Page 186 of Slap Shot

“Lucy is not your daughter. She’s mine. Your money means nothing to me, and you don’t get to call her yours,” Madeline adds, and my heart swells in my chest with her fierce tone.

“Okay.” Clark shifts to his left, moving away from us. “I got it.”

“Hey,” she calls out, and it’s pathetic how quickly he turns around. “Why did you like my photo on Instagram?”

“What?” His brows furrow. “I didn’t do that.”

“On my chef page. You liked a photo from a year ago.”

“I don’t know.” Clark shoves his hands in his pockets. Stupid fucking khakis. “It must’ve been my girlfriend’s kid when he was messing around on my phone.”

“Girlfriend.” Madeline snorts. “Right.”

Maverick gives me a look, and I nod. Piper mentions something about taking Lucy into the lounge for a candy bar. The second Clark is gone, I’m reaching for Madeline, holding her against my chest and not caring how horrible I smell.

“Are you okay?” I ask into her hair, and she nods against my jersey.

“That was… cathartic. Closure, almost. I don’t have feelings for that man. I haven’t had feelings for him inyears, but to see him and know I survived all the hurt he put us through?” Madeline tips her chin up to look at me. “It gives me hope. It tells me my heart has healed. That I could…”

The sentence hangs between us, unfinished.

Love you.

Spend the rest of my life with you.

Be with you until my dying days.

“I want you to know I’m going to spend every second I’m on this earth proving to you that I’m not him.” I untangle our limbs and cup her cheeks. I stroke my thumbs over her skin, smiling when she sighs and melts into my touch. “I will never be him. I will never leave you and Lucy, and I promise you won’t ever doubt my…”

Love for you, I want to say. I swallow it down, but she nods, eyes bright.

“I know,” she whispers. “I know that. I’ve never doubted you for a second. I’m not scared, Hudson. I just… go slow with me, please.”

“We’ll go as slow as you want, sweetheart.” I touch her chin, tilting her head back. I kiss her, not caring who is watching. I sure as shit hope Clark is. “It’s you, me, and Lucy. For as long as you’ll have me.”

Her grin is my favorite thing. “What a team we make.”

FIFTY-FOUR

HUDSON

Madeline has beendifferent in the week since Clark showed up. She’s smiling more. She’s lighter, like this enormous weight has been lifted off her shoulders. The change is contagious, and every day I’m with her, I fall more and more in love with her.

“What’s that smell?” Madeline sets two bags of groceries on the kitchen table and shrugs off her coat. “Are you cooking dinner?”

“Trying to.” I grab a colander and put it in the sink. “We’ll see how it turns out.”

“Are you ill?”

“Wow, Mads.” I laugh and drain the pot of pasta. “You wound me.”

“Seriously. What’s the occasion?”

“I don’t know.” I make room on the counter and set the pot on top of a holder, dumping the pasta back in. “Lucy is at a friend’s house for the night. I leave tomorrow for four days. You’ve had a long week.”

“Have I?” She arches an eyebrow and puts a gallon of milk in the fridge. “Remind me what happened?”

“Your shitty ex-husband happened.”

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