“Of what?”

I shook my head. “My last relationship and its aftermath were really hard to move past. I’m scared of getting hurt again…scared of you...”

“Me?”

“Yeah. You make me nervous in a lot of ways. Even now, Hudson. Most things in my life have seemed really great from the outside—my parents’ marriage, my engagement. I’m the type of woman who believes in a happily ever after, a fairytale. Sometimes that blinds me and keeps me from seeing things I don’t want to see. I thought I was an idealist, but after my ex burned me, it made me wonder if I was just a fool. Plus, you’re basically Prince Charming—a beautiful face, that body, successful, kind—when you want to be, mature, independent…” I shrugged. “You’re almost too good to be true, and I guess I’m afraid to fall for a fairytale again. You know, Fisher and I used to refer to you that way.”

Hudson’s forehead wrinkled. “Refer to me what way?”

“As Prince Charming.”

He looked away for a moment before his eyes met mine. “I’m no Prince Charming, sweetheart. But I do like you very much.”

“Why?”

“Why do I like you?”

I nodded.

“A lot of reasons. I like that when I handed you that microphone at Olivia’s wedding, you rose to the challenge and then called me an asshole with fire in your eyes. You don’t back down. You’re fearless, even though you somehow think you’re a chickenshit. I love that even though you’ve been through some shitty situations, you refuse to let them get you down. Instead of letting all the negative crap in life eat at you, you made up some happiness system. I love that when you see a homeless woman, you give her a Hershey bar because you know it might make some chemical in her brain to help her feel a little better, even if for just a few minutes. I love that you’re creative and invented your own product, and you’re smart enough to write an algorithm I wouldn’t have a clue how to formulate. And I love that you’re stubborn and don’t give up.”

He looked down at my body and then took a second to examine my face before shaking his head. “All of that, plus what you look like. The better question is, what reason would I have not to like you?”

My eyes started to water. Hudson leaned in and pressed his lips to mine. “Do you feel scared right now?” he whispered.

My pulse raced. “More than ever.”

He smiled. “Good.”

“Good? As in you want me to be afraid?”

“No…but at least I’m not alone in this. We’re only afraid of the things that mean the most to us.”

I cupped his cheek. “I’m so glad you waited me out.”

“I knew you’d be worth waiting for.”

Hudson pressed his mouth to mine in a passionate kiss. We’d spent a large portion of the last twenty-four hours in this bed with our mouths intertwined, yet this kiss felt different—more filled with emotion than ever before. He held my face between his hands, and I wrapped my arms around his neck. But what started slow, quickly heated up. Our kiss became wild and fervent as we helped each other shed our remaining clothes.

There was a frenzied feeling in the air. Still, something about the way Hudson looked into my eyes told me he knew I was still fragile in many ways. Our gazes never broke as he lined himself up at my entrance and pushed inside of me. Hudson was thick, and it had been over a year since I’d had sex until last night. So he took his time, going slowly as he sank deeper with each measured thrust. Once he was fully seated, he circled his hips, and I could feel his pelvis press against my clit. It felt so good, so perfectly right. My heart was as full as my body, and my emotions became almost impossible to hold in. Tears prickled at my eyes, which I shut in an attempt to hold them back.

“Open, sweetheart.” Hudson’s voice was hoarse.

My eyes fluttered back open and met his. What I saw made it impossible to hold back the tears. Hudson’s eyes were as brimming with emotion as mine. We stayed that way, connected in every way possible, as our orgasms built. Not wanting the moment to end, I tried to hold back as his thrusts grew harder and faster. But the sounds echoing through the room did me in. Our wet bodies slapped against each other as he fucked me with his body and soul.

“Hudson…”

His jaw strained as he kept going. “Let it go…let it all go.”

And I did. With a voracious cry, my body took over for my mind, and waves and waves of ecstasy ran through me. Just as it started to ebb, Hudson’s orgasm hit, and the heat of him spilling into me made my body continue to ripple with shock waves.

After, I had no idea how he could even hold his head up, much less still be semi-hard as he glided in and out of me.

“Wow…that was…”

Hudson smiled and kissed me softly. “Too good to be true,” he whispered.

I smiled back, and a little bit of hope sparked inside me.

Maybe, just maybe, he’d be the one man who didn’t let me down.

CHAPTER 24

Stella

Sixteen months ago

“Do you know what Drummond Hospitality is?” I asked.

Aiden was sitting in the living room of his apartment grading papers while I sat at the kitchen table going through my emails. “Hmmm?”

“It’s on your credit card statement for a hundred-and-ninety-two dollars. The other charge I recognize.”

Aiden’s eyes narrowed. “How did you get my credit card bill?”

“It comes to my email now. Remember a few months ago, I said I’d gotten a notice that Bank of America was going paperless, and you’d have to opt out if you wanted paper statements from now on? You asked me to have it sent to my email since everything goes to spam when you use your work email.”

“I thought you were referring to our joint bank account statement.”

I shook my head. “No, your credit card.”

“How long has it been going to you?”

I shrugged. “Two months, I think? Half the time you don’t have any activity. You rarely use your card. Last month it was a zero balance.”

The look on Aiden’s face troubled me. “Is it a problem?” I asked. “Do you not want me to see what you’re charging or something?”

He tossed his pen on top of the pile of papers and looked away. “Of course not. I just wasn’t aware that I wouldn’t be receiving the paper bill anymore.”

“Okay…well, do you know what that charge is? Drummond Hospitality?”

“No idea. The only thing I charged was dinner when we went to Alfredo’s a few weeks ago. It must be a mistake. I’ll go online and dispute it later.”

“Do you want me to do it since I’m online anyway?”

“No, it’s fine. I’ll do it.”

Something didn’t sit right. But I let it go since Aiden and I had already had a few fights about my suspicions over the last few months. There’d been the time I saw an odd text on his phone, and then another time he’d said he was going to his office at the college on a Saturday to work on grades, which he normally did from home. I’d decided to surprise him with lunch since he’d been working a lot, and he hadn’t been there. Then recently he’d come home smelling like perfume, and he’d gotten defensive when I’d asked him why—yelling that if I didn’t have our entire apartment constantly smelling like perfume samples for a business that didn’t exist, his clothes wouldn’t smell like a cheap whorehouse.

Since I always gave him the summary of the diaries I read, he knew the woman in the diary I’d been reading was cheating on her husband, and he convinced me that I was seeing things that weren’t there because of how ridiculously involved I got with the people I read about. Even now, I wondered if maybe he was right. Just last week, I’d read an entry where Alexandria had written about her husband questioning a charge on their credit card bill. She’d reserved a hotel suite for one of her rendezvous with Jasper, and then he’d paid cash when they checked in. But the hotel had accidentally done a duplicate charge.

So I chalked my paranoia up to what Aiden had warned me about. It wasn’t any different than if I’d watched a horror movie and suddenly needed to check under my bed before I climbed in. The stress of what you’re putting in your mind causes your brain to go places it wouldn’t normally go.

“Okay,” I said. “I think you can just pay the restaurant part of the bill, then. It’s more than the minimum payment anyway.”

“Fine.” Aiden went back to grading papers. But a minute later, he said, “I’ll probably remove the card from electronic billing and go back to having my statements come in the mail. I like to have paper copies for tax purposes since I sometimes buy things for work.”

Again, why did that bother me? His reasoning made total sense. I really was looking for monsters under my bed and needed to stop. “Sounds good.”