“Um, okay.” Liesl suddenly looked as nervous as I felt. “Hold on a minute.” She shuffled the spears around then rearranged them in the same design.
Jesus, now she was the one making me crazy. “Leisl! They could be waiting at the door—”
“I’m coming, I’m coming.” She jumped from her stool. “Wait; one more thing.” She took her phone from her shorts pocket and typed a message to someone. “Okay. Let’s go.”
Internally, I rolled my eyes. “You didn’t have to come in tonight. I could have handled this myself.” I headed to the stairs at a fast pace but had to slow down to wait for Liesl, who was walking at turtle speed.
“I know. But I thought you could use the company. It’s not a good idea to be in the club alone.”
As if I wasn’t in the club alone all the time. Strange that she suddenly cared about that. “It was very thoughtful of you.”
“Uh-huh.” She bit her lip. “Um, are your bags packed?”
“Yep. Jordan will have them when he picks me up.” We continued the descent of the second flight of stairs and the main dance floor came into view. And my heart stopped. “What the…”
The floor was covered—absolutely covered—in red and white rose petals. The main lights had been turned off and candles were set on the tables surrounding the floor, illuminating the space with an ethereal white-yellow glow. It was beautiful and romantic.
Liesl made a small gasping sound. “Wowzers.”
It hadn’t been like that when I’d arrived only an hour before. Liesl had been with me the whole time, so it couldn’t have been her.
A figure stepped out of the shadows, his hands tucked casually in his pockets.
“Hudson?” Just like that, I forgot how to breathe. The sight of him…even in his rumpled attire, his suit jacket missing, his dress shirt untucked—he was stunning. “You did this?”
He nodded. His focus went to my friend. “Thank you, Liesl, for keeping her occupied.”
I turned to her, eyes wide. “You knew about this?” I still hadn’t fully grasped that he was the renter, that this whole arrangement was for me.
“Hey, he kept calling and you wouldn’t talk to him and then he trapped me into this whole surprise you thingamabob. He asked me to keep you busy upstairs while he did—” Liesl gestured at the room. “All this.” Her expression said she felt guilty about the betrayal. “He’s my boss, what was I supposed to say?”
“He’s not your boss,” I said, remembering his frequent claim to me.
At the same time, Hudson said, “I’m not your boss.”
My eyes flew to his at the dual mention of our inside joke. Then they were locked there, as if there were nothing else in the world to look at but him. As if the only things worth meaning could be found there.
And he gazed back at me with the same intensity.
Distantly, Liesl’s voice penetrated through the haze. “I’m going to slip out the back. ‘K, thanks.”
I’m not sure I even addressed Liesl. She was already gone—I was already alone. With Hudson.
Part of me wanted to run to him. But I couldn’t let myself. Even though I was ready to forget every bad thing that had transpired between us, I understood that if we didn’t fix things first, we could never last. So I walked to him instead, my legs shaking as I stepped down to the dance floor, and this time it wasn’t because of the espresso.
Though there were many things waiting on the tip of my tongue, he spoke first. “‘Bags packed’?” He stepped toward me, one brow raised. “Are you going somewhere?”
I could hear the tension in his voice. He thought I was leaving him. It made it that much sweeter to be able to say my next words. “Oh, nowhere special. Just Japan.”
“Because… I was in Japan?” His expression was so hopeful and adorable, I melted a little. Or a lot.
“Yeah.” I circled him, taking in the details of his setup. The tables draped with white cloths, the candlesticks letting off a vanilla fragrance. “I thought I could put my stalking skills to use to find you.”
“I would have liked to have been found by you.”
I turned back to face him, playing cool and flirty though my subtext was hot and needy. “Would you? I wasn’t sure.”
“Then you’re an idiot.”
“Thank you.”
“A beautiful idiot that I can’t take my eyes off of.”
I couldn’t stop looking at him either. Less than a week apart, it felt like I hadn’t seen him in a lifetime. We were still several feet apart. I took a step toward him, but the distance between us felt just as wide. There was no way I could get to him without…without saying everything.
“Hudson, I saw Celia behind your back.”
His eyes closed for half a second. “I’ve figured that out.”
“I should have told you.” I bit my lip, trying to come up with the right explanation of why I’d done what I’d done. “She was welcoming and supportive and I needed someone to talk to. It’s no excuse.”
His mouth straightened. “You could have talked to me.”
“We don’t always talk that well.”
“We need to work on that, then.”
My throat tightened. He still thought we had a chance. That made all the difference.
Yet there was still hard stuff to say. “You hurt me, Hudson.”
He took a breath so shaky I heard it shudder through him. “I know.”
“Do you?”
“Yes. I transferred David without talking to you.”
“Well.” There were other issues between us. I could let him off the hook on this one. “It turns out that’s probably for the best. It was a good compromise.”
“And I didn’t believe you.” He shook his head, looking down at the floor. “I should have believed you.” His eyes came back to mine. “I’m sorry.”
“Why didn’t you?”
He sighed. “I was more concerned with being the guy who would stand by you. I wanted you to know I’d help you, get you treatment.”
“I didn’t need treatment. I needed you to believe me and you didn’t.”
“We hadn’t had a good track record in being honest with each other. It was instinctual to doubt.”
My back stiffened. “Then it’s my fault that you took her word over mine?”