Chapter 10
Liv
Arms, muscular and sturdy, held me, their grasp tightening as Hudson’s expression changed. Where it had been light, amusement flickering in his eyes, his grin free, it was turning stormy with creases forming around his eyes, his jaw rigid.
“Hudson?” I asked, hating the shift because I knew what had caused it. The reality that sat between us. The fleeting moments of surfacing above the years of pain before collapsing again. “I’m sorry,” I said, burying my head into his chest. Exposed. Weak.
I had always let my defenses down with him because with him I was untouchable.
I didn’t have to pretend to be hard, to be cold.
Those feelings were ricocheting through me, battling my need for control.
I was slipping under, and I hated it, but there was a part of me that was screaming for me to let go, to remember what it was like to live.
Because I hadn’t lived since then. I’d only ever been alive with Hudson.
He tightened his hold on me, resting his chin on my head as he walked us.
I had his socks bunched in my right hand, his shirt in my left.
The constant thud of his heart was calming, and I almost felt like I was twenty-one again, safe and in love, pretending my mother hadn’t died two years earlier and that reality wasn’t waiting on the cusp, ready to obliterate me.
I’d known from the moment Gabe had looked at me with those sad eyes, agony splayed through them, that I would have to give Hudson up.
I’d always known, the terms of the trust lingering in the shadows, my father’s expectations hanging over me.
But giving up the trust and disappointing my father had been a possibility if it meant I had Hudson.
Turning my back on Gabe had never been a possibility.
Never had I been able to stand up for him, but that day when he’d suggested we turn on our father, the chance to do right by him was there.
The only ask he’d ever had, and I couldn’t turn him down.
The chance to avenge our mother’s death and make our father suffer, to bring some peace to Gabe.
So I had pretended that reality didn’t exist, living my life of bliss with Hudson when we were together until the days grew too short and my expiration date hung before me.
Graduation. The day I would leave to work for my father and step into my role as co-conspirator to Gabe.
“Are you?” Hudson asked, bringing me back. His voice was a low rumble that traveled through his chest.
“Yes,” I admitted.
I peeked up at him, seeing him nod, his eyes set on the distance.
His hold on my legs loosened, and he set me down. Cool, soft grass sank between my toes, and I understood then why he had carried me outside. I looked down, seeing the grass moving as my toes wiggled.
“Put your shoes back on,” Hudson called as he chased me across the quad.
“Never. You should take yours off,” I yelled back, moving my hip just before he caught it. The warm spring day had brought other students out, and I ran between them, hearing Hudson curse me.
“Watch your language!” I scolded him just as his hand spread over my stomach, and we went tumbling. He landed next to me, pulling me into his hold, and I scooted and repositioned so I was curled into his side.
His mouth found mine, the kiss hollowing out every space in my body and filling it with yearning. Heat flooded through me, and I grasped his shirt, pulling him closer.
“Think it might be time to put those shoes back on so we can finish this in your dorm room?” he said, nipping at the tip of my nose.
“That sounds tempting, but not yet.” I smoothed his shirt down and maneuvered from his hold. Sitting up, I wiggled my toes in the grass.
“What’s so exciting about grass?” he asked, wrapping his arm around me after he brought himself up.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I just don’t remember ever touching it with my feet.
” I chewed the inside of my cheek, trying to remember a time when I had, but none came.
My father would never have let us run around without shoes.
He didn’t even let us run around. Even when we went down to the beach, we had to walk, and our feet needed to be cleaned before we entered the house.
Mother had let us run. When he wasn’t home.
And it was the freest I’d been until I met Hudson.
I leaned over and grabbed his foot.
“What are you doing, Olivia?” he asked with a laugh.
“Making us match.” I sat up on my knees and moved in front of him.
“Such a tease,” he mumbled, hunger flashing in his chestnut orbs.
“Later, dirty boy.” I tugged his shoe off, crinkling my nose when I took his sock off.
“If you’re a good girl.”
My insides tumbled over each other as they knotted. There was no describing what those words did to my body.
I pulled his other shoe off, then his sock as the heat between my legs had me shifting my weight. His smirk told me he knew exactly why I’d done it, and I smacked his foot before I crawled back to sit beside him.
“What now?” he asked. “Because my suggestion sounds more satisfying than this.”
I glowered at him, which only made him laugh.
Leaning my head back, I closed my eyes and sank my toes into the grass.
He was quiet, his laugh fading. The sound of chatter from the other students, cars passing by a few streets up, a bird flying overhead, and the wind rustling in the trees took up the space where his silence fell.
His eyes were on me. There were times when he was pensive.
A stillness would come over him, the intensity making his eyes darken.
Like the burdens of his life found him, strangling him like they did me.
Together we mostly ran from those burdens, but when we were apart, mine found me and buried me again.
I wasn’t so sure his didn’t do the same.
With a mother who owned one of the most successful consulting firms in the country, she expected him to take over the company just like my father did with Gabe.
Me, I was an obstacle my father had gotten around with an offer of COO, but Gabe was his favorite child.
The prodigy who would take over when he retired.
And Hudson was that for his mother, only he wanted to be anywhere but in a boardroom.
I peeked my eyes open, seeing how his irises were like mocha. He gave me a crooked grin, the steely gaze disappearing.
“You know you’re the most gorgeous thing out here, right?”
I tossed my hair back. “Maybe.”
He snorted and lay back on the grass, so I snuggled into his body, loving the weight of his arm around me.
“When we’re married, I want you to continue running in the grass barefoot and laughing in the sunlight. I want to dance with you in the rain—”
“That’s cliché.”
He peered down at me. “Then I want to twirl you around in snowstorms.”
A laugh bubbled up from me. “That’s better.”
“On our farm with the horses behind us.”
“How many horses?”
“As many as you want,” he said, kissing my head. “Just never stop being you, Olivia. The girl who jumps at thunder, who takes her shoes off to run through the grass, who laughs at my silly jokes, and…”
He stopped, his hand holding mine tight, and I snuggled further into him, finishing with, “And loves you so irrevocably that her heart would stop beating if she ever lost you.”
“Yeah, that,” he said, pulling me closer. “Because without you, Olivia. I would cease to live. Life would be nothing more than a series of steps without the grass and the laughter, and I don’t think I could survive like that.”
A gust of wind sent my hair tumbling into my face, and I pushed it back, dropping my eyes from Hudson as he stepped away from me, tucking his hands into his pockets.
Memories. Stupid, obnoxious memories. They wouldn’t stop.
After years of hiding them behind barriers that only grew faulty on days I couldn’t avoid—Hudson’s birthday, our anniversary, the day we met—they had found a weak spot in my defenses.
He cleared his throat and turned toward the land.
“Tell me your thoughts,” he said. “Where you’re thinking of adding.”
Hands freeing from his pockets, he crossed his arms. His thick forearms bulged below his flannel shirt.
I took a step, closing my eyes and relishing the smooth touch of the grass below my feet.
There had always been something freeing about Hudson.
He was so grounded in the outdoors, and his relationship with it had infected me.
I tipped my head as the breeze wafted across my face.
How long had it been since I’d taken the time to enjoy the silence?
I had spent my years trying to block it out because it let in too much pain.
Opening my eyes, I looked out at the land, seeing the horses to my right, behind the only fenced-in section of the ranch.
I recalled the farm Hudson had worked on in our youth, where he would take me horseback riding.
Every weekend, when he finished working, we would go out.
Spending the day together. Just us and the gentle strides of the horses, the quiet of the world enveloping us like a safety blanket.
“Well,” I stepped forward, envisioning what this ranch could be.
The potential he must have seen when he bought it.
He’d taken on too much, so his dream had never taken form.
I knew it was still there, and I understood it like it was my own.
Because I had lain next to him, listening to his voice lull me into a state of peaceful calm as he told me about it.
A horse farm that would be the go-to spot for the best horses.
Breeding, training, and learning. His vision was grand, but that was Hudson.
“We would extend the stables. Add enough to house twenty horses.” I glanced over at him, seeing him shake his head.
“Too many for me to be hands-on. Start smaller. Maybe three more. Add from there once word spreads. That’ll mean training new hands to handle what I can’t.”