“You never know.”

“Who was the guy?”

His jealousy was seriously hot. “Is that your turn?”

“No.”

I cocked my head, questioning his sincerity.

He changed his mind. He couldn’t help himself. “Yes.”

I didn’t even try to hide my elation. “He was a random guy I met at a party. I thought that ha**ng s*x would help me forget that my parents had died. It did not.”

“No, I suppose it wouldn’t.”

He sounded sympathetic and I was glad he didn’t press. It had been an awful time in my life. My parents’ fatal car accident had pushed me to behave in ways I wasn’t proud. Random sex, excessive drinking, drug experimentation. And then the addiction that had stuck—obsessive love, which shouldn’t be called love at all, but rather obsessive wanna-be-loved. If I was really with Hudson, I mean really his girlfriend, then he should know all the details, and I liked to think I’d tell him. But for a strange moment I was exceptionally glad that I wasn’t really with Hudson so I wouldn’t have to tell him.

Whoa. Did that mean that there were other moments when I wanted to be really with him? When had that started?

I shot a glance at Hudson who seemed to be heavy in his own thoughts. What would it take to get in there? I tried to guess what he could be so absorbed with. “What were you doing in Cincinnati?”

“Business.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose. It was so much easier to have sex with the man than to get him to share anything real. “That’s not very much of an answer.”

“I wouldn’t talk to my girlfriend about business.”

“You wouldn’t be my boyfriend if you didn’t.” Despite finally believing that Hudson was indeed out-of-town that week, insecurity nagged at me still. I pushed for more information. “Didn’t your mom and dad talk about business with each other?”

“My parents don’t talk about anything. If Dad’s at the house when we get there, he will not sleep in the same room with Mother. Loveless marriage, remember?”

“Not a good example then.” I tried a different tactic. “Look. I’m a business major. I like to know about these things.” I licked my lips purposefully. “Doesn’t my smart mind turn you on?”

“Your smart mind, not mine.” But he was hiding a smile.

I slipped my hand down his thigh. “Come on. I’ve shown you mine. Show me yours.”

He couldn’t resist me in full flirtation mode. He sighed. “There’s been some outside interest in Plexis, one of my smaller companies. But I’m not keen to sell to this particular buyer. The other members of the board feel differently.”

Hudson furrowed his brow and I thought he’d finished, but he went on. “Actually it’s been quite stressful, fighting to keep Plexis together when so many are opposed. Many stand to gain a sizable profit from a sale. I know that this buyer would run the place to the ground. The company would be torn apart. People would lose their jobs.”

I sat mesmerized. In his brief divulgence, I saw something besides his passion for his companies and the people that worked for them. I saw him relax and maybe even enjoy telling me about something that weighed heavily on him. Did he have anyone he shared these things with? It didn’t seem likely.

He noticed me staring and he shifted.

I was sure he’d be disturbed to discover how much I’d discerned from such a brief conversation. So I deflected and lightened the mood. “Thank you! Was that really so terrible?”

His mouth tightened into a straight line, but I saw the gleam in his eyes. “I’m not answering that. It’s not your turn.” He only paused a second before he said, “Fine. It wasn’t that terrible. That’s what I’m offering for my turn.”

“Hudson?” I asked softly, hoping he didn’t see the full extent of my adoration in just the speaking of his name.

“Yes, precious?”

“You aren’t really an ass**le.”

He brought one finger to his mouth. “Shh. You’ll ruin my reputation.”

We continued the game through dinner at a clam bar in Sayville, covering a variety of topics from favorite movies to worst dates to first kisses. Hudson and I had very few things in common, but that only intrigued me more, and I had the distinct impression he felt the same. Most of our differences seemed to come from our backgrounds rather than our tastes. I didn’t know if I loved the opera—I’d never been. And my favorite pastime—buying one movie ticket and sneaking into several movies after—was born of a lack of funds that Hudson had never experienced.

Underneath it all, we both knew we shared one very vital commonality—our destructive pasts. Though we seldom spoke of it, it shadowed many of our confessions. But unlike with other men when I went through the routine of talking about myself, I didn’t feel like I was holding back the truth. I wasn’t lying, like I had to so many others. We didn’t talk about it, but it didn’t lie in the deep recesses of ourselves, threatening to be revealed. It made the simple exchanges between us easier and more poignant.

After dinner when we returned to the road, we played the game at a relaxed pace, letting long moments of comfortable silence fill the spaces between turns. Finally, Hudson turned off Old Montauk Highway onto a private drive. At the gate midway down the entry, he entered a code that opened the wooden doors and allowed us to continue past the high hedge to the circle driveway. He stopped the car in front of a traditional two-story estate.

“We’re here,” he said in a sing-song voice not typical of Hudson Pierce.

My mouth fell open as I stared up at the mansion, clearly lit with bright torchlights like the fountain in the center of the circle drive. I’d tried not to think too much about Hudson’s money, not wanting that to be the focus of my attraction to him, but if there was ever a time to be appreciative of his wealth, this was it. The stone house was breathtaking and extravagant, the kind of thing I’d only seen in movies.

“It’s…wow.”

Hudson laughed. “Come on. You’ll love the inside.”

I opened the car door, immediately overwhelmed with the smell of the ocean air mingled with a variety of early summer blooming flowers. The front doors opened and an older balding man in a light gray suit approached us.

“Good evening, Martin,” Hudson said, slipping his arm around my waist. “This is my girlfriend, Alayna Withers. Martin is our household assistant.”