Page 50 of Hate Me Like You Mean It

Sister In Law, Esq.

That’s oddly sweet.

Momma

Anthony and I were talking about this just the other day. How proud we are of both?—

“What are you doing?”

I shoved my phone into my back pocket and turned around. “Nothing. Why?”

Dominic did a pointed scan of the scene. “Is this how you’re planning on getting rid of me?”

He was referring to the shovel.

And the three large sacks of dirt it was lying on.

And, perhaps, the fact that I was standing in the middle of his butchered garden at midnight, under a steady stream of rain that would help distort my tracks, wearing all black with my hood pulled up.

My head tilted to one side as I looked him up and down. He was illuminated by the ornate lanterns dotted around thegarden, his white T-shirt molding to the sculpted dips and bulges of his muscles.

Ignoring the sudden rush of heat that made my skin itch against the confines of my sweatshirt, I curled my lips with what I hoped he interpreted as curious distaste. “How tall are you?”

“Six four. But if you’re going to the trouble of burying me horizontally, you’ll want to add a few extra feet?—”

“For the dead animal I’ll need to bury on top of you to throw off the police in case their dogs pick up the scent. I know.” I picked up the shovel and stomped it into the dirt, a few inches behind a murdered rosebush.

His mouth popped open just as lightning slashed across the black, angry sky behind him. A deep rumble rolled through the warm, heavy air, drowning out his retort before it could reach me. The hairs on the back of my neck prickled.

Dominic’s eyes flicked over my expression.

“You can go away now,” I said dismissively as I busied myself with digging a hole in what used to be a pristine flower bed. “I don’t need you for this part.”

He didn’t move. For a minute or two, he just stood there and watched as I randomly dug around the garden with no rhyme or reason, trying to distract myself from the painful tension rippling over my shoulders as my breathing started to change.

“There’s a severe thunderstorm warning,” he eventually said.

“I know. It fits the grave-digging vibe perfectly, don’t you think?” I winced when thunder cracked again, then immediately smoothed out my expression, pretending it never happened.

“So you don’t want to come inside.”

“Why would I want to come inside?” And why wouldhewant me to come inside after what I’d done to his mother’s garden?

My stomach crumpled with guilt at the reminder.

I didn’t know how I was going to fix this mess. Gardening had been Adrien and Rosie’s thing. Not mine. But the thoughtof Rosie finding out that I’d destroyed her new garden so heartlessly made me sick to my stomach, so the least I could do was try.

The first step, according to the internet, was to figure out which plants were still salvageable, which meant digging up the bushes and examining the roots. Or, you know, taking pictures of them to show someone who actually knew what they were looking at.

I wasn’t going to risk trying to sneak someone in to fix this for me, but Icouldhave them guide me through it virtually.

It was coming down a lot harder now, and the temperature seemed to be dropping another degree for every minute that swept by. I was soaked, shivering, and my hands were already itching from the incoming blisters.

“Alice.”

I ignored both him and the fact that he had to shout my name over the hiss of pouring rain. My shower didn’t have this much water pressure. Why the hell was he still out here?

“Alice!”