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No, that couldn’t be it. Nothing scared Hawk.
“Please, Gracie. Talk to me. I feel like you’re locking me out and that terrifies me.” My eyes widened at his confession. I didn’t think anything could scare this man. He was so strong, so untouchable at times. “I can’t lose you, baby. I can’t. I love you. Fuck, you own me.”
I pulled away from him as my anger rose. “Obviously you own me too. In more ways than one.” He’d known how much it meant to me to find my own way. That I didn’t want to be beholden to anyone. It was something that my mother had done and I refused to go down any similar roads that she might have taken. I would not end up like the victim she had become where my father was concerned.
“I don’t own you. That money was just going to sit in a bank account somewhere getting dusty.” He thrust his hands into his jeans pockets and shrugged his massive shoulders. “And it wasn’t like that money wasn’t yours, baby. The second you became my ol’ lady that money became yours too.”
I flinched, hating being called his ol’ lady. I didn’t want to be his ol’ lady. I wanted to be his wife. Not that I was going to tell him that. “You knew how much it meant to me to put myself through school, Hawk. I wanted to be able to do this on my own. My mother had to rely on my father for every penny she had. I didn’t want to follow in her footsteps.”
He jerked as if I’d actually hit him. “Is that how you see it? Is that how I make you feel? Are you comparing us to your damn parents?”
I shook my head. “Of course not. I just want to be able to do this on my own.”
“You are doing this on your own. You’re working your ass off for every dime you get. Baby, you’re an amazing wo
man and you will be a kick-ass lawyer. You’re doing it all on your own. Who the hell cares who is paying you to do it as long as you are earning it?” He sighed, as if exhausted. “But if you keep comparing everything that you do to everything that happened with your mom, and everything that we do to their relationship…” He shook his head. “What do I have to do to prove to you that I’m not him, Gracie?”
It was my turn to jerk. Was that what I was doing? I frowned down at Jenkins’ desk. Maybe I had been making comparisons without realizing what I was doing. In my need to not become the victim my mother had been, I was twisting myself into knots. I didn’t want to compare Hawk to Craig Morgan. They were as different as night and day. Hawk was a scary biker who hid what a great guy he was, whereas my father had been a nice-looking man who had hid what a monster he really was.
My chin trembling, I finally lifted my head to look at him once more. “You still lied to me.”
“Yeah, I did, and I’m sorry, baby. I knew that if I didn’t, you wouldn’t accept the money and I wasn’t about to let the woman I love kill herself working two jobs to achieve her dreams.” He gave me a tender smile. “Don’t let this come between us, Gracie. I won’t keep anything else from you if you will just put your pride aside and accept the life I can offer you.”
I grimaced, realizing that it had been my pride that had been hurt more than anything else. Bruised pride mixed with the return of the jealousy I’d been feeling the night before as I’d seen Hawk and Flick stare each other down had made the slice to my heart feel like I was hemorrhaging from the inside.
“I love you, Gracie.”
A knot clogged my throat and I had to swallow several times before I could speak. “I-I love you too, Hawk.”
Strong arms wrapped around my waist and pulled me against his hard body. I closed my eyes and drew in one deep breath after another as I let his touch heal all the broken parts of my heart. His scent filled my nose and I couldn’t help but shiver with a need that only this man could make me ache with. “When you get home tonight I’m locking us in our room,” he growled against my ear, making me shiver yet again. “Fuck, I thought I had lost you.”
I shook my head against his chest. “That wouldn’t have happened. Just because I was upset didn’t mean I would have left you.” Just the thought of ending things with him made me feel like I was being torn in half. I couldn’t live without him.
The rumbling of an engine by the window confused me. Hawk and I both lifted our heads to look for the source. I saw through the opened blinds the beat-up van roll past, and I frowned when I caught a glimpse of a man in a ski mask. It was hot out. What the heck did anyone need a ski mask for?
That question barely had time to flitter through my head when Hawk was pushing me behind the desk. Gunshots rang through the air and I felt a sharp pain in my right arm as Hawk grabbed my waist and threw us both on the ground, rolling until he was covering my entire body with his own.
His face was twisted in pain, his breathing labored as he gazed down at me. “You okay?
“I’m good,” I rushed to assure him. My arm hurt and I didn’t know if I’d been shot or if it was just a piece of glass that had caught me. Right then I wasn’t worried about myself. “You?”
He didn’t answer and his eyes started to droop, the pain twisting his face and making tears burn my eyes. He didn’t have to say it. I knew he’d been shot just from that look alone. The blood that was soaking through his shirt and into my own only confirmed it.
“Hawk!” I cried when the heavy breathing in my ear didn’t sound so harsh. “Don’t close your eyes. Please. Stay with me. Don’t close your eyes.”
“Love you.” His voice was slurred.
My cry was drowned out by the sound of squealing tires outside the office window. Seconds later the entire building shook as the van plowed into the room through the window. It was like the whole room exploded from the force. More glass broke, bricks went flying like missiles and then the room was nothing but a dust storm, choking what little breath I still had from me.
Hawk was dead weight on top of me now and tears fell from my eyes like hot spears as I prayed that it was because he was just unconscious and not…dead. With his chest pressed against my own, I could barely feel his weak heartbeat and I only wanted to hold on to him as I prayed he wouldn’t die.
I heard a door open and the heavy feet running in our direction, but my fear was only for the man I loved. “Hawk,” I whispered, fighting back a sob in pure terror. “I love you. Please don’t leave me.”
Two pairs of feet stopped right by my head and I couldn’t contain my whimper as they rolled Hawk’s motionless body off of me. Two men in dark clothes and ski masks lifted me to my feet roughly. I struggled against their hold, fighting them with everything I had. But they must have been experts at taking people against their will because they handled me with confidence, making my attempts to break free look pathetic.
Knowing I was helpless, I tried to glance at Hawk again—wanting the last thing I saw to be the man I loved. A punch to the jaw had my head spinning. My teeth snapped together hard and I bit my tongue, causing blood to flood my mouth. The pain in my jaw was so intense that it made me dizzy and I was helpless as one of the masked men tossed me over his shoulder easily and dropped me onto the hard floor of the van.
The man who had picked me up jumped into the van, kicking my legs out of his way as he said something in what sounded like Italian to my dazed mind. My thigh throbbed where he’d kicked me and I thought I heard sirens in the distance but couldn’t be sure as the driver reversed so fast and hard that the smell of burned rubber choked me.
