Twisted Hate: An Enemies with Benefits Romance

When I’m not with her, I wish she were there. When I am with her, I want
that moment to last forever.
I’d never felt that way toward a woman…except for one.
Unbidden images from the past two months ran through my head. Me and
Jules beneath the tree at the picnic. Me telling her about Tanya’s death in the

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library. The adorable way her brow scrunched when she was concentrating
and the proud smile that lit up her face when I finally proclaimed her ready
for the bunny slope in Vermont.
The way she laughed, the way she tasted, and the way I felt when I was
with her, like I never wanted her to leave.
I’d chalked all that up to a mixture of lust and blossoming friendship, but
what if…
No. Fuck no.
Sweat misted my palms. I tossed back my drink without tasting it.
I did not like Jules. Half our fucks were hate fucks. They were hot, but
just because I liked fucking her didn’t mean I wanted anything else from her.
So what if she wasn’t as terrible as I originally envisioned? She was still
her.
Infuriating, snarky, a pain in my fucking ass…and loyal. Passionate. So
beautiful sometimes it hurt to look at her.
What would I do in a world where Jules didn’t exist? I wouldn’t burn it
down, but…
Fuck, why was it so hot in here?
My phone vibrated with an incoming call. I answered it, relieved for the
distraction. I would take a hundred telemarketers over my wildly disturbing
thoughts.
“Hello?” I didn’t recognize the number, but it contained Eldorra’s country
code. Maybe it was the palace or something.
“Hey, it’s me,” Ava said. She sounded subdued.
“What’s up? Aren’t you supposed to be at the club right now?” 
My short-lived relief at the distraction faded when she explained her
situation. God motherfucking dammit. I’d wanted more excitement earlier,
but I should’ve fucking clarified, because this was not what I had in mind.
“Okay. I’ll be right there…no. We’ll talk about it later.”
Alex’s brows formed a deep V as he listened to my end of the call.
“What’s wrong?” he asked after I hung up.
“It’s Ava and the girls.” I stood and shrugged on my jacket, already
halfway out the door. “They got arrested.”

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30

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JULES
I
N
MY
DEFENSE
, I 
HAD
A
GOOD
REASON
FOR
BREAKING
A
GUY
’
S
NOSE
AND
inadvertently starting a club fight. The dickhead had grabbed Ava’s ass and
started grinding on her even after she said no and tried to push him off. When
my and Stella’s attempts at intervention also failed, I did what I had to do. I
tapped his shoulder, waited for him to turn around, and sucker punched him
in the face.
His friends had jumped into the fray, and, well, you can guess where it
went from there.
In the US, the incident would’ve ended with us thrown out of the club,
but Eldorra’s strict public disturbance laws landed all of us, Dickhead and
friends included, in the lovely county jail.
“At least Br—our other friend wasn’t with us,” I said, opting for
optimism. “That would’ve been a mess.”
Ava and Stella murmured in agreement.
Bridget was a common Eldorran name, but I erred on the side of caution
in case the officer leading us toward the exit pieced two and two together.
Then again, we’d had to provide our real names when we were booked. If
anyone on staff paid attention to the tabloids, they would recognize us as
Bridget’s bridesmaids, no matter how good a job the makeup artist had done
in disguising us.
I adjusted my brunette wig. Between the wig, my colored contacts, and
the makeup artist’s mind-blowing skills, I barely recognized myself or my
friends. It’d allowed us to enjoy the club in peace until Bridget left early
because she had a morning interview with Vogue Eldorra. However, she’d
insisted we stay and party given it was our last night of “freedom” before the

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wedding insanity.
At the time, it’d seemed like a good idea. Now, after three hours of
detainment and the prospect of facing a furious Josh, it seemed like a
monumental mistake.
Anxiety speared my stomach as we stepped into the reception area.
We’d used our one phone call on Josh, asking him to bail us out. Well,
Ava had. She could’ve called Alex, but she was worried he’d freak out, so
she’d phoned her brother instead while she figured out how to explain the
situation to her boyfriend. Josh would also freak out, but to a lesser extent
than Alex.
As it turned out, we needn’t have gone through the trouble.
Alex and Josh both waited in the exit area, their faces carved with
tension.
“Are you okay?” Alex crossed the room in two long strides and gripped
Ava’s arms. Worry blazed in his eyes as he searched her for injuries.
Luckily, other than my swollen knuckles, Dickhead’s broken nose, and a
couple of bruised egos, we’d escaped unscathed.
“I’m fine,” Ava reassured him. “Really.”
Alex’s lips pressed together, but he didn’t say anything else as we exited
the building and climbed into the town car waiting outside.
Thick silence muffled the luxurious interior while Ava, Stella, and I
removed our disguises and wiped off our makeup using the baby wipes I’d
stashed in my clutch. The makeup artist had contoured my nose into a
different shape, added an alarmingly realistic mole on my upper lip, and
drawn thicker, darker eyebrows that matched my wig. Watching the mask
melt away in the car’s window reflection as I scrubbed a wipe over my face
was a bit surreal.
Josh and Alex hadn’t said a word about our disguises when they saw us,
and they didn’t say anything now as we took them off.
Alarm prickled my stomach. Usually, Josh would be the first to make a
smartass comment, so his silence didn’t bode well.
Alex spoke again halfway to our hotel. “What,” he said, his voice so
chilly it triggered a rash of goosebumps on my arms, “the hell happened?”
My friends and I exchanged glances. Ava gave Josh a brief rundown
earlier, but he didn’t know the details, and we couldn’t tell Alex the truth.
“Some guy groped me, and I punched him,” I said, taking creative liberty
with the truth. “It escalated from there. Who knew Eldorra had such strict

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laws about club fights?”
Ava cast a startled glance in my direction. She opened her mouth, but I
frowned and flicked my eyes at Alex.
She closed her mouth, though she didn’t look happy about it. She knew as
well as I did that if Alex found out some guy had groped her, he would
commit murder, and we didn’t need that kind of bloodshed two days before
Bridget’s wedding.
A shadow passed over Josh’s face at my reply, but he stayed silent.
“I see.” Alex’s expression was unreadable, but he smoothed a stray strand
of hair out of Ava’s eye with more gentleness than I thought him capable of.
“How does the other guy look?”
I cracked a smile. “I broke his nose.”
A hint of a smirk filled Alex’s mouth before it flattened again. “Good. I
paid a significant sum of money to wipe those police charges off your
records, so it better have been worth it.”
He pulled Ava closer to him and kissed the top of her head while she
curled up against his side. He whispered something in her ear, and she
murmured something back that eased the tension in his shoulders.
It was a casual, domestic scene. Nothing extraordinary. Yet it triggered a
longing so fierce and unexpected I had to turn away.
I firmly believed people didn’t need a significant other to be happy. If
someone wanted to be in a relationship, great. If they didn’t, also great. The
same went for children, marriage, etc. There were no universal barometers for
happiness. A person’s life could be just as fulfilling without a romantic