Page 43 of Hate Me Like You Mean It

However.

After my second lap, an extremely familiar set of patterns started to emerge. The placement of lanterns along the meandering cobblestone paths. The empty space facing what used to be the rosebushes, waiting to be filled with an iron bench. The large clearing in the middle that was missing an outdoor dining table…

I’d been here before.

Not just once, but a thousand times.

This wasn’t just Rosie’s garden. It was a bare-bones replica of the one she’d kept at my family’s old property. I hadn’t recognized it without all the decorations and water fixtures.

And in my anger, I’d unknowingly destroyed it.

I eventually found the hoodie.

It was buried a few feet away from the clearing, and the moment I heard the soft crinkle of its bag connecting with the end of my shovel, I yanked on a face mask and a thick pair of rubber gloves that went up to my elbows and got to work. The poison ivy was removed using a pair of tongs, quadruple bagged, labeled all over with a red marker and several exclamation points, then tossed into the trash.

The hoodie went into the bucket Amber had picked up for me, along with a generous amount of heavy-duty detergentadvertised specifically for removing oil residue and enough warm water to submerge the fabric.

I left it alone for thirty minutes, then repeated the process three more times before hosing it down and tossing it in the washing machine, where it would tumble in a heavy-duty sanitization cycle for the next four hours.

The only thing left was to make sure Dominic didn’t go anywhere near the laundry room and that he was distracted enough in the evening that he wouldn’t notice when I snuck upstairs and swapped one hoodie for the other. Bonus points if I could get him out of the house so I could also start working on the garden.

“I need Thursday night off,” I said as soon as he sauntered into the kitchen, freshly showered and shaved, wearing a pitch-black, short-sleeve cashmere polo and pitch-black tailored pants accentuated with a pitch-black belt. His watch was silver, though, so there was that.

He barely glanced at me on his way to grab a mug, not bothering to question what I’d been doing here so early and unsupervised. “No.”

I leaned against the wall, cradling my own cup as I watched him shut the cabinet, walk to where the coffee machine was supposed to be, and blink when he found the counter empty.

His neck craned, head slowly turning in my direction. “Where is it?”

“Where’s what?” I asked, taking a long, slurping sip out of my steaming cup.

It was snatched out of my hands within seconds. He took one big gulp… and immediately proceeded to grimace and stick his tongue out. “Ugh, the fuckisthat?”

“Herbal tea.”

“Tastes like dirt.” He gave it back to me. “I’m going to go grab coffee. Don’t?—”

He stopped suddenly. His eyes narrowed. His head tipped to one side. “You’re trying to get me out of the house.”

I didn’t even blink. “I’m not trying to get you out of the house.”

“Why?”

“Why am I not trying to get you out of the house? I don’t know, why does anyone not try to get anyone else out of the house?”

“Is it rats?”

The only reason I laughed was because I wasn’t expectingratsto be his first theory. “I can assure you, Dominic, that it is not rats. I’m still considering bed bugs, but you won’t have to worry about them until I’m long gone, and maybe not even then. I still haven’t been able to find a service willing to facilitate the delivery and contamination. Unless you know someone?”

He started nudging me out of the kitchen. “You’re a menace.”

“Yet you willingly invited me into your home.”

I was guided down one of the restricted hallways I’d been specifically warned against entering, down a set of stairs, and into a massive underground garage lined with cars.

Gorgeous, shiny luxury cars, at least one of which money simply couldnotbuy, the model was so rare.

My mouth popped open.