At First Hate by K.A. Linde

Savannah

Present

“Come on, Mars!” Derek yelled from the other side of the door.

I leaned back against the front door and squeezed my eyes shut. I didn’t need this. I didn’t need Derek Ballentine in my life especially right after Gran’s funeral. I had hoped to be in Savannah and never, ever have to see him again. Ever. Not after all the shit we had gone through together for years. I couldn’t lose Gran and deal with him at the same time.

“Open the door.”

I didn’t move.

Maddox peeked down at me from the stairs. “What’s going on?”

“It’s Derek,” I told him.

He grimaced. “Oh. Want me to tell him to leave?”

“Do you think that would work?”

Maddox shot me a disbelieving look. “I’d do it anyway.”

“No. It’s okay. It’s my own mess. I’ll clean it up.”

“Yell if you need me.”

I nodded at him, took a deep, fortifying breath, and then yanked the door back open. Derek stumbled forward a step and then righted himself immediately.

“What do you want, Derek? This isn’t a good time.”

“Yeah, I heard about Gran,” he said. His hazel eyes crinkled at the corners in sympathy. “I’m so sorry. She was a great woman.”

“She… was,” I said, stumbling over the past tense.

“I always think of her fondly.”

“Thank you,” I ground out. “That doesn’t explain why you’re here. I thought I’d made it pretty clear that I didn’t want to see you.”

“I understand. But can we go somewhere and talk?”

I blinked at him. “On what planet do you think I’d say yes to that?”

He shot me a look that I knew well. It was a mix of exasperation and just a hint of desire. How many times had I heard him say that he liked me riled up? Well, that part had never been our problem anyway.

I swallowed hard and backed up a step. “It’s a no. Just go.”

“All right,” he said, running a hand back through his dark hair.

Then, those hazel eyes met mine again, and something hardened in them. I wouldn’t have noticed if I wasn’t so attuned to his various looks. But he almost looked like he was psyching himself up for something.

“What?” I asked. “Just spit it out.”

He smirked. “I forget that you know me so well.”

Which only made me scowl and cross my arms. “Fine. Don’t.”

I started to shut the door in his face again, but he reached out and stopped me.

“I came for this.”

When he was sure I wasn’t going to close the door, he extracted an envelope from his briefcase and held it out to me.

I narrowed my eyes at him and took the packet. “What’s this?”

I broke the seal on the large envelope and pulled the stack of papers out of the inside. My eyes scanned the top of the document in confusion. They were court papers. Derek’s name was on it. But that didn’t make sense.

“You’re… suing me?” I asked in disbelief.

“Keep reading,” he said softly.

And for some reason, the softness in his voice made me realize that this was a lot worse than I’d thought. I ripped the entire thing out of the envelope and let it flutter to the ground at my feet. Then, I read the top document. My eyes widened and then widened further.

I looked up at him with uncertain eyes. “My mom and aunt are suing me? What the hell, Derek?”

“Technically, they’re contesting the will.”

The world dropped out from below me. My vision dipped, and everything felt momentarily disorienting. As if up were down and down were up. Not a thing about this made sense. Not the paperwork. Not the words coming out of Derek’s mouth as he explained to me in legalese what was going on.

I held my hand up to get him to stop fucking talking as I tried to hold down the scant breakfast I’d had this morning. I put a hand to my mouth. I wouldn’t throw up. I wouldn’t cry. I’d had enough tears. I just needed to fix this.

“Mars?”

“Just shut your fucking mouth,” I snarled.

I shook my head and righted myself again. My mom—who had never been there for us, who had all but sent Gran into an early grave—thought she deserved a cent of Gran’s wealth? My aunt—who I hadn’t seen in a decade despite living in the same small town—thought she deserved Gran’s house? Were they out of their ever-loving minds?

Derek straightened at my words, swiftly dropping back into his attorney mode. “I’m here on behalf of my clients—”

“I said, shut up. I don’t need any of your bullshit, Derek. I certainly don’t need you to explain what this is to me. I understand completely. What I don’t get is why the fuck it’s you.”

“I’m an attorney.”

“You’re the owner’s kid. You have a Harvard law degree. Why are you taking this on? Is this about me?”

His eyes narrowed. He always hated the reminder that he’d only gotten what he had because of his dad’s money. Tough shit. “No. Contrary to what you think, not everything in my life is about you.”

I laughed harshly once. “Nothing in your life is about me. I remember that all too well.”

“My dad gave me the assignment. I’m up for partner, and when he says to do it, I do.”

I shook my head at him. “Same old, same old, huh? He says jump, and you say how high.”

“This isn’t personal.”

“It sure as fuck is,” I snapped at him. “And you knew it, or you wouldn’t have been trying to sweet-talk me.”

“Trust me, I know sweet-talk doesn’t work on you.”

I ignored him and walked back inside. I snatched Maddox’s keys off of the hook. Then, I pulled Gran’s Pinkberry lipstick out and added another coat to my lips. Body armor.

“Marley, are you even listening?”

“No.”

I was far past done listening to him. He had a snake’s tongue, and I’d fallen for it time and time again. This time, I had no intention of listening to another word out of his mouth. I needed to deal with this issue at the source. And Derek was just the intermediary.

I slammed the door shut and then brushed past him, taking the stairs two at a time to the street. Maddox’s shiny, new Jeep Wrangler Rubicon, which he’d named Nancy, was parked in Gran’s old spot across the street. He wasn’t any better at parallel parking than he’d been in high school.

“Marley,” Derek groaned, following me down the stairs. “Where are you going?”

“I’m going to fix this,” I told him.

He grabbed my elbow before I reached the sidewalk. “Wait, wait, wait. Are you going to go talk to your mom?”

I shook him off with a pointed glare. “Yes.”

“As an attorney, I must advise against that.”

“Well, you’re not my attorney,” I said, getting up into his face. He still towered over me, as he always had, but I had pent-up fury on my side. “So, I don’t give a fuck what you advise.”

I pushed his chest. It didn’t move him an inch, of course. It only moved me backward, but I’d done what I wanted, and that was all that mattered. I left him standing there and jumped into Nancy. I tossed the packet of paperwork into the passenger side.

“You’re making a mistake,” he called from the other side of the street.

I flipped him off as I maneuvered out of the spot and out onto the Savannah streets. I didn’t even look back. My body was vibrating with anger at the entire interaction. That I’d had to see Derek today of all days when I buried my Gran was bad enough. But that he was actually representing my mom and aunt was absurd. He knew all the shit I’d gone through with my mom through the years. Not that it made a difference in the long run. I didn’t know why I’d expected it to. Derek would always do what was best for Derek. He wanted partner. Why not throw me under the bus to get it?

Despite never seeing my aunt, I knew where she lived. She’d been in the same house in town with my alcoholic uncle since I’d been a kid. It was a run-down one-story on the edges of the rough part of town. It looked even more like a dump than I remembered. The fence was destroyed in one section, the yard was overrun with weeds, and the entire house looked like one good hurricane wind off the Atlantic would knock the whole thing over.

Uncle Bobby sat on the porch, shirtless, with a litter of Budweisers surrounding him. He nodded his head at me as I parked in the driveway and stomped up the steps. “Hey there. Now, that’s a face I haven’t seen in a while.”

Bobby hadn’t always been like this. He and Aunt Ruth had four kids, and he’d been a doting dad until the youngest left for college. I’d joked once that being alone with Aunt Ruth had sent him to the bottle. Gran had called me unkind, but I didn’t think that I was wrong.

“Hey, Bobby. My mom here?” I asked, my Southern accent—which I’d thought I’d gotten rid of—coming out in full force.

He glanced at the door and back. “I wouldn’t go in there if I were you. They’ve been yelling since they got back.”

“That why you’re outside?”

He held up a beer. “Smarter than being in there.”

I nodded and then pulled open the screen to knock on the door. The shouting ceased for a blessed minute before Aunt Ruth jerked the door open. She was a portly woman with thinning blonde hair and a mean sneer on her lips.

“Oh, Miss High and Mighty dares to bless us with her presence,” Aunt Ruth said with an eye roll.

“I want to speak to my mom,” I said, ignoring her jab at my education.

“Hannah, one of your brats is here.”

I clenched my jaw. How the hell these two women had been raised by my Gran was beyond me. How was it even possible that they’d come from the same house that I’d grown up in? Gran had told me that they made their choices, just like I made mine, but it didn’t seem like a sufficient enough reason.

“Marley Sue,” my mom said, stepping into the light.

She’d always been such a contrast to her sister with beautiful, long, flowing brown hair with just a hint of curl—where I’d gotten mine. Even in her late forties, it was obvious how she’d always gotten men interested in her with her wide brown eyes, perfectly painted lush lips, and lithe figure. Gran had said that I looked like her when I cared about my appearance. I’d scoffed and vowed to only care about where my brain could get me and not my body. It hadn’t always worked.

“What the fuck is this, Mom?”

I thrust the paperwork out at her. She took it in her hand, tapping her fresh French manicure against the papers. Then, she arched an eyebrow. “You’re the smart one. Shouldn’t you know?”

“How dare you challenge Gran’s will!”

My mom straightened at my words. “Oh, I dare. I was in that will until a few short months ago. Your precious Gran left me and Ruth everything. Clearly, you had something to do with it to get her to hand over everything to you and your brother and leave us with nothing. She wasn’t in her right mind in the end anyway.”

I glared at her. “I didn’t do anything. You had that enormous fight with Gran. It’s not my fault that she finally saw you as the leech you always were and cut you out.”

“Can I quote you on that?” she asked with a smirk.

She made me want to scream. I took a breath and asked, “What do you even want?”

“I want the house.”

I shook my head. No fucking way was that happening. “I’ll give you money if you need money, but you’re not getting the house.”

“I don’t need your money. When I sell that house, I’ll be doing just fine.”

“You can’t sell Gran’s house.” My voice hitched, and I hated it. I hated that my mom could make me fall back into that scared little girl all over again. I’d worked so hard to get rid of her.

“You’ll find that I absolutely can.”

I shook my head. “You’re a monster. You were a terrible daughter and an even worse mother. I will fight you tooth and nail over this. You can’t win.”

She grinned. “Then you’d better lawyer up, Marley Sue. And oh, I already have the best in town.”

She slammed the door in my face, the same way I’d done to Derek. This time, I did actually scream. I closed my eyes and let loose.

Uncle Bobby stood and patted my shoulder. “Sorry about that, kid.”

I took a deep breath. “I’m going to win.”

He nodded but knew better than to say anything where his wife could hear. I stomped away from the house, getting back into Nancy and driving away.

My mother was right about one thing—I needed a lawyer. And I needed one right now. Because there was no fucking way that they were getting the house. Not ever.