myself. A better version of me.”

  Her “better” version being one purely based on appearance. I made a note of that but reminded myself I had no business meddling in people’s minds. If I wanted to encourage confidence and self-love, I had to stay in my lane. “So why address these things now? Why not a year ago? Two years ago?”

  She brushed her palms down the front of her romper. “I guess meeting Gregory has brought to my attention that I haven’t been putting enough work into my appearance.”

  “Has he mentioned any of this to you, specifically? That he’d like you to look a certain way?”

  “Well, no. But it’s obvious, isn’t it? That’s what men prefer. And I know he goes for those types.”

  I set my pen down. I suspected I knew what was going on here, but I wanted her to be comfortable enough to tell me herself.

  “All his old photos feature women who look straight off the pages of Yacht Weekly,” she continued.

  The truth comes out. She’d been cyber-stalking his past girlfriends to figure out what type he went for so she could chameleon her way into that look and, therefore, his heart.