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Sophie snatched a piece of bread before he’d even set the cutting board down. “So what is it that you so desperately had to drag me all the way out here for? In the pouring rain, on a yacht, with a private chef. It must be good,” she chuckled, dipping her bread into the chowder as the chef retreated back to the kitchen. “Or really bad, I guess.”
My grasp on the spoon in my hand went slippery. “Maybe we should wait until after dinner to chat?”
“That bad, huh?” I watched as she stuffed a mouthful of bread between her lips.
“It could go either way.” Dipping my spoon into the milky-white soup, I suddenly felt far too nauseous to eat. “And if it goes badly, then this date is going to be extremely awkward for both of us.”
Sophie wiped the corner of her mouth with her thumb, her eyes studying me. “I don’t think it’ll go badly. If I didn’t want to be on a date with you, Hudson, I wouldn’t have agreed to come.”
She had a point. She had to at least have some idea of where this was going, though maybe not how far.
“Can I guess?” Sophie asked, tearing another piece of bread as she watched me. I didn’t know what to say, and she took my silence as a yes. “Okay, so, this is going to be even more awkward if I’m wrong. But I think you’re finally going to admit that you have feelings for me. I think you’re going to lay it all out there, the good and the bad, and tell me you want to give us a real shot.”
I blinked at her, feeling far too much like an open book. The spoon in my hand dropped into the bowl, little droplets of clam chowder arcing up and landing on the wooden table. “That is… uh…” I cleared my throat as I grabbed for my napkin, hastily wiping away the specks of soup and fighting the urge to run away.
“Shit, am I wrong?” She asked around a mouthful of food, wide eyes getting wider, blushed cheeks getting redder. “Shit.”
“No, you’re not wrong.” The words left me before I could even process them. “That’s exactly what I’m doing, Sophia.”
“Oh,” she mumbled, hurriedly swallowing her mouthful of soupy bread. “Oh.”
I took a deep breath, forcing my racing heart to calm down, grasping onto the napkin so hard I was worried the fabric would tear. Do it now. Do it now. “I was going to wait until after dinner, but I might as well just do it now since you’ve already guessed.” Another deep breath, in through my nose and out through my mouth.
“Take your time,” she said. I nodded.
“You know parts of my story. Little glimpses here and there that I gave up, or that you shoved your way into. You know my ex-wife, Becks, left me and Jamey two years ago, and you know that I’ve been closed off ever since. I didn’t see a future where I could find someone that made me feel again. But somehow, Sophia, you did. I don’t know how. I don’t know what witchcraft you hide under those adorable freckles, but you’ve weaseled your way in and fucking unfrosted my heart.”
Sophie blinked at me, the bread in her hand crumbling into her soup.
“I think I might have known from the moment you ran across your yard barefoot and told your parents we were engaged,” I chuckled, the words flowing a little smoother now, a little less frightening. “Or maybe when I caught you watching me from your window. From that moment I knew you’d be trouble at the very least.”
Sophie’s face grew redder, her hand covering her half-open mouth. “I’m definitely trouble,” she breathed, the smallest laugh crawling from her lips.
“You are such fucking trouble,” I chuckled, reaching across the table until my hand rested atop hers. “When you showed up in my office that first time, I wasn’t sure if I was the luckiest or unluckiest man in the world. But I knew there was a pull between us, some invisible string tugging me toward you. I felt it pull when I saw you with Jamey that afternoon on the first day you watched him. I felt it pull when you asked me about Becks. I felt it pull that night that I took you for the first time, felt it in the way I couldn’t keep my hands off you, felt it in the way you breathed.”
“Hudson…”
“I felt it pull harder when we fought. When I told you that sleeping with you was a mistake… that still fucking haunts me. I hated myself for that. I felt it pull when you hadn’t spoken to me for days afterward, harder and harder each night, telling me to just go fix it. It pulled me so hard when I found out you were pregnant that I was honestly scared it might snap.”
I took another deep breath, my mouth going dry, and tried to quench it with my glass of wine. It only made it worse.
“But throughout all of that, I was terrified. I still am. What happened with Becks, it wasn’t like I saw it coming. We weren’t fighting constantly, we were happy, we had a child. She was a great mom, not the best, but she was good.” My hand spasmed from clenching the napkin so hard, dropping it from my grip. “The day before she left, the three of us went out sailing on this fucking boat and we had what I thought was the best day ever. Jamey fell asleep on the drive home. We were out late because we had a hard time docking, the water was a bit choppy. I carried Jamey up to bed that night and the look she gave me… I don’t know if I should have suspected something was wrong right then and there, but it was different. Loving, but different.”
Sophie’s hand squeezed mine, and as I watched her, her eyes darted to the corner of the room. She held up one hand and shook her head before looking back to me, and when I turned, I saw Chef Thomas backing out of the room with plates full of food. “Is that why you didn’t want to get on the boat?”
I nodded. “Yeah. When I woke up the next morning, she was gone. I haven’t been on board since.”
“Oh, Hudson…”
I sucked in air, needing to feel the sharpness of my lungs filling. I’m okay, Jamey’s okay, Sophie’s okay. “I didn’t trust anyone after that for a while. I vowed to myself that I’d never let anyone get that close to me or Jamey again. But then you came along, and all of that went out the window. Or, rather, I’ve been fighting myself over it ever since. But this is different. This is so much more than what I’ve ever felt before, and we’ve only known each other, what, two months? If that?”
“Two years if we’re going based on what we’ve told our parents,” she joked, her hand squeezing mine again.
“Yeah,” I chuckled. “It feels like two years, to be honest. It feels like longer. It feels like I might have known you my whole life, like I was just waiting for you to appear. I’ve fucking fallen in love with you, Sophia. I’ve torn down my walls for you. I’ve let you in, let Jamey get attached. I’ve gone against everything I told myself I wouldn’t do for you. I’m only sorry that I’ve handled it all so poorly.”
I watched as her throat bobbed, her eyes going glassy, tears beginning to form. She laughed lightly at herself as she wiped them away with the back of her finger, preserving as much mascara as she could. “I’ve fallen in love with you too,” she sniffled.
I breathed out a sigh of relief, my grin far too wide to even try to hide it. “Good,” I said, standing from the table and shoving my hand into the pocket of my slacks. I wrapped my fingers tightly around the little wooden box. “That makes what I’m about to do a lot less terrifying.”
