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35
Hawk
Afterlockingthefrontdoor, I crossed the living room. My knuckles rapped lightly on the bedroom door. “Lila?”
“Come in.”
There was no grogginess in her voice. She was still awake. Nana had been right. I wondered what else Nana was right about.
I pushed the door open. Lila was in bed, facing away from me, bundled in a duvet patterned in paw prints.
Should I lie next to her to talk? Or go around the bed and kneel at her side?
No. There was only one thing I kneeled for, and we wouldn’t be doing any of that tonight.
I crawled on top of the bed and settled beside her, facing her back. I wanted to wrap my arm around her, but we needed to talk first. “Is…um…” Talk about what? I wasn’t even sure what I wanted to say. “Did you hear…?”
“Kinda hard not to. It’s a small apartment.” Her tone was sharp.
I tensed. Maybe she didn’t want me here, after all. “Should I leave?”
She kept her back to me, not once looking over. “You’re going to do whatever the hell you want anyway.”
So, shewaspissed I’d made the decision for her. “Well—”
“Just don’t lie to me. Have the balls to tell me if you’re leaving because you don’t want to see me or because you think it’s what’sbestfor me.”
“I don’t want to leave.”
She gasped. “You don’t?”
“Kitten, if I could lie next to you for the rest of my life, I would. If my life was normal, I’d have never hesitated. I would have asked you out on a date the second you fell into my arms at the rescue. I’d have taken you to a fancy dinner and for a stroll in the park. All that normal relationship stuff.”
I wouldn’t make choices for her anymore, but she needed to know what she was getting herself into. “But it really is dangerous for us to be together. How could I put your life at risk? You deserve so much better than someone like me.”
She turned and faced me, her big round chocolate eyes studying me. “So, you’re saying that if you didn’t have a dangerous life, we’d be dating right now?”
“I’d do all the fucking corny things that guys do. I’d buy you flowers, take you dancing, and we’d laugh together until our sides hurt.”
“So, you wouldn’t be you anymore?”
She wanted me to change. That wasn’t going to happen. I had tried but once you’re in the mafia, there was no out. “I would have been a better man, but that will never happen.”
“Not better. Different. The guy you’re describing isn’t the one I’m falling for. I don’t care about flowers and dancing. I care about you.”
My heart thumped as a soft hug enfolded it. No one who knew the real me had ever said that to me before. But she still didn’t know the worse parts of me. She hadn’t seen it or lived a day in my world. “You’d be safer with someone else.”
“You mean with someone who has a respectable job and doesn’t have any enemies? You think I’d be safe and happy with someone like that?”
The darkness slinked back around my heart. I nodded.
“You mean someone like Dr. Rothwell? Should I go and marry him?”
“Fuck, no. Not a sleaze like him.” At the mention of the prick’s name, my fists clenched, wanting to finish the beating. I had held back…for her. I didn’t want her to know how evil I could really be.
“But I’d be safe.” Her sarcasm soured the space between us. “Well, unless, of course, I was in a plane crash on the way to our honeymoon in Fiji. Or if a tsunami hit while we declared our love for each other on the beach.”
Lila and her grandmother really were the same maddening sort of stubborn. “That’s not the same and—”
