"You were keeping tabs on me, but you couldn't be bothered to show up when I lost the only family I had left?" The tears were coming now, hot and angry, streaming down my cheeks before I could stop them. "You couldn't send a card? Flowers? A goddamn text message?"
"I wanted to." His voice was rough, strained. "God, Betty, you have no idea how badly I wanted to be there. But I couldn't."
"Couldn'twhat?Couldn't pick up the phone? Couldn't get on a plane? You just said you were on a plane within an hour when you saw me almost get killed, but when myfatherdied, when I needed you more than I've ever needed anyone, you stayed away?"
He didn't answer. Just stood there, his hands curled into fists at his sides, his jaw clenched so tight I could see the muscle jumping beneath the skin.
"I hate you," I said, and I meant it. I meant it with every fiber of my being. "I hate you so much I can't even see straight."
"I know."
"Then why are you here? Why now?"
"Because I couldn't stay away anymore." He took a step toward me, and even though every instinct I had was screaming at me to move back, to put distance between us, my feet refused to cooperate. "Because watching you almost die today broke something inside me that I didn't even know was still intact. Because those two dirty cops are going to try again, Betty, and I'm not going to let them succeed."
"I don't need your protection."
"Too bad." He was right in front of me now, close enough that I could smell him, and God, it was unfair how good he still smelled. "You've got it anyway. Whether you like it or not."
We stood there, barely a foot apart, and the air between us crackled with ten years of unspoken words. My skin prickled with awareness, every nerve ending suddenly alive in a way they hadn't been in years. Decades, maybe. This close, I could see the individual stubble hairs on his jaw, the faint lines at the corners of his eyes, the way his chest rose and fell with each controlled breath.
This close, I could remember exactly what it felt like to be pressed against that chest. To have those arms wrapped around me. To have that mouth….
Stop it,I told myself viciously.He left you. He abandoned you. He wasn't there when Dad died.
I took a deliberate step back, putting distance between us. "Go back to wherever you came from, Hudson. I'm too tired for this."
"Two men tried to kill you today." His voice dropped lower, rougher. "They're going to try again. They're going to keep trying until you're dead or they're behind bars. So you can hate me all you want, and you should, I deserve it, but I'm not leaving. Not until this is over."
I stared up at him, my chest heaving, my hands shaking.
I wanted to scream at him. I wanted to hit him, to throw things, to make him feel even a fraction of the pain he'd caused me.
But more than that. More than the anger and the hurt and the bitter, burning resentment, I was exhausted.
Tired of being afraid. Tired of looking over my shoulder. Tired of pretending I could handle this on my own when I so clearly couldn't.
And as much as I hated to admit it, and as much as it galled me to even think it, having Hudson here made me feel safer than I had in weeks.
"Fine," I bit out, the word like glass in my throat. "You can stay. But there are rules."
"Name them."
"You sleep on the couch. You don't touch me. You don't look at me like." I waved my hand vaguely, unable to put into words the way he was looking at me right now, like I was the sun and he'd been living in darkness for a decade. "Likethat.And we arenottalking about the past. Not about why you left, not about what happened between us, not about any of it. You're here to do a job. That's it."
"Understood."
"I mean it, Hudson."
"I know you do." His mouth curved into something that wasn't quite a smile. "Couch is fine. I've slept in worse places."
I didn't ask what those worse places were. I didn't want to know.
"Bathroom's down the hall. Extra blankets are in the closet." I scooped up the baseball bat from where I'd dropped it and headed toward my bedroom. "Try not to make too much noise. I need to sleep."
"Betty."
I stopped but didn't turn around. I couldn't. If I looked at him again right now, I'd either start crying or throw the bat at his head.
