by Melanie Milburne, author of Enemies at the Altar (Harlequin Presents, September 2012)
Have you ever hated someone only to change your mind about them later? Or loved them passionately only to end up positively loathing them? How close to hate is love? Are they really two sides of the same coin?
Socrates said: “From the deepest desires often comes the deadliest hate.”
Andreas Ferrante and Sienna Baker are archenemies. They positively loathe each other. For years they have assiduously avoided any contact, but on Andreas’s father’s death he is outraged to find he must marry Sienna in order to secure his inheritance.
Sienna is the wild child daughter of the housekeeper who destroyed his parent’s marriage. Andreas can think of no one on the planet he would like to marry less! But marry her he must, otherwise he stands to lose what is rightfully his.
Sienna is equally outraged. As far as she is concerned Andreas is a spoilt, filthy rich playboy with a control complex. But if she agrees to marry him, at the end of six months she will receive a massive payout. They both want a hands off arrangement but what will happen when
these two opposites attack?!!
Her top lip curled at him and her grey-blue eyes glittered. ‘You were going to kiss me, weren’t you?’
Andreas ground his teeth until he thought he’d have to eat jelly for the rest of his life. ‘I want to throttle you, not kiss you,’ he said.
‘You put one finger on me and see what happens,’ she said matching him stare for stare.
Andreas already knew what would happen. He could feel it in his body. It was thundering through his veins like a torpedo. He couldn’t think of a time when he had felt such a forceful, uncontrollable desire. It was like being a hormone-driven teenager all over again. Dynamite couldn’t do more damage than Sienna in temptress mode. ‘Get out of my sight,’ he ground out savagely.
She put up her chin. ‘Say please.’
I can’t think of a book I’ve enjoyed writing more than this one. Andreas and Sienna were alive to me from the moment I put my fingers on the keyboard. They were vibrant and witty, determined and passionate all the way to the end. I was smiling as I wrote the last scene where Andreas comes storming down a deserted windswept beach in order to tell Sienna he loved her. He was shouting all the way!
This quote from French writer Marcel Jouhandeau sums up perfectly the heart of Andreas and Sienna’s story: “To really know someone is to have loved and hated them in turn.”
Who have you loved and hated in return? Or is it your job or a task you have a love/hate relationship with?
I will send a signed copy of Enemies at the Altar as well as the sister book in the duo Deserving of His Diamonds to the most entertaining comment.
Warmest wishes,
Melanie Milburne
I’ve had quite a few of this kind of relationship. I’ve had one with my vehicle.. a vehicle that I had so many problems with but I couldn’t afford a new one yet. I never really had one with an ex.. it was mostly with inanimate objects.
I’m sure many can concur on this: I have a love/hate (mostly hate) relationship with my bathroom scales. Undoubtedly, if one listens closely enough in the mornings, one can hear me either groan in displeasure (“uhhhh”) or squeal in pleasure (“yes!).
Hi Melanie,
That is so funny! I had a car like that once too. I even had a Basil Fawlty ( great scene in Fawlty Towers) moment with it when it wouldn’t start.
Hi Laney4,
I think you’ve struck a chord there with heaps of us. The bathroom scales are a mortal enemy at times.
I hate the mirror or lighting in change rooms. Sometimes they make you look passable and other times I want to grab the nearest brown paper bag and pop it over my head!
So where do I start? I have a love/hate not really hate but with my dog and cats..The cats have the run of the house and my dog isn’t to happy about it..When my cats are sleeping and my dog is sleeping I love them all because it is so calm in the house but as soon as they wake up it’s a wild house and thats the part I don’t like..
Love the dialogue between the 2 of them – sizzle!!
I love Laney’s comment & totally agree with it!
Even if the feelings aren’t always *quite* as extreme as described in your post, I have to say most of the great love stories of literature and movies have that love/hate thing going on. Scarlett and Rhett, Darcy and Elizabeth, many of the classic movies from the 40′s and 50′s (and even earlier!), and so many of the romance books I’ve read over the years have included that in the plot. There’s something about seeing a relationship transition between those powerful emotions…the extremes=combustion.
I would have to say the mail. It can bring such joy and excitement and other times such rejection and heartbreak.
i have to told you about the strange (loveand hate) with my job rigt now. after 11 years.. from none until now i really like my job as a legal staff. sometimes i think i wanna quit this job but in the same time i really love this job, not the boss. lol. well strange to me.
thanks for the giveaway.
I had a job I really love. I just hate the office politics. I ‘m judt couldn’t brown-nosed. I even have a supervisor that was really out to get me. She sabotaged my promotion and thought I couldn’t leave. As much as I love the job, I took another promotion that basically made me her boss. Yay, there is a god.
It’s the highs and lows of romance that make a story worth writing…and worth reading! We need the black moment, that feeling that it’s lost forever to get to that ultimate satisfaction. And what better illustration of the ups and downs of a romance than extremities of feelings. Extreme aversion and loathing turning to passionate love must be difficult to write but oh so satisfying! Not only the writing of it, but the reading of it too! The extremity of feelings gives rise to great moments of humour, tension and ultimately, satisfaction.
Gosh, I’ve gone on a bit! Hope you didn’t mind!
Ever since I read and commented on this post this morning, there is a Bollywood film song going around in my head. It’s called I HATE YOU LIKE I LOVE YOU and it’s making me laugh.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cc3vLHIPb7g
Hi Kai,
You’re so right about office politics. I think most workplaces have their good and bad side. That’s why I love my job-no one else is in my office but me…well, apart from my characters and my two dogs!
Mirrors? Definitely.
I remember walking towards a mirror in Anaheim, Melanie – and you behind me, hissing, “Don’t look, don’t look!”
And then there was that awful cracking noise…..
(Love your books) xx
Sharon, you make me laugh. xx
Gosh, so many great comments. Brenda, I had to agree on the mail. Before I was published I used to feel those highs and lows as another rejection came in. Now it’s the bills I hate but that’s not so bad.
And Laura, indeed where would we be without those great love/hate relationships in literature and film? I love Rock Hudson and Doris Day films where they loathe each other to start with. So funny.
Well, I’ve had a think about it and I think I’ll give Laney 4 the books for her comment about her love hate relationship with the bathroom scales. Laney shoot me an email at melaniemilburne@gmail.com and I’ll get them to you soon!
Romance and love are the most unpredictable thing in this world . I ever love a guy who I hate at the same time. I love him because we both are fire but then I realize fire could not get along with fire . Fire needs oil to survive and woods to survive as well . That’s why our love is can’t last forever . We were just too much alike
.
Just popped my email off to you. Thanks so much, Melanie!