Read Online Pretty Hate (New Adult Novel) by Ava Ayers - Free Book Online

looks beautiful.”
    My anxiety amped up as Nicolas drove closer and closer to Ivory-Lou’s house. I knew he’d be gone in fifteen or sixteen hours and it was tearing me up.
    “Hey, I know you’re leaving at, what, eleven tomorrow morning,” I said, “but I have my house to myself tonight. Do you want to stay over?”
    I waited for him to say that he couldn’t...he had to pack or call his friends or was tired.
    “I can think of nothing better than having a slumber party with you,” he said.
    And I nearly vomited with joy.
    “Wow,” Nicolas said as he walked through the foyer, “really cool house. This is your sister’s place?”
    “Her boyfriend. Hungry?”
    “No, I’m good. Let’s go to your room.”
    I led him down the hall to my bedroom.
    “Now, it’s kind of a mess,” I said as I stood at the door.
    “I don’t care about that stuff, Beth,” Nicolas said and opened the door. “It’s clean as hell in here. Wait until you see my apartment if you think this is a mess.”
    I looked at the floor and then my vanity and smiled. Everything was put away neatly. The evil step-hookers cleaned for me.
    “Nice bed...big,” he said as I hung my jacket in my closet. “What’s all over it?”
    “What?” I said as I turned around.
    Nicolas stood at the foot of my bed with his head tilted to the side and I walked up behind him.
    “Who’s that?” he said. “And why is there a gun on your pillow?”
    I stepped to the side and stared at my bed. My white comforter was covered in rose petals. Leaning against one of the pillows was a framed, 8x10 glossy of Ivory-Lou in full pimp regalia taken at the Pimp and Ho Ball in Detroit. Next to that, on my pillow, was one of Ivory-Lou’s Glocks.
    “Oh, geeze,” I said as I brushed the rose petals onto the floor. “it’s a joke. My sister is trying to be funny. I’ll just get rid of this. Hold on.”
    I grabbed the picture and the fun off the bed and ran to Ivory-Lou’s office and put them on his desk.
    “Goddamn assholes,” I said as I ran back to my bedroom.
    “These are your sisters,” Nicolas said as he held up a picture of Rebel Love and Mazie Goodnight as I walked into the room. Where are the pictures of you?”
    “Yep, those are my sisters.”
    “They’re as beautiful as you are. Your mother and father gave you girls some good genes.”
    “Yeah.”
    We got into bed at seven that night and didn’t leave the bed until seven the next morning.
    Nicolas told me about all the places he and I would go together when he returned from Bali. He invited me to Brooklyn and to Connecticut to meet his parents and he, unfortunately, wanted to meet mine.
    We set up phone and text and email schedules. We decided when he returned we’d go on a tour of the world. We planned European and Asian adventures and he pulled out my atlas and showed me different routes we could go. I had six weeks to transform myself into the perfect girl for Nicolas Miles and as he spoke about our travels, I planned the transformation schedule in my head. I was his girl.
    We had sex six times and each time was better than the one before. I never felt so desired and loved. I came harder than I ever did. He did that to me.
    When he left the next morning, I did not cry as we kissed goodbye in the driveway. I no longer had to doubt. I was beautiful and he wanted me. I told myself the time would fly by as I watched him drive down the street and I had plenty to keep me busy. My reinvention began.
    I laughed as I thought of white trash Billy Rider and his joke of a girlfriend cursed with his child. They were never going to get out of this shithole and I was well on my way.

 
     
    CHAPTER SIX
     
     
    I opened the email three days after he left and was greeted with a beautiful photo of a lagoon with the bluest water I ever saw. Underneath, he typed three words that meant everything to me: I miss you .
    I printed the picture out and studied it until I saw every pebble, every grain of sand, beneath