Found in You(29)

I swallowed but didn’t let the trepidation show on my face. “Anything?”

He sat on the bed, facing me. “The restraining order against you was filed by Paul Kresh. Who was he?”

I closed my eyes for half a second. Hudson had read my police files. Of course he would remember the details.

My hesitation spurred him. “See? You can’t tell me.”

“He was a guy,” I blurted out. I wasn’t stupid. If I wanted him to share, I’d have to do the same. “Just a guy who picked me up once when I was clubbing.”

“You f*cked him.”

Another deep breath. “Yes.”

Hudson’s eye twitched. “Go on.” His voice was tight.

“He took me to his place. And after…well, after, he wanted me to leave. But I played drunk and stayed the whole night.”

“Then what?”

“Then I went through his things while he was sleeping and discovered wedding invitations. He had a fiancée. She was out of town for the weekend or something and I was a girl he’d picked up. But he didn’t realize that I’d been crushing on him for weeks. I’d seen him with her, and I didn’t care. When I saw him alone that night, I made myself available.”


My hands were sweaty—I’d been holding them in a ball. I wiped them on the bed next to me as I went on. “Of course, he wanted me gone, to pretend it never happened. Wanted me to forget his address. He never gave me his number, but I’d gotten that when he was sleeping, too. Sent myself a text from his phone so I’d have it.”

I paused, trying to remember how I’d felt, how desperate I’d been for Paul to be in my life. “I couldn’t let him go. I thought…” My voice trailed off at the memory. “I don’t know what I thought.”

Hudson turned so that his back was against the headboard. “Yes, you do. Tell me.”

I sat back next to him, stretching my legs out in front of me. “I thought he was my soul mate. That I was meant to be with him or something. Before I even actually talked to him. I know. Crazy. It was crazy.” I stared at my toes. “I was crazy.”

“No, you weren’t. You only wanted to be loved.”

Hudson’s rich brandy tone pulled my eyes to his. “Yes,” I said, meaning so much more than yes, I wanted to be loved. Meaning yes, we understand each other, yes, we get it.

Yes, we weren’t crazy or sociopaths or horrible people. We only wanted to be loved.

“Anyway,” I smoothed my hair behind my ear, “I didn’t have a job. I was living off my inheritance, which is gone now, and so I had plenty of time to wait outside his apartment and follow him to work. Every day. For months. Two? Three? I don’t remember exactly. One day, I told the security guard he was my boyfriend. I convinced him to let me in his office during lunch. When Paul came back, I was waiting for him.” I lowered my lids. “Naked.”

Hudson’s eye twitched again.

“He turned me away, H. Called security before I had a chance to even throw some clothes on.” My throat closed at the humiliating memory. “He filed the restraining order after that.”

I studied his face, trying to pick up on the slightest change in his expression, hoping to pick up on his thoughts. But I came up with nothing. His features were stone.

Would he ever let me in?

Hudson brought his index finger up to his face and rubbed the tip along his chin. “But that’s not all, is it? Your record says you violated the order.”

I felt my face flush. “I, um, I did.” God, talking about it was embarrassing. Even thinking it made me want to crawl in a hole. Of the stupid, idiotic, insane things I’d done, this had been one of the worst. “I became friends with Melissa.”