Hate at First Sight Read Free Page B

smile on his face. I felt like an insect that he was studying carefully under the microscope of his thoughts.
    I almost jumped when he touched my hand. “You okay?”
    “What?”
    “You look like you are going to be sick.”
    “Why would you think that?” I crossed my arms in a defensive gesture. If only that could help me put some distance between us.
    He flinched at the coldness of my words. “No, you are still the same Megan.”
    “And what’s that supposed to mean?” I took off my glasses waiting for his response. Everything he was saying sounded like a challenge to me, and I was more than willing to meet it.
    “If I didn’t know you better, I would have thought that you wanted to freeze me by the cold radiating from you.”
    I raised my eyebrows, surprised. “So you think you know me?”
    Another irritating chuckle followed. “I know you better than you know yourself.”
    “Oh, yeah? Don’t you think you give yourself too much credit, Honey?” I said as sweetly as I could.
    “I don’t think so, Sugar,” he replied, playing up to my intonation. The last word was accompanied by the wink that I desperately wanted to kill him for. “Do you want to hear what I really think about you?”
    “Dying to,” I snapped, my eyes never leaving his self-satisfied face.
    “Okay. So let’s start with your attitude to me.”
    I rolled my eyes. “Of course. This is the most important thing to discuss.”
    “Seriously, Megan, what’s wrong with me flirting with you? I’m a man after all. You are a beautiful woman. The Earth won’t stop spinning if you bless me with a smile.”
    I laughed. Like really laughed. For the first time in 24 hours. His sudden seriousness humored me. “Happy now?” I asked, wiping away a few joyful tears.
    But he didn’t say a word. Instead, he looked at me as if I had just said that the grass was purple.
    “What?”
    “Nothing.” He frowned, and switched his attention back to the road.
    “You sounded so serious,” I said, still smiling.
    “Did I?”
    “I never thought you could actually be serious about anything.”
    “You don’t know me.”
    “Uh, you are the only one here who knows everything about everyone. Yeah, I got it. So go ahead. What else did you want to say about me?”
    “There will be a day when you meet a man that will crack your shell. And trust me, Megan, when it happens, you won’t be able to keep pretending. You will feel, and you will lose.”
    And that wasn’t actually what I expected to hear in response. “I never lose.”
    “Even the most famous winner of different competitions had at least one loss in between the endless rows of their golden medals.”
    In the blink of an eye the atmosphere in the car changed. I moved further from Aiden, and got back to studying the landscape outside the window. And he … well, he suddenly became very cold and humorless. An invisible wall rose between us. Huge and thick.
    I couldn’t understand what made him so angry. I didn’t do anything! I only laughed at this stupid comment. Or it wasn’t that stupid? Did he have a point? Was it so hard to smile at him for once and not to play my usual bitch part? Good question….
    I never let people get too close to me. They could only see what I wanted them to see. Nothing else. Maybe that’s why I didn’t have many friends? I liked going shopping alone, I could easily go to a café not thinking about bringing a date with me; and falling asleep alone was just fine….
    Well, not always. Sometimes I really wished there was someone’s warm body to embrace, and not just a cold pillow. But in most cases, it didn’t bother me. I was still sure that I had plenty of time to enjoy the failures of the relationships. Somehow I was sure that I wasn’t able to love and devote myself to anyone.
    That’s why Aiden’s words scared me. I wasn’t ready to open myself to anyone. Was I paranoid about being left with a broken heart? Maybe. Misery was not on the list of my Christmas