Until You Loved Me

He obviously liked that response. Ellie had to admit it was evocative. She almost brought up the notes app on her phone so she could jot it down—except she was fairly certain that line wouldn’t come off so smoothly if she ever attempted to use it. Flirting sounded silly coming from her. She loved sarcasm, had always traded put-downs with her father, but she doubted that talent would impress other men.

With some effort because of the throng of people who filled the club, the man located a chair and dragged it over before introducing himself as Manny. He made small talk for a few minutes. Then he waved over his friend, a shorter, stockier version of himself, who’d been getting drinks at the bar.

Manny explained that they were both commercial real estate agents with a local firm and introduced his friend as Nick. Nick focused on Leslie, since Manny already had dibs on Amy, making Ellie the third wheel she’d expect to be in a situation like that. She tried to contribute to the conversation but found herself peeking at her phone when Amy wasn’t looking. Not only was she uncomfortable, she was bored. But if she tried to get a taxi, Amy would remind her of the “friends” who were coming to meet her.

As the two couples got up to dance, leaving Ellie alone at the table, she let out a long sigh and flagged down a waitress. “Bring me three shots of vodka,” she said.

Maybe if she forced herself to get buzzed, the rest of the night would pass in a merciful blur. The alcohol wasn’t good for her liver. As a scientist, she couldn’t help acknowledging that. But as far as she was concerned, it was vital for her poor aching heart.

* * *

Hudson King loved women, probably even more than most men did, but he didn’t trust them. He’d gotten his name from the intersection of Hudson and King, two streets in Los Angeles’s exclusive Bel Air community, where he’d been abandoned and hidden under a privacy hedge as a newborn, so he figured he’d come by that lack of trust honestly. If he couldn’t rely on his own mother to nurture and protect him when he was completely helpless, well...that didn’t start him off on the most secure path. Even once he’d been found, hungry, cold and near death, screaming at the top of his lungs, his life hadn’t improved for quite some time.

Of course, he’d been such an angry and unruly kid, he was undoubtedly to blame for some of the hurdles he’d faced growing up. He’d made things more difficult than they had to be. He’d had more than one foster family make that clear—before sending him back to the orphanage.

Fortunately, with his foster days long behind him, he’d buried most of the anger that had caused him to act out. Or maybe he just controlled it better these days. Some people claimed he played football with a chip on his shoulder—that his upbringing contributed to the toughness and determination he displayed on the field—and that could be true. Sometimes it felt as if he did have a demon driving him when he was out there, making him push himself as far as possible. Perhaps he was trying to prove that he did matter, that he was important, that he had something to contribute. Several sports commentators had made the suggestion, but whether those commentators had any idea what they were talking about, Hudson couldn’t say. He refused to go to a psychologist, didn’t see the point. No one could change the past.

Either way, once he was sent to high school at New Horizons Boys Ranch in Silver Springs, California, where it became apparent that he could throw a football, his fortunes had changed. After that, he was named First Team All American in college. Now, as starting quarterback for the Los Angeles Devils, he’d been named MVP once, played in the pro bowl three years running and had a Super Bowl ring on his finger. In other words, he had everything a man could want—a successful career, more money than he could spend and more attention than he knew what to do with.

Not that he enjoyed the attention. For the most part, he considered fame a drawback. Being in the spotlight proved to some of the families who’d decided he was too hard to handle that he might’ve been worth the effort. But it made his little problem with women that much worse. How could he trust them when they had all that incentive to target and mislead him? Getting involved with the wrong girl could result in false accusations of rape or physical abuse, lies about his personal life or other unwelcome publicity, even an intentional effort to get pregnant in the hopes of scoring a big payday. He’d seen that sort of thing happen too many times with other professional athletes, which was why he typically avoided the party scene. He wasn’t stupid enough to fall into that trap.

So, as he sat back and accepted his second drink at Envy in South Beach, he had to ask himself why he’d let his new sports agent, Teague Upton, talk him into coming to a club. He supposed it was the fact that Teague’s younger brother, Devon, was with them, making it two votes in favor to his one opposed. Still, he could’ve nixed the outing. These days, he usually got his way when he demanded it. But since his former agent had retired, Hudson had recently signed with Teague, and Teague lived in Miami and was proud of the city and eager to show him around. Besides, the game Hudson had flown in for didn’t take place until Sunday, so boredom was a factor. Since Bruiser, his closest friend on the team, wasn’t arriving until tomorrow due to a family commitment, and the rest of the Devils were going to a strip club tonight, loneliness played a role, too—not that Hudson would ever admit it. He was the guy perceived as “having it all.” Why destroy such a pleasant illusion? Being that guy was certainly an improvement over the unwanted burden he’d been as a child.

Besides, the owner of Envy had been very accommodating. Because Hudson didn’t want to be signing autographs all night, the club owner had made arrangements with Teague to let them in through the back and had provided them with a private booth in the far corner, where it was so dark it’d be tough to recognize anyone. From his vantage point, Hudson couldn’t see the entire dance floor—and only a small part of the lighted bar—but he could observe most of what was happening, at least in the immediate vicinity. That trumped hanging out alone in his hotel room, even if the skimpy dresses and curvy bodies of the women created a certain amount of sexual frustration he had little hope of satisfying. The strip club would’ve been far worse...

“Hudson, did you hear me?”

Hudson lowered the hurricane he’d ordered so he could respond to Teague’s younger brother. Teague himself had already found a woman to his liking and was hanging out with her closer to the bar. “What’d you say?”

“What do you think of that little hottie?” Devon jerked his head toward a buxom blonde gyrating against some skinny, well-dressed dude.

“Not bad,” Hudson said. But he wasn’t all that impressed by the blonde. He was far more intrigued by the woman he’d been surreptitiously watching since he arrived. Slender, with black hair swept up and away from an oval face, she wasn’t as pretty as some of the other women he’d seen tonight, but she wasn’t nearly as plastic, either. She seemed oddly wholesome, given the setting. The poise with which she held herself told him she deserved more attention than she was receiving. At times, she even seemed slightly bewildered, as if she didn’t understand all the frenetic activity around her, let alone thrive on it. She’d just ordered three shots and downed them all—without anyone cheering her on or clapping to encourage her, which wasn’t how most party girls did it. Then, while her friends were still off dancing, she’d gotten rid of the evidence and ordered something that looked like a peach margarita.

“Man, I’d like to get me some of that,” Devon was saying about the blonde.

“Go talk to her.” Hudson hoped to be left alone, so he could study the mystery woman at the table nearby without interruption or distraction.

“Can I tell her I’m with you?” Since Devon laughed as he spoke, Hudson knew he was joking, but he made his position clear, anyway.

“No. Don’t tell anyone I’m here. That would mean I’d have to leave, and I’m enjoying myself at the moment.”

“You are? You didn’t even want to come.”

“I’m glad I did.”

“You’re not doing anything except having a drink...”

At least he was having a drink around other people, could have some fun vicariously. “That’s good enough,” he said. “For now.”

“Man, you could change that so easily. All you’d have to do is crook your finger, and you could have any woman in here.”

Probably not any woman, but more than his fair share. That was part of the problem. Hudson never knew if the women he met were interested in him or his celebrity. “Fame isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

Devon’s expression said he was far from convinced. “Are you kidding me, man? I’d give anything to be you. I’d have a different model in my bed every night.”

Hudson didn’t live that way. He hadn’t slept with anyone since his girlfriend broke up with him nearly two years ago. He hadn’t planned on remaining celibate for such an extended period; he just hadn’t found anyone to replace Melody. Not only did he prefer to avoid certain risks, like getting scammed, he didn’t believe it was ethical to set someone up for disappointment. People like him, who struggled to fall in love, should come with a warning label. That was the reason he and Melody had gone their separate ways after seven years. She’d come to the conclusion that he’d never be willing to hand over his heart—could never trust enough to let go of it—and she wasn’t interested in anything less. She wanted to marry, settle down and have a family.

He respected her for cutting him off and had realized since then that she was right. He’d stuck with her as long as he had because she was comfortable and safe, not because he felt any great passion.

Still, it was difficult not to call her, especially when he needed the comfort, softness and sexual release a woman could provide. Only his desire to protect her from getting hurt again, since the breakup had been so hard on her, kept him from relapsing.

“I refuse to be that big a fool,” he told Devon.

Teague’s little brother leaned closer. “What’d you say?”

“Nothing.” Devon wouldn’t understand Hudson’s reluctance to churn through women even if he tried to explain it. Part of it was Devon’s age. At twenty-four, nothing sounded better than sex with as many girls as possible. Hudson had felt the same way eight years ago. Only his peculiar background, and that trust issue, had kept him from acting on his baser impulses. Also, he’d achieved early success through college football at UCLA and already had something to protect when he was twenty-four.

“So why don’t you approach her?” Hudson pressed, gesturing toward the blonde.

Devon took another sip of his drink. “Think I should?”

The song had ended and she was walking off toward a table on her own. “What do you have to lose? She might shut you down, but then you’ll move on to someone else, right?”

Freshly empowered, Devon put down his glass and slid out of the booth. “Good point. Okay. Here I go.”

As soon as he left, Hudson donned the sunglasses he kept in his shirt pocket—he was already wearing a ball cap—and called over the waitress.

Fortunately, she was so busy she barely looked at him, so the disguise seemed unnecessary, but he wasn’t taking any chances.

“What can I get for you?”

“That woman over there—what’s she drinking?” He pointed at the lone figure he found so intriguing. He didn’t have to worry about her seeing the gesture, since she had yet to look over at him.

The waitress cast a glance in the direction he’d indicated. “I’d guess a peach margarita.”

Just as he’d thought. “She needs a fresh one. Will you take care of it?”

“Of course.”

“Thanks.” He handed her a twenty. “Keep the change.”

2 (#u479e3e12-4eb2-523e-abf2-99cfeffe4e63)

When the waitress brought Ellie another drink and explained that a gentleman in a booth not too far away had sent it, she almost refused it, especially when she twisted around and saw that he was wearing sunglasses. What kind of guy was so clueless or affected that he wore sunglasses in a dimly lit bar, especially at nighttime?

She found that behavior slightly ridiculous, but what she could see of the rest of him was appealing. A snug-fitting T-shirt revealed broad shoulders, a solid chest and well-muscled biceps. He seemed tall, even though he was sitting down, and his face wasn’t unattractive. Matter of fact, she liked the square shape of his jaw and the strength of his chin. Don had a weak chin, now that she thought of it—not that she meant to. This guy looked like someone who might be in the military, a pleasant association since she’d always admired the men and women who fought to keep America free.

Besides, she’d come here to take her mind off her troubles, hadn’t she? It wasn’t as if her girlfriends were doing much to help. Every time they came back to the table to check on her, the two men they’d met would drag them off again.