Page 5 of Paper Horses

“Gabe, I’m serious. Send the car back now. Tori can come out and handle this just like she conveniently secured the deal. Let me guess, she used her maiden name?”

“Something like that.”

“I hate you even more now.”

“Eh, you love me and you need this.”

“I need this?” I screamed.

“Must be bad service there. You’re breaking up.”

“William Gabriel Icinda, you⁠—”

“What? Can’t hear you, Liv.”

He disconnected, and I stared at the phone before a frustrated scream tore from me. I stomped my foot, but my heel sank, and I almost tumbled over. Calming myself, I tugged my heel free and smoothed my hand over my dress. With a toss of my hair, I turned to face the house. I couldn’t stay here. There was no way I could survive three days here. Not with the threat of memories slipping from where I had stored them for over a decade. Closing my heart off, becoming a lesser version of my father.

Not here. Not with Hudson.

Chapter 3

Hudson

Olivia Icinda. All the times I’d pictured her through the years, and none came close to how beautiful she’d become. She’d always had an air of beauty about her, but now power, style, and confidence enhanced it.

Never in a million years had I imagined seeing her again. Not after the way things had ended. The abrupt rupturing of my heart and the vicious defensive words that had followed. Self-preservation that hadn’t worked because she’d left me decimated.

Seeing her reopened the wounds, ones that had never healed but that I had covered as best I could.

I rested my hands on the island. She would leave, go back to the city and to her life, and I’d return to living my life just like I had since the day she walked out of it.

With a deep breath, I walked to the window and peeked out. She was shouting into the phone at her brother, her brown hair bouncing with her frustration. I’d met her brother only once when she’d brought me home one weekend. He’d been a lanky teenager, sharp with hazel eyes that matched his sister’s and that keenly observed me almost as intensely as her father had. That man had made me glad she’d never taken me back to their house in the Hamptons. Steely brown eyes, curt questions. Unfriendly was a compliment for what he had been, and the tension in the room had been so thick I didn’t think my steak knife could have cut it.

She stomped her feet and lowered the phone before looking down the lane. Her reaction caused me to think her brother had been of no help. Damn, if she was stuck here all weekend, I’d lose my shit. I was barely keeping it together as it was.

I moved to the door and opened it, leaning on the doorframe with my arms crossed as she punched something into her phone.

“I’m guessing your brother wasn’t helpful?”

Her eyes shot up.

“Not the first time,” she griped, her lips, a light mauve stain, pouting. I couldn’t stop my eyes from dropping to them. “I’ll use my car service app.”

My snort had her hazel eyes flashing with irritation.

“You find that funny?”

“I do. No one comes this far. You’re two hours from the city. There’s a bus that runs⁠—”

“I’m not taking a bus.”

I stared at her, wondering what had happened to turn her into the spoiled rich woman she’d always said she would never be. But then again, it had been fifteen years. Years that had hardened me, starting the day she’d said goodbye and growing worse every year. Women had tried to break through the wall I’d built, but it always ended the same. With them disappointed because they couldn’t change me. Couldn’t get me to love them because Olivia had destroyed that possibility.

“I’ll stay in town until my brother gets his head out of his ass. We drove through a town.”

“Sure, about thirty minutes out. Russ and Bridget have an extra room; their son moved to Utah last year. If you don’t mind Bridget’s pet pig or Russ’ snake collection.” The sheer horror that twisted her features was worth teasing her. “I hear the pig, Barney is his name, likes to rut in your bathwater. With as prudish as you are now, you could probably use the thrill.”

Her jaw went stiff, her eyes flaming in shades of green and chestnut that shimmered in the sunlight.