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“Gracie!” I thought I’d heard Hawk call after me but couldn’t be sure.
Now, as I pulled into my usual parking spot outside Jenkins’ office, I took a few seconds to decide what I should do. Hurt and betrayal mixed together with an anger that was starting to dry my tear-flooded eyes was burning through me. I wanted to hit something. Preferably the two men who had made me feel like the fool I obviously was.
I heard the rumble of a powerful bike in the distance and grabbed my briefcase before jumping out of the car and hurrying into the office. Samantha stood at her desk with a phone to her ear. She started to smile when she saw me, but the smile quickly turned to concern at the sight of my tear-streaked face.
“What’s wrong?” she demanded, putting the phone down in what looked like mid-conversation.
“Is Jenkins in yet?” I asked, walking past her without an explanation.
Samantha nodded. “In his office.”
“Good,” I muttered as I hurried on down the hall to my boss’s office.
Before I could reach the closed door, I heard the slight buzz from the front of the office that alerted us that the door had been opened. I didn’t bother to knock on Jacob Jenkins’ door before slamming it behind me just as I heard Samantha demanding what was going on from the newcomer who I could only assume was Hawk.
Jenkins’ head snapped up as the door slammed behind me. His brows were quick to follow when he saw my face. “Gracie, what’s wrong?” The concern that darkened his eyes made me second guess what Flick had said for just a second. Was it all a lie? Had the bond I’d developed with this man who had been the first real father figure I’d ever truly had and wanted been just a ploy to keep me happy? Was all the affection he’d shown me just because Hawk was paying him to do it? I didn’t know and that hurt just as badly as Hawk’s betrayal.
I tossed my briefcase into one of the two chairs in front of the desk as I glared down at him. “Is it true? Is Hawk paying for my tuition? Is he paying for me to work for you?”
His concern was replaced with a look I’d come to know well from this man. It was his business face. It meant he was going into lawyer mode and my heart—that had felt like it was breaking all the way to work—suddenly shattered. “Who told you something like that?”
“So it is true,” I muttered more to myself than to him as I turned away to glare out his window that overlooked the back parking lot, not wanting him to see how crushed I was.
“Gracie—”
The door opened and Hawk stormed into the room. I glanced at him for only a second, saw his wild eyes and tense shoulders, and quickly turned my gaze back to the parking lot. “Don’t you ever fucking drive like that again,” he roared at me.
I felt his heat seconds later as he grabbed my wrist and pulled me around to face him. “I nearly lost my mind watching you, Gracie. You came within inches of sideswiping a damn garbage truck.”
Had I? I couldn’t remember. The drive had been a blur at best and I had no memory of a garbage truck.
His touch scalded me, making my traitorous body long for more than that small touch. Just hours before, I’d been lost in this man, just as lost as he’d been in me. I jerked my arm out of his hold and crossed my arms over my chest, hoping that if I held myself tight enough I wouldn’t lose any more of myself. That was the problem with hope, though. It was misleading, offering you something precious and then taking it all away with just a few slashes of a sharp tongue.
“What the hell is going on, Hawk?” Jenkins demanded, still seated behind his desk.
“Just a misunderstanding,” Hawk assured Jenkins and I snorted in disbelief. “Can you give us a few minutes to sort this out?”
The fact that the lawyer didn’t say a word about us using his office when I had my own spoke volumes to me. Hadn’t I learned first-hand that the Club was a big deal in this town? It hadn’t just been because of their reputation or the trouble I’d helped Jenkins talk some of the members out of during the last year. It had been the reaction to the entire town when the Hannigans’ bar had burned down. Even those citizens who normally crossed the street to avoid the members of the MC had offered their condolences at the loss of their father’s legacy. Even though the bar had been a kind of forbidden territory to some of the people in Creswell Springs, they respected them enough to want to offer a few words of compassion.
I turned around to face the window once more. My brain barely had time to notice and wonder about the beat-up old van that was by the dumpsters before Hawk was turning me around to look at him again. This time he was gentle, his touch tender as he lifted my chin with his thumb and forefinger.
Some of the wildness had faded from his green gaze and I swallowed hard as a new wave of pain had my heart clenching. How could I have been so blind? Had I not wanted to see that my life this past year had been built on a lie? Was I that gullible? I felt like a fool and I couldn’t help but wonder if this was how my mother had felt when she’d realized just what kind of man she had married.
Everything had been perfect, or as good as in my eyes. I had a man who seemed to worship me to come home to every night and his family had become my own. The kind of family I’d always ached to have for myself. One that would move heaven and earth to protect those they loved. I’d felt safe and loved. Lately, I’d even thought that Hawk was ready to take things one step further. He’d been dropping hints here and there about the future that had made me daydream about him asking me to marry him.
Now I didn’t even know if we had a future together.
As that thought raced through my head, I closed my eyes as my heart actually virtually stopped. I loved this man so damn much. He owned my very soul. How could I live without him?
“Yell at me, Gracie. Yell at me and get it out of your system. Don’t let it fester.”
At those murmured words my eyes snapped open again. The look on his face was one of pure torture and I thought I saw fear in his eyes. “Yelling won’t accomplish anything.” I of all people should know that. Yelling at each other hadn’t worked for my parents. It had been part of the problem. Yelling would always lead to the beatings and then eventually to my mother’s death.
As if he could read my mind, Hawk’s eyes darkened. “I’d never raise a hand to you, baby.”
Hell, I knew that. I’d never had to worry about that from this big alpha biker. He might scare the bodily fluids out of some grown men, but he didn’t scare me. He dropped his hand from my chin and gently clasped both of my hands in his own, pulling them against his chest. With my hand pressed against his chest like that I could feel his heart racing and forced myself to take a harder look at him.
Was he scared? The fear in his eyes looked real enough…
