Forever With You

by Laurelin Paige

  Warmth spread over the entirety of my skin, but I pulled away from his stare and marched toward the bedroom. "Stay dressed. That wasn't the reason we asked Mirabelle to take the kids."

  His sultry tone followed after me. "You mean it wasn't the only reason.”

  "I don't seem to remember it being on the list at all." I found a pair of panties and stepped into them, long past the embarrassment of Hudson's assistants seeing my personal items. "We’re supposed to be working as a team to figure out who's harassing our family."

  I began to put on my bra, reaching behind me to do the hook-and-eye.

  "I think we work best as a team when I'm inside you."

  His voice was closer this time. I turned and found him in the doorframe, watching me.

  Honestly, if he kept looking at me like that, he was going to win this dispute.

  I hurried to pull a T-shirt over me, hoping he'd be more focused if I were more covered. "Can we at least eat dinner first?" I asked. “I’m starving.”

  "Dinner first," he nodded, but he didn't move. And didn't stop staring.

  "Dinner where we lay everything out on the table? Clear things up? Get on the same page?"

  He nodded again. "Everything on the table."

  “Not me on the table,” I added quickly, in case he was taking this another direction. “The things you’ve been keeping from me.”

  “All of that is a part of everything,” he smirked.

  I could agree to that.

  But I made a mental note that before there was any more sexing, I also wanted to talk about to the New Park School incident as well. With all that had been going on and not speaking to him, I hadn’t told him yet. And I was really desperate to find out about Judith Cleary’s threat.

  "Good. Thank you." I walked to him, draping my arms around his neck. He responded by wrapping his arms around my waist and pulling me closer. I gave him a quick kiss that I could tell he would easily make longer if I let him.

  I didn’t let him.

  But I liked the mood he was setting. I wanted to follow it through. "Can dinner be out somewhere?" A couple’s getaway hadn’t been the purpose of this weekend, but maybe Hudson had the right idea. We hadn't had much time together lately. I couldn't even remember the last time we'd been on a date.

  He looked down at me regretfully. "That sounds wonderful, precious. However, since we sent extra men to be at Mirabelle's, the team is a little stretched. I'd prefer we stay in. This building has an armed guard twenty-four seven."

  I frowned. The bubble of my date night was burst as fast as the idea had come.

  His statement also reminded me that he seemed to think we were in real danger. Not Alayna’s overactive imagination version of danger, but the kind of danger that made him feel like he wasn’t enough to keep me safe on his own.

  Seeming to sense my distress, he quickly worked to soothe me. "Compromise? We order in, but eat on the rooftop. How does that sound?"

  "Romantic. Thank you, H." I suddenly remembered I had my dress from Mirabelle’s with me. Maybe this could be a sort of date night after all. Threats and tension and secrets revealed notwithstanding.

  I moved my hands to his chest and began to push away so I could finish changing, but he pulled me closer, and spun me so my back was against the bedroom wall.

  "Why didn't you tell me about Lee Chong and your plans for The Sky Launch?" he asked, his expression serious.

  My stomach dropped a little to hear him. His tone wasn't angry or judgmental. Rather, he sounded hurt. As hurt as I had been when he hadn't included me in his life.

  We did say all secrets on the table, and I did want to tell him about this, but it felt so insignificant next to everything else going on. How could I possibly spend tonight’s valuable time together blathering on about vinyl records when our family was at risk?

  So I downplayed. "It really isn't anything I spent much time on. Just a passing—"

  "I saw your plans. You've obviously spent extensive time on it." Again, there was no accusation.

  "You saw my plans?" I hadn't shown anyone but Gwen.

  "I found the folder on the desktop of your laptop. Your PowerPoint was very thorough."

  A burst of indignation shot through me. "You went through my laptop!"

  He went on as though there were nothing upsetting about that at all. "While you were sleeping. The plans were brilliant. I loved every detail. The coffee shop and merchandising area was one of the highlights."

  I was only somewhat mollified by his compliments, and attempted to cross my arms over my chest, but he still had me trapped against the wall, and he grabbed my arms instead and pinned them over my head. “Why are you fussing?”

  "You looked at my laptop behind my back," I grumbled.

  "And you went through those letters that I had laid out while I was sleeping," he said, with a smirk.

  He didn’t quite have the point he thought he did—those letters were out in the open, versus my closed and stored laptop. Not that I was going to argue it with him, so we just held each other's gaze for several seconds.

  Finally, I asked, "You really thought it was good?"

  "Brilliant," he repeated, sincerely. "Why wouldn't you tell me about that? Did you think I wouldn't support you? Did you think that I would object to you expanding the nightclub?"

  I suddenly felt vulnerable, my arms in the air, his eyes piercing into me. Seeing into me. Poking around in the deepest parts of me. Just like he’d always done so well.

  I lowered my head. "I thought you'd say it wasn’t the right time." My voice sounded smaller than I meant it to.

  "Why? Because the twins are still so young? It was you who said you wanted to be home with them. I can't believe that I ever gave you the impression that I wouldn't want you working if that was what you wanted. I have always supported you in—"

  I cut him off. "Because I didn't think you thought I could handle it. Not so soon. Not so soon after…"

  His brow furrowed for a second before he understood my meaning. "That's your fear talking, Alayna. It's not fair to use me to personify your doubts. If you say you need to work, then you need to work. If you say you need to be on a beach in the Virgin Islands, then that’s where we’ll go. If you say you need another baby—"

  I stopped him right there. "I don't need another baby."

  He smiled. "You know what you need. And I'll support whatever that is."

  I felt my eyes getting wet. "But you don't really think my head’s a crazy mess?" My voice cracked. “The other day, it seemed like you were afraid of my state of mind.”

  He dropped my wrists so that he could cup my face with one hand. "Your mind is the reason I fell in love with you, precious. Your sexy, brilliant, incredible, crazy, mess of a mind. Maybe it feels like it's chaos in there sometimes, but I promise I wouldn't want you any other way."

  That right there was why I didn’t want him any other way, either.

  “Damn,” Hudson said when I walked out onto the roof forty-five minutes later.

  While he’d ordered tapas and set up a table and chairs, I’d put on the wrap dress I’d purchased earlier in the day. I’d done what I could with what makeup I had in my purse, styled my hair, and by the time I was done, I thought I looked pretty dang good for a mother of three.

  I looked pretty dang good, period.

  “Turn around,” Hudson said, practically growling out the command.

  I complied, spinning slowly. Seductively.

  “Are you sure we have to eat dinner first?” he teased. “Because I’m suddenly hungry for something other than food.”

  Actually, he was probably dead serious, from the way his eyes had turned dark and liquid. It was amazing to me, seeing this now, that I had ever worried we had lost our spark. What we’d lost was the kind of raw honesty, the uninhibited lust you could only get when you’re completely focused on the other person.

  But it seemed that, along with my own confidence, our communication was back.

  “
I’ll feed you,” I promised. “Whatever you want to eat. But first you assured me we’d talk.”

  “I did say we’d do that, didn’t I?” The sensual darkness in his eyes stayed, but his smile turned from predatory to warm, and I wondered to myself for the thousandth time—how did I get so lucky?

  He took my hand and walked me to the round table set up in a small corner of the roof. Somehow he’d managed to scrape up a tablecloth and a pair of candlesticks as well. It was exactly the romantic scene I’d imagined.

  “This is perfect, H,” I said, as he pulled out my chair for me to sit in.

  “You’re perfect. Stunning, really.” He seemed to remember something and added, “Also, you’re smart, funny, brave, and enough. According to Mina, it’s not appropriate to only compliment a woman on her looks.”

  I laughed. “She’s amazing.”

  “She’s you.”

  “She’s you, too.” I sat down, and he pushed my chair into the table.

  “She is,” he agreed, then went to sit at his own seat.

  The food was already set out on the table, the wine already poured. My stomach grumbled. I hadn't eaten much of my lunch, and I was hungry, but food still didn't interest me as much as details. Not with so many questions left unanswered.

  "What was the first letter you received?" I asked, watching as Hudson began loading items onto his plate.

  He looked at me sternly. "You need to eat, Alayna."

  "I'm not going—"

  "I will talk, as long as you are eating."

  I quickly grabbed a roll and stuffed a piece of it in my mouth, smiling smugly in his direction. "I'm eating," I said when I'd swallowed. "Now go."

  He laughed to himself, as though he shouldn't have been surprised that I would have behaved any other way. Then he sighed, seriousness settling back over him like a suit. "The first letter arrived when you were five months pregnant with the twins."

  I rewarded him for beginning the story by scooping some goat cheese and mandarin salad onto my plate.

  He went on. "You had just been put on bedrest. The letter had shown up mixed in with some files from Human Resources, folded in a plain white envelope, no address. It was a mystery how it got to me without being screened, which made it unusual right off the bat. The language as well was deeply personal. Not many people were aware of your bedrest situation. That was still new—and it’s not like I spend much time discussing our personal lives with other people regardless. Normally a vague letter such as that wouldn't cause alarm, except for those details. I handed it off to Jordan, who assured me it was nothing. A prankster. Someone with a chip on his shoulder. Possibly someone even in the building—which would explain how they’d known about you, perhaps a stray word from Patricia overheard. Jordan said he’d get to the bottom of the matter. He didn't recommend further action at that time."

  "But you increased security at home and at The Sky Launch." If it hadn't been that big of a deal, why had he made that move?

  Hudson looked only mildly surprised that I had learned this information. "You've been doing your own investigating, I see. Yes, I did increase security. The letter made me realize we hadn't had an update in a while, and the personalization had jarred me—I won't lie. I was more anxious than usual, with your difficult pregnancy, and I recognized that I might be overreacting, but it was better to be safe than sorry."

  "And you didn't tell me because…"

  "Because I knew I was being ridiculous. Paranoid. I wasn't about to concern you with something that should have been a dead issue. Especially when Dr. Addison had warned that you needed to stay away from stress." He lifted his glass of wine and took a swallow. "Certainly, you can understand that."

  I paused. Studied his face. Searched for any of his tells to see if he was manipulating the story. Not that I didn't trust my husband, just… sometimes he liked to think he was saying and doing things for my benefit, and occasionally that involved a little futzing of the truth.

  Everything about his expression and his posture though, said he was sincere.

  "Yes. I can understand why you didn't tell me then. Go on." I placed another forkful of food in my mouth to demonstrate I was keeping up with my part of the bargain. Hudson swallowed back a broiled shrimp himself before continuing.

  "I'd almost stopped having nightmares about the first letter when the second letter came. It showed up in the mailroom, addressed to me personally, so it was screened for toxic substances, but not read. It was delivered to me in a stack with a bunch of other items at the penthouse, because you had just given birth."

  My mind played quickly through the lines I remembered from the letters I had read. "That must be the one that had a line like, ‘Congratulations, you must think you're the man of the year twice over.’"

  "That one," he confirmed. "This was letter two, so it was obviously more alarming. Jordan ran all the tests, traced the return address to a post office downtown. Every lead led to a dead end. Again, Jordan believed it was just someone jealous of my life. Someone particularly triggered by my happy family. He didn't believe there was any real threat involved, and indeed, since the language in that letter was much more benign, it was easier to put out of my mind."

  "And you didn't tell me about it because I just had twins and it wasn't a big deal and even your head of security wasn't worried. Blah blah blah. Right?" I was giving him a hard time, but that was our thing.

  "Would you have said something, were you in my place?" he challenged as he popped a cherry tomato in his mouth.

  "Probably not," I conceded. "But definitely the third letter—"

  "Came six months later." That's all he said.

  That was all he had to say.

  Six months later, after the birth of my twins, I was in the height of my postpartum OCD. Whatever threats he'd gotten then, of course he wouldn't have shared them with me. It would've been against the advice of everyone around him, against the advice of my therapists, against his own better thinking.

  God. Poor Hudson. Having to deal with this and me, all at the same time. He must have felt so alone. Some partner I’d been.

  "Alayna, don't you dare blame yourself for anything," he said sharply from across the table, reading my mind.

  I pulled my eyes up quickly to meet his gaze. "How do you even know what I'm thinking?"

  "Because I know you. And it's not your fault. Whatever you're blaming yourself for. I didn't want you to be concerned with it. That's why I didn't tell you. Not because I didn't think you couldn't handle it. Or because you weren't strong enough."

  I appreciated his kind, comforting words. I even thought he partially believed them. Believed that the reason he hadn't told me was because he wanted to do this on his own, and not because he worried about breaking me.

  But we both knew who I'd been back then.

  "Thank you, H," I said, reaching my hand across the table to wrap it around his. "Thank you for bearing all of this alone. I wish that I had been there with you, because I hate for you ever to have to bear things alone. But I'm so very grateful that you are the kind of man who does. Who looks out for me and his children like that."

  He squeezed my hand back, and began to rub his thumb along the back of my palm, caressing it. "The last two letters have come much more quickly. None of them have had fingerprints, none of them have led to any substantial location. All of them from random post offices in New York City. The last one was delivered to the penthouse—"

  I inhaled sharply. I hadn't known that.

  "It's when the picture of you arrived. That was last Friday. The bodyguards came after that."

  Last Friday. The night of Nash King's birthday party. No wonder Hudson had acted so distant and preoccupied. And without something concrete to assign it to, I’d immediately blamed myself for not interesting him.

  You really can’t take the crazy out of the girl.

  "Do you have any leads? Any suspects?" I asked him.

  "I don't know if you caught them, but there are specific
references to a scheming manipulative Hudson. While those could be coincidence, Jordan and I are assuming that they indicate whoever is sending the letters is someone from my past, someone who was part of one of my games."

  "I thought as much." I hadn't realized the references were vague to him as well. I had hoped they would have led to something more concrete.

  Hudson went on to tell me more about the tactics he and Jordan had used to go through potential suspects, the lists Hudson had drawn up of people he could remember in the past that he had wronged, people whom he believed might still be out to get him.

  "There are so many, it's like looking for a needle in a haystack. I kept a digital journal in the early days of my experiments, but once I began working with Celia, she took over the journal writing. There have been too many years, too many casualties… Honestly, until that photograph of you, I'd begun to believe it was someone who just wanted to vent. But if he—or she—is upset enough to go to the trouble of following you, of taking your picture and sending it to me… Well."

  "I know," I said so he wouldn't have to say whatever he was imagining. The idea of someone following me and my children, being so close, it turned my insides to ice. That had to be exactly how Hudson was feeling. How scared. How beside himself.

  Thoughts of the children and Hudson's past suddenly reminded me of something I hadn't told him. "Does Judith Cleary have something against you? Could it possibly be her sending the letters?"

  Hudson’s brow rose. "Judith Cleary? However did you hear that name?"

  I told him about Mina not getting into New Park School, about the reason why, and about my confrontation with Judith Cleary and the message she had for my husband. "She's on the Board of Directors. She obviously has it out for you. Why is she so against you?"

  He frowned. "I did not manipulate or scheme Judith Cleary." He hesitated. "Much."

  I sat back in my chair. "Obviously, she has some kind of grudge against you."

  "And I have one against her. That woman is petty, narcissistic, and self-involved.” His jaw was tensing with irritation. "She had Mirabelle kicked out of their girls’ club after Sophia showed up to one of the parent meetings drunk. While I don't condone my mother's behavior, she most definitely shouldn't have taken it out on her child."