Don't Hate Me (My Secret Boyfriend Book 2) Read online

  Don’t Hate Me

  S. Doyle

  Copyright © 2020 by S. Doyle

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  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

  Don’t Leave Me

  Excerpt Don’t Leave Me

  Also by S. Doyle

  1

  Princeton

  November

  Marc

  Ash: What are you doing right now?

  Me: Trying to sleep, but this annoying chick keeps texting me.

  Ash: Is she prettier than I am?

  I smiled. She knew exactly who I was talking about. Then I did the math in my head.

  Me: It’s like four in the morning there. What are you doing up? Some early morning studying for Curtsy Class?

  One of the saddest things I’d ever heard was that someone with Ash’s brain was spending time learning how to curtsy properly. Like she was ever going to meet the fucking Queen of England.

  Ash: I get up early because I know this is when you’re getting to bed. Also stop bringing up curtsy class. I’m failing it! These fucking European royals are everywhere and they’re killing it. Right now me and some princess from Dubai are the only ones struggling.

  Me: Is she hot?

  Ash: Who?

  Me: The princess from Dubai. If this whole finance degree doesn’t work out for me, maybe I can marry up.

  Ash: …

  Ash: …

  I laughed. That had clearly pissed her off.

  Ash: She’s exceptionally beautiful and you’re an asshole.

  Me: Yeah, well, I’m tired. You know how grumpy I get when I’m tired.

  Ash: Wait? You mean there are times of the day when you’re NOT grumpy? Please take video and send for confirmation.

  Me: I might be an asshole, but you’re a smartass. Are you making friends?

  Ash: Trying. But we’re just so different. Other than our mutual love of Jimmy Choo, of course.

  I huffed.

  Me: And you’re doing everything the doctor says?

  She’d had a minor attack last month and the last couple times I’d talked to her, she sounded a little wheezy. The school understood her condition and had a doctor visit to confirm it was a minor event, but I still didn’t like it. She was too far away, too much out of my control. Daily texts and occasional calls mitigated my concern, but they didn’t remove it.

  Ash: I shouldn’t have told you. I knew you were only going to worry. I’m fine. The cold air here just hurts my lungs a little more. But I’m fine. The asthma is totally under control.

  Me: You tell me everything, Ash. No secrets.

  Ash: No secrets.

  Me: Okay, let me go. I need to sleep.

  Ash: Because your schedule is too full. You can pull back next semester. I can handle Curtsy Class Level II. I’m fine.

  She said it constantly. I’m fine. I’m okay. There’s nothing to worry about. I’m making friends.

  I didn’t believe any of it. She was lonely as hell. She’d been so isolated by her father her whole life, her world revolved around George and me. Now he’d isolated her again. Only this time, no George, who was basically her surrogate father.

  And no me.

  Whatever I was to her.

  Me: You worry about you. I’ll take care of my schedule. Now I really have to go. Some hot brunette is coming over to hook up with me. I don’t even know her name… how sick is that?

  Ash: Wow, not even her name? Then you’ll probably have a tough time not calling out my name when you come. You might want to think about a ball gag for yourself.

  I smiled. In the months since she’d been gone, it was not lost on me I wasn’t a person who smiled a lot. I didn’t have a really big laugh.

  I chuckled. I smirked. And not very often.

  But Ash…she made me smile. She made me laugh. I could acknowledge that now, when before, I would have tried to deny it.

  I was also starting to appreciate how important that was. It helped to keep me focused. She’d sent plenty of selfies. Of her in her private room. Walking to class. Even a few from Glion, where the school was located. In all of them she was smiling, but it was nothing like seeing her. Actually having her in front of me so I could bust her chops. So she could come back with some smartass reply.

  Which meant the extreme class schedule remained, and I brought her home sooner.

  Me: Goodnight.

  Ash: Goodnight back.

  I tossed the phone onto the table next to my bed and settled in. There was no brunette. Hell, with my schedule this semester, I barely had time for food and air, which meant sex was relegated to jacking off.

  Which I did, thinking about Ash.

  Even though there was always a sense of guilt afterwards. Like I shouldn’t remember taking her virginity, knowing there’d been pain for her, as such an arousing memory.

  I could feel the exhaustion roll over me and knew sleep would come easy. It always did on nights we texted.

  I didn’t think about that too much, but, like the smiling and the laughing, it was something only now was I willing to acknowledge.

  December

  Marc

  Me: Is he letting you come home for Christmas break?

  Ash: I’m working on it.

  It was another late night for me, early morning for her. Thanksgiving had come and gone, and she was still in Switzerland. I’d done everything I could with my class schedule, but I still wasn’t going to be able to finish by next semester. I needed two summer classes, then one more semester to be able to graduate next December.

  Even that wasn’t guaranteed. There was a process I had to submit myself to, even to be eligible to leave early. A process I couldn’t get started until after my final grades from this semester were posted.

  Knowing I wouldn’t see her for another year had become this weight on my chest. The stress of it was constant, and only served to make me that much more ornery. I almost made some freshman piss himself in front of me when he bumped into the table where I was studying at the library and knocked all my books off the table. I hadn’t said anything, just glared at him. It had been enough to make his face go sheet white.

  I needed Ash around, if for no other reason than I could always snap at her to take the edge off. Except the six-hour time difference thing meant if we were going to talk, I had to try to fit the call in between my four o’clock and seven o’clock classes, or she had to get up ridiculously early.

  Now there was a very real possibility her asshole father wasn’t going to let her come for Christmas.

  George was going to be devastated.

  I was going to be pissed.

  Me: What does working on it mean? You’re rich. Buy a ticket home.

  Ash: It’s not that simple. It’s not like I want to see him.

  Me: George misses you. If you can come and you don’t, that’s not fair to him.

  Ash: Guilt trips aren’t going to work, and we both know you’re the one who’s going to be angry if I can’t come home.

  Me:
Not sure what you’re talking about.

  Ash: It hurts me, too. Every day here…hurts. But the more he believes I want to come home, the more he resists. Do you have access to a car?

  Me: Yes. I just recently bought a used one. Why?

  Ash: Hold on.

  A number appeared on my phone I’d never seen before. It’s still me.

  I frowned.

  Me: Why are you texting me from a different phone?

  Unknown number: A precaution. Update this as my second contact information for now. I’ll still use the other phone sometimes, but I’ll use this one, too.

  I made her Ash2.

  Me: Okay. What gives with the cloak-and-dagger stuff? Your father’s an asshole, but it’s not like he can see your texts.

  Ash2: He can see data usage. I want that to start dropping. Make him think I’m using the phone less and less.

  I shook my head. This was crazy. And part of me wondered if she wasn’t adding to the drama. She said her father had threatened me to get her to go to Switzerland, but was that true? Would Landen really do something like that? I accepted it as fact because Ash wasn’t someone who lied, but this was all starting to sound a little crazy. I’d known Landen since I was twelve years old. I knew him to be a stuck-up prick who didn’t want me messing around with this daughter. Very typical for an uptight prick given my background. Not someone who Ash felt she had to play these kinds of games around.

  Unless…

  Me: Is there something you’re not telling me about your father?

  Ash

  I looked at the text and winced. Did I tell him about the trip my father made here last month? With his client—who I knew wasn’t a client—Evan Sanderson. Much like our interactions before, there was nothing untoward about Evan’s behavior with me. He was charming, polite, courteous. Maybe a little distant.

  Arthur said they were here together looking at an investment opportunity in Zurich, and so, of course, they had to stop by and see me. They took me to dinner. Arthur and I made small talk about my progress at school, and Evan listened, albeit distractedly, as he was on his phone the entire time.

  After dinner, we were standing outside the restaurant when Arthur went back inside to use the restroom. Evan apologized for his distraction and spoke about considering running for US Senator. The consultants advising him apparently never gave him a break.

  The whole thing seemed as weird to me as those dinners at the house. Like there was something Arthur and Even knew, something they maybe thought I should know, but I didn’t.

  It felt very ominous.

  I considered all the things I hadn’t told Marc about Arthur, and knew I was breaking our no-secrets rule, but these were things he was better off not knowing. I took a hit of my inhaler, and felt my chest ease enough for me to take a full breath.

  Me: I think I have to be cautious. I feel like he paid more attention to me than I realized when he was gone all that time I was growing up. Maybe he’s not looking at my data usage, maybe he is. Either way, I feel like I need to be one step ahead of him.

  Marc: Ash, tell me you’re not making all of this up as some way to...hold my attention.

  Hold his fucking attention?

  I closed my eyes and puffed out a breath of frustration. Then I put both phones in my nightstand and didn’t reply. He didn’t understand what was happening. He didn’t know my father had hit me. Had come to visit me with his client only to witness me wheezing my way through dinner. Knowing the cold air was only exacerbating my condition. When I mentioned as much, he stopped any talk of me returning to the States.

  My plan for the Christmas break was to hopefully convince him to allow me to go somewhere warm. A long week in Florida where I could have some relief from the constant cold. If Marc had a car, he could drive down and see me. Away from Harborview. Away from my father.

  Maybe George could come, too, if Arthur let him have some time off.

  That had been my plan.

  Only now Marc thought I was lying? When I’d never lied to him about anything, ever . Only held back what I knew he didn’t want to hear. There was no way I would be able to go back to sleep, but I concentrated on my breathing, laying on my back, eyes closed.

  Easy in, and out. In, and out.

  Fifteen minutes later, my phones started to vibrate. First one, then the other. He would have texted. Would be angry I wasn’t texting back. He would tell himself that it didn’t matter.

  Two minutes later, he called.

  I didn’t want to talk to him. If I told him the truth about Arthur, and what I suspected Evan Sanderson wanted from me, he would only think I was making up more ridiculous lies.

  I needed to not worry about that, and just continue with the plans I’d already set into motion.

  2

  Two weeks later

  Marc

  She wasn’t talking to me. I got it. I’d basically called her a liar.

  Now I was sitting in a bar, getting shit-faced drunk, and, hopefully, about to get into a fight. I wanted to beat the shit out of someone. Or, just as effective would be having someone beat the shit out of me. So I could feel on the outside what I felt like on the inside.

  You need me like air.

  She’d told me that once and I told her she was delusional. Now, I wasn’t so sure, because this loss of connection felt like, felt like…

  Being torn away from my mother.

  And just like back then, I had no control over this. I couldn’t afford a plane ticket to Switzerland. Every penny I’d made at the restaurant, taking shifts evenings, weekends, and in between classes, had gone toward the car.

  Because the car, like learning how to drive sooner than most people, like getting into Princeton, had been another step. Now I had freedom and autonomy of movement. I could go where I wanted, when I wanted.

  Except I couldn’t drive across the ocean and shake her until she promised she wouldn’t shut me out again.

  “This seat taken?”

  I glanced up from the glass of whiskey that held all my thoughts, and turned my head to my right.

  The seat next to me was obviously not taken and there were ten other open seats surrounding the bar, but she wanted to sit in that one.

  She was older than me, late twenties, earlier thirties. Brunette, attractive and clearly looking for something. Or someone. It was the way she smiled, the open invitation in her eyes.

  I sighed. “I’m looking for a fight, lady. Not to get fucked.”

  “Your loss,” she said, and moved farther down the bar. I watched her walk away and thought how stupid that was. I hadn’t gotten laid since…since then. I told Ash there would be other women. She even said it herself, we weren’t in a relationship.

  Taking her virginity was something I’d needed to do. For her. For me. But the sex was just that one night.

  Maybe hooking up with a random woman was exactly what I needed to break free of this trap I was in. The trap I’d been in since I was twelve.

  The Ashleigh Trap.

  Only, I had no enthusiasm for it. After one more shot of whiskey, the idea of getting into a fight seemed pretty stupid, too. I didn’t need an arrest for assault or public brawling added to my record. Instead, I left the bar, got in my car, drove to campus and texted Ash again, for the hundredth time, telling her to text back.

  Princeton

  Marc

  It was the middle of the night when my phone rang.

  Disoriented, I scrambled for my phone and saw that it was just after two in the morning. Ash was calling on her normal phone, which was strange because she had to know it was the middle of the night. It wasn’t even a text to see if I might be awake. Instead she was calling.

  “What’s wrong?” I answered. Because something was. Something worse than her anger toward me, if she was reaching out.

  “Don’t be mad,” she croaked out.

  Her voice was weak. Her breathing was shallow.

  “Where are you?”

  “Hospital,” s
he wheezed. “But I’m better. I’m better.”

  I gripped the phone so tightly, I had this crazy idea I was strong enough to break it. To crumble it to rubble like some superhero, but I didn’t want to lose the connection with her, so I lightened up my hold.

  “When?”

  “Last.” Breath. “Week.” Breath. “I had to be on a machine before they could get it under control. They just gave me.” Breath. “My phone back. Saw texts. Don’t be mad.”

  I stared into the dark room. A single on campus, because I couldn’t afford to move off campus like most upper classmen did. This whole time, I’d been cursing her for being an immature baby for not returning my texts, and she’d been in a hospital on a fucking breathing machine.

  “You need to come home.”

  “He’s sending me.” Breath. “To Florida. A resort called Amelia Island. I’m to recover there over the break.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then he said, we’ll see.”

  No. We’ll see wasn’t good enough. What the fuck did he mean by we? He didn’t have asthma. He wasn’t suffering in the constant frigid air. I’d accused her of making shit up about him because it seemed too crazy to believe. That the man I’d known for most of my teenage life was a monster.

  A rich, stuck-up prick with an overdeveloped sense of entitlement. A man who’d disliked me simply because of my parents and upbringing. A father who thought I was beneath him and his daughter. That played.

  Her using a burner phone to convince him she was talking to people back home less? That was different.

  A man who’d learned his daughter had been in a hospital for a week and would consider sending her back to the place that was making her sick…? That wasn’t a joke. Or a cry for attention.