Chapter 27 #2
I turned and waved Hudson toward the elevators, nerves clawing at me. He looked just as nervous, something he never was. We stood in front of the elevator, a strange, awkward silence between us, but as soon as the door shut, he let out a throaty, “Good girl.”
My eyes flew to his, my hand shaking as I held my keycard up. He reached over and took it, guiding it up as I pressed the button for our floor. He stepped up to me, pinning me to the elevator wall, and my knees went weak.
“Did you find yourself?” he asked, a desperation in his voice that reminded me of the day I’d left him.
“Did you get my journal?”
“Yes, but you didn’t answer my question.”
“Yes.”
The door opened, and he stepped aside to let me walk out first. My legs were so wobbly, I didn’t think I’d make it to my office.
I knew Gabe was on a call and Tori had worked from home today, so I wouldn’t need to talk to them.
No one but Paula interfered with my guided path to my office, and she only gave me a wide-eyed gape as Hudson delivered his sexy greeting to her with that accent he’d picked up since moving. She squeaked a hello as we walked by.
I kept my head up, my steps strong, but inside I was combusting, every nerve striking at me, my stomach tumbling in so many directions that I was about to get sick. Questions hounded me. Why was he here? What had happened? Why was he in a suit? Why did he look so hot in one?
I bit the inside of my cheek, leading him into my office, seeing it from his eyes.
Bland and impersonal. No family photos, nothing to tell a visitor who I was.
At least Tori had a picture of Reid on her desk and now a wedding picture of her and Gabe, the same two pictures he had on his desk.
But I had nothing. Just a sterile, blank slate.
Gabe’s suggestion came back to me, and I pictured an office connected to Hudson’s at his house, with pictures of horses and us on the walls.
He closed the door behind him as I turned to him, watching him unbutton his coat. Beneath was a black suit that fit him perfectly, emphasizing his cut figure and the muscles below. This was the man he would have been if he had never chased his dream.
He threw the coat over the back of the chair, looking at me with eyes strained with uncertainty.
Shoving his hands in his pockets, he said, “I missed you, Olivia.” Honest and raw, the words dug into the wound I’d made when I left Montana. “I did a lot of thinking while you were gone, and I know you need to find yourself, to figure out who you are, but that doesn’t seem fair.”
My heart dropped, an ache forming in my chest. I rubbed it while I listened to him. I’d wrestled with the fairness of what I was doing, putting him through this again with no guarantee that I would return. It had been selfish, but it wasn’t something I could do in the shelter of his embrace.
“Hudson, I didn’t mean to—”
He gave me one of his scolding looks, and I shut my mouth.
“Be quiet and let me finish.”
I gave him a nod. I deserved this. Deserved his anger, his words.
All the planning I’d done drifted away, lifted with the acknowledgment that I’d lost my chance.
Given him up again and lost him again. There were no third chances, and I had let my second chance slip through my fingers with a selfish need to figure out who I was under my defenses and walls.
“You’ve sacrificed so much in your life, trying to meet some standard set by a man who doesn’t deserve to call you his daughter.
Sacrificing for your brother because of what he sacrificed for you.
” My swallow was thick as his words took root, a nudging of hope blossoming deep inside of me.
He stepped across the room until he stood in my space, his strength eclipsing me like a warm blanket, his presence soothing the ache in my chest. I breathed him in, the scent of hay and leather, as he continued to talk.
“I know you want to be by yourself, and I won’t encroach on what you need to heal, Olivia, but I need you in my life.
I barely existed when you left the first time, and now…
without you, it’s like I’m a blind man lost in a forest with no sense of how to make my way out.
I can’t breathe, I can’t eat, I can’t sleep.
” He raked a hand through his hair. “Fuck, I can barely take care of the horses. I need you, Olivia, and I will keep my distance while you require it, but not that much distance. Never again.”
My mouth parted, fear tapping at my consciousness.
His appearance, the suit, the expensive coat.
He even had on a pair of dress shoes. Why hadn’t he come to me in jeans and boots?
A cowboy hat in his fingers that were now fidgeting in front of him like he was holding it and turning it between his fingers.
“What did you do, Hudson?” I asked, my voice trembling along with my limbs.
“I went back to my mother. I start next week. Enough time to move my things to the apartment I’ll share with my brother until one opens up in the building.”
No. No. No. The realization of what he’d given up for me came crashing into my frame, making me unsteady, and I grabbed onto the back of the chair to stabilize myself.
“But the ranch. You can’t.” Broken words because his words had left me broken for him.
“I’ll help you find a good foreman and a team to run it like it deserves to be run. There are plenty of trainers out there who would love to take the reins of an establishment just breaking ground. A chance to dictate the training program and the setup. It’s a golden opportunity.”
“No, Hudson. That was your chance. Not someone else’s.”
His fingers stopped their motion, his expression so warped with agony it almost toppled the dam I’d built around my tear ducts.
“You are my chance, Olivia. My chance to live again, and without you, everything else loses luster.”
A fractured inhale scraped through my throat.
“Say yes, Olivia. I’ll give you your space, but say you’ll give us a chance. Here where you’re happiest. You and me living out our dreams together.”
A funny sound slipped from my throat, a blend of a cry and a whimper that sounded like a wounded animal.
“You are where I’m happiest,” I said, “but this isn’t your dream.”
“No, but without you the dream is tarnished. We can make new dreams together.” This time, both his hands raked through his hair.
“Fuck, I sound like I’m begging. You know what?
I’m sorry I forced my way up here. This was wrong, and I didn’t think when I booked my flight after reading your journal.
I just thought…” He rubbed his face and turned from me, grabbing his coat before I could react.
He had read the journal. Read the moments and emotions I’d kept from him all those years, and his first reaction was to come after me and give everything up to be here with me.
“Hudson, don’t leave.”
He glanced back at me, his eyes creased with strain and emotion.
“Did you make the deal with your mother already?”
“Right before I came to see you. I’ll just go back to Montana. She’ll hate me again and likely disinherit me for real this time, but I won’t push you into something you don’t want.”
I huffed, and his eyes narrowed.
“Did you really give up everything thinking it would make me happy?” I asked, taking a few steps forward.
He cleared his throat, saying, “Yeah. I know I didn’t think it through.”