Loathe to Love You - Hardcover

Hazelwood, Ali

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0593638832 ISBN 13: 9780593638835

Verlag: Berkley, 2023

Inhaltsangabe

An Instant New York Times Bestseller!

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Love Hypothesis comes a collection of steamy, STEMinist novellas featuring a trio of engineers and their loves in loathing—with a special bonus chapter!

Under One Roof
An environmental engineer discovers that scientists should never cohabitate when she finds herself stuck with the roommate from hell—a detestable big-oil lawyer who won’t leave the thermostat alone.
 
Stuck with You
A civil engineer and her nemesis take their rivalry—and love—to the next level when they get stuck in a New York elevator.
 
Below Zero
A NASA aerospace engineer's frozen heart melts as she lies injured and stranded at a remote Arctic research station and the only person willing to undertake the dangerous rescue mission is her longtime rival.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Ali Hazelwood is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Love, Theoretically and The Love Hypothesis, as well as a writer of peer-reviewed articles about brain science, in which no one makes out and the ever after is not always happy. Originally from Italy, she lived in Germany and Japan before moving to the US to pursue a PhD in neuroscience. When Ali is not at work, she can be found running, eating cake pops, or watching sci-fi movies with her three feline overlords (and her slightly-less-feline husband).

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One

Six months ago

Frankly, "They get on like a house on fire" is the most misleading saying in the English language. Faulty wiring? Misuse of heating equipment? Suspected arson? Not evocative of two people getting along in the least. You know what a house on fire has me picturing? Bazookas. Flamethrowers. Sirens in the distance. Because nothing is more guaranteed to start a house fire than two enemies blowtorching each other's most prized possession. Want to trigger an explosion? Being nice to your roommate is not going to do it. Lighting a match on top of their kerosene-soaked handmade quilt, on the other hand-"

"Miss?" The Uber driver turns, looking guilty about interrupting my pre-apocalyptic spiel. "Just a heads-up-we're about five minutes from your destination."

I smile an apologetic Thank you and glance back at my phone. My two best friends' faces take up the entire screen. Then, on the upper corner there's me: more frowny than usual (well justified), more pasty than usual (is that even possible?), more ginger than usual (must be the filter, right?).

"That's a totally fair take, Mara," Sadie says with a puzzled expression, "and I encourage you to submit your, um, very valid complaints to Madame Merriam-Webster or whoever's in charge of these matters, but . . . I literally only asked you how the funeral went."

"Yes, Mara-how'd-funeral-go-?" The quality on Hannah's end of the call is pitiful, but that's business as usual.

This, I suppose, is what happens when you meet your best friends in grad school: One minute you're happy as a clam, clutching your shiny brand-new engineering diploma, giggling your way through a fifth round of Midori sours. The next you're in tears, because you're all going separate ways. FaceTime becomes as necessary as oxygen. There are zero neon-green cocktails in sight. Your slightly deranged monologues don't happen in the privacy of the apartment you share, but in the semipublic backseat of an Uber, while you're on your way to have a very, very weird conversation.

See, that's the thing I hate the most about adulting: at some point, one has to start doing it. Sadie is designing fancy eco-sustainable buildings in New York City. Hannah is freezing her butt off at some Arctic research station NASA put up in Norway. And as for me . . .

I'm here. Moving to D.C. to start my dream job-scientist at the Environmental Protection Agency. On paper, I should be over the moon. But paper burns so fast. As fast as houses on fire.

"Helena's funeral was . . . interesting." I lean back against the seat. "I guess that's the upside of knowing that you're about to die. You get to bully people a bit. Tell them that if they don't play 'Karma Chameleon' while lowering your casket your ghost will haunt their progeny for generations."

"I'm just glad you were able to be with her in the last few days," Sadie says.

I smile wistfully. "She was the worst till the very end. She cheated in our last chess game. As if she wouldn't have beaten me anyway." I miss her. An inordinate amount. Helena Harding, my Ph.D. advisor and mentor for the past eight years, was family in a way my cold, distant blood relatives never cared to be. But she was also elderly, in a lot of pain, and, as she liked to put it, eager to move on to bigger projects.

"It was so lovely of her to leave you her D.C. house," Hannah says. She must have moved to a better fjord, because I can actually make out her words. "Now you'll have a place to be, no matter what."

It's true. It's all true, and I am immensely grateful. Helena's gift was as generous as it was unexpected, easily the kindest thing anyone has ever done for me. But the reading of the will was a week ago, and there's something I haven't had a chance to tell my friends. Something closely related to houses on fire. "About that . . ."

"Uh-oh." Two sets of brows furrow. "What happened?"

"It's . . . complicated."

"I love complicated," Sadie says. "Is it also dramatic? Let me go get tissues."

"Not sure yet." I take a fortifying breath. "The house Helena left me, as it turns out, she didn't really . . . own it."

"What?" Sadie aborts the tissue mission to frown at me.

"Well, she did own it. But only a little. Only . . . half."

"And who owns the other half?" Trust Hannah to zoom in on the crux of the problem.

"Originally, Helena's brother, who died and left it to his kids. Then the youngest son bought out the others, and now he's the sole owner. Well, with me." I clear my throat. "His name is Liam. Liam Harding. He's a lawyer in his early thirties. And he currently lives in the house. Alone."

Sadie's eyes widen. "Holy shit. Did Helena know?"

"I have no clue. You'd assume, but the Hardings are such a weird family." I shrug. "Old money. Lots of it. Think Vanderbilts. Kennedys. What even goes on in rich people's brains?"

"Probably monocles," Hannah says.

I nod. "Or topiary gardens."

"Cocaine."

"Polo tournaments."

"Cuff links."

"Hang on," Sadie interrupts us. "What did Liam Vanderbilt Kennedy Harding say about this at the funeral?"

"Excellent question, but: he wasn't there."

"He didn't show up to his aunt's funeral?"

"He doesn't really keep in touch with his family. Lots of drama, I suspect." I tap my chin. "Maybe they're less Vanderbilts, more Kardashians?"

"Are you saying that he doesn't know that you own the other half of his house?"

"Someone gave me his number and I told him I'd be coming around." I pause before adding, "Via text. We haven't talked yet." Another pause. "And he didn't really . . . reply."

"I don't like this," Sadie and Hannah say in unison. Any other time I'd laugh about their hive mind, but there's something else I still haven't told them. Something they'll like even less.

"Fun fact about Liam Harding . . . You know how Helena was, like, the Oprah of environmental science?" I chew on my lower lip. "And she always joked that her entire family was mostly liberal-leaning academics out to save the world from the clutches of big corporations?"

"Yeah?"

"Her nephew is a corporate lawyer for FGP Corp." Just saying the words makes me want to gargle with mouthwash. And floss. My dentist will be thrilled.

"FGP Corp-the fossil fuels people?" A deep line appears in the middle of Sadie's brow. "Big oil? Supermajors?"

"Yep."

"Oh my God. Does he know you're an environmental scientist?"

"Well, I did give him my name. And my LinkedIn profile is just a Google search away. Do rich people use LinkedIn, you think?"

"No one uses LinkedIn, Mara." Sadie rubs her temple. "Jesus Christ, this is really bad."

"It's not that bad."

"You can't go meet with him alone."

"I'll be fine."

"He'll kill you. You'll kill him. You'll kill each other."

"I . . . maybe?" I close my eyes and lean back against the seat. I've been talking myself out of panicking for seventy-two hours-with mixed results. I can't crack now. "Believe me, he's the last person I want to co-own a house with. But Helena did leave half of it to me, and I kind of need it? I owe a billion in student loans, and D.C. is crazy expensive. Maybe I can stay there for a bit? Save on rent. It's a fiscally responsible decision, no?"

Sadie face-palms just as Hannah says combatively, "Mara, you were a grad student until ten minutes ago. You're barely above the poverty line. Do not let him kick you out of that house."

"Maybe he won't even mind! I'm actually very surprised he lives there. Don't get me wrong, the house is nice, but . . ." I trail off, thinking about the pictures I've seen, the hours spent on Google Street View scrolling and rescrolling through the frames, trying to get a grip on the fact that Helena cared about me enough to leave me a...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Berkley
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2023
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0593638832
• ISBN 13: 9780593638835
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 384
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: preigu; mail@preigu.de; ; Lengericher Landstr. 19; Osnabrück; 49078; Deutschland