And from the sound of her heels and soprano voice, it was a woman.
Pressing my body tight against the wall, I peered around the door frame and down the hall. Her back toward me, I saw a woman dressed in a light blue sundress, directing men with boxes toward the library. Her hair, wrapped into a loose yellow bun at her nape, was what gave her away.
It was the woman Hudson grew up with. The woman Hudson had falsely claimed he’d gotten pregnant. The woman Hudson’s mother had wanted him to marry.
It was Celia Werner.
Chapter Three
One of the delivery men spotted me and nodded his head in my direction. Panic bubbled in my chest as Celia turned to see what he was gesturing at. I ducked back around the corner, but not before she saw me.
“Laynie?”
Shit, shit, shit. I didn’t want to see her, didn’t want her to see me.
Her heels clicked as she walked down the hall toward the bedroom. “Alayna, is that you?” She peeked into the room and found me pressed against the wall, still dressed only in a towel.
“Hi.”
“Wow.” Her smile brightened as her eyes moved up and down my body, taking in my lack of clothing. “I didn’t expect you to be here.”
This was ridiculous. I was acting like I’d been caught doing something wrong, but I hadn’t. I had every right to be there and, as far as I knew, Celia did not.
I straightened my back and stepped away from the wall. “I didn’t expect you either. Hudson didn’t say you were delivering the books.”
Celia shook her head. “He didn’t know. He ordered them through my office and my schedule was open today, so I thought I’d make sure they got here okay and help unpack them if need be.”
“You have a key.” It was honestly the only thing going through my mind at that point, and I hated how pathetic I sounded mentioning it. I had a key too, after all.
She leaned her shoulder against the door jam. “I do. Since I did the interior decorating. We’re always updating, and we thought it was easiest for me to keep a key.” Her eyes glanced over to the unmade bed, sheets in disarray from my night with Hudson. When she looked back at me, her smile seemed wider. “I did buzz though before I came up and there was no answer.”
“I was in the shower.”
“I see that.” She winked, and I knew she was saying that she was seeing more than me wrapped in a towel. She was getting the whole picture.
Well, good. I was glad. Then I wouldn’t have to feel like a jerk when I spelled it out for her. Hudson and I were together now. Whatever anyone else had ever planned for Celia and Hudson, it was moot. I was the one he’d chosen. End of discussion.
Except that discussion had only occurred in my head. Some things probably still had to be said out loud.
Celia seemed to be thinking the same thing. “Look, let me get finished with the delivery guys and you can get dressed. Then we can chat or whatever. It seems we have some catching up to do.”
She shut the door behind her, and I let out a deep breath. I wasn’t sure why Celia’s presence was giving me so much anxiety. She wasn’t a threat to me. She felt like one, though. I’d been jealous of her since I’d met her. As Hudson’s oldest friend, she knew him better than anyone. He told her things. He kept her secrets. She’d been the only one who knew about Hudson and me pretending to be a couple. It was an intimate friendship they had.
Hudson had insisted that friendship was the only thing between them. I had to trust that or the envy would tear me apart. The whole charade had started in the first place so that Celia and Hudson’s parents would stop trying to pair up the two. If there really had been something between them, then why would I have been brought into the middle?
I’d only discovered the day before that the reason the Werners and Sophia Pierce were so keen on playing matchmaker was because they thought Hudson and Celia had been together in the past. They thought Hudson was the father of the baby Celia had miscarried. But he wasn’t, and they had never been together. The truth was worse—Hudson had played Celia, had tricked her into falling for him, had sent her spiraling into depression and wild partying. So when she’d ended up pregnant, he felt responsible and claimed parentage.
In a way, Hudson had been responsible. But he wasn’t the man of his youth anymore. He wasn’t so responsible that his games had to follow him for the rest of his life. I couldn’t believe that. Otherwise I would have to believe the same about the things I’d done to others. Certainly even people like us—people who had been so broken that we destroyed others around us—deserved happiness of our own. We didn’t have to spend our entire existence making up for our mistakes. Did we?
I brushed the guilty thoughts out of my mind and quickly changed into a dress I could wear to the club later. I threw my wet hair into a bun and took a deep breath before opening the door.
The delivery men had already left, and I found Celia straightening a row of boxes into an orderly line. There were dozens of boxes, many more than I had anticipated. “Damn. He went all out, didn’t he?”
Celia looked up from her task. “He always does. But as I’m sure you’ve noticed, he has lots of shelves to fill.”
I scanned the room for the first time. A large mahogany desk sat at the far end surrounded by a curved wall of windows. Two armchairs and a long sofa created a sitting area in the middle of the room. A beautiful marble fireplace graced the center of one wall with a large flat-screen television set centered above it. The rest of the wall space was filled with shelves. Shelves and shelves—a booklover’s dream. Except that only one small section near the desk had any books on it.
“Uh, yeah. These boxes are barely going to put a dent in that shelf space.”
“He ordered more, but this is what was already in stock. The rest should come in the next few days or so. And, yes, he’ll still have a lot of empty space. Maybe you can help him fill the rest.”
Was that supposed to be a leading statement? Was she trying to get me to open up about Hudson?
If she wanted to know, she’d have to come out and ask. I responded to her statement with a simple, “Maybe.” I joined her in pushing the boxes into a line against the wall, doing a count of them as I did. Twenty-seven in total. Guess I knew how I was spending my afternoon. Unpacking books—the thought had me more excited than it should.
I nudged the last box into line with the others and turned to find Celia staring at me, arms crossed over her chest, one light brow cocked. “So. You and Hudson.”
“Yeah. Crazy, right?” Celia had only ever been nice to me. Why was this so awkward?
“It’s real then? You’re really together?”
“We are. No more pretending. It’s the real deal now.” It felt strange to say that. With other relationships my declarations were most likely exaggerations. Was I exaggerating now?
No. I wasn’t. This was real.
“Since when?” The question didn’t sound disbelieving, but curious. Excited, even. “I was with him Monday and he didn’t say anything had changed between you, though he did seem awfully lovesick. I thought he was being moody about his business-whatever that was going on. But now that I see you here, I’m thinking it was about you.”
Celia had driven Hudson from his parents’ house in the Hamptons to the airport for his business emergency with Plexis. “Just since yesterday. When he came back from Cincinnati, we sort of had it out and then—” I suddenly realized the source of the awkwardness. Though Celia and Hudson hadn’t ever been together for real, she had thought she loved him. I had no reason to be jealous of her, but she had plenty reason to be jealous of me. “Is this weird for me to talk about?”
“Weird? Why?” Her face relaxed with understanding. “Oh, he told you.”
“He did.” I wasn’t sure how she’d feel knowing I knew such intimate details of her life. “I’m sorry if that makes you uncomfortable.”
“No, not at all. It surprises me. He’s never talked about it with anyone. I’m not even sure he told his
therapist.” She chewed on her bottom lip for a moment. “What exactly did he say? Do you mind me asking?”
“Of course not, it’s only fair I tell you. But can we sit down first?” Maybe sitting would get rid of the confrontational feeling between us.
She nodded and we made our way to the sofa. I sat facing her, my legs curled up underneath me. “Well. He, um, explained about how he, uh, made you fall for him and then slept with your best friend. He said it was all a game. Which makes sense now, how you knew that he did that to women.” Celia had been the one who’d filled me in on Hudson’s mind games.
“Yep. I spoke from experience.” Her voice had lost some of its usual cheerfulness, but nothing seemed to indicate that talking to me was painful or unpleasant.
Her ease helped me go on. “And he told me about the baby.”
I watched her chest rise and fall before she responded. “What did he say about that?”
“That you didn’t know who the father was, so he said it was his. So you wouldn’t be disowned or disgraced or whatever. Since he felt responsible for the situation.” Even though none of the information was new to Celia—she’d lived it, after all—a part of me felt guilty for sharing things Hudson had told me in confidence.
Another part of me, a bigger part, wanted to know more about his rocky past and getting anything out of him was difficult, to say the least. Celia’s unexpected arrival brought an opportunity to learn, and I wasn’t throwing that away.
“Hmm. Well, that about covers all of it.” She tapped a long peach-painted nail on her knee as she processed. “Silly Hudson. He shouldn’t feel responsible for anything. I was a grown woman. I can own up to my actions. He doesn’t still feel that way, does he?”
“Yeah. I think he still does.” I didn’t think he did, I knew it. It was the reason he kept himself so closed off, the reason it had been so hard for him to let me in. Because of his mother or his therapist or for whatever reason, he’d been conditioned to believe that he was incapable of caring for anyone, and the horrible things he’d done to people such as Celia was his proof. That he could take his friend and manipulate her life, cause her to act so recklessly that she got pregnant from a stranger and then lost her child—that was evidence to Hudson that he was a despicable person. Because no decent person would do that in his mind.
But to me, the fact that he was so traumatized by the things he’d put Celia through was evidence of the contrary—he could feel. He cared enough to regret his actions. That didn’t show heartlessness. That showed humanity.
Celia rolled her eyes. “That’s ridiculous. He really needs to get over himself. That was practically a decade ago now. It’s old news.”
I agreed on that count. Maybe by finally having love in his life, Hudson would learn to move on.
As for Celia, I wasn’t sure she had yet. “So you don’t still have feelings for Hudson?” It wasn’t hard for me to imagine harboring an unrequited love for ten years because I obsessed. The only reason I’d gotten over some of my past obsessions was because I’d had therapy. Not that Celia suffered from the obsessive disorder I did, but it wasn’t unheard of to be in love with your friend for years and nothing ever coming of it. It was the material of great books.
What did that make me? In Celia’s story, was I the villain?
Possibly I was over-dramatizing. As always.
Celia leaned forward and put her hand over mine, taking me off-guard. “I totally have feelings for him, Laynie. He’s my best friend. I’ve loved him since I met him which was before I could even talk. But I’m not in love with him. I don’t think I ever was. He played me and I thought…well, anyway, I’m not now. My mother will tell you differently, but she believes what she wants. If I was in love with him, I would have let that arranged marriage thing work out instead of supporting a sham to throw our parents off.”
“Yeah, that makes sense.” I took my hand away from hers before it felt creepy. It already felt creepy—I wasn’t much of a touchy-feely person. “Then it doesn’t bother you that we’re together?”
“Bother me? I’m happy for him! For both of you, actually. Truthfully, I was beginning to think Sophia was right, that he couldn’t possibly love anyone because he’d never shown any inclination toward anyone. Except to mess with them, of course. It was really very sad. This is definitely a change for the better.”
I wanted to be happy with her. Except when she’d brought up Hudson’s past, it reawakened one of my greatest fears.
“What did I say?” Celia asked.
She must have seen the worry in my expression. I never did have a good poker face. “Nothing.” It was probably best that I didn’t say anything. Only, Celia might be the one person I could talk to about it. The one person who would understand and give me insight.
I shifted, bringing my knees up to my chest. “It’s just, I’ve been worrying it was too good to be true, and I keep wondering if maybe I’m…if he’s…”
“If he’s playing you, too?”
My brown eyes met her blues. “Yes.”
She nodded once and frowned. “That is something I’d worry about.”
Well, that wasn’t the consolation I was hoping for.
“I’m not saying you should be worried,” she added. “It would just cross my mind as a possibility. Especially knowing his past, and since this arrangement or relationship he has with you is so entirely different than anything he’s ever had before.”
“You know him, what do you think?” Jesus, my lip quivered when I spoke. How pathetic was I?
She tapped her finger on her knee again. “I don’t think he’s playing that game anymore. Really, I don’t. He’s had counseling, and it’s been a good two years since he’s had any…incidents.”
I made a mental note to ask what she meant about incidents at another time. Right now, though, it wasn’t enough of a priority to interrupt.
“I guess he could be having a relapse, but…” Her words trailed off. “What has he said to you?”
“That he wants to be with me. That’s he’s committed to making a relationship work.” Or similar things that I didn’t want to share. They were my words and not meant to be given away to just anyone.
Celia scooted an inch closer to me as if we were in a room full of people and she was about to divulge a secret. “Let me tell you something about Hudson and the way he plays women. He doesn’t lie. Ever. That’s the brilliant part of his manipulative skills. He never says anything that you can throw back at him later. It’s all truth spun to make you read more into what he’s saying. He makes you think he’s offering more than what he’s really offering without ever saying the words. You know what I mean?”
“I think so.” Now that I thought about it, I knew exactly what she meant. Hudson chose his words so precisely and handled himself with such care that I could see how he’d be able to spin any situation so that he’d have the upper hand. It was what made him a good businessman, I imagined.
“So if he’s said those things to you, I’d believe them,” Celia reassured. “And he’s never, ever brought a woman to his penthouse before. That’s common knowledge. Even Sophia knows that. He’s never wanted anyone to be able to find him after he, you know, broke their heart.”
That made total sense. If you were a guy playing people, you wouldn’t want them to have access to your private life. I’d felt almost the same when I’d feared my ability to remain aloof from him—I hadn’t wanted to know where he lived so that I wouldn’t latch on.
Funny how we both were now in exactly the positions we hadn’t ever thought we’d be in.
Celia was watching me, gauging my reactions. I could sense she wanted to say more, but perhaps didn’t know how. “Has he said…how he feels about you?”
“Yes.” Well…“No.” But he had implied it. Now I couldn’t even quite remember what he had said and the ball of worry in my stomach began to tighten. “I mean, he’s said some things, but he hasn’t actually said he loved me.”
But I kne
w he meant it. Right?
Celia smiled. “I don’t think he’s ever told anyone he loved them. Not even his mother. So that might be a while, if ever. Don’t take that omission as a sign of anything.” She straightened. “No, I think you’re good. I think this is good. I think it’s real.” She clapped her hands together. “Yay! Hudson Pierce has a girlfriend! How exciting!”
“Yeah, it is exciting.” The warmth of it spread through my body. “Totally exciting.” Because none of this had happened to me before. I’d never had a relationship with someone who returned my feelings. Every guy I’d found to be the one never had a chance to see if they felt the same before I ruined it by clinging and suffocating. And the times I’d thought I’d been in love I’d really been more in love with the idea of someone being in love with me. I’d learned that through group therapy. That was why I held on to any slim nugget of interest a guy threw my way—because I so desperately yearned to be loved.
But this time, I wasn’t being desperate and I wasn’t clinging and I wasn’t obsessing. Not more than reasonably, anyway. It was definite cause for celebrating.
I beamed at Celia. “I can’t tell you how good it feels to talk to someone about him. Thank you so much.”
“I bet. And no problem. Any time.” She paused. “How are things going with Sophia?”
“I don’t know.” More like I didn’t care. Hudson’s mother and I were never going to be friends. Not when she’d belittled me and called me a slut. Not when she was so against Hudson finding anything good in life. “I told her off the last time I saw her. I’m hoping I don’t have to deal with her anytime soon.”
“Oh. You don’t have plans to see her then? Like, to show her your coupledom and everything?” She seemed surprised by that, and perhaps it was surprising after the lengths Hudson had gone to show me off to his mother when we weren’t actually a couple.
Complete Fixed: The Complete Fixed Series: Books 1-5 Page 29