Now I knew differently. Though Hudson pushed and pried and drove me crazy, he was the nearest thing to clarity I knew.

That was why I needed him so desperately at the moment.

But sitting around lamenting his absence wasn’t going to bring him to me. And it was a hell of a lousy way to say goodbye to my friend.

Putting on the happiest face I could muster, I set my glass down. “You know what you can do, David? You can cheer me up.” I stood up and nodded toward the floor. “Let’s dance, shall we?”

“I thought you’d never ask.”

Instead of joining the rest of the crowd in the center of the floor, we stuck to an empty corner. A few minutes into the dance mix of David Guetta’s Titanium, I felt better. It had been forever since I’d let myself loose, since I’d stopped worrying and fretting and just lived in the moment. I closed my eyes and let the beat overtake me, let my feet and h*ps move as they liked. Sweat gathered at my brow and my breath got short, but I was alive—alive in the way that only the club made me. Soon my anxiousness dissolved and all I was thinking about was the present—the music, the lights flashing around us, the friend standing in front of me. It was exactly what I needed.

I wasn’t sure how long we’d been dancing or how many songs had played before the DJ faded into a slow song. The club never played slow songs. I looked to David, my brow raised.

“Someone must have requested it.” He held his hand out for me. “Let’s not waste it, shall we?”

A voice in my head nagged that it was a bad idea. If David had asked for the song to be played—and I was certain he had—then he’d meant it for me. He’d meant it as a means to get me in his arms. It would be wrong—I had a boyfriend that I loved with my entire being. Hudson wouldn’t like it, and that was reason enough to not engage. Every impulse in my body said to walk away.

Except there was a flicker of emotion in my chest that I couldn’t ignore—a need for closure, perhaps, or a touch of melancholy for what once was or what could have been. Or maybe it was simply the alcohol and the adrenaline and the need for someone to hold me after all the stress and anxiety of the day.

And Hudson wasn’t there, so what could one dance hurt?

Without another thought, I took David’s hand and let him pull me into his arms. He was warm in a way that I’d forgotten. Like a giant teddy bear. He wasn’t nearly as cut or as trim as Hudson, but he was strong and easy to fall into.

I rested my head on his shoulder as we swayed together. Closing my eyes, I listened to the words of the song and relaxed into our final embrace. The singer was familiar, but I couldn’t remember his name. He sang to his love, telling her that she was in his veins, that he could not get her out.

They were words that made me think of Hudson. He was so deeply imprinted on me that he’d seeped through my skin and into my veins. He was my life force, each pulse of my heart sending another shock of love through my body.

Was this how David felt about me?

A strange mixture of panic and sorrow and a little bit of contentment washed over me as I realized that it was exactly how David felt about me. If I had any doubt, it was cleared when he began singing the words at my ear. “I cannot get you out.”

I stopped moving with him and leaned back to look at his eyes. He knew, right? Knew that this was wrong, that I was spoken for? That I didn’t feel the same way about him?

If he did know, he didn’t care. He pressed forward, taking my lips in his before I knew what was happening. His kiss was shocking and unwelcomed. Immediately I pushed him away.

The sadness in David’s eyes pierced through me. I knew that depth of heartache. It tore me up to know I was the cause of his.

There was nothing I could do for it but shake my head and bite back tears.

David started to speak—to apologize maybe, or to try to persuade me to give him a chance. Before he said anything, though, his eyes moved upward to a point behind me, his expression stricken with alarm.

I knew without looking who was standing behind me. Wasn’t it fate’s sick way of paying me back for all the shit I’d pulled in my lifetime? Put the person who I wanted most in the situation I wanted him in the least? That’s why he hadn’t returned my call, why I couldn’t reach him—he’d been coming home.

Slowly, I turned toward him. His jacket was off, his shirt wrinkled from traveling. He’d loosened his tie and his jaw had a layer of end-of-day scruff. It was his face that I focused on, though. The pain in David’s eyes was nothing compared to what I found in Hudson’s. The anguish there was unbearable, his expression filled with so much pain I wondered if there could be any balm to soothe it.

For the second time that night I asked myself, god, what have I done?

Chapter Nineteen

I swallowed back the panic that surged through me. I could fix this. I had to be able to fix this.

“Hudson.” I took a step toward him. “It’s not what it looks like.” I didn’t actually know what it looked like, having no idea how long he’d been standing there. Did he see that I’d pushed David away?

His face was stone. “Maybe we should discuss this in a more private setting.”

“Okay.” It was more a squeak than a word. But I headed toward the employee office and assumed he’d follow.

He did.

We took the stairs without speaking. I didn’t feel his eyes on me as I walked. He didn’t even want to look at me. Despair washed over me. I’d been so desperate for him, and now I’d f**ked it up. Again.

I didn’t turn to face him again until he’d shut the door behind us in the office. When I did, I almost wished I hadn’t. The forlorn look I’d seen downstairs was even worse than I’d remembered. Was there really anything I could say to erase that?

With feeble words, I tried. “He kissed me, Hudson. I didn’t kiss him. And when he did, I pushed him away.” It was the truth. If he’d been there long enough, he’d have seen it.

“Why were you in his arms in the first place?” His tone was low and gravelly. It was more emotion than he generally displayed, and it killed me.

A tear trickled down my face. “We were dancing. It was a party.”

His eyes flared. “You were in his arms, Alayna. In the arms of someone who has made no secret of his feelings for you. What did you think he’d do?”

He was right on many counts. I’d known it was dangerous, felt the wrongness of the embrace from the minute David put his arms around me.