Hudson

Chapter Sixteen

I throw all my energy into saving Plexis, and it isn’t enough. The company is sold out from under me. I’m not surprised. My proposals were spot on, but my presentation was mediocre. I’m off my game, my attention divided. I wonder how long I’ll be split like this—half of me in the current moment, half of me always with her. While all of this is unfamiliar to me, I’ve studied enough breakups to see that there is recovery for most individuals.

I’m certain that I am not most individuals.

I linger in Cincinnati for most of Tuesday, not wanting to go home to Manhattan. Eventually, I have no more reason to stall, and I head home. I land in the evening. I’m disheveled and exhausted, but instead of heading home, I ask my driver to take me to The Sky Launch. There’s no use delaying seeing Alayna. I need to get our dissolution over with so I can move on.

I note the time when I arrive. It’s a little early for Alayna to be at work, but that’s better. If I’m already here when she arrives—going over business with David, perhaps—then my visit will appear casual. It will seem like my meeting with her is an afterthought. It should help her see that I believe anything that exists between us is mundane. Ordinary.

I’m not sure she’ll buy it. Honestly, I’m not sure I want her to.

But she has to. Because this is how things are now. This is how things have to be.

The club is dark as I enter. I head for the office—if David is here, that’s where he’ll be. The door is open when I approach, but as I enter the frame, I’m not prepared for the sight that meets me. David is here, but in his arms—Alayna.

They’re embracing, and it’s far too intimate to be a hug between friends. I can’t see her face, but the expression on his is one I can relate to. It’s adoration. It’s affection. It’s maybe even love.

Emotion shoots through my body at the sight. Jealousy, astonishment, scorn—the emotions mix into a toxic cocktail of rage. I’ve never been this worked up, this livid. My blood is boiling, my skin itching, and my gut feels like it’s been punched.

But I wear my mask. So David sees none of it when he sees me. Instead he sees cold and steel, which can be very intimidating, I’ve found.

Instantly, he lets Alayna go and backs away. “Hey, Pierce.”

Alayna spins, and her eyes meet mine. Hers are sparked with worry, with fear, and the blood drains from her face. Her concern softens the slightest bit. Not enough, though. I’m still consumed with my fury.

The bitch of the whole thing is that I have no right to feel this way. To feel any of the way I do regarding her. I’ve made my decision. I’ve chosen to walk away and to bury any emotion she may have stirred in me. She’s allowed to embrace any man she wants. She can kiss and fuck anyone she pleases. Because she isn’t mine.

My stomach clenches. All I see is red.

I’m vaguely aware of David speaking and then the sound of the door closing as he leaves. At least he was smart enough to know he should go without being asked. I realize I’m angry with him as well—he’s an employee and he’s making moves on his boss’s girlfriend. My feelings toward him are such a small part of my turmoil though, and I’m glad for his departure. Now I focus on directing the torment brewing inside. If I have to feel this pain, at least I can use it to push her away.

“Hudson.” She says my name, and it sounds like a broken chord—each syllable hanging in the air with distinct weight. She steps toward me. “I read about Plexis. I’m so sor—”

Like I give a fuck about Plexis at the moment.

I cut her off. “What’s going on with you and him?” It’s not my place to ask, but though my voice is controlled and even, I have no authority over my actions. I need her to answer. I need her to alleviate this fear that she feels for anyone the way she feels for me.

It’s insane. It’s irrational. And I can’t stop needing it.

“Nothing.” She sighs. “David was, um…it was a friendly hug, that’s all.”

Her answer only makes the sting worse. “The expression on his face was much more than friendly.” I step toward her, demanding with my body before I’ve even voiced the question I have to have an answer to. “Have you fucked him?”

“No!”

I study her with narrowed eyes. There’s more she isn’t saying—I can read her face, read her posture. There’s something between them. “But almost,” I guess.

“No.” Her tone is adamant, but her eyes shift.

This, her lie, tears me apart more than anything. “Why don’t I believe you?”

“Because you have some serious trust issues. What is your fucking deal, anyway?”

There is a rational voice in my head screaming that this is not how I should behave. That her relationships are private and not my concern. That this is not my place. She. Is. Not. Mine.

I want to listen to it. I want to calm the blistering storm that is traveling through my every nerve. But it’s impossible.

So I give up, letting the tempest swallow me as I step toward her and growl. “I told you before. I don’t share.”

Whatever plans I had for our paths are suddenly null and void. Because though I cannot have her, though I’m supposed to let her go, I’ve just claimed her.

There’s a flash of acceptance in her eyes. It’s brilliant, and I cling to the light of it long after it’s lost to the challenge that follows. “But I have to share you with Celia?”

“Goddammit, Alayna. How many times do I have to say it? There is nothing going on with me and Celia.” I convince myself it’s not a lie because she’s questioning a romantic involvement. In my bones, I’m sure that she senses the truth—that there is some sort of connection between Celia and me. Alayna can read me too well to miss this.

Still, I refuse to shed any light on my secrets.

So she uses the only weapon she can. “And there’s nothing going on with me and David.”

“Really? That’s not how it looked when I walked in here.”

“Just like that’s not how it looked when you left with Celia while I was still naked in your bed?”

Anger surges through me like lightning. How can she not understand? I grab her by her upper arms and pull her into me. “Leaving you that morning was the hardest fucking thing I’ve done in a long time. Don’t treat it lightly.”

Then, because she has to know how I feel and because this is the only way I know to tell her, I crush my mouth to hers. I bite and tear at her lips. I’m brutal and bruising. This, I tell her with my kiss, is how it felt to walk away.

She pulls away. “Hudson, stop.”

But I can’t. I have to get through to her. Or maybe I just need her body to calm the fury inside of me. I don’t know anything anymore except this fervent urgency to have her.

“Stop.” She pushes at my chest.

“No. I have to fuck you. Now.”

“Why? Are you marking your territory?”

Her question startles me. Is that what this is? Is this action merely an extension of my irrational jealousy? It’s not what I wanted this to be.

My pause allows her to wrestle free of my grip. “You don’t own me, Hudson! Stop messing with me like I’m one of your other women. Not with me, remember?”

It’s the truth I try not to face, slapped at me with such force I can’t deny it. “Don’t you think I know that? Every minute of every day, I remind myself that I can’t conquer you. That I can’t do that to you. But it doesn’t mean that I don’t want to.”

The words rush out of me so quickly, I can’t digest them until they hang in the air around us. In them is clarity. I have wanted to conquer her. As much as I’ve refuted Celia’s plans and defended my actions as benevolent toward Alayna, there has always been a part of me that wanted to own her. To master her. To win her. Was this the real reason I agreed to the game? Because I can’t help myself from playing?

The possibility pains Alayna as much as it does me. Tears spill down her cheeks. “So I am just like the others.”

“No. You’re not.” I wanted to manipulate her—it’s a desire that will never go away. But it was faint with Alayna. It lingered in the background behind so many other more prominent desires. “I told you before,” I tell her. “I don’t want to hurt you more than I need to win you.”

She’s sobbing as she says, “You’ve already done both.”

Horror washes over me like an icy shower. “Fuck!” This was not what I wanted. It was everything I’d tried to prevent. And even though I knew—I knew—that I had hurt her, the reminder of it, paired with the reminder that she’s declared her love, overpowers me. The reality of her emotions bring all of mine to the surface. I’ve fucked everything up. There is no possibility of either of us walking away from this relationship like it was a bump in a road. There is no good decision to be made. I’ve made our story so that it can only end in pain.

I step backward, away from her, as if I can distance myself from the hell I’ve put us in.

But she follows, charging into my arms and kissing me with the same determination that I’d earlier thrust upon her.

I can’t resist. And there’s no point, really. We’re both damned no matter what.

“Alayna.” I take what she’s giving me, take it greedily. My hand kneads her breast as I lick into her mouth. My other arm pulls her closer. She says my name. She tells me she needs me. I don’t need to hear the words. I feel it in her kiss, in her body as she yields to me.

I’m quick to remove her panties and lay her on the couch. My gaze never leaves her as I undress. She’s gorgeous like this—all spread out for me, her cunt glistening with her arousal. And even beyond the erotic visual, there’s beauty in the significance of her capitulation. Even in her pain, she looks to me for comfort. Just as I look to her.

I can’t delay our connection any longer. I lower myself on top of her and drive in. I’m relentless with my speed, with my force. I’m focused only on release, mine and hers, my thumb rubbing against her clit as I pound into her. Our sex is primal and raw. It’s a mirror of our circumstances—we shouldn’t want each other, but the pull that draws us together is stronger and baser than anything we can control or contradict. I have no words for this connection, and so I shower her with the only sound that makes any sense—her name, spilling from my lips, repeatedly, reverently. Then it’s the word that announces my release as I come inside her in a savage explosion. She echoes my climax with her own, crying out while she clenches around me.

I collapse onto her, burying my head into her neck. My cock twitches inside her as it calms. She’s warm and safe, and as our breathing settles, I relax into her. This is the first time in my life that I can remember being completely at ease. Despite the lack of resolution in our predicament, I’m free in her arms.

In the sanctuary of this moment, disclosure comes naturally. “I wanted to win you. But I didn’t want to hurt you.” I tighten my grasp around her. “That’s the last thing I wanted.”

With this simple admission, my load lightens. There’s so much that I still carry in guilt. I can almost imagine what it would feel like to relieve my entire load, brick by brick, confession by confession.

Alayna runs her hand through my hair, her fingers sending sparks of electricity through my scalp. “That’s part of relationships, H. People get hurt.” She kisses my head. “But you can make it better, too.”

Though her relationships may have been atypical, Alayna has much more experience at this than I do. I realize that many of the questions I have can be answered by her.

I’m not used to asking for help, but I lift my head to meet her eyes and plead, “Tell me how.”

She cradles my face in her hands, her thumbs skimming across my skin. “Let me in.”

“Don’t you see I already have?” I’ve let her in further than anyone’s ever been. She’s broken walls that I didn’t even know were standing. She doesn’t even realize.

Or it’s just not enough.

She closes her eyes and swallows. When she opens them again, a tear runs down her cheek. She moves out from underneath me, pulling her panties on as she stands up.

There’s my answer, then. It’s not enough. But this is all I can give—for her protection as well as for mine. And I’m still stuck between a rock and a hard place. Where does this leave me with Celia? Where does this leave me with Alayna?

I sigh as I tuck myself back in and zip up my pants. I’m back where I was to begin with, where the best decision is to end this.

And I can’t.

So I fight for her instead. Even though I don’t know how. Even though it’s the worst possible thing I can do.

I stand and cross to her. I wrap my arms around her from behind and can feel her pulling against her desire to lean into me. She stays put though, and I speak gently in her ear. “Why do you act like I’m running?”

“Because you shut me out. Isn’t that the same as running?”

It’s exactly the same. I’m hit with the sudden recollection of Alayna in our bedroom at the Hamptons. I’d been asleep, and she’d been out swimming. When she returned, she’d been upset. “What about you? What about how you showed up in our bedroom crying and couldn’t even tell me why?”

She tenses in my arms. “That was different.”

What could be different? I wrack my brain trying to come up with a scenario that had hurt her. Then with sickening certainty, I know—my mother.

I turn Alayna toward me. “What did she say to you, Alayna?”

She wars with herself for only a moment before answering. “That I was insignificant. She called me a whore.”

Fuck. My anger is reignited, directed at my mother now. Time and time again, I’ve come to Sophia’s rescue. Now I can’t think of a single reason why. “My mother’s heartless and cruel.” For so long I would have added like me to that phrase. In this moment, I don’t feel anything like her.

I lift Alayna’s chin up to meet my gaze. “You’re not a whore, Alayna. Not even close. And the magnitude of your importance in my life can’t be put into words.” It’s the nearest I can come to a declaration of emotion.

As if she can read my subtext, she adds, “She also said that you can’t ever love me.”

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.