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I look and find Hudson watching us with a soft look on his face. To say that tonight wasn’t what I expected would be a lie. Although, if I’m honest, I’m not really sure what I was expecting. But it wasn’t something so domesticated. When I usually see him, he’s dressed in a tailored three-piece suit and looks every inch the cunning, cut-throat lawyer he is in the courtroom. Here he’s just Huddy, who cooks and cleans up after dinner and then plays dolls or reads with his sister because it makes her smile.
Hudson steps forward as I move to extract myself from Tia without disturbing her. He kneels beside her bed and tucks her in tight, dropping a kiss on her head, and I get a pang of longing in my belly. This was what I imagined all those years ago when we were together. This simple life, only the child would have been ours. Not that I don’t love how he stepped up for his sister, but then, that’s who Hudson is. It’s who he’s always been.
Our complex history and the betrayal I imagined make it hard to remember the boy I fell in love with, but it’s coming back hard and fast now.
I wait, watching as Hudson turns on the night light beside her bed and moves to the door quietly, and pulls it almost closed. Following him down the stairs, I glance at the door I know is his room across the hallway and then the one further down, which is one of the spare rooms.
His room had been exactly what I expected. Dark wood armoire, thick cream carpet, king-size bed, and a view out over the front of the house. A bathroom off the bedroom holds a bath and shower, and I am dying to sink into a bath and let all the tension from the last few days drain away. I’m not sure if it will work but already, I feel the burden of everything I carry easing.
Perhaps it’s this familial bubble I find myself in or maybe it’s being around Hudson again. He always had the ability to chase away the stress of my life.
As we enter the kitchen, he holds up the bottle of wine. “Another glass?”
I shake my head as I twist my fingers with nerves. Why am I suddenly nervous without Tia as a buffer between us? “No, thank you.”
Hudson cocks his head. “You don’t have to feel bad for indulging when I’m not. Honestly, I’m most likely overreacting about Tia. It’s just a cold but I’m a bit over-protective when it comes to her.”
He rubs the back of his neck as if he’s slightly embarrassed and his t-shirt rides up, exposing a sliver of tanned abs, which do nothing to stop the riot of butterflies in my belly from taking flight. Ever since he rushed out of the bathroom at our hotel last weekend in nothing but bubbles, I’ve been fantasizing about his cut body. Thick, muscular thighs, six-pack abs, with a slight sprinkle of hair, sculpted pectorals, and wide shoulders. Even his throat is sexy, with a defined Adam’s apple, that I want to run my tongue down.
“No, honestly, I have a meeting with my new board for the media section of Kennedy tomorrow, so I need a clear head.” I expect him to ask me about it. Most men find the fact I’m CFO of such a huge legacy company before I hit thirty so astounding that it’s all they want to know about.
“How about a chamomile tea, instead? Do you still like tea?”
A smile crawls over my lips at his question and the fact he remembers such an insignificant thing and I voice it. “I can’t believe you remember that.”
Hudson turns back from where he is filling water into a kettle and gives me a flirty grin. “I remember everything when it comes to you, Belle.”
God, this man will be the death of me. He has my emotions running around like a headless chicken. Part of me is holding on to that well-established resentment out of habit, and the rest of me is fluctuating between being so horny I want to climb him like a tree and remembering everything we shared and sinking into that soft cloud of teenage love.
Pulling up a stool at the island, I watch him move around the kitchen with practiced ease, his movements controlled and light. “Will Tia sleep through now or will she wake?”
“She’ll sleep most likely. She’s always slept well unless she’s sick, and then it’s rough. A cold shouldn’t stop her, but I’ll check in on her before I go to bed. You can take my room and I’ll take the guest room next to hers.”
I want to argue that I will take the guest room, but a part of me wants to be in his space and I don’t want to rock this fragile peace we have established tonight.
He hands me a mug with a princess on the side and I lift my eyebrow as he smirks.
“Seemed appropriate.”
“I don’t see you holding a beast mug.”
Hudson holds a hand over his chest as he rocks back pretending to look wounded. “I’m Prince Charming.”
“I prefer the beast.”
His gaze flies to mine and the heat and sexual tension pulls tight between us. Chemistry has never been our problem. No, our problem was always communication. I need to change the subject and distract him from my stupid loaded comment.
“Is that why you never told anyone about Tia? Because you’re protecting her?”
I wonder for a second if he’ll allow me to get away with the change in direction before he seems to make a decision. Moving around the island, he takes the stool beside me and I angle my body so we face each other. It’s intimate, the gap between us so small that if I turn slightly my knee will brush his thigh.
“It’s not that I’m trying to hide Tia. I just don’t tell people our business or talk about my home life at all. Who I am here in my home, isn’t who I am to the world. I prefer this me, where I can be authentic, and only Tia and very few people get that.”
“Surely some people know though. It’s hard to keep a secret like a child.”
He nods, scratching his chin. “Yes, some people know, but they’ve signed a watertight NDA contract.”
“I haven’t and neither have my friends.”
