Free Personal Shopper by Tere Michaels Page B

guilty.
    “Tell me what the fuck is going on,” Will said, low and angry.
    “Come outside with me, just for a moment,” murmured Hudson, giving Roan a gentle nudge into the apartment with Veronica. “Let me explain.”
    “Who is he to you?” Will pointed at Roan.
    “My cousin.” Hudson’s face was pale.
    “Did you know who I was when you came into the store?” Little things, tiny insignificant things popped into his head.
    Hudson paused. He looked so utterly miserable Will’s stomach turned. Because that was his answer.
    “Will?” His sister touched his arm.
    “Your fiancé comes in if he wants to,” Will said. “You,” he pointed to Hudson. “You go fuck yourself. I don’t know what your game is…”
    “I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for him,” Roan broke in.
    “Great, he drove you here from the airport.” Will stepped back into the apartment. “Go away.”
    “Let me explain.” Hudson tried again.
    “My parents asked him to convince me to break up with Veronica.” Roan was a stubborn son of a bitch clearly – he wasn’t going to stop talking until Will listened. “He’s the one who helped convince me to get on the plane.”
    Will bit the inside of his cheek. “You knew who I was and you came into the store – you were following me?”
    Hudson nodded slowly.
    “To get some dirt on Veronica’s family.”
    “Yes.” Hudson didn’t waver from Will’s hard stare. “And clearly that’s not my forte since I abandoned my mission about five minutes after we started talking.”
    The silence fell like an anvil; Veronica touched Will’s arm again but he literally couldn’t drag his gaze from Hudson’s face.
    “Roan, come in here okay?” Veronica pulled her fiancé into the apartment and gave Will a tiny shove between his shoulder blades. “Go out and talk to him,” she said softly. Behind him, Will could hear Roan whispering to her and Veronica’s surprised, “oh”.
    Will stepped into the hallway, shutting the door behind him with a slam. The echo made his breath catch. Hudson had moved away, just far enough to be outside his personal space.
    “You should have told me…” he said, and Hudson exhaled loudly.
    “I know. I wanted to, a thousand times but every passing moment it became harder and harder to form the words.” Hudson clasped his hands in front of him. “I knew you’d be upset – deservedly so. I just wanted to keep the fantasy going a bit longer.”
    “What fantasy? The one where you’re not a liar?” Will’s hand curled into a fist. The urge to punch was back. “Why would you do all this if you were trying to break them up!?”
    “I listened to my aunt and uncle – they insisted Roan was throwing everything away on a woman they didn’t trust. They sent me here to find something out about you, her family…”
    “That’s disgusting.” Will turned to go back into the apartment but Hudson pushed his body between Will and the door.
    “Yes, it is. I met you and I knew they were wrong. I…I helped you, thinking it might impress them enough – so they could see how lovely you were, how well you spoke of your family. Then this morning, I got a message from my uncle. They decided not to come. They went with an ultimatum.”
    Will’s stomach twisted. He didn’t want to hear this but at the same time – how desperately he wanted to believe that Hudson was all those things he imagined him to be.
    “I told them they were wrong. They were furious.” Hudson’s smile was sad. “They fired me. Told me to get the hell out of the suite…”
    “Shut off your phone,” Will blurted out.
    Hudson nodded.
    “I tried to call you.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    “You should be. I can’t tell you much it sucked to wake up alone this morning with a vague note and instructions on how to warm up the chicken Diane.” Will rubbed his palms on his suit pants.
    Hudson was close – too close actually because Will’s urge to put his arms around him was almost