The Man I Hate Read online

  The Man I Hate

  Scott Hildreth

  Contents

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Prologue

  Anna

  Braxton

  Anna

  Braxton

  Anna

  Braxton

  Anna

  Braxton

  Anna

  Braxton

  Anna

  Braxton

  Anna

  Braxton

  Anna

  Braxton

  Anna

  Braxton

  Anna

  Braxton

  Anna

  Anna

  Anna

  Anna

  Braxton

  Anna

  Anna

  Braxton

  Anna

  Braxton

  Anna

  Braxton

  Anna

  Braxton

  Anna

  Braxton

  Anna

  Braxton

  Anna

  Braxton

  Anna

  Epilogue

  Also by Scott Hildreth

  This dedication is twofold:

  First, to all those whose lives have been turned upside down by COVID-19, this one is for you. In this time of being confined to your homes, may you find a way to love those within your reach just a little more.

  Secondly, if, through the course of your work, you were required to expose yourself to others, be them infected or not, thank you. Working at 7-Eleven, as a first responder, a nurse, Wal-Mart shelf stocker, or Cedars-Sinai Hospital surgeon matters not. Thank you. Throughout this pandemic, you are the true heroes.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  The acts and actions depicted in the book are fictitious. Any similarity between the characters and real persons, living or dead, is merely coincidental.

  Every sexual partner in the book is over the age of 18. Please, if you intend to read further than this comment, be over the age of 18 to enjoy this novel.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblances to actual events, locales, or persons living or dead, are coincidental.

  THE MAN I HATE Edition 1 Copyright © 2020 by Scott Hildreth

  All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the author or publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use the material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the author at [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights

  Cover design by Jessica

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  When I was 18 years old, a surprise visit to my boyfriend’s house turned ugly when I found a naked cheerleader hidden in his closet. Experiencing infidelity in all three of my relationships left me wondering what I’d done wrong.

  My mother swore that good men were out there. Her advice in securing one was simple. I should be more cautious with the men I offered my heart.

  In hope of bringing me out of my broken-hearted funk, she plucked her favorite movie from the collection she kept in the cabinet beneath the television. Although I’d never seen it, I knew the movie all too well. The 1976 version of A Star is Born was as much a part of my mother’s life as Sunday Dinners, decorating for holidays, and feigning excitement each time my father presented his newest hot rod.

  She pushed the VHS tape into the machine and reached for the remote. “Anna, I’m telling you,” she said, barely able to contain her excitement, “you’re going to absolutely love it.”

  “Mom, I just…I’m,” I stammered. “I’m sad. I don’t need to watch—”

  “It’s the best love story of all time,” she argued, gesturing to a massive bowl of fresh popcorn she’d placed on the center couch cushion. “It’s time you see it. Sit down. We’ll watch it together.”

  “Is it going to make me cry?” I asked. “You’re in here bawling every time you watch it.”

  “Yes,” she replied, placing her hand on my knee. “But the tears will be therapeutic.”

  John Norman Howard and Esther Hoffman’s version of the movie did make me cry, but it did little to cause me to believe in anything, especially love. Twenty years later, however, Jackson Maine and Ally Campano changed things.

  “They remade A Star is Born,” my mother declared. “It has Bradley Cooper in it. Your father isn’t interested. Do you want to go?”

  At the time, I was on the heels of an ugly divorce. Unwilling to believe that men were anything but unfaithful pigs, it was highly unlikely the movie would do anything to convince me otherwise. I was mature enough to enjoy it, regardless.

  “Sure,” I said. “I’ll go.”

  Entering the theater, I had minimal expectations. Lady Gaga could sing, but her ability to act had yet to be seen. So many musicians had tried the big screen, and as many failed. Most did so miserably. I told myself if nothing else, Bradley Cooper’s blue eyes were enough to carry the film.

  Although I already knew the story, I rode an emotional rollercoaster throughout the entire film. Lady Gaga did a remarkable job bringing her character, Ally Campano, to life. At the end of the film, her performance of I’ll Never Love Again reduced me to a blubbering wreck. Her contributions, both vocal and acting, transformed me into a different woman. I left the theater believing in my heart of hearts that one day love would find me.

  I simply needed to wait until a real-life Jackson Maine stumbled into my life.

  Anna

  I was the only child in an extremely close-knit Midwestern family. We went to church on Sundays. Please and thank you were second nature. We took vacations as a family, every summer. My father coached my softball team. My mother taught me to cook the same recipes her mother prepared a generation earlier.

  She cried the day I left for college.

  Although I moved away after completing my education, I didn’t go far. Nevertheless, the fifteen miles that separated us caused her tremendous grief.

  It provided me with a sense of self-worth.

  After graduating, fifteen years quickly passed. During that time, many things happened. My mother learned to accept my absence. My butt grew. I purchased an affordable building on a corner lot and opened a small exotic car dealership. I got married to a successful man. My father turned sixty-five. My business flourished. Wrinkles became prominent. I got divorced. My father retired.

  Immediately following his retirement, my father announced his intention to move away. Not thirty miles or even one hundred. They’d purchased a home 1,443 miles west, in Los Angeles, California.

  “You need to come out here,” my mother said. “It’s wonderful. They call it the land of dreams and drought.”

  She said it as if the dreams and drought moniker would attract me.

  “What does that even mean?” I asked.

  “It never rains,” she replied. “Because it doesn’t rain, the sun shines every day. That’s the drought. The streets are lined with palm trees and there are celebrities everywhere. That’s the dream. You should really consider moving here.”

  Although it sounded like an interesting enough place to visit, I didn’t go immediately. Life, as always, got in the way. Then, on afternoon before I planned to visit their new home on the palm tree-lined street in the land of dreams and droug
ht, I received a phone call.

  The detective gave me a virtual pat on the shoulder.

  “At least they died in their sleep,” he said.

  The condolences he expressed did little to ease the pain of losing both parents before I gave them grandchildren or even so much as visited their new place of residence.

  Deciding what to do with their home wasn’t a simple task. I had two options: stay in Oklahoma and pay a mortgage or move to California and live mortgage free. To many, the decision would be easy. Personally, I couldn’t find many redeeming qualities about Los Angeles. The only one that repeatedly came to mind was the weather.

  I meandered through the living room. The furnishings were in complete contrast to what I was accustomed to seeing in my mother’s home. I imagined her explaining how much she enjoyed choosing each thoughtfully positioned contemporary piece that was placed in the room.

  I gazed through the window that faced the street. According to my mother, the view was picturesque.

  Compared to the one-acre tree-filled lots I was accustomed to seeing, the sight was far from scenic. The view consisted of the neighbor’s two-story home on a postage stamp-sized lot, four unhealthy-looking palm trees, a shallow driveway filled with cars, and a neon green AstroTurf yard.

  I couldn’t help but wonder what drew my parents to California. Or, what drew anyone to California for that matter. The sky was hazy and never quite clear, the traffic was horrendous, and everything was overpriced. People didn’t wave, they rarely spoke, and everyone was in a hurry. The streets weren’t lined with palm trees, they were littered with homeless.

  Hungry, frustrated, and uncertain of where I was going to call home, I snatched my purse from the end table and sauntered toward the front door. In the ten days I’d been in Los Angeles, eating out had become a guilty pleasure. It saved me from being alone in a home that did nothing but remind me of losing my parents much earlier than I had expected. Eager to beat the morning rush, I locked the front door and turned toward the driveway.

  The sun peeked over the top of an adjacent salmon-colored Mediterranean-style home. Positioned midway between Beverly Hills and North Hollywood, along what the locals called the four-oh-five, Sherman Oaks was filled with two-story homes situated on lots barely large enough to encompass them. Many had swimming pools. Very few were fitted with garages. None could be obtained for less than seven figures.

  I rolled down my windows and drew a long breath of the cool morning air. After tossing my purse in the passenger seat, I adjusted the rearview mirror and started my playlist. With Lada Gaga’s Shallow my morning’s inspiration, I reached for the gearshift.

  “Get out of the car!” a gravelly voice demanded from my left side.

  Paralyzed by fear, I gripped the steering wheel like a vise. The smell of pot and stale sweat wafted into the car. My stomach convulsed. Ever so slowly, my eyes drifted toward the voice.

  A bald man in a black hoodie loomed over the side of the car. A five o’clock shadow covered his sunken pale cheeks. His neck was littered with awful looking tattoos. With a gun in one hand and my door handle in the other, he glared right at me. His massive pupils made one thing perfectly clear.

  He was a wacked out lunatic.

  “Get out of the fucking car,” he said through clenched teeth.

  Overcome by the thought of what might happen if I didn’t relinquish my vehicle, I stared mindlessly at my attacker. The bitter smell from his clothes and fear of the inevitable merged. Bile rose in my throat. Despite my desire to thrust open the car door and run as far and as fast as possible, I couldn’t convince a single muscle to move.

  Frustrated at my lack of compliance with his concise demands, he yanked against the door handle. “Now, bitch!”

  Be it a blessing or a curse, the automatic door lock prevented him from opening the door. If I couldn’t figure out how to release the steering wheel and let him have the car, the tattooed psychopath was going to plaster my guts all over the interior of my new Mercedes-Benz.

  Less than two weeks after the death of my parents, I was destined to draw my last breath in their driveway. The fact that no one was going to attend my funeral came to mind. Crippled by that thought, I choked the steering wheel and stared straight ahead.

  He pressed the barrel of the gun against the side of my neck. “Get. Out.”

  “I’ll give you one chance, asshole,” a second voice said, enunciating each word clearly. “Drop the gun in her lap and take two steps away from the car.”

  Relief tickled its way up my spine. In hope of the lunatic complying with the stranger’s demand, my eyes darted to the gun. The carjacker’s knuckles went white as he gripped the gun firmly in his shaking hand.

  Obviously, he had no intention of releasing it.

  I peered over my left shoulder. The distracted hoodie-wearing thug blocked my view. I glanced in my rearview mirror. A black Range Rover was parked in the street behind me.

  The carjacker took a step back. A long shadow darkened the concrete beside him. I conjured up the countless possibilities of what was going to happen next. My heart raced to the point of making me sick.

  While I fought the urge to vomit, the carjacker was yanked away from my car. A flurry of movements followed. The dull thud of someone’s head being hit with a fist caused me to cringe. A gun skidded across the driveway.

  My eyes darted to the left. A well-dressed man stood behind my would-be assailant with his right arm wrapped tightly around the car thief’s neck. Immobilized by the chokehold, the bug-eyed lunatic flailed for an instant and then went limp.

  A sickeningly handsome suit-wearing stranger had singlehandedly disarmed and subdued my attacker. In sheer disbelief of what I was seeing, I stared mindlessly.

  My gray-haired protector lifted his chin slightly. “Would you open the trunk, please?”

  The sincerity in his eyes diffused the situation enough that I was comfortable complying with his request. I glanced around the car’s interior, completely lost as to what I should do. I’d opened my trunk countless times. Despite that fact, I couldn’t seem to recall how to do it. Being held at gunpoint in my driveway had taken a toll on my ability to reason.

  I craned my neck toward the street. My savior was dragging the unconscious man toward his SUV.

  I swallowed a baseball-sized lump of nervousness. “My trunk?”

  “There’s a button on your door panel,” he said calmly, pausing at the back of his SUV. “Beneath your window switches.”

  Mildly confused, I lifted the silver switch. The trunk shot open. Relieved that the task was complete, I glanced out my car window.

  Choking the carjacker with one arm, the well-dressed stranger rummaged in the back of his SUV with the other. A few seconds later he produced several long white plastic straps. Perplexed, I watched as he zip-tied the ankles and wrists of the semi-conscious thug.

  No differently than if he were taking an armload of groceries across Target’s parking lot, he dragged the tattooed thug toward the back of my car. I gawked in disbelief as he tossed him into the trunk with a thud! After situating things, he carefully closed the lid. Obviously, subduing bad guys was tritely familiar to the suit-wearing badass.

  With some hesitation, I got out of the car. The courteous stranger took a step in my direction and then paused. He brushed the wrinkles from his suit. Once satisfied, he looked up.

  His presence was undeniable. He just as well held a neon sign that flashed the words “KEEP YOUR DISTANCE”, yet there was something about him that I found extremely comforting.

  He offered an apologetic smile. “Sorry about all of this.”

  I glanced beyond him, at the attacker’s gun. I’d witnessed a few drunken barroom brawls in the bars while in college and seen two cowboys get in a fistfight at a rodeo once, but I’d never been directly involved in any kind of violent act. I wiped my clammy hands against the fabric of my dress.

  “It’s not your fault,” I replied.

  “I live next door.�
�� He reached inside his jacket pocket with his left hand and extended his right. “Braxton Rourke.”

  I was bewildered by his calmness. I cupped his hand in mine and shook it. “Thank you…for everything. I’m uhhm…my name is Anna,” I stammered. “Anna Wilson.”

  He gave me a thorough once-over. One side of his mouth curled up slightly. “Nice to meet you.”

  “Is this a common thing?” I glanced at my car. “Being carjacked?”

  “In Sherman Oaks?” He tapped his finger against the screen of his phone. “No.” He raised the phone to his ear and turned away. “Attempted carjacking. Yes. No. He’s been subdued,” he said matter-of-factly. “Yes.” He glanced at the carjacker’s pistol, which was ten feet away on the edge of the concrete. “With a pistol. No. Yes. 15021 Valley Vista. I’ll be standing beside a white Mercedes E-Class. Sure. Braxton Rourke.”

  He slipped the phone inside his jacket pocket and faced me. “The police will be here in a few minutes.”

  The suit he wore accentuated the shape of his very athletic body. A trim waist, broad chest, and well-toned arms were hidden beneath the fine Italian fabric. His silver hair was disheveled from the scuffle yet managed to look perfect. I wondered how many pictures of him were floating around Instagram with #silverfox attached to them.