Page 87 of Mr. Big Shot

He tries to get me to look at him, but I won’t. “Can I use this bathroom?”

“Of course.”

I clean up as best as possible, and though everything tries to race forward—the guilt, the fear, the shame—I conquer it all with forced, deep breaths. Good sex can just be good sex. That feeling in the pit of my stomach doesn’t have to take precedence.

When I’m done in the bathroom, I’m surprised to find Hudson is standing on the other side of the door, his forehead wrinkled with concern, his mouth a sharp, disapproving line. He’s cleaned himself up too. He looks perfectly put together again.

“Scarlett—”

I have a good idea of what he’s about to say—because I’ve heard it before—and due to the chance that it will devastate me, I cut him off. My laugh sounds like it’s coming from across the room, that’s how outside of myself I am.

“Don’t get soft on me now,” I tease.

His expression doesn’t loosen. He’s wound tight. He looks like he’s shouldering some huge burden. “I know that was a lot.”

I smile. “But nothing I didn’t ask for.”

He reaches out to smooth my shirt and fix my collar. Gentle, reverent touches.

“I have to get to work,” I tell him.

It feels like a petty game I’m playing with myself, to be the one to shut it down first, to nip it in the bud before he can.

He straightens and holds up a finger, remembering something.

“My mom wanted me to give you this.”

He hurries to his desk where he picks up a frame with a yellow satin ribbon tied around the middle. When he holds it out for me to take, I realize it’s one of his mother’s landscape paintings, no bigger than a piece of paper. It’s her signature style, sweeping blue skies and saturated green hills.

I don’t even know what to say.

“She painted this for me?” I almost sound troubled by the idea.

He rubs the back of his neck, staring down at it. “I’m sure there’s subliminal messaging incorporated into it somehow. The words ‘Marry Hudson’ are probably swirled into the clouds.”

I laugh and fight the urge to clutch it against my chest. “If I write her a thank you note, will you pass it on to her?”

“Of course.”

My tone shifts. “Did you ever talk to her about us? Come clean and all that?”

“I tried to.”

He sounds guilty about it.

“Hudson!”

He laughs, and I’m wholly unprepared for his boyish dimples. “She was really taken by you.”

“I told you she would be! You know she friended me on Facebook after that lunch. Wrote me a message and everything. I had to print it out to read, it was so long.”

He groans in agony. “The woman cannot be stopped.”

“I like her.”

He nods, processing everything. His gaze is down on the painting again. “I’ll break the news to her soon,” he promises.

Right.

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