Page 114 of The Rehoboth Retreat
I slid to the floor, head in my hands, and cried. Ugly, angry, guttural tears. Not because I still loved Owen. I didn’t.
But because I thought—just maybe—Hudson could’ve been different.
And I’d let myself believe it.
Hudson
I stood there in the sand, blinking like I’d just been slapped with a cold fish. Miles stormed off into the house, and the sliding glass door shut with the kind of finality that felt biblical. Like a flood was about to come, and I’d been denied the ark.
And then there was Owen.
Just… standing there.
Sanctimonious. Pale. Annoyingly symmetrical face. Like if a yacht were a person. The kind of guy who wore socks with tiny embroidered lobsters and thought that was a personality trait.
I turned to him slowly. My hands were shaking, but not from nerves.
“You fucking smug little rich-bitch vampire,” I muttered.
He raised a brow. “Excuse me?”
I punched him square in the mouth.
The kind of punch you don’t recover from with a little Neosporin and a morning affirmation. His legs buckled, and he hit the sand hard, his khakis puffing a little cloud like a deflated soufflé. I didn’t even stop to gloat.
I spun and headed back toward the house like a man on a mission. No paparazzi, no staged moment, no fucking camera crew—just me and my bad decisions chasing the only good thing that’s happened to me in… maybe ever.
I reached the deck and slid the door open.
“Miles!” I called, already halfway inside.
His voice sliced through the air before I could step over the threshold. “Don’t, Hudson. I need to be alone.”
God. It was like getting slapped with that cold fishagain. But I didn’t move. My chest was heaving. My hands still trembling from the adrenaline and Owen’s stupid face.
Then came the click of heels—Cecilia. In a flowy coral robe, mimosa in one hand, phone in the other. She was the only person I knew who could look like a Beverly Hills divorcée and a mafia boss at the same time.
“Itriedto stop Owen,” she said, striding in from the hallway. “But he stormed in like he owned the damn place.”
Miles didn’t turn around. He just stood there in the center of the room, arms tense at his sides, back to us.
“I did everything I could,” Cecilia added, a tightness creeping into her voice. “And then… well. He said something.”
She raised her phone like a sword. “Would you like to hear what your ex-husband called me after barging into our beach house?”
I blinked. “Oh, please let it be something juicy.”
She hit play.
Owen’s voice blared through the speakers, sharp and nasally:“Get out of my way, you drunk, bitter bitch.”
Silence.
Except for the sound of Miles’ breath tightening. He didn’t move. But I saw his fists curl. His shoulders rise. His whole body went statue still.
And then—like a storm had just made up its mind—he pivoted. A clean, sharp U-turn. The kind that saidvengeance hath arrived.
He flew past us, barefoot on the hardwood, sliding the deck door open again like he was about to serve a reckoning on a charcuterie board.
