Page 72 of Lucky Laces

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I thought…late nights getting drunk with the boys or wild times with women or too much time on the golf course?—

I didn’t think this.

Whateverthisis.

And maybe I’m weak, maybe I’m just a smidgen of a coward…

But I seriously consider turning on my heel and leaving, walking right out of the house and pretending that I haven’t glimpsed whatever it is that I just glimpsed, and making it home in time to watch the final period of the Breakers game.

I need a man—especially one who brings complications to every level of my life—like I need a hole in my head.

I just moved to a new city.

Started a new job.

Broke up with my fiancé.

I’m not equipped for this.

Only even as my weight shifts and I start to turn, I find that I can’t actually make myself rotate.

Instead, my feet carry me across the porch and down the steps and…across the lawn.

And I don’t stop until I make it over to Hudson.

Carefully, I lay my hand on the small of his back.

He jumps but doesn’t move away, and that gives me the courage to keep pushing forward.I flatten my palm, slide it with me as I shift around him, ducking under his arm and putting myself between him and the trunk of the tree.

He doesn’t move.

If anything, he’s gone impossibly still.

“Will you…” I nibble the inside of my cheek.“Will you talk to me?”

His eyes close and a curl of disappointment winds through me when he doesn’t speak, when the silence seems to stretch for an impossibly long time.

“Hudson?”I whisper.

Still nothing.

Damn.

I smooth my hand up his chest, wrapping it around the side of his neck and rising on tiptoe.My front is pressed fully to his, my lips at his ear when I murmur, “Please, honey?”

He shudders, his free hand dropping to my hip, clenching so tightly it’s riding that line between pleasure and pain.

But I know he’s not trying to hurt me.

I know he’s hanging on, and just barely.

And maybe it’s mercenary, maybe it’s a dick move.

But I know now’s the time to push for answers.

So I do.

“Will you tell me?”

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