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“It takes two to have sex. I’m not exactly blameless.”
He makes a non-committal sound. “I’m the one that asked you to have a drink, knowing where it could lead. I’m the one that stayed over. I’m the one that made you scream loud enough to attract attention.”
I tilt my face up so that I can look him in the eye. “Is this a mess? Yes. But you don’t have to be a martyr about it. I knew having a drink could lead to this. Hell, I hoped that it would. I could have asked you to leave, and I didn’t. I wanted you here this morning. So you can’t take the blame for it. Except for the fiancée part. That’s all you.”
Hudson chuckles, the vibrations deep in his chest resonating through me. Standing here wrapped up in him makes all my panic melt away. That doesn’t exactly make sense, given the fact that he’s the reason I have to panic. But nothing can reach me here. All I feel is calm and warmth.
After a few minutes, I realize that I’ve laid my head on his chest, and he’s let me, just holding me.
I swallow, unsure of the emotions rising in my chest at that idea. Focus, Erin. We need a way out of this. I think through everything.
“Okay,” I say. “We do this for the rest of the weekend. All the pretending while we’re in front of my parents, and we keep it low key in front of their friends. And then later, once it’s over…a little ways down the line, something can go wrong and we can call off the wedding. I don’t know, maybe you think I’m too loud in bed.”
His laugh fills up the room. “Of all the reasons I would ever break off an engagement with someone, them being too loud when I’m pleasuring them would not be it.”
“I don’t know,” I say. “I was pretty loud. You could say that I was scaring away Blue Mountain’s patrons.”
“If that were the case, then our patrons don’t have very good taste. Either that, or I’ll just have to take you out into the woods where I’m the only one that gets to hear you.”
I shudder and press my forehead into his chest. He pulls me even closer. We’re locked together, and I don’t want to let go. The anxiety in my chest now isn’t because of the fake engagement. It’s the idea that—
No. That thought isn’t going to happen. I cut it off before it fully forms. This is going to be hard enough.
“You up for all that? The pretending and the break-up and everything?”
“Of course,” Hudson says with a smile, pressing a kiss to my forehead. “After all, it was my idea.”
8
Hudson
“So,” Mr. O’Neill says, “what do you do here at Blue Mountain?”
At least about this, I don’t have to lie. We’re on safe ground. “I’m the Activities Director. I’m in charge of planning all the excursions and any events that we put together. I’m also on the lookout for anything that we can add. I split the actual leading of the excursions and classes with Leo. Except archery. That’s all Asher.”
“And you own all this?”
I smile. “We do. Made the last payment about a month ago. It’s ours outright now. A few square miles on this side of the river, so we actually have a lot more property than we’re using at the moment. On the other side of the river is all national forest, but we have a special license with the state for everything we do out there.”
Erin’s mother is looking at me. Assessing. “It’s very impressive.”
“Thank you.”
“What are your future plans for this place?”
I clear my throat and take a drink of water. It’s a little bit of an interrogation, but given the way that we surprised them this morning, they definitely have the right. “We’re finally to a place where we’re happy with the number of excursions that we have, and the guest capacity. Right now we’re going to hold steady and ease into this kind of schedule. Obviously the warmer months are our busiest seasons. We’ve done really well, and we don’t want to grow too big too quickly.
“But eventually we’d like to build larger guest cabins further out on the property for larger groups and possibly hire full-time staff so that the three of us don’t have to be here all year round.”
Mr. O’Neill nods. “Sounds like you’ve got a decent business plan.”
“I’m glad you think so.”
Erin is very quiet beside me. I know that she doesn’t want to say anything that’s going to contradict our story, and she’s still a little dazed from everything that happened.
“And how did you guys meet?”
This one I’ve definitely got. “Erin came up as a part of a class trip when we first got the horses over the summer. And we just…hit it off.”
