Until You Loved Me (Silver Springs #3)(88)

“Why waste the time?” he said. “The day we got here, Samuel Jones, the PI I hired, told me he’d found someone who’d impregnated his own daughter, and I might be the result of it.”

“That’s why you were so upset that night.”

He wished he could throttle Jones. What’d happened was Hudson’s own fault—for hiring someone in the first place. But why hadn’t the private investigator simply walked off when Matisson caught him going through the garbage? Why had he given Matisson his card, for crying out loud? It was seeing the words private investigator that had caused Matisson to realize Hudson was looking for his parents and had precipitated his visit.

“Hudson, stop!” She grabbed his arm, but he shook her off.

“Let this go, Ellie. It is what it is. And there’s nothing I can do about it. There’s never been anything I could do.”

“Let’s get a paternity test, at least.” She spoke in a tone that beseeched him to calm down and listen to her. “Make sure you really have to cope with this.”

“There’s a DNA test in the medicine cabinet. Jones already sent it. You think it’ll change anything for me if I take it?”

She caught the door when he opened it. “Hudson, don’t go. I need you. Our baby needs you, too.”

He wished he could stop, but he couldn’t. He’d enjoyed her so much since she’d come to California, he’d almost convinced himself that he could overcome his childhood. That they might be able to make some sort of future together—the two of them and their baby. To extinguish that hope broke something inside him he doubted he could ever repair. “Go back to Miami, Ellie.”

*

After Hudson peeled out of the drive, Ellie paced in his big house, worrying about him—where he was, what he was doing—and stewing over Matisson’s visit. She kept hearing the old man’s voice spouting what had sounded like empty apologies. She didn’t believe he’d come for the sake of his poor daughter. That just didn’t ring true. Ellie couldn’t escape the sneaking suspicion that Matisson himself stood to gain something, and it made her angry to think he was attempting to use a situation as tragic as his daughter’s battle with cancer to manipulate Hudson into giving him money. It also made her angry that Matisson didn’t seem to even consider what such a terrible secret would do to a man as successful and proud as Hudson, how quickly it would knock him off his pedestal.

Ellie was tempted to text Hudson. To beg him to come back. She needed his help to do the research that lay ahead. He had the number for the private investigator who’d brought all of this to the surface. He was also the one who had to take the DNA test that should be performed first of all.

But she knew he wouldn’t text back. He was too distressed. He’d told her to leave and go back to Miami.

She thought of all the time they’d spent together, how much she looked forward to hearing his voice, seeing his smile, laughing at his jokes. She was in love with Hudson, and had slowly, over the past weeks, succumbed to the temptation of hoping and believing that he cared about her in return—that they might one day be a family. She wasn’t going to give him up so easily.

Taking out her cell, she called Aiyana at New Horizons to get Bruiser’s number—and had Hudson’s best friend on the phone within minutes.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he said when she explained what had happened.

She hated that she’d felt she had to tell him something Hudson would consider so private, but she knew he told Bruiser more than anyone else, that he trusted Bruiser, and she felt Hudson might need his help. “No, I’m not.”

“Where do you think he’s gone?”

“I can’t even guess. But I’ve never seen him so upset.”

“I feel terrible. I encouraged him to look for his parents. I thought finding them, learning some of the answers, might make it possible for him to find peace. I never dreamed it would lead to something like this.”

“The weird thing is...I don’t believe Matisson. Can’t believe him.”

“Why?”

“All his actions in the past indicated he didn’t care about either of his children. Why would that suddenly change? He didn’t admit the truth about Hudson, what he did with him, when his daughter came forward. Even then, he put his own interests first.”

“But why would anyone make up such a terrible story?”

“Because he thinks he’s going to get paid!”

“You don’t believe he’s trying to help his cancer-stricken daughter?”

“Maybe he thinks that’ll be a side benefit. But I’m convinced he also thinks he’ll get ahead in some way.”

“Hudson isn’t stupid. He’d never allow that to happen.”

“I don’t know if he’s capable of being as objective as he needs to be in this situation.”

“True...”

“Hudson isn’t anything like Matisson,” she said. “Doesn’t look like him. Doesn’t act like him. He’s the exact opposite—too sensitive for his own good. I can’t see them as related.”

“Ellie, that could be wishful thinking.”

“Or maybe it’s my science background, telling me to check all the facts before drawing a conclusion.”