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I’m a successful businessman. A billionaire. I can be ruthless. I stop at nothing to get what I want. But I’ve lost before. In different ways. Deals, businesses, investments. I always thought I understood the meaning of losing.
But I haven’t.
Until now.
Because I just realized I’ve lost the one thing I didn’t think I had.
I’ve gone and lost my heart.
Chapter Thirty
Scarlett
Inever thought of myself as a glutton for punishment. But here I am, hungry, it seems, for more.
Honestly, I should have taken up the offer of the Catskills. I almost did. But I was leaving for a bus to take me, keys are in my bag, when some kid gave me a printed note. Old school, but the paper’s expensive and it isn’t signed, and the kid said the guy gave him fifty bucks.
So here I am, back at Hudson’s place in the East Sixties, the streetlamps casting dappled light through the trees and couples strolling with dogs and cyclists zipping along make it all seem idyllic.
Seem being the word.
The note had to be from Hudson. Who else would send me something that said we need to talk?
I take a breath and force myself on reluctant legs to go to his door.
He doesn’t take long to answer this time, and he isn’t as ferocious as he was earlier. But he looks disheveled and he’s staring at me like I’m some horrible ghost.
No…he’s staring at me like he can’t believe I’m there. The rest of his expression I can’t read, but there’s something in his dark blue eyes that causes my heart to lurch and fill with a little hope.
“I got your note,” I say in a rush, holding it out.
Hudson takes it and scans it in moments. I mean, it’s four words long. Then he looks back at me. “Not mine.”
“Oh.” I swallow, taking the note and crumpling it in one hand. “It’s not a ruse to see you. I promise. You made it very clear—”
“That has my mother all over it, trying to be me.”
“Why—” I stop. What am I even doing? He doesn’t want me here. “I’ll go.”
I turn but Hudson speaks, stopping me.
“She thinks she can meddle, apparently. Used to do that when I fought with my brothers. When we were teenagers.”
I nod and force myself to take a step.
His voice is soft when he speaks next. And it almost floors me. “Scarlett…don’t go.”
“Why?”
“Because I thought you’d gone and I think she’s right. Come in. Please. Then you can go. After we talk.”
That…doesn’t sound overly promising, no matter what my heart might be thinking, but even if it’s the faintest hope, I have to take it. And I need to tell him how I feel.
So I turn and slip in past him, careful not to touch him and then I stop as he shuts the door, unsure which way to go.
“This way,” he says, moving ahead of me and pointing into a room I haven’t been in.
Any other time and I’d be fascinated. This is not him. At all. This has the fingerprints of an interior designer who went with tasteful money and didn’t know him at all. Hudson has taste, but not delicate pieces of furniture that make a statement.
