Hold Me Closer (Sea Island Brides Book 1) (22 page)

“I
don’t have time to explain, but you need to trust me,”
Hudson said. “Besides, I think you can handle this just fine on
your own.”

“What
am I supposed to tell Mr. Takahashi?”

“You’ll
think of something,” Hudson said as the elevator doors closed.

Exhausted
and scared, Annabelle jumped into a cab and asked the driver to take
her to the hospital as fast as possible. The ride home to Georgia had
been miserable, despite the comforts of the Montgomery family jet.

She
had put the on-board phone to use and called Dr. Andrews every hour
to check on Julia. So far, there had been little change in her
condition, but the baby’s heartbeat was strong.

She
also made a few calls to the police department, but found no leads
there. They didn’t have any solid evidence against the
intruder. She told them about Mark’s threats, but she doubted
they would be able to prosecute him without more convincing proof. If
they could even find him.

As
soon as the cab pulled up to the hospital, Annabelle paid the fare
and hurried inside, desperate to see Julia. The nurse on duty at the
desk paged Dr. Andrews, then ushered Annabelle into the room. The
sight of her cousin with an IV in her arm and machines hooked up to
her body monitoring both her heartbeat and the baby’s made
Annabelle’s heart break all over again.

She
sat down next to her cousin and took Julia’s limp hand in hers,
leaning down to kiss it over and over. “I’m sorry, Jules.
It’s all my fault.”

Over
the next several hours, Annabelle sat by Julia’s side. In the
space of twenty-four hours, she had hurt the only two people in the
world who mattered to her. Losing them both would tear her apart.

Quietly,
she laid her head on Julia’s arm and closed her eyes. All she
ever wanted was for Julia to get her chance at having a real family.
When they both lost their parents in that car crash, a piece of their
happiness had been lost forever.

Somehow,
the two girls had both survived the pain of losing their parents, but
Annabelle wasn’t sure she could survive losing Julia, too.

Julia
was the strong one who struggled to take care of Annabelle,
constantly making sacrifices so that Annabelle wouldn’t grow up
alone and afraid. It wasn’t fair for her to have to raise a
baby on her own now, too. If anyone
deserved to be loved and to have a real family, it was Julia.

Sobs
choked her as she suddenly understood her own selfishness.

It
wasn’t Julia who wanted those things
for herself. How many times did Julia tell her that she was okay
raising the baby on her own?

Annabelle
was the one who really wanted a family. Those dreams of raising a
baby someday with a man who loved her were her dreams, not Julia’s.

And
now, the only man she’d ever loved was lost to her forever. She
couldn’t lose Julia too.

“Please
wake up,” she whispered just before exhaustion took hold and
finally pulled her into a deep sleep.

The
following day, Hudson stood in a suite at the Ritz Carlton in
Atlanta, glaring at the redheaded photographer who stood in front of
him. The smug smile on the kid’s face as Hudson handed him the
envelope made his blood simmer.

“Nice
to see someone’s finally come to their senses,” Mark
said, grasping the sealed envelope and tapping it against his palm.
“It would be a shame to have to drag that poor girl’s
name in the mud after all she’s been through. I heard she’s
in the hospital.”

It
was all he could do to keep from ringing Mark’s scrawny neck.
“She’ll be fine,” he said. They both knew who put
her there, but there was no way to prove that Mark was ever in that
apartment as long as Julia was still unconscious.

“It’s
been a pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Montgomery. See you
around.”

Mark
started toward the door, but Hudson was quick to grab him by the arm,
squeezing tight as the kid tried to wriggle away. “You listen
to me, Mark. I gave you that check because I don’t want to see
Julia or Annabelle get hurt.”

He
tightened his grip and relished the look of fear in Mark’s
eyes.

“Don’t
expect to ever see another cent of profit from my life, do you
understand me? If you so much as look at Annabelle or Julia ever
again, I will personally see to it that you live out the rest of your
miserable life in agony.”

“Okay,
fine,” Mark muttered, rubbing his arm where Hudson had held
him.

As
the kid walked away, Hudson smiled. Mark thought he had a check in
his hand for twenty thousand dollars, free and clear. He was in for a
huge surprise. The second he tried to cash that check, he would be
arrested for extortion, blackmail, and breaking and entering. If
anything happened to Julia, he’d be going down for much worse.

Hudson
would make sure that Mark spent several years in prison for what he’d
done to Annabelle and her cousin. He knew it wouldn’t make
everything right, but he prayed he wasn’t too late to convince
Annabelle how much he cared for her.

“Ms.
Day.” The nurse gently shook Annabelle’s shoulder, and
she snapped up as she remembered where she was.

“Is
she awake?” She looked to Julia, but saw that her cousin’s
condition had not changed. Two days of sitting by her side with no
response.

“No,
I’m sorry to wake you, but you have a visitor.”

Confused,
she rubbed her eyes and yawned. “Who is it?”

“Mr.
Hudson Montgomery is in the visitor’s lounge and he’s
been asking for you. He’s been waiting for a few hours now. I
hated to wake you up, but I need to check your cousin’s vital
signs, so you’re going to have to leave the room for a few
minutes. I thought now might be a good time for you to go talk to
him. He looks worried out of his mind.”

Her
stomach twisted. Hudson was here at the hospital? For a minute,
Annabelle wondered if she was dreaming. How was that even possible?
He wouldn’t have left Japan now, when the acquisition was so
close to being finalized.

Annabelle
stood and squeezed Julia’s hand before letting it go. “I’ll
be right back, Jules. I love you so much.”

Without
even bothering to check the mirror to see how she looked, she made
her way out to the visitor’s lounge. Through the window, she
saw him pacing the room as if it were his own cousin he was waiting
to hear about. She braced herself before she entered the room, not
daring to hope that he could still love her. That he ever loved her.

“Hudson?”

He
turned to her, anguish written across his features. “Annabelle.”

“What
are you doing here?” Her voice came out in a half-whisper.

“l
had to see you.” He stepped closer and grasped her hands.
“How’s Julia?”

Her
heart pounded like a battle drum against her ribs. Despite the seed
of hope taking root within her, she told herself he was only there
out of concern for her cousin. There could never be anything more
between them. “There’s been no change.”

A
tense silence filled the room, strained by the unspoken words hanging
between them.

Annabelle
pulled her hands free and ran them through her knotted curls. “I
don’t want to leave her alone for too long.”

“Wait.”
The distress in his tone caused a tight lump to form in her throat.

“I
talked to Harlan,” he said.

“About
Julia?” She searched his eyes, not trusting the sudden hope
that filled her heart.

“You
were right all along. He admitted to the affair. I was wrong to turn
her away. I know that now.”

An
involuntary sob escaped her lips and she raised a hand to her mouth
and nose, her breath coming in short ragged bursts.

Hudson
stepped toward her.

“I
was trying to protect my brother the same way you were trying to
protect Julia,” he explained. He motioned for her to sit next
to him on the couch in the waiting room. “When I was still in
college, I fell in love with a girl named Haley. She wanted us to get
married, but I was young, and I wasn’t ready to settle down.
But then she told me she was going to have our baby, and I knew that
I had to do the right thing. The honorable thing. So, I asked her to
marry me. Annabelle, we were days away from the wedding when I found
out that she was never pregnant. She’d
lied to me so that I would marry her. All she cared about was the
money.”

Suddenly,
everything started to come together in Annabelle’s mind. All
this time, she had wondered why Hudson was so quick to assume Julia
was lying. Now, she understood that his past had blinded him to any
other possibility.

“I’ve
never told anyone this, but what Haley did hurt me more than I could
ever express.” He took her hand, his eyes pleading with her.
“Once I got over the initial shock of her pregnancy, I was
excited about being a father and having a family. Then, when I
learned that it was all a lie, my whole world fell apart. I shut
down. I vowed never to let another woman hurt me that way again.”

Hudson
caressed Annabelle’s arm as he continued. “When Julia
came to me saying that she was pregnant with Harlan’s child,
all I could think about was that I didn’t want Harlan to go
through that same pain I had to go through with Haley. Harlan
promised me that he would never do anything to put our family’s
reputation in danger, so in my mind, there was no way Julia was
telling the truth. I never meant to hurt her. Or you.”

His
words lifted her up and sent her heart soaring. “So,
you came all this way to tell me that?”

“Well,
yes, and no,” he said, cupping her face in his hands. “First,
I came to take care of that asshole who has been making all our lives
miserable. The first thing I did when I landed was locate Mark, and
believe me when I say that you’ll never have to worry about him
bothering you or Julia ever again. I love you more than I ever
thought I could love anyone. Please tell me it isn’t too late,
and that you feel the same way.”

How
could she feel any other way? Hudson was the only man she’d
ever loved, and when she thought she’d
lost him, it had torn her world apart. Now, happiness swelled within
her and she threw her arms around him. “I do,” she said.
“I love you, too.”

Hudson
kissed her with the passion she thought she’d lost forever, and
she gave herself to him, heart and soul.

“I
realize now that I was doing it more for myself than for Julia,”
she said when they parted. “I never knew just how much having a
family of my own really meant to me until now. When I found out Julia
was pregnant, I saw her baby as our chance to get back all those
years we’d lost when our own parents
died.”

“Harlan’s
here at the hospital,” he said. “He wants to see Julia,
if that’s okay with you.”

She
nodded, unable to find her voice.

“I
can’t promise that Harlan and Julia will want to raise their
baby together, but I will promise that from now on, I won’t
stand in their way.”