"Um, don't you want to give your woman a kiss goodbye, Huds? Or is romance really this fucking dead?"
I put on my best smile, and Hudson leans in, pressing a dry kiss to my cheek. I try not to cringe too hard. Gianna winks at me as she drags my boss across the room and through a side door marked Private. I don't miss the fact that three very large men peel away from the corners of the room and follow behind them.
I turn to my new bodyguard. "Would you like a drink?" I ask, awkwardly.
He shakes his head, offering me a smile that cracks through that granite face.
"No, thank you. Let me get yours," he says, glancing at my half-empty glass.
I toss back the rest, and he chuckles. I can already tell laughter isn't something Dom does often.
Hudson comes back twelve minutes later looking like someone rearranged his internal organs. He takes my hand, way tighter than before, reaches for his champagne, and drains half of it.
"Everything okay?" I ask.
"Fine."
Dom gives me one last nod, then disappears into the crowd, returning to Gianna.
I want to push. Every journalistic instinct is screaming at me to ask what happened behind that door. But I know Hudson well enough to know that pressing him right now would be dangerous and pointless. I’m here to pay my debt for keeping my ex out of the headlines.
He takes a long breath. By the time he sets down his glass, he's Hudson Blake again. That fake smile is back.
"My parents are here," he says. "Ready?"
No.
"Ready."
He leads me across the terrace. The string quartet shifts into Vivaldi. Candlelight catches the roses overhead, casting everything in gold.
Hudson's parents are standing near the balustrade, looking out over the city.
His mother is elegant in the understated, expensive way old money is. Silver hair swept into a bun. A cream-colored gown. A string of pearls that has probably been in the family for generations. But her eyes are sharp and miss nothing. I could be screwed here.
His father is different.
Richard Blake is tall, Hudson's height, Hudson's build, but diminished. The bones of a powerful man are still there, but the flesh has thinned, the color has faded, and he moves with the cautious precision of someone whose body is running out of time. He leans on a cane, and his suit hangs looser than it should on his shoulders.
"Mom. Dad." Hudson's voice softens. Becomes, for the first time tonight, almost human. "I'd like you to meet someone. This is Harper. My girlfriend."
The word hangs in the air. I hold my breath. I never did well with drama classes at school. This is not the job for me.
Audrey Blake's face breaks into a smile so immediate it catches me off guard. She takes both my hands in hers before I've even offered them.
"Oh, Harper. I’m Audrey. We were beginning to think Hudson had taken a vow of solitude." She squeezes my hands. "Richard, look at her. Isn't she lovely?"
I bite back a laugh. Solitude? Hudson? She does not know her son.
Richard steps forward. Up close, I can see the illness in the lines around his eyes, in the tremor in his left hand. But his smile is genuine and absolutely nothing like his son's. A pit forms in my stomach.
Probably the guilt of lying to him for Hudson to steal the company.
"Lovely doesn't quite cover it, Audrey." Richard takes my hand gently. "Harper. It's a pleasure. Where on earth did our boy find you?"
I glance at Hudson. He gives me a microscopic nod.
"At work, actually. I'm a journalist at your company. Your son is my boss, which I remind him of daily."
