Chapter 15 Hudson
HUDSON
Istood outside Ivy’s bedroom door, back pressed against the wall like a coward. I told myself I was only there to check on her bedtime routine, to make sure she’d settled down after all the excitement of having Matty around. But that wasn’t the truth.
The truth was, I couldn’t stop listening to Matty’s voice.
He read to her with the same cadence and softness he used to use on me when I got wound too tight to sleep.
She’d insisted that her Maaaatt read her a bedtime story in that bossy tone she’d developed lately, and he hadn’t hesitated.
Hadn’t even blinked. It was so easy to think he’d been doing this all her life.
What was he doing? What was I doing?
I shouldn’t encourage Ivy to get attached to him. Not when there was no future for us.
Was there? Earlier, Matty had sounded… hopeful? Forgiving? But still, he was hot one minute, then cold the next. Who was to say that even if we got back together, a week, a month, a year down the line, he wouldn’t decide he’d had enough?
Ivy curled up in bed with her stuffed bear tucked tight against her chest—his bear, the one he gave me all those years ago—and Matty sat cross-legged beside her, his voice low and warm as he read from one of her picture books.
She giggled at the funny bits. Interrupted to ask questions. Pointed at pictures like she was reading them too. And Matty answered her every time, patient, affectionate.
She loved him already. That quickly. That completely.
And it was killing me.
I didn’t know how to explain the sharp sting in my chest each time she tugged on his sleeve or begged for his attention.
Like part of me was grateful—relieved even—that she was so drawn to someone I loved once.
In the span of a few days, she’d given a piece of her heart to Matty like it had always belonged to him.
Maybe some part of her sensed he’d been meant to be here all along. Or maybe she was picking up on how much I still loved this man.
By the time the story ended, Ivy was fast asleep. Matty leaned over, brushing her hair back with the gentlest fingers, and my throat burned. He lifted the sheet and tucked it around her shoulders.
“You should’ve been mine.”
My knees damn near buckled, and my eyes bugged out.
He’d said it so quietly, like the words weren’t meant for anyone. Just a confession to a sleeping child who’d never understand the weight of it.
I stepped back.
He whipped his head around, pinched his lips together.
My heart pounded. Shit. I’d intruded on a private moment he’d been sharing with my daughter. Overheard something I was pretty sure he never meant for me to hear.
Matty stood and turned off the ceiling light. The bedside lamp glowed faintly in the dark, outlining his shape as he walked toward me.
I backed up, face burning. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to eavesdrop.”
Matty pulled the door closed and took my wrist. He dragged me after him. Not much dragging to be honest, since I went without protest. In the living room, he pointed at the couch.
“Sit.”
So I sat. Back up right. Arms clutched in my lap.
Matty could be intense, and he was at his peak. Other times, I would have found it hot, but my stomach wasn’t being entertained. I wanted to puke. He’d said we needed to talk, and this was it. Could I get the words out properly? Was this the night I would lose him forever?
Maybe that was what I’d been afraid of this whole time.
Maybe I’d withheld the truth from him because as long as he didn’t know the full extent of what had happened between Heather and me, I could hang on to the hope that I could still win him back.
But if he found out the truth and rejected me, that was it.
Matty didn’t join me on the worn couch where I’d slept for most of my four years of marriage. He paced the area in front of the couch, sending my nerves flying into a tailspin.
I clutched my knees. This was ridiculous. He was six years younger than I was. Why did I give him so much power over me? I could ask him to leave, to stop messing with the routines I’d established over the past four years.
“Did you mean what you said?” My voice was softer than I’d meant it to be, but for the life of me, I couldn’t sound any more assertive. He was the only man who made me feel…delicate, and I was bigger than him. Not by much, but it was there.
Matty abruptly stopped pacing in front of me. His jaw tensed. “Does it matter now? She’s not, is she?”
I flinched. The bite in his words hit harder than I expected. So much for him finally listening.
He ran a hand over his face and groaned. “Sorry. Force of habit. This is…a lot harder than I’d thought.”
“I get that.” I lowered my gaze, disappointment landing hard in my gut. “But you don’t have to do this. You’re not obligated to be here. You don’t have to take any of this on. It’d be easier if you forgot about us.”
Matty grabbed my chin and yanked my head up so I had no choice but to look into his furious, gorgeous eyes. His jaw was clenched, his nostrils flaring. “For fuck’s sake, Hudson, would it kill you to fight for us?”
I blinked once, twice, like the room had tilted sideways. My breath caught somewhere between my chest and throat.
“You never once fought for us since this whole mess happened.” Matty sounded like a cornered animal, half snarl, half whimper. “Honestly, that’s what’s made me the most angry.”
I surged to my feet and grabbed him by the waist, my fingers digging into the rough fabric of his jeans. “Not because I didn’t want to, but what right do I have to fight for us when I’m the one who ruined everything? I was trying to be fair to you.”
“When have I ever asked you to be fair to me? All I wanted was some indication that you even cared.”
“Of course I cared. I care, Matt. More than you could ever know.” Tears blurred my eyes, and a sob caught in my throat, but I tried desperately to contain it.
I didn’t want to manipulate him with emotions.
Whatever he chose tonight had to be because he wanted it.
Not because he felt pity for me or…not even for Ivy.
Matty cupped the back of my neck and pulled me roughly into his arms, guiding my face into his neck.
And I broke.
I clutched him tighter, fisting the back of his shirt, my entire body racked with sobs so violent they shook both of us. My knees buckled, and if he hadn’t held me, I would’ve crumpled to the floor and bawled like a baby.
“I’m sorry,” I gasped. “I’m so—God, Matty, I’m so fucking sorry.”
The words spilled out of me like blood from a vein. Every ounce of guilt, of regret, everything I’d kept buried under the weight of trying to survive.
“I never meant to hurt you. Never meant for any of this. I just—” My voice cracked as I pressed my face harder into his neck. “I ruined the best thing that ever happened to me. I ruined us, and that kills me.”
Tears soaked his skin, and I didn’t care. Didn’t care that I was making a fool of myself. I’d only ever begged this hard once in my life. The day my mother looked on emotionless as they dragged me off to jail.
He didn’t speak. Didn’t move. Just held me while I came undone in his arms. I didn’t know if the words meant anything to him, but he had to know how I truly felt about him. Even if he walked away. Again.
“I love you so fucking much.”
The words slipped out a little too late. But true.
My body heaved with another sob, and all I could do was keep whispering the only thing that felt like it mattered.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry…”
Matty’s hands moved to my hair, then one tugged, pulling my head back. I blinked up at him through tear-blurred eyes. His face was tight, stunned.
“What did you just say?”
My throat burned. I parted my lips, but nothing came. So I nodded. Just once.
“That’s the first time you’ve said it,” he whispered. “Do you mean it?”
“I love you,” I said again, steadier this time. “I should’ve said it a long time ago. That day at the airport… when you left. You said it to me. And I just stood there. By the time I processed the words, you were already walking through security.”
“I didn’t want you to say it back because I told you how I felt. That was my moment to let you know how much that summer with you meant. What you meant to me. I didn’t need to hear it back at that time because I thought we would have a lifetime for you to tell me how you truly felt about me.”
“Until I fucked it up.” With a groan, I rested my forehead against his and inhaled deeply. We needed to talk about the tough parts. I closed my eyes. “I didn’t always feel that way about you. It took me a while to fall too, Matt, and that’s when I fucked up, because I didn’t gamble on us.”
Matty tightened his arms around me, then let them drop. “Let’s talk. For real. Make me understand what happened.”
We moved over to the couch, sitting side by side.
There was too much space between us. I took his hands and held them between mine, squeezing them, needing his strength to get out the things I had to say and keep hidden the ones that would hurt him most. How could I tell him about his mother’s interference?
“Do you have questions, or should I just start?”
“I do have some specific questions.”
“I’ll try to answer them honestly.”
“Just promise not to sugarcoat anything. I need only the facts.”
Facts. Got it. I nodded.
“When did you have sex with her? Was it after we were already sleeping together?”
I lowered my head.
“No, look at me.”
Shit, this was harder than I’d thought.
“Yeah,” I rasped. “After the first time we did it. Like two days after.”
A frown creased Matty’s forehead, and he inhaled deeply, then let the breath out slowly. His grip on my hands had tightened, painfully so, but he didn’t seem to realize it, and I deserved that pain, so I didn’t say anything.
“Why? Was I not enough for you that night?”
“You were, but it was my first time with a man that way.” I filtered through the past, digging into memories I’d sealed in the crypt of my mind.
“I didn’t understand all the feelings I had.
I liked it way more than I felt I should have.
Even when it hurt, that was the best sex I ever had, and I may have had a freak-out about it.
Next thing I know, I’m at the bar in town.
You couldn’t meet me because you and your dad had driven to the city to drop off Carter at your mom’s.
And I missed you so much it scared me. I missed a guy who, for all I knew, was going back to campus to brag about how he made me a power bottom. ”
“Is that what you thought of me?”
“I didn’t know what to think about you, Matt!
We’d only just met. Within a week, you had me sucking your dick.
A few days later, you’d fingered my ass so many times I’d lost count.
Those first few weeks, we didn’t discuss anything serious, and didn’t get to know each other.
We were hot and heavy, always naked and fucking around.
Not to mention, you were only nineteen and in college.
My boss’s son! You wanted us to be a secret—”
“Because my dad asked me to be discreet. Not because I was ashamed of being with you.”
“Well, that’s how the whole Heather thing happened. I was drinking, and she was right there, convenient and offering. Next thing I know, we were in the restroom and…you know the rest.”
“So you randomly fucked someone without a condom after you made me use one? Is that why you insisted on us using condoms for a while?”
“But I did use a condom with her that night. I don’t know what happened, and I had my doubts, but we did the paternity test, and Ivy was really mine.”
“She got pregnant.”
I straightened my spine. “You saying you don’t believe me?” I dropped his hands. “Because if you won’t, what’s the fucking point of doing this?”
“Sorry. This is hard for me, okay?”
“You don’t sound sorry.”
“I’m in my feelings, man. I’m still processing that you were sleeping with her while I was breaking my mom’s heart that I wouldn’t be staying in the city that summer because I wanted to rush back to the ranch, to you.”
“I only meant to stick around Bristlecone for a few months. No more than a year,” I said, desperate for him to believe me. “You were in college. You had your whole life ahead of you. Of course I didn’t take you seriously at first. I thought it was a summer thing.”
“Maybe to you. The moment I saw you, I knew you were mine.”
“Is that why you tricked me about Junebug?”
His lips twisted in a sad smile. “That wasn’t the first time I saw you.”
“It wasn’t?”
“No. The day before, I saw you strutting past without a shirt on. You looked so fucking sexy. My dad and Carter saw my interest immediately, and that’s when my dad told me to be discreet. You see, I might have had a fling in the past with a foreman who tried to sue us.”
“Yeah, I remember the rumors, which didn’t help me to feel any special.”
“Well, you were special to me back then.”
My stomach knotted. Were. Past tense. I should tell him to go. What was the sense of opening up old wounds just to watch both of us bleed?
“Back to Heather,” he said with a sigh. “That was the only time you had sex with her?”
“Swear it on my life, Matt.”
“Why didn’t you say that when I confronted you?”
“She was pregnant. What good would it have done? What was I supposed to do?”
“Not marry her. Talk to me about it, and we could have figured it out.”
“Matt, you were nineteen! It wouldn’t have been fair to me to saddle you with that responsibility.”
“It should have been my choice.”
“I was the one who talked Heather out of an abortion. When she came to me, it was for money to do the procedure. I begged her not to. The only way she would carry the baby was if we got married, so I married her, and we had Ivy, and I’m sorry if this hurts you, but I can’t regret that.
She’s the best thing to ever happen to me. ”
“Of course I don’t want you to regret Ivy. She’s lovely.”
I heaved a sigh. “At the time, I did what I thought was best.”
“Without talking to me. God, I wanted to kill you that night I flew in from DC and confronted you.”
“I could tell.” I shuffled closer to him so my knees brushed his. “Matt, the truth is you fell for someone you didn’t even know. The man I was before I met you didn’t dare to dream of a life with you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“There’s a reason I thought being with Heather and raising a child together was my best option. I didn’t think I was right for you.”