As Long As You Hate Me
Carrie Aarons
Contemporary Romance
December 3, 2017
Kara
High school sweethearts. What a load of bull.
He might have been my first love, but it never meant I wanted to hear lyrics containing my name, love story, and *cringe* how I lost my virginity peddled out for the masses to digest.
Seven years later, and I’m still being haunted by his photo in every magazine, his music on every radio station. I thought breakups meant that you never had to see the person again. Especially when they ripped out your heart and made hamburger meat with it.
But when a chance encounter ends up going viral, I’m tied to him in a way I’ve always dreaded. And the last person on earth I’d want to spend an hour with, much less a lifetime, makes me an offer I can’t refuse. I might just be desperate enough to take it.
Dean
The girl in the song is real. And she’s made me a rich man.
I’ve been dedicating choruses to her for a decade, she’s the muse she never wanted to be. Off of our love, I’ve become famous … and a complete egomaniac.
When another one of my flings goes off the rails, and lands me in hot water with the media, my recording label is less than thrilled. And so comes the marching orders from my agent; devise a scheme to transform into a squeaky clean good guy.
Coming face to face with her is something I’ve only dreamed about. If not to win her back, then to at least apologize for the ways I’ve exploited her. Instead, I rope her into my madness, proposing a deal only a masochist would accept.
Okay, I have to start with that this is my first Carrie Aarons book and I think I just fell in love.
Oh Dean and Kara, your love story is one of a kind. I’ve always wished I had a high school sweetheart, even if it didn’t work out. When we first meet them, they’re still in high school, talking about what’ll happen when Dean makes it big. When, not if. Kara is so, so supportive of Dean, even if it means they’ll be thousands of miles apart, she just wants him to be happy.
Relationships take a lot of work, a successful relationship doesn’t always mean no fights or arguments, it means that you’ll talk things through and make sure you know the whole story to something. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately?) when some incriminating evidence turns up, Kara doesn’t listen to his side of the story and instead ends things completely, with him not even fully knowing what happened.
These second chance romances are some of my favorites. I mean, I love all romances, I live my love life vicariously through all of the romance stories I read. But I especially love when its a rekindled love. It’s always a fun time to see how these contract relationships end up. Years pass for Kara and Dean, seven to be exact, but who’s counting? Kara still sees his image splashed across magazines. His songs on the radio, songs that are about her. Lyrics about their love and how they lost their virginity. Everyone knew the songs were all about one girl, but no one knew who, until they’re thrown back together.
Someone always falls back in love or in love for the first time when its a contract relationship, right? Because when it comes down to these relationships there is always some kind of connection prior to signing on the dotted line, whether it’s someone you’ve crushed on for years, someone you dated say, seven years ago and they crushed your heart or someone you thought you were over and it turns out your heart has lied to you all this time. I mean, if we really really think about it and someone like Dean Jacobs wanted to write songs about me and sing them to me, I’d be his fake fiance too. (This is a heads up to any singers out there that may read this, Dean Jacobs, are you real?)
Carrie writes phenomenally, I think I need to run and buy all her other books. Of course, if you read any romance type story you know there is always a moment where they fall apart, but Carrie surprised me. It didn’t go down like I thought. This whole book was epic-ally (is that a word?) wrote and I love it, all of it. The angst, the heart ache, the happy go lucky parts.
Author of romance novels such as The Tenth Girl and Privileged, Carrie Aarons writes books that are just as swoon-worthy as they are sarcastic. A former journalist, she prefers the love stories of her imagination, and the athleisure dress code, much better.
When she isn’t writing, Carrie is busy binging reality TV, having a love/hate relationship with cardio, and trying not to burn dinner. She’s a Jersey girl living in Texas with her husband, daughter and furry son.
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