Laurelin Paige - Hudson

My hand drops from her face. I’m stunned. That my mother would tell her that, for one, is appalling to me. And enlightening. But more importantly, I don’t know how to respond. I can’t refute the statement, not without admitting that I’m learning how to love because of her. And I can’t say that until there aren’t any lies between us.

So I say the only thing I can. “I’ve told you that before.”

She pulls out of my arms. “Well, she told me again.” She spins back at me. “So there, I opened up. Are you happy?”

I’ve hurt her. Again. It’s not what I’d meant, but I’m torn. I’m helpless. “Alayna…”

But there’s nothing I can add to make this better. I’m drowning in my secrets, and I feel all of it coming to a head. If I can’t walk away, I have to tell her the truth. Every bit of it. Yet the words stick in my throat.

With tears smearing her face, she implores, “How could you not think I’d fall in love with you, Hudson? Even if you didn’t mean for it to happen, how could I not? Does that mean anything to you at all?”

I feel like she’s slapped me. “How can you ask that?” That she loves me means everything. It’s the reason I’m here with her now, floundering with no direction. Her love is the only beacon of hope I’ve encountered in my dark world. I cling to it. I hold it like a lifeline. “Of course, it does. But, Alayna,” always that but, “you don’t know that you’d still say that if you knew me.”

“I do know you.”

“Not everything.” Secrets push against my lips, begging to be released.

“Only because you haven’t let me in!”

I spread my arms out in frustration. “What is it you want to know? About what I did to other women? About Celia? I’m the reason she got pregnant, Alayna. Because I spent an entire summer making her fall in love with me when I felt nothing for her. For fun. For something to do.”

The words spill like the tears that still stain Alayna’s cheeks. With them, the pain and anguish that I didn’t feel then sprouts within me. The horror of what I did takes root. The disgust at my actions, the regret, the guilt—all of it overwhelms me with each syllable I pronounce. Yet I can’t stop them. “And then, when I’d completely broken her, she became destructive—sleeping around, partying, drugs. You name it, she did it. She didn’t even know who the father was.”

The last part is a lie, but I’m not about to implicate Jack right now. It’s not the point, anyway. The point is that it’s out there now, one of my biggest secrets. And while there’s relief in the admission, a blanket of uncertainty hangs in the air like a heavy mist that cloaks my vision. Before I could read Alayna so well, every expression, every thought that darted across her eyes. Now I see nothing. I’m certain this story turns her off, disgusts her—how can it not? But I can’t see it on her face.

She takes in a shuddering breath and wipes her eyes. “So you claimed it was yours.”

“Yes.” I narrow my eyes, studying her as she works through this.

“Because you felt responsible.” Her voice is even, void of any inflection.

“Yes. She lost the baby at three months. Likely from the drinking and drugs she’d consumed early on. She was devastated.” And I’m devastated now, as if the loss has just happened. There’s a familiarity in the pain, and I remember feeling a hint of this ache back then. I’d been convinced that Alayna had taught me sensation, but now I wonder, have these emotions always been inside me, locked away, waiting for someone to set them free?

“That’s awful,” Alayna says, and I leave my introspection, returning my focus to her. I still can’t read her, still can’t figure out what awful things she’s thinking behind those beautiful brown eyes.

“It’s awful,” she says again, her voice tinged with confusion, “but I don’t understand. You thought this would make me not love you…why?”

I fall onto the arm of the sofa, baffled by her lack of concern. “Because it changes everything. I did that. That’s who I am. It’s my past, and it’s very ugly.”

Finally, her face breaks, but it’s not disappointment that I see on her features—it’s compassion. She moves to me and settles her hands on my shoulders. “Do you think your ugly is any different than mine?”

Her touch, her words—they’re hard to bear. She’s making too light of my sins. They’re nothing like the things she’s done. “This isn’t like following someone around or calling too many times, Alayna.”

“It was an unforeseen tragedy, Hudson. A game that got out of hand. You didn’t set out for Celia to get pregnant and have a miscarriage. And you can’t diminish the things I’ve done to a simple statement like that either. I hurt people. Deeply. But that was before. Less than ideal pasts, remember? It doesn’t mean it defines our future. Or even our now.”

Her words reach deep inside me, through my skin, into my bones, and I hear her. Really hear her. She’s voicing an idea I’ve played with since I’ve met her. Can I—can we—break free of our pasts and step into the future unchained?

I let out the breath I’ve been holding and brush a tear from her eye. “When I’m with you, I almost believe that.”

“That just means you need to spend more time with me.”

That almost makes me laugh. “Is that what that means?” Maybe that is what it means. I entertain the idea with more sincerity than I have previously. Could I be with Alayna like this? For real? Put another way, could I ever find the strength to not be with her like this?

I slide my thumb down to caress her cheek. “Yesterday morning, when I got the phone call that required me to be in Cincinnati—I couldn’t even let myself look at you, sleeping in that bed. If I did, I wouldn’t have been able to leave.”

Her face lights up. “I thought you left because you were freaking out. Because of the love stuff.”

“I wasn’t freaking out.” Not about the love stuff. That I’d welcomed. “I was surprised, that’s all.”

“Surprised?”

“That that’s what we were feeling.” I hedge around an actual declaration. “That it was love.”

“It was,” she says with certainty. “It is.”

“Hmm.” I let her affirmation settle around me. This thing I’ve felt for Alayna began when I first met her, the first spark igniting at the moment I first saw her. Since then, it’s remained constant, growing and brightening, refusing to take a shape that I could identify, but always strengthening in intensity. Love, she calls it. It’s new. It’s amazing. “I never felt this before. I didn’t know.”

I sweep my hands down her sides to rest on her hips. “But, Alayna, I’ve never had a healthy romantic relationship. Every woman who’s loved me…” My throat clenches as I recall the pain I caused Celia and others who claimed they’d fallen for me. “I don’t want to break you too.”

“You’re not going to break me, Hudson.” She’s so sure. “I thought you might, at first. Turns out you make me better. And I think I do the same for you.”

“You do.” She’s the only thing that ever has.

“If you decide to not…follow through…with whatever this is that we have, it will hurt. But I won’t be broken.”

“But it would hurt?” I’m already committing to a new plan, one that hasn’t fully formulated in my head.

“Like a motherfucker.”

I don’t want to hurt her. It’s why I can’t admit everything to her, but it’s also why I can’t leave her. She’s confirmed it now. And while I fully realize that there will be pain at some point in our relationship, I decide that it’s not going to be right now. “Then we better follow through.”

It’s wrong, I’m sure. It’s definitely selfish because I want this more than anything.

I pull her closer, wrapping her in my arms, and say the words I came here to say. “Alayna, you’re fired. You can’t be my pretend girlfriend anymore.” Then I add the new ones that I’ve only just chosen in my mind. “Be my real girlfriend instead.”

Happiness flares in her eyes. “I kind of think I already am.”

“You are.”

“Can I still call you H?”

“Absolutely not.” That ridiculous nickname for me of hers. It’s somewhat endearing. I’ll never tell her that.

I kiss her then, sealing our new deal. It’s here, as I mold my lips to hers with tender passion, that my plan solidifies. I’ll love her like this, without words, but with my life. I’ll let her in as far as I can. I’ll commit to her completely. Her world will be mine. And I’ll do everything I can to protect her from being hurt, including hiding the one secret from my past that will hurt her more than any other—the one involving her.

All of this I tell her in my kiss.

She’s the one who pulls away, but only far enough to ask, “What now?”

I feel her trepidation. She has no idea all that I’m offering her, and I have a feeling it will take a while to make her understand. Soon, hopefully, she’ll be able to hear everything I tell her with my nonverbal cues.

For now, I’ll try to use my words. I smile slightly. “Come to my place after you finish here.”

“I’m not off until three.”

“I don’t care. I want you in my bed.” I want her in my life. I’ll move her into my penthouse as soon as she’ll let me. And more, when she’s ready.

“Then, yes.”

Am I moving too fast? I’m nearly thirty years old and feeling for the first time in my life. I think that by most standards I’m far behind the curve.

She helps me up, and I reluctantly let go of her to straighten my clothing. I miss her touch already, but it won’t be long until I see her again. My eyes catch sight of the furniture behind me—we just fucked there, and it only occurs to me now that it’s new. “Nice couch,” I say. Really nice couch.

She laughs. “Thanks.”

I study her, untangling her sex-mussed hair and straightening her dress. God, she’s amazing. She’s everything that I never knew I wanted. I’m addicted to her—she’s my drug and I can’t get enough of my fix. But she’s also just the opposite. She’s my cure. She’s a balm that eases and relieves me. She’s rehabilitation. She’s remedy. She’s reason.

I take her hands in mine, surprised to find that I’m not shaking. Inside, adrenaline is pumping, not with fear, but anticipation. “Tell Jordan to take you to The Bowery. He knows where it is.”

“Not the fuck pad?” Excitement sparks her voice.

“No. My home. I’ll leave a key with the doorman.”

She laces her fingers through mine and giggles. I love the sound. Almost as much as her words. “We’re really doing this, aren’t we? Moving forward.”

“We are.” I pull her into my arms, wanting her to know how completely I am doing this, hoping this embrace tells her.

Her mouth is at my ear, and she whispers, “I’m going to rock your world.” Then she sucks on my lobe.

I nip at her neck, already thinking about how we’ll christen my bed later tonight. “I can’t wait.”

“Neither can I.”

I leave her to her job and head home, a list forming in my head of all I need to prepare for her. She’ll need clothes and bathroom products. I have almost seven hours until she’ll arrive. That’s more than enough time for my assistant to make my home presentable for my girlfriend.

My girlfriend.

Mine.

Since I was born, I’ve had everything I could want. Money has bought me my every whim. I could never begin to fathom all that belongs to me, and still I know there’s never been anything as beautiful and special and precious as Alayna. And she is mine. As much as I am hers. I know I appear stoic and steady, but inside, I’m delirious and dizzy with this knowledge. How could I ever believe that my strength was in impassivity? This—this never-ending rush of love and joy and vitality—this is real power.

I’m not fooling myself—this won’t be easy. There will be obstacles. Celia. My mother. My past. Her past, even. But none of that feels as monumental as what’s going on inside of me. Alayna is reason enough to fight every foe and more.

So, while much of my night is filled with preparing for Alayna’s physical presence in my life, it’s also spent formulating a plan to protect our love. I’ll find a way around Celia. I’m the one who built her; I can surely outplay her.

And Alayna…I’ll keep my secret from her. Whatever it takes, whatever the cost. She’ll never know the betrayal that brought her into my life. For her sake, I’ll hide this truth. Only for her.

Before

Opening the door to the loft was tricky with my mouth lip-locked to the curvy brunette I’d brought home, but somehow I managed. Inside, I pressed her against the wall and held her hands above her head, my torso digging into hers, trying to find some comfort for my raging hard-on.