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“I’ll get you one,” he said quietly, shuffling past me and toward the house. Instantly, the cold I hadn’t felt before sunk into my skin, my bones, and I wrapped my arms around myself to keep from shivering.
Mistake.
I snatched the towel from his hands when he reappeared through the sliding glass door, wrapping it around me tightly as I wrung the water from my hair. I couldn’t look at him, couldn’t meet his eyes. I desperately didn’t want to acknowledge what I’d feel if I did.
“I… I’ll do better from now on. I’m sorry. I’ll keep my hands off you. This can’t happen again,” he sighed, dragging a towel along his perfectly warm, naked body.
“It won’t happen again,” I corrected him. “Fuck you, Hudson. Maybe with the next girl you inevitably drag into your life, you won’t let your fucking dick make all of the decisions.” I grabbed my dress and heels from the ground, holding them to my chest, and shoved past him. I just wanted to go home. I needed to be alone, to process this in my own way, to not scream and wake the four-year-old upstairs. Mistake.
“Sophie, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.” His hand caught my wrist, and I was tempted to break it just to get away. Stop grabbing my fucking wrist.
I laughed, a physical, full-bodied laugh. “Is this a joke to you? Am I?” The backs of my eyes burned, the threat of tears imminent, and god fucking dammit I didn’t want him seeing me cry. I didn’t want to cry in the first place, but it seemed there was no helping that. “Do you think it’s okay to say that having sex with me was a mistake when your cock was still inside of me, Hudson?”
“It’s not that,” he insisted, taking a quick step toward me as I took one back. “It’s just… it’s Jamey. It’s always Jamey, okay? I don’t get to do what I want because I have someone else I have to constantly be thinking about. You think you want this?—”
“Don’t,” I warned, lifting one hand to shut him up before he could say something worse. “You have no right to say what I should and shouldn’t want. I’m not even a mother yet and even I know that you can still have a damn life and a child at the same time.”
He fell silent as his grip on my wrist loosened. The wind whistled through the trees of the subdivision, lifting the strands of his too-perfect hair away from his too-symmetrical face. It was more than I could bear, all of it. The air made my face feel damp, and when I pressed my fingers against it, I realized it wasn’t wet from the pool. I’d shown too much of myself. Mistake.
“Goodnight, Hudson.” I stepped through the doors, thankful that he seemed to stay put, and gathered the rest of my things before heading straight out the front door. Wrapped only in a towel, with my thoughts spiraling and my chest aching, I walked across the lawn to my home, to my safety net.
I need to get out of all of this.
Chapter 23
Hudson
Tuesday
The temptation to apologize sat heavy in me as I went about my life. I’d only seen Sophie briefly yesterday and this morning, she’d arrived right as I was leaving, not saying a word.
I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Saturday night. Seeing her like that—wild, free, easygoing with me—was too much. It had chipped away at the ice in my chest, had made me want more than I should have. But, god, the sex had been insane. I’d never stepped so far out of my comfort zone, and seeing her naked, glistening, sprawled out on my pool deck had been far too tempting. The image was still burned into my mind, still taunting me as I worked, as I cooked, as I drove. I couldn’t do a damned thing without it lingering in the background.
I needed to make up with her. I knew that. I needed to apologize, to make it right, to tell her that I’d fucked up. You told her it was a mistake with your dick still inside of her, you idiot.
I stood from my desk, deciding that the least I could do was set up the appointment she was desperately awaiting. Quickly, I made my way to reception, interrupting the nurses and staff chatting behind the counter.
“Can you make an appointment for one of my patients, Sophia Mitchell? Should be approximately two weeks from now if she’s called to update us on her cycle,” I said, pointing my pen lazily toward the computer for bookings.
Janice came around the corner, her clipboard clung to her chest. “Didn’t you hear? She called this morning saying she no longer needed our services.”
The pen in my hand nearly snapped as I turned to her. What the fuck? “What do you mean she no longer needs our services? Is she going to a different clinic?”
“No, Dr. Brady. She said she’s pregnant.”
Pregnant.
My vision blurred as my mind spun. It’s mine. It’s mine. It’s mine. I felt like I was going to faint, like the world was going to slip out from under me and I’d fall, fall, fall, out the other end and deep into the milky way, gone. How did this happen? How could I let things go this far?
“Dr. Brady?”
“Cancel my appointments,” I mumbled, my shaky fingers already fumbling with my white coat. “I need to go home.”
“But you still have three?—”
“Cancel them,” I snapped. “Shove them off on someone else if you have to.”
————
