Until You Loved Me (Silver Springs #3)(78)

“Then why’d you do it today?”

“My feet were killing me, okay? I couldn’t walk anymore. And my phone was dead. I was out of options.”

“I don’t understand why you were walking in the first place. I left you the keys to my car.” He gestured at the Porsche, which was parked right next to them. “What happened? Couldn’t you find them?”

“I didn’t even look,” she muttered as she glanced over at it.

“Because...”

She turned back to face him. “Because your car cost... I don’t know...$100,000, and I didn’t want to be responsible for it.”

“I told you it was insured!”

The fact that he hadn’t bothered to correct the price told her she wasn’t far-off. “I’d still feel terrible if I wrecked it. I’m sure it means a lot to you. Besides, it’s very...”

His eyes narrowed. “What?”

“Distinctive,” she replied. “I knew people around here would recognize it and assume we were together.”

“Isn’t that what we want them to assume? Isn’t that what we decided to tell everyone?”

“For a month or so, yes. But we’re going to be an item for such a short time, I didn’t see any reason to start showing off.”

His jaw dropped. “You think I bought that car to flaunt my wealth?”

“No. People know how rich you are. They’d expect you to be driving something like that. But I don’t have that kind of money, and I’d rather not be driving around in a fancy Porsche one month, only to be tooling around in something I can afford the next—with our baby in the back seat—while some other woman replaces me in your little sports car.”

“Seriously?” he said. “That’s your answer?”

She rubbed her forehead. The issue was more complicated than she was making it sound. She didn’t want to get too comfortable in his privileged world, didn’t want to feel disappointed when she returned to her ordinary one. But she refused to admit that to him. “I guess I have more pride than I thought. I don’t want the people I have to circulate among on a daily basis to think I’m enough of an idiot to believe that our relationship could be permanent, especially since you warned me from the start that you weren’t interested in anything serious.”

“Because I don’t want to hurt you, or any other woman I might date!”

She spread out her hands in a conciliatory gesture. “Look, this is leading to an argument we don’t need to have. Heading to town on my own seemed preferable at the time. That’s all.”

“You’d rather walk for miles and then risk your life by getting in with a stranger than be seen driving my car.”

She opened the door. “Forget it, okay? Nothing happened. If these boots had turned out to be as comfortable as I thought, I would’ve made it home on my own without a problem. Three and a half miles isn’t a big deal.”

“It’s a little more than that. And you’re pregnant!”

“It’s okay to walk when you’re pregnant, Hudson.”

“That far? And in the dark? Even if you didn’t catch the attention of a psychopath, a drunk driver could’ve hit you. Hell, someone looking down at a phone could’ve hit you.”

She didn’t answer, but he didn’t seem capable of letting it go.

“Don’t you care that I was going out of my mind?” he went on. “That I couldn’t imagine what’d happened to you? You tell me I’m about to be a father—that I’m finally going to have some semblance of a family for the first time in my life—and then you go missing!”

Ellie blinked as the real reason for his anger registered—she’d scared him, pure and simple. At first, he’d been so unhappy about her pregnancy, she’d never realized she had the power to do that. But the ultrasound had changed things, made the baby real for him. He hadn’t seemed nearly as unhappy about having a child since then. He’d actually become quite committed. And Bruiser had told her he feared abandonment, that his childhood had made it impossible for him to trust in love. She should’ve thought more carefully before refusing to drive his car and just taking off. “I’m sorry. I never dreamed you’d care.”

“If something happened to you?”

“The baby’s fine, Hudson. Everything’s fine.”

“The night could’ve ended very differently. That’s my point.”

He got out and stomped into the house, leaving Ellie a little stunned. Hudson did everything he could to remain aloof and detached, to keep himself from caring too much about anyone or anything. But he did care. He’d let the curtain slip last night—and then again today.

Bruiser was right. Hudson had a scarred but tender heart. And she found that to be the most attractive thing about him.





20

After Ellie put away her new clothes, pulled on some sweats and doctored the giant blister on her foot, she went in search of Hudson.

She found him sitting in the theater room watching MMA with his leg propped up and ice on his knee.

“I’m sorry about earlier,” she said as she stood in the doorway.

His gaze slid over to her before returning to the screen.