Twisted Hate: An Enemies with Benefits Romance

Don’t think about it. Not now.
Getting too caught up in my head was what screwed me over yesterday; if
I hadn’t been so distracted, Max wouldn’t have been able to surprise me like
that.

---

Cold sweat broke out on my skin. I didn’t think he’d be stupid enough to
come back a second day in a row, but desperate people did desperate things. I
imagined his “friends” weren’t happy he’d lost the painting, and he wanted
revenge for what happened in his hotel. 
I’d underestimated his capability for physical violence.
Then again, if there was one recurring theme in my life, it was that people
were never who I thought they were.
I quickened my steps so I could squeeze into the elevator before the doors
closed. It was packed shoulder-to-shoulder and smelled faintly of tuna and
body odor, but it was still better than the stairwell. You couldn’t pay me
enough money to take the stairs again. 
I hitched my bag higher on my shoulder, taking solace in the pepper spray
and taser sitting inside it. I’d borrowed them from Stella, who’d kept them on
hand since her short-lived but terrifying episode with a stalker last year.
As a well-known influencer, she dealt with her fair share of creeps, but
that guy had crossed the line. He’d sent her disgusting letters detailing what
he wanted to do to her and messaged her candid photos of herself around
town, which freaked her out so much she’d gone to the police. They hadn’t
been any help at all, but luckily, the stalker stopped contacting her after a few
weeks and she hadn’t heard from him since.
I was the only person who knew about it since we lived together. If Stella
hadn’t been concerned about the guy showing up at our house, she wouldn’t
have even told me. She had a bad habit of keeping all her problems to herself.
The elevator doors slid open.
Thank God.
I liked tuna; I did not like the smell of it mixed with B.O. and half a
dozen different perfumes.
I walked across the lobby, eager to return home and binge another pint of
ice cream. I’d inhaled so much Ben & Jerry’s over the past week I was
surprised I hadn’t ballooned out of my clothes.
I’d almost reached the exit when two words stopped me in my tracks.
“Hey, Red.”
My pulse spiked at the sound of that nickname, in that voice, here…
No. It can’t be.
My mind was playing tricks on me again. There was no way Josh was
here after the way he’d treated me yesterday.
A messy knot of emotion tangled in my throat.

---

Several people brushed past me and shot me strange looks. I was rooted
to my spot on the marble floor, and I wanted to move. I really did. But my
body refused to comply, and all I could do was stare at the exit, both longing
to reach it and happy to stay in my bubble of delusion forever.
What if it was him? What if he was here? What if…
A shadow sliced across the sun-drenched floor before a body moved in
front of me and blocked the exit from view.
I slowly raised my eyes, skimming over the T-shirt-clad chest, broad
shoulders, and tense jaw before I met Josh’s eyes.
My heart whimpered like a wounded animal eager for comfort from the
only person capable of providing it.
“I wasn’t sure if you heard me.” He stuffed his hands in his pockets. His
brows were drawn tight over worried eyes, but a tentative smile played on his
mouth. “How did the test go?”
“I—fine.” I couldn’t wrap my head around what was happening. It was
too surreal.
Josh might as well be a different person from yesterday, and I wasn’t just
talking about the one-eighty in his attitude. Gone was the clean-cut doctor; in
its place was someone gruffer, more world-weary. Stubble shadowed his
cheeks and jaw, his skin had taken on a pallid case, and his hair looked like
he’d raked his fingers through it a thousand times. Regret filled his eyes and
sent my stomach tumbling off a cliff.
There was only one thing he could be regretting, and—