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What did he have to get to? A family gathering, maybe?
“I need to be to the hospital in a few hours,” he said, answering my thoughts.
I tensed. “The hospital? Are you—I mean, is everything okay?”
Visiting hours wouldn’t be available in the middle of the night. I couldn’t think of what else it could be. A procedure of some kind?
“Yeah, it’s nothing like that. I’m fine. It’s just that…”
He dipped his head before lifting it again. The smoky expression in his gaze knotted my stomach.
“I’m playing Santa.”
Not what I’d expected to hear. “You’re what?”
He chuckled, leading me in a circle beside the tree. “Every year, I like to deliver candy to Harmony Children’s. But after talking to you in the elevator, you gave me a different idea.”
“I did? What idea is that?”
“I’m taking an Ever After Sweet Shoppe to them. I know many of the kids can’t leave, so I thought it might be a fun surprise for them to wake up to. Along with their pillowcases, of course. And I’m going in early since most kids I know are up at the crack of dawn on Christmas morning.”
If I thought he was attractive before, it was nothing to this. Maybe it was the soft spot I already had for those kids, but hearing someone like Hawk using his money to help others was melted chocolate at the first bite of a cookie.
“That is incredible,” I said. “They’re going to love that.”
The song changed. Soft cellos began singing out “Silent Night.”
Hawk whispered me closer, and my entire body escalated. I rested my head against his chest,drifting to the rhythm of his heartbeat and the disbelief that I was here with him.
Like this.
I inhaled, breathing in his musky scent and the sound of his heartbeat through his soft cotton shirt.
“And you?” His voice resonated. “Are you going to tell me what happened down there? Who was that woman? Why would she attack you?”
The magic of the moment dispelled. I stared past his shoulder at the potted plant with large green fronds across from the Christmas tree.
I didn’t really want to talk about Pris, but Hawk deserved an explanation.
“That was my stepsister.”
“Yourstepsisterattacked you? What was her problem?”
Animosity flowed through me. I retreated, breaking from Hawk’s embrace, needing space to keep my cool. I wrapped a strand of hair around my finger.
“She works with me, and she was being her vindictive self.”
“You mean she’s attacked you before?” He rested his hip against the back of the chair he’d been sitting in when I’d walked out after dressing and folded his arms, staring me down. “If she works for me, I could fire her for you.”
I shuddered. The tears that had threatened earlier were still too near the surface. “I think that’s calleddiscrimination.”
“I could find a reason.”
His spiteful tone surprised me. He soundedprotectiveof me.
The notion swept chills across the backs of my arms.
Though my—his—clothes were as comfortable as they could get, I felt suddenly tight. Truth threatened to leak from my lips. I wasn’t sure I wanted to hold it in.
