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  At First Hate

  K.A. Linde

  A L S O B Y K. A. L I N D E

  COASTAL CHRONICLES

  Hold the Forevers

  At First Hate

  Second to None

  * * *

  WRIGHT

  The Wright Brother

  The Wright Boss

  The Wright Mistake

  The Wright Secret

  The Wright Love

  The Wright One

  A Wright Christmas

  One Wright Stand

  Wright with Benefits

  Serves Me Wright

  Wright Rival

  Wright that Got Away

  All the Wright Moves

  * * *

  CRUEL

  Cruel Money

  Cruel Fortune

  Cruel Legacy

  Cruel Promise

  Cruel Truth

  Cruel Desire

  Cruel Marriage

  * * *

  AVOIDING

  Avoiding Commitment

  Avoiding Responsibility

  Avoiding Temptation

  * * *

  Avoiding Extras

  Avoiding Boxset

  * * *

  RECORD

  Off the Record

  On the Record

  For the Record

  Struck from the Record

  Broken Record

  * * *

  DIAMOND GIRLS

  Rock Hard

  A Girl’s Best Friend

  In the Rough

  Shine Bright

  Under Pressure

  * * *

  TAKE ME DUET

  Take Me for Granted

  Take Me with You

  * * *

  BLOOD TYPE

  Blood Type

  Blood Match

  Blood Cure

  * * *

  ASCENSION

  The Affiliate

  The Bound

  The Consort

  The Society

  The Domina

  * * *

  ROYAL HOUSES

  House of Dragons

  House of Shadows

  * * *

  Following Me

  Contents

  Part I

  1. Savannah

  2. Savannah

  3. Savannah

  4. Savannah

  5. Savannah

  6. Savannah

  7. Savannah

  8. Savannah

  Part II

  9. Duke

  10. UNC

  11. Savannah

  12. UNC

  13. Duke

  14. Duke

  15. Duke

  16. Savannah

  Part III

  17. Harvard

  18. Harvard

  19. Harvard

  20. Savannah

  21. New York City

  22. New York City

  23. Savannah

  24. Savannah

  25. Savannah

  26. Savannah

  Interlude

  Part IV

  27. Harvard

  28. Harvard

  29. Harvard

  30. Savannah

  31. Savannah

  32. Savannah

  33. Savannah

  34. Savannah

  35. Savannah

  Part V

  36. Savannah

  37. Savannah

  38. Atlanta

  39. Atlanta

  40. Savannah

  Wright Rival

  Also By K.A. Linde

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  At First Hate

  Copyright © 2021 by K.A. Linde

  All rights reserved.

  * * *

  Visit my website at

  www.kalinde.com

  * * *

  Cover Designer: Staci Hart

  www.stacihartnovels.com

  Photography: Wander Aguiar, www.wanderbookclub.com

  Editor: Unforeseen Editing, www.unforeseenediting.com

  * * *

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

  * * *

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

  * * *

  ISBN-13: 978-1948427524

  Part I

  1

  Savannah

  Present

  The long life of Meredith Christianson was over.

  I just called her Gran.

  And she was still gone.

  No more phone calls. No more visits. No more Gran. She wouldn’t make fun of my driving or roll her eyes when I back-talked or be my forever cheerleader on my way to success. She wouldn’t be anything because she’d died.

  I was still in black from the funeral. A knee-length lace dress that my best friend, Lila, had pulled out of her closet for me. She’d known before I did that I’d need the help today. She’d practically been raised by Gran too.

  “Mars,” my twin, Maddox, said with a wash of sadness as we stood before Gran’s empty house.

  I closed my eyes to fight back the tears. “I’m not ready.”

  “I can wait.”

  Maddox knew as well as anyone how hard this was. We’d been dropped off on this stoop at the age of two and never left. I didn’t remember anything before the old Victorian home with light-blue siding and a wraparound porch with peeling white paint. The Spanish moss–covered oak in the front that we’d climbed on as children. The smell of Gran’s cooking in the kitchen—her famous biscuits and gravy, fried chicken, and cornbread. I’d do anything for her biscuits right about now. To see her wrinkled face pinch with consternation at my insufferable mouth.

  “You don’t have to,” I told him.

  Maddox had been inside the house since Gran had passed. He still lived in Savannah. He’d been the first one to get the call from the caretaker we’d hired so that Gran didn’t have to leave the house she loved. The house she’d lived and died in. The house that now belonged to us, clean and clear. It was worth a fortune at this point since Gran and Gramps had owned it for generations. Not that we ever had any intention of getting rid of it. Other than my memories, the house was all I had left of Gran.

  I squeezed my eyes against the pain. Gran was gone. She was gone. Okay. That was how it was. She’d been going for years anyway. But now that it was here, it felt more surreal than I’d ever imagined. Final.

  Maddox wrapped an arm around my shoulders. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. We had that twin thing where we knew what the other was thinking. It had always been like that.

  He pressed a kiss to my temple. “Take your time. You can come inside whenever you’re ready. We don’t have to make any decisions today.”

  I nodded and watched him head up the front stone path to the house. He was gone inside a minute later. I swallowed back tears. I’d cried enough of them to last a lifetime. My eyes were still red and puffy from the funeral.

  It hadn’t helped that my mom and aunt had shown up. I’d expected Aunt Ruth, who lived in Savannah even if I hadn’t seen her in at least a decade. But my mom…

  My teeth ground together. She shouldn’t have been there at all. She didn’t deserve to mourn the woman she’d all but sent to her grave. The last argument they’d had, the one I’d been there for, I’d wanted to strangle her. It wasn’t enough that she’d been a shit mom, abandoning me and Maddox at the age of two to be taken care of by Gran, but she had to continually make everyone’s life worse by her sheer existence.

  I didn’t want to think about her. I never did. How Gran had afforded her sympathy and compassion year after year, day after day, was beyond my comprehension. At least I’d gotten the last laugh when I found out Gran had given us the house and not her own children.

  My hand hovered on the gate. It was just a house. It wasn’t haunted or anything. Despite everything else in Savannah seemingly being haunted. Gran had lived a long, long life. She’d passed with peace in her heart, knowing she’d done the best she could with her circumstances. But it didn’t make it any easier to step over the threshold. I’d been avoiding it all weekend after driving in from Atlanta with Lila, where I worked as a professor at Emory. She’d graciously let me stay with her mom down the street. Deb always had warm hugs and an open heart. I was grateful for her this weekend, but now, I finally had to face the empty house.

  With a deep breath, I stepped into the yard. I kept my focus forward as I mounted the small stoop, reaching the iconic bright yellow door. I twisted the worn silver knob in my hand. The hinges gave with a slight creak as I crossed over onto the original hardwood floor. Everything was precisely where it had always been. The floral couch against the far wall. A color-coordinated pink and brown set of chairs on either side of it. Gramps’ brown leather recliner tucked in the corner. The rug was a threadbare multicolored thing that Gran had always taken special care of since it had belonged to her mom. The TV was way past outdated and veering toward an antique. She’d never cared for new, fandangle things. Though she secretly watched soaps on the nicer TV in her bedroom. I’d crawl into bed with her to find out what Stefano was doing to Marlena.

  Pictures littered the walls, as they always
had, collecting dust as much as memories. Gran was the third oldest of eight with pictures of her immense family all over the room. A scant few pictures of her own two daughters. They’d almost all been replaced by photographs of me and Maddox throughout the years.

  “The kids I never had,” was what she always said.

  I’d laughed then. I just found it sad now.

  I pressed my fingers to a graduation photo nearest the door. Maddox and I stood in baby-blue cap and gowns at the local high school. Gran and Gramps had their arms around each of us. Lila and our other best friend, Josie, beamed. I’d never seen Gran as happy as when I got that full scholarship to Duke.

  “Off to bigger and better, chickadee.

  It was too much. How was I supposed to survive a wake here? How could I fill Gran’s house with strangers? How had we gotten wrangled into this in the first place? I wanted to be left alone. I didn’t want any well-meaning cakes and dinners. I didn’t want people to tell me they were sorry for my loss. I didn’t want pity at all. I wanted Gran back. I wanted the impossible.

  My heart constricted. That was the last thing I needed.

  I could hear Maddox stomping around upstairs. Who even know what he was doing? I wanted to tell him to keep it down, but if stomping around helped him grieve, then who was I to tell him to keep it quiet?

  Then the doorbell rang, saving me from making a decision.

  I checked my reflection in a giant brass mirror that Gran had always called the Lipstick Mirror. My eyes were still puffy, but they weren’t lined with tears. My curly brown hair was actually manageable since Lila had gotten to it before the funeral. My cheeks rosy from the Savannah summer humidity. My lips a perfect neutral pink, just as Gran had always preferred. I’d even picked her favorite Estée Lauder color, Pinkberry.

  “I got it,” I called out to Maddox and then swung the door open.

  My heart stopped as I found Derek Ballentine standing before me in a three-piece navy-blue pinstripe suit. As impossibly tall as ever with his sideswept brown hair and those too-damn-keen hazel eyes. His lips were pouty with an exaggerated Cupid’s bow and always appeared as if he’d been kissing all afternoon. He looked like he’d walked off the set of Savannah’s quintessential film, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. He’d always been gorgeous. And he was the very last person I wanted to see.

  “Derek,” I growled.

  “Minivan,” he said, rolling over the nickname I’d always hated.

  “No.”

  “Aww, Mars, you didn’t miss me?”

  I glared at him, and then without a second thought, I slammed the door in his too-smug face.

  2

  Savannah

  October 29, 2004

  The first time I saw Derek Ballentine, I thought he was the most gorgeous person I’d ever met. Then he opened his mouth.

  “Hey, y’all,” he drawled, low and smooth. “Any of y’all have Halloween plans other than losing to Holy Cross?”

  He pulled his Holy Cross letterman jacket more firmly around his shoulders and then leaned forward against the chain-link fence. His other basketball buddies chuckled at his incredible wit.

  While Danielle and Leigh stumbled over their words to see the hot private school boys talking to us, I narrowed my eyes. Yes, we were losing the football game to the all-boys private Catholic school 42 to 10. Yes, we undeniably sucked. But this guy wasn’t even playing. His letterman jacket was for basketball, which they sucked at. I’d cheered through enough basketball games to know that we destroyed them every year. They had, like, one good guy on that team, and it probably wasn’t even this guy.

  “Is that supposed to be a pickup line?” I demanded, planting a hand on my hip and stretching the baby-blue miniskirt.

  His eyes dropped to my long, pale legs and back up. “I don’t know. Is it working?”

  “No,” I said flatly.

  He shrugged, undeterred. “Well, I’m having a Halloween party tomorrow night. My parents are out of town, and y’all should swing by.”

  “Oh wow, yeah!” Leigh said with wide blue eyes. “That’d be fun, right?”

  Danielle bit her lip. “I’m supposed to go to Jack’s gig. So… I don’t know.”

  “What about you?” he asked, nodding at me.

  “I mean, the invitation just sounded so tempting, what with the insults and all, but no.”

  Of course, I didn’t say it was because Gran and Gramps would never in a million years let me go to an unchaperoned Halloween party. Let alone a Holy Cross party. They’d never liked the local Catholic schools. They had vocally opposed Lila going to St. Catherine’s, the sister school to Holy Cross. But it was hard to argue when her mom got her free tuition because she working there.

  “She’s got you there, Derek,” the tall Black guy next to him said with a laugh. “Why don’t you show them some manners? I’m Trask.” He held his hand across the fence, and Leigh shook it. He smacked the obnoxious one in the chest afterward. “This is Derek. And Hooper.”

  Hooper waved shyly, a blush forming on his cheeks. He was easily the tallest of the lot—well, they were all tall, but he was a giant. “Sup.”

  “I’m Leigh,” Leigh said, jumping in for us. “Danielle and Marley.” She pointed out a few other cheerleaders who had wandered over to find out what was going on.

  They all waved, and I heard Christina Arlington whisper in awe, “That’s Derek Ballentine.”

  Derek grinned broadly when he realized he had the attention of the entire cheer squad, and again, he invited everyone to his Halloween party tomorrow night. Only I seemed uninterested. Not because he was unattractive, but because I knew his type.

  I’d spent long years analyzing people like Derek Ballentine. The ones who wanted sex after the first date, who expected the world but refused to give anything back in turn, who thought they were entitled to respect when they hadn’t earned it. I’d seen them flounder in and out of my mother’s life since I was a baby. One after the other after the other. She’d never been around enough for me to really know their names, but in my mind, they were all the same guy anyway. A placeholder for the real thing. And Mom never saw it, but I certainly did.

  “Ladies!” Coach called furiously. “The game is still happening.”

  The rest of the girls giggled and headed back into positions. We ran through a few cheers to try to get the crowd into the crippling defeat, but nothing could make them rally. And Derek stood by and watched me.

  I’d never felt self-conscious in the tiny blue skirt and crop top before. I’d actually started cheering so that I could wear something other than pants or knee-length skirts. Gran was traditional, and she believed deeply in modesty. I thought she was trying to make up for how Mom had turned out, but I’d only said that once before in her presence and had the shit smacked out of me. So I wasn’t prone to saying that one again.