Un-Hate Me (Enemies to Lovers Romance) (DOM for Hire Book 3) Read online

  Un-Hate Me

  DOM for Hire

  Hazel Parker

  Copyright 2021 by Hazel Parker - All rights reserved.

  In no way is it legal to reproduce, duplicate, or transmit any part of this document in either electronic means or in printed format. Recording of this publication is strictly prohibited and any storage of this document is not allowed unless with written permission from the publisher.

  All rights reserved.

  Respective authors own all copyrights not held by the publisher.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1: Emily

  Chapter 2: Burke

  Chapter 3: Emily

  Chapter 4: Burke

  Chapter 5: Emily

  Chapter 6: Burke

  Chapter 7: Emily

  Chapter 8: Burke

  Chapter 9: Emily

  Chapter 10: Burke

  Chapter 11: Emily

  Chapter 12: Burke

  Chapter 13: Emily

  Chapter 14: Burke

  Chapter 15: Emily

  Chapter 16: Burke

  Chapter 17: Emily

  Chapter 18: Burke

  Chapter 19: Emily

  Chapter 20: Burke

  Chapter 21: Emily

  Chapter 22: Burke

  Chapter 23: Emily

  Chapter 24: Burke

  Chapter 25: Emily

  Epilogue

  Series Epilogue

  Chapter 1: Emily

  The clock is ticking.

  I sat in a private cabana at a downtown rooftop bar in Miami, sipping on a margarita, my third of the day. To my right sat Kelly, my best friend from as far back as I could remember. Even just four years ago, this scene would have felt so very typical of us. Hell, even three years ago, Kelly could have easily come down on a flight and had a weekend like this.

  But boy, how things had changed.

  At the risk of sounding jealous and petty, well, she had everything that I ever wanted. She had a hot-as-hell husband. She had two adorable kids. Two things that I never, ever imagined myself having.

  And now?

  Well, let’s just say things had changed rather significantly.

  “Girl, would you get off your phone?” I said as Kelly’s only drink of the afternoon, a quarter-sipped margarita, sat untouched on a small stand near her. “This is your last day of vacation!”

  “I’m just checking on Charlotte and Cody,” she said, referring to her two kids. “Liam’s in charge of them. Great at protecting them, probably needs some lessons on changing diapers and feeding them.”

  “Oh, Lord, I’ve told you to get a nanny already, but no, your mountain spirit just won’t allow that, will it?”

  “People in Colorado don’t have nannies, Emily. I mean, yes, I’m sure they do, but you don’t move to Breckenridge, get a dog, and live on your own so that you can have other people do your work for you.”

  Not quite like the days of penthouse living and suburban lifestyle, is it? Not quite like how it used to be. But I suppose that’s just how life goes—it changes.

  “Besides, it’ll be good for you if you ever get married, you don’t want to not know how to do those things.”

  “When. Not if.”

  Kelly turned her head to me, the confused expression not even hidden on her face. And why would it be? Kelly, at least, had spent all of her life talking about how her greatest dream wasn’t money or status, but a husband and kids. Up until a dramatic incident a year or so ago, I would’ve thought the concept of being tied down was more appealing in the literal sense.

  But put a woman in a hostage situation, see her crazy ex get killed, realize what mattered most, and next thing you knew, months and months of reflection had changed some things.

  “You’re for real?” she said.

  I nodded my head.

  “Just one problem,” I said. “I feel like I have six months left.”

  “Oh, God, Emily, you’re in your thirties, not—”

  “Late thirties,” I corrected. “And unfortunately, as handsome and dashing as the men of Miami are, not many of them are the family type. Great for one night or having around as boy toys, not so much at knowing what toys to get literal boys.”

  Kelly sighed. I knew she had my best interests at heart and wished I wouldn’t stress so much, but that was far easier said than done these days.

  “Biologically speaking, you could—”

  “Biologically speaking, every day that passes reduces my chances. That’s not hyperbole or hysteria speaking, Kelly. That’s real math. That’s math I cannot change and cannot ignore. So…what am I supposed to do? Just pretend the math doesn’t matter?”

  Kelly bit her lip.

  “So what are you going to do, then? Get a sugar daddy?”

  I snorted and laughed. It was good to have spunky Kelly back. She’d disappeared for a few years there after going through her divorce and before having Charlotte and getting together with Liam.

  “No, I’m not that desperate.”

  I’m close, though.

  “I have an idea in mind. I am open to options but I would really like it to share my genetics.”

  Kelly arched an eyebrow at me. I pretended not to notice and went back to sipping on my drink. Even if I wanted to, I didn’t think it was the smartest of ideas to say who I had in mind.

  Part of it was that I didn’t even know the dude’s last name. I’d never even spoken to him. But he’d saved my life.

  Burke.

  That was all I knew about his identity. That, and he was a friend of Liam’s who had shot my ex, Sean, when Sean had nearly killed Kelly and me and then almost successfully abducted Charlotte from Kelly. From afar, I could see he was handsome and, obviously, devoted to the right thing.

  But in the confusion of the moment, both he and Liam had taken off once they knew we were all safe. Liam came back for Kelly, which did not surprise me at all. Burke, however, had no reason to even think I knew his name, let alone that I’d want him to come around.

  My attraction to Burke was admittedly kind of youthful whim, but there was some hardened truth to it. I didn’t expect to find a husband or a boyfriend I’d fall in love with. I just wanted someone with good, strong genes to inseminate my eggs so I could give birth to a healthy baby before my clock ran out. I had plenty of time to figure out the man I’d love.

  I recognized that the idea was a little bit absurd. Okay, really absurd. I recognized that I was still perhaps reeling from the events of a year ago, more caught up in something that would never happen again—a crazy man trying to kill me like Sean had—than I was in reality.

  But I also recognized that it was one thing for those feelings to last a month or so after I’d left Colorado. It was another entirely for them to still be lingering at this point in the game. I’d thought long and hard about this. Adoption just doesn’t feel right for me. I think a sperm donor feels like the best option but I also want to know who the father is.

  “You’re not going to say who?” Kelly said, snapping me out of my thoughts.

  “I’m keeping this one close to the vest,” I said with a smirk. “I’d like for it to be kind of a surprise.”

  “Just don’t surprise me and tell me it’s someone named Trent or Liam.”

  I laughed out loud. Liam was hot, but the idea of stealing Kelly’s guy was downright laughable. I loved Kelly, I would never.

  But her words did give me the in I needed to start to make something happen.

  “No, but speaking of Liam—at some point, can you ask him to give me Burke’s contact info? I need to thank him for wha
t he did a year ago, have never gotten a chance.”

  Kelly’s face soured immediately. A part of me worried that she’d already made the connection.

  “You know how those guys are with wanting to be contacted—or I should say, not at all,” Kelly said.

  That, I was all too familiar with. Liam had felt like the friendliest of all, the one most easily contacted, and it was still an enormous struggle to reach out to him at times.

  “I know, and I’m not going to ask him on a date or something. I just want the opportunity to have a thank you call or to write him a note. I mean, for goodness’ sakes, Kelly, he saved our lives! From Sean! It doesn’t get much bigger than that.”

  Kelly sighed. I could imagine Liam being annoyed at her request, if not outright suspicious. But if Kelly didn’t know my motivations, how would Liam?

  “You’re lucky you’re my best friend, Emily. I’m not sure there’s anyone else I’d even consider, let alone asking. Liam is going to give me a lot of hell for this.”

  “So just fuck him nice and all will be good.”

  “Emily!”

  I took a sip of my margarita, acting like I was too cool to be unsettled by a blunt statement like that.

  “Sorry, girl, alcohol makes this girl a bit loose-lipped!”

  That was true, but it obviously wasn’t the reason I’d said what I had.

  “I just have this terribly awkward vision of us being out on a double-date of sorts, and it would be so uncomfortable,” Kelly said, coming dangerously close to my ideal truth. “I don’t know Burke that well, but I know Liam is always tight-lipped about anything that goes on with his work, so—”

  “So just make this one request and I’ll be done with it, and—”

  My phone rang. I looked down at it and groaned.

  “Mom?”

  “Who else?” I said, rolling my eyes.

  My mother could not have been more different from me if someone wrote down polar opposite personality traits on a piece of paper. She lived in the chilly frost of New York, which seemed only all too appropriate. I lived in the warmth of Miami. She believed in a traditional family and always wondered why I hadn’t gotten married within a couple of years after graduating college. Even with my recent interest in having a child and a family, I was never one to do things the traditional way.

  And, in fact, seeing her name pop up on my phone cemented my desire to do what I was planning to do even more. Consequences be damned, I was going to have a child—even if it happened without the whole naked fun times part.

  “I’ll call her later,” I said. “But Kelly, seriously, anything you can do to get Burke’s contact information. It can be a P.O. box that leads to five or six reroutes, I don’t care. Just…do it for me, OK? Think of it as your gift to me for me finally escaping Sean.”

  “Oh, right, I should give you a gift for bringing him to Colorado.”

  I smiled. It was nice to know we were so far past that that we could laugh about it. Considering how dramatic and terrifying that whole sequence had been, that was not a given by any stretch of the imagination.

  “I’ll see what I can do, but I’m not going to make any promises,” she warned. “Liam and I may be very happy together, but we both try very hard not to poke into parts of the other person’s life we don’t belong in. I can’t go poking too hard into whatever he and Burke and anyone else have going on.”

  “I know, girl, I’m not asking you to marry us, just for you to let me thank him.”

  Kelly finally took a decent-sized gulp of her drink.

  “I’m not even sure he’s the kind of guy who’d want to be thanked,” she said. “Whenever I’d ask Liam about his coworkers, he always said Burke was the most dom of the doms, the kind of guy who just wanted to do his job and drive exotic cars. Whatever that meant.”

  Noted.

  “Sounds naughty.”

  Kelly chuckled. She may have become blunter and biting in her language, but I still knew how to get her to blush. She was not as good at keeping herself prim and proper as she thought she could.

  “Let’s not get into that. The point is, even if things go right, be prepared to reach out and not get anything in return.”

  Oh, I was. In fact, not only was I prepared to not get a response, I kind of leaned toward expecting it. Better to not have hopes that wound up getting fulfilled than to be crushed.

  But I also was prepared to do whatever it took to have a kid. Financial, gifting, surprises—I did not care what it took to get me pregnant with a child I didn’t have much time for.

  This was just the first step of what I knew would be a hell of a story someday. I just wondered how much of a story it would be—and if it would even have a happy ending.

  But it was a story I had to set out to make happen, one way or another.

  Chapter 2: Burke

  BAM!

  The last of the terrorists dropped. The boat had petered out in the middle of the Strait of Gibraltar, about couple dozen miles off the coast of Morocco. I’d already taken out all but this last ringleader, having successfully infiltrated the boat using the method my boss, Scott, had explained to me several years ago.

  Ensuring the all-clear, I hurried to the bottom of the boat and swung open the door. There were about a dozen girls there, ranging in age from probably thirteen to early twenties. Had DOM not tracked down this ring, the girls would have been sold into sex trafficking.

  “Scott,” I said into a walkie-talkie, “I got ‘em. Girls are safe.”

  Scott didn’t partake much in missions anymore. Women had pulled him and Liam away from their work with D.O.M. Liam had thrown a fit when Scott had gone for his woman, only for him to fall for the exact same thing shortly thereafter. I didn’t really give a fuck what anyone else did with their dick or free time. I did my job, made sure I never broke the rules, and got plenty of pussy otherwise. Scott and Liam could have orgies with their clients for all I cared as long as I got paid when I finished my jobs, which I always did.

  “Roger that,” Scott said. “Get ‘em back to land and we’ll get everything taken care of.”

  I told the girls to stay down below deck, figuring it was safest in case some unanticipated shit came up—as was the norm. I could never anticipate what would happen, but I could always anticipate that something would happen. I headed to the deck, commandeered the ship, and sailed it back to shore.

  A little while later, Scott had procured forces to arrive at the scene. As usual, I slipped out before anyone could thank me. I saw thanks as something to be given when someone went above and beyond the call of duty. This wasn’t me doing anything but my damn job, and I certainly didn’t need thanks for it.

  I headed back to one of the many bunkers that DOM had around the world, headed to the bed, collapsed into it, and stared at the ceiling.

  This DOM shit…I loved my job. I loved making a fucking difference in the world, and I loved that I wasn’t relegated to some bullshit desk. The money was great and the attachments few.

  Though I didn’t emotionally judge Scott and Liam for what they’d done, there was a certain intellectual fascination with their decision. We were, after all, men, prone to falling for women at some point in our lives. Was I due? Certainly, the very fact that Scott and Liam had ditched full-time DOMing for settled life was something that at least prompted the thought.

  But for now, nah. I was good with my life. I liked to keep it simple, and adding women and kids to the picture made it less simple. But simple doesn’t always equal happy.

  One of the burner phones in the place rang. Only one person could have known the numbers of said phones. I found the one ringing, picked it up, and answered.

  “Scott,” I said. I didn’t have to hear his voice to know it was him.

  “Burke, did you see any sign of who was leading this charge?”

  “No.”

  Not that that meant that we didn’t know who was behind it.

  “So then we know who it is by the lack of evid
ence.”

  Snake. The longtime rival of DOM, the man who made our lives a living hell, and the one who was responsible for kidnapping the woman that would become Scott’s. Snake had always sort of had an understanding with us that while he would do some abhorrent shit like kidnap girls and sell them, he’d never resort to death.

  But after Scott had taken Kaylie right from under him, well, he’d gotten a little bit harder. A little bit crazier. A little bit more unhinged. And in the last few years, I’d seen what an unhinged Snake could look like. It was a Snake that needed to be put down.

  In due time, though. The last thing we needed to do was storm the castle before we saw an opportunity.

  “Yep,” I simply said on the phone.

  “OK. Stand by for now. We’ve got a plane that can take you back to Connecticut. You’re free to do as you wish until then.”

  “Good.”

  With that, we hung up. I grabbed a hammer, smashed the shit out of the phone, and went to sleep.

  When I woke up, I had a text on my actual personal phone. It was from Liam. That was odd—though it wasn’t unheard of for us to send trivial messages to each other, Liam had done so far less since he’d shacked up.

  I immediately prepared for a sort of domestic mission, the kind that was personal like when I’d helped him rescue his girl from that one asshole. Those tended to be on the easier side since they weren’t as well-funded, but the one thing I’d learned in DOM, if nothing else, was that seemingly simple missions could explode in completely unexpected ways very quickly.

  “Heads up, I gave your number to a client that said you saved her life. Hope it doesn’t cause any problems.”

  That didn’t narrow it down to anyone. And frankly, I didn’t much care either way. I’d take the call and then move on.

  And then…I thought about it some more. This was very unlike Liam to just give my number out like it was a coupon to a local pizza shop.

  Who would have contacted Liam to get in touch with me? It wouldn’t have been anyone overseas. There was only one client that I had worked with who could have had that connection, and it was when I went to Colorado nearly a year ago.