Page 30 of Hate Mates

I jolted under Aunt Poppy’s touch. “Sorry, Sutton.” She stepped back, hands held up. “We… I wasn’t thinking… the fire?—”

“It’s fine.”

My gut tightened at the unmistakable creak from the stairs, my fingernails biting into my palms as a nervous current of anticipation sent static shocks skittering down my limbs.

The gates of hell had opened. The devil walking freely among us.

The one I’d loved.

The one who’d maimed me.

The one I’d wished killed me instead.

I tracked his towering frame on his descent, profile tight, the muscle in his jaw bouncing. He collected my hat from the floor and rotated it in his thick, bulky hand.

His mouth hooked in a smarmy simper, dark eyes tapering.

“You dropped this.” That gruff, dangerously low voice, so unlike his father’s, set off a constriction of knots in my belly, commanding my attention. “Wouldn’t want you to be seen without it.”

He tossed the hat my way, landing at my feet.

I flinched.

“Damien.” Grant said his son’s name under his breath like a warning, a discussion they’d already had.

His late wife had been asking for trouble when she instructed their son to be named after the kid fromThe Omen.

I swallowed the razorblade-like lump in my throat and somehow steadied my voice. “Thanks for the hospitable welcome, Satan.” His smirk deepened. “Hell treating you well these days?”

“You tell me, Sutton.”

“You. Promised,” Grant gritted.

“Relax, Dad.” Damien’s stare raked over me, committing every detail to memory, hunting for the weak points. “It’s all in good fun, isn’t that right?” Cold brown eyes stranded on my lips for a beat too long, and I swore he was buying himself time, so he didn’t have to really look at me, atit. His chest rose, holding still for two beats. “Just twofriendscatching up.”

Friends. We were never meant to be friends.

We’d always been destined to be something more.

Lovers.

Now enemies.

THREE

Damien

“Damien, if you can’t be nice, you have to go.”

Not a chance in hell. “She’s not made of glass.”

Sutton was forged in fire and steel.

“Son.” I caught my dad wiping an open palm over his sweat-stricken hairline. “Empathy will go a long way.”

Empathy? I snorted. Empathy for what, exactly? I blamed him almost as much as I blamed her. I brought the glass to my lips, tipping the dregs back. “You know who I am.”

He just didn’t like it. I wasn’t like him. Tender-hearted.

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