He must have heard my words, because his eyes flutter open and he reaches up to touch my face. “You don’t know how good it feels to hear you say that.” He winces, the pain registering as he drops his hand backdown.
“Oh, Max. You brave, stupid man. Thank you for bringing Nisha home. I love you,” Irepeat.
“Tell me again in the morning, Icy,” he says with a gentle smile, before his eyes flutter closed oncemore.
“Come on, baby, let’s get you to bed,” Hudsonsays.
“No, I’m staying here. I’m not leavinghim.”
“Okay.” Without saying a word, he helps me to undress. There is nothing sexual in the act. He is kind, caring,lovingeven. Walking around the other side of Max’s bed, I get in. Hudson undresses quickly and gets in behind me, tucking his body close and wrapping a hand around my stomach. More lightning carves across the sky followed by a deep roll of thunder, but Max doesn’tstir.
“He lost a bit of blood, and they gave him some painkillers. It’s knocked him out,” Hudson observes. I draw my knees up to my chest, the shaking coming back in earnest now as the reality of what could have happened crashes overme.
“It’ll be okay,” Hudson says, drawing me closer against him. He tucks his legs up around me, cupping my body withhis.
“You don’t know that. He got away, Hudson. He might hurt her, hurt me. Like Santiago did toBeth.”
I feel Hudson tense. “Who toldyou?”
“Bryce,today.”
Hudson’s hold tightens. “I won’t let that happen. Smithy won’t touch her again and he willneverget near you,” he reassures me fiercely. But I don’t feel very reassured, I feel scared. Worse, I feelguilty.
“Nisha was hurt because she’s important to me. Max and you were hurt in the process of helping me. I am nothing but trouble, Hudson. Bad luck follows me wherever Iturn.”
“You haven’t lost Nisha. She’s safe now, and me and Max, we’re fine,” Hudsonsays.
“None of this is fine. This could’ve been so much worse. That creep is still out there, and he will come for you because of me.” Huge racking sobs spill from my mouth and I cry bitter tears for my mum who couldn’t love me enough to save herself, for the father I never knew, for Nisha and the horror she’s just been through, for what she will go through trying to get over it, and for the men I must walk away from if I am to save them from myself. A sudden overwhelming panic tightens my chest and squeezes the breath from my body as I comprehend how close I came to losing Nisha, as I realise that I must break my promise to Hudson. I should leave now, but I don’t have thestrength.
The door to the bedroom opens and Bryce walks in. Hearing my distress, he hurries over to the bed and climbs in between Max and me. Hudson lets me go as Bryce pulls me against his chest. I fold myself into Bryce’s arms, crying heart-wrenching sobs against the curve of his neck. Behind me, Hudson gentles his hand down my back, trying to soothe my heartache with histouch.
“Shh, baby. It’ll be okay,” he saysrepeatedly.
“It won’t be okay. It’ll never be okay. I’m bad luck. I’m damaged goods. I am never meant to be happy. It isn’t safe to love me. This is my fault, all of it. You’re better off without me. I should leave,” I say, pushing against Bryce’schest.
Bryce grips me by my shoulders. “Look at me, Louisa.” I keep my gaze fixed on hischest.
“Damn it, look at me.” Holding back the tears, I look up athim.
“Don’t say that, don’t ever say that again. Do you hear me, Louisa? You’re not damaged goods.Noneof this is your fault. We’re not better off without you. I love you, goddamn it.I love you.” Bryce crushes me against his chest once more, squeezing me tightly. I curl my arms around his back, clawing at his top as I cry harder. It’s like all the years of heartache have been uncorked and I am powerless to stop it from spillingout.
“Sweetheart, it will be okay. We’ll be okay,” Bryce reassures me. He holds me until I have no tearsleft.
“Bryce, may I?” Hudson says after a little while. The wracking sobs may have subsided, but the tears have not. “There’s something I need to say toLouisa.”
“Yes, there is,” Bryce says, releasing me from his hold. “It’s been a long timecoming.”
I don’t register the meaning behind Bryce’s words, I just turn around and face Hudson. He wipes my damp hair away from my face and brushes the tears away with his thumbs, before pressing a soft kiss against mymouth.
“The first morning after you arrived here I asked you to promise never to run again, that whatever problem or issue or fucked up feeling you hold inside, you stay no matter what. Do you remember,Louisa?”
“Yes, of course I do,” I say, my voicecracking.
“Well, I’m calling in that promise right now. I know you’re scared, I’m scared too, but I’m asking you not torun.”
“But Ican’t…”
“No, you do not run,” he says firmly, lifting my chin so my gaze meets his. “Noneof this is down to you. Your mum, she made bad decisions, but her biggest mistake wasn’t seeing just how incredible you are. She missed out on knowing the most wonderful, brave, kind, generous,lovingperson.” He stops, drawing in a raggedbreath.
“Hudson tell her, it’s time, mate,” Brycesays.
Hudson nods his head, looking from Bryce to me. “When I was a kid I was emotionally and physically abused. I suffered a lot of cruelty at the hand of a woman who should have loved me above all else. The one person in my young life who I should’ve been able to trust implicitly hurt me every single day. My mother was a cruel, wicked woman with nothing but hate in her heart. Finally, after years of abuse, when I was a week away from my tenth birthday, social services took me from her, but it wasn’t soon enough. The effect of my mum’s evil, her abandonment as a mother, as a human fucking being, lived with me for a very long time. It still does. As an adult, I’ve tried to fill the chasm that she tore in my heart with sex. I wanted to feel loved, but every time I fucked a woman it was just that, fucking. It wasn’t love, it wasn’t anything close. Eventually, I figured I was incapable of loving anyone, that my mum’s cruelty had stripped that ability away. Three years ago, I met Beth and something inside me began to soften. Like you, she didn’t force me to feel anything. She didn’t expect anything apart from my friendship. It’s possible, had she not been attacked, that I could have shared a life with her, but she was taken from me and my heart was torn from my chest once again. Then I met you. This incredible, astounding woman who was as broken as me. I saw it in you on the plane, in the club when you stood up to me, when you stepped out of the pool naked, not afraid to bare yourself. I saw that you had got to a point where you had nothing to lose. I saw a desolation deep inside of you and I was drawn to it, drawn to the broken, dark, pieces of you. Then one day, I realised that it wasn’t the broken parts I was drawn to at all, but the light between them. You have this way, Louisa. Despite everything, despite all you’ve been through, despite your own heartache, you have this enormous capacity to love. Youcare. That day in the chalet when you were washing up, I wanted you so bad I could barely breathe. I wanted to fuck you, I wanted to control those new, scary feelings and replace them with something familiar. You see, whenever I had sex before, I felt nothing but emptiness in here,” he says, pressing his palm flat against his chest once more. “With you it was different, I didn’t need to fuck you to feel anything because I already did, though at the time I didn’t understand it. I couldn’t comprehend how I could feel that way about a person so soon.” He stops for a moment, leaning down to press a delicate kiss against my lips. “You fluttered into my heart from the moment our eyes met on the plane, and you have remained there ever since. Louisa, I am a fucking fool, but I am not an idiot. I can say to you now, without any doubt, that I, Hudson Freed,love you. You are not damaged goods and I sure as hell am not better off without you. I’m not a man who has ever begged, not when I was kid and my mum was beating me black and blue, and I won’t do that now, but I will ask you one more time to stay. Stay for us, love us. Will you do that,Louisa?”
For a moment I can barely breathe, I can barely take in what Hudson has said. But in a rush of understanding, of emotion, his words finally register in my head. He loves me. They all love me, my men, my brothers Freed. With that knowledge, I throw myself into his arms. “Yes, I’llstay.”