Her heart began thumping in her chest again, a rabbit in a trap. A cool, citrus-scented breeze blew in, rustling through the deck, caressing her skin and making her shiver lightly in her thin cotton dress. “Okay.”

Hudson regarded her, crossing his arms slowly. “Why don’t we both call a truce from now until after EPIC? No sabotaging, no tricks, no pranks.”

Annika thought about it while playing with her hair. Hudson’s eyes fell to the nape of her neck, just for a second. “A truce? Like a cease-fire?”

“Exactly.”

A curl blew across her cheek. “I don’t know … that sounds like something an Idealists Anonymous member would do.”

Hudson smiled. “Ah, so you got the membership invitation.”

Annika snorted. “Yeah, thanks for that.” After a pause, she looked up at him. “So … why exactly do you want to call a truce?”

Hudson leaned closer to her. The port had imparted a rosy glow to his cheeks. “I’m hoping it’ll endear me to you a little bit. I like to finish what I start. Like I said earlier.”

Annika’s heart began beating out an erratic rhythm, her fingers tracing her collarbone lightly. “Right,” she said, her eyes moving down to his lips of their own accord. “I do too, as it happens.” If he was going to walk away from Break Up … was there really any reason she should keep fighting what she felt for him?

Hudson took a half step closer to her. “Good.” She turned and pressed her back against the railing, looking up at him, her pulse flying. Even though she still had her doubts, a part of her wanted to let him corner her here, wrap his big hands around her waist and pull her against him, snug. Her knees felt strangely shaky, as if her bones were made of melting wax.

“Parents make the worst patients,” her dad said loudly, bustling out onto the deck.

It was like both Hudson and Annika had grabbed an electric fence at the same time. They flew apart, Hudson rubbing his jaw and clearing his throat, and Annika blinking, dazed and confused.

“W-what?” she asked, her brain struggling to catch up to where she was: with her dad on his deck, not in some hotel room alone with Hudson.

Her dad, completely oblivious, waved an impatient hand. “The kids are fine, you know. Really resilient. But the parents? They want me to calm their anxieties. This is the sixth call today from the same family. I sympathize, but also, your child’s fine! Let him sleep off the post-op urinary retention from the anesthesia! The nurses and the attending doctor are perfectly capable of keeping an eye on him.”

Annika very pointedly kept her eyes on her dad and not on Hudson. She wasn’t sure what the expression on his face would be, or how she might respond. “Right—but don’t you give your cell number to all your patients?”