Page 80 of Heartless

Olivia ground her teeth together. That was the problem with being infuriated with the one person who knew her too well. Hawke was more than aware that she was furious with him. He had kept quiet while she’d taken care of seeing to their immediate needs. He’d known that would focus her, calming her down until she could clear her head. A shower and a gargantuan sobfest had mellowed her out even more. She wanted to resent him for knowing her so well, but it went both ways. He was angry, too. If they had gone at each other while their emotions had still been flaming, there was no telling what they would’ve said.

Now, calmer and wiser, she opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. He was sitting there in pain, cut, bruised, burned, and exhausted, waiting for her to castigate him. And the only thing she wanted to do was throw herself into his arms and beg him never to put himself in that kind of danger again.

This was who Hawke was, though. She had known that from the beginning. He was a hero in every sense of the word, and to expect him to be someone else was not only unrealistic, it wasn’t what she wanted. This was the man she had fallen in love with, the man she would always love. Asking him to change would be like asking the sun to be less hot. It was his nature to be this way, and she never wanted him to be different.

“Well?” He arched a brow. “I know you’re fuming, so let’s get it out in the open.”

Instead of giving him what he clearly expected, she said, “Why do you do it?”

His brow furrowed. “Do what?”

“Always have to take the danger by yourself.”

“There are a lot of people who would argue that point. I don’t do anything a million other people don’t do on a daily basis.”

That might be true, but she wasn’t in love with a million other people. She was in love with this man. The one who always put himself in jeopardy first. Hawke, who led the way.

Knowing she wouldn’t get a satisfactory answer, because there wasn’t one, she moved on. “The charge didn’t need to be fixed. The building would have been badly damaged, maybe even demolished, without it.”

“True, but it would have looked sloppy. Our message had to be clear. We came to destroy, and we did. Leaving it half-assed would have given the wrong impression.”

The familiar ire began to resurge. “So you risked your life for the sake of appearances?”

“These people, whoever they are, believe they’re untouchable. Our attack against the cartel is only a minute portion of who they are and what they control. If our initial offensive is flawed, we look weak and unorganized. Right now, they don’t know exactly who we are or how many. We can show no weaknesses.”

His argument might be sound, but it didn’t diminish the personal aspect. Before she could come at him with something else, he asked, “Now, you want to tell me why you disobeyed a direct order?”

“At the risk of sounding childish, you’re not the boss of me, Mr. Hawthorne.” She used her most prissy, snobbish tone.

Sparks glinted in his eyes. “On this op, I am.”

“So what are you going to do? Demote me?”

“If I didn’t know what would happen, I’d take you across my knee and let that sweet bottom know who’s in charge.”

Despite the challenging and arrogant words, Olivia felt a smile twitch at her mouth. Their bedroom play had always been passionate and fun. Once, without warning her, Hawke had gotten it into his head that a sensual spanking would fire her up. And it had, but not the way he’d expected. She’d rolled over, jumped to her feet, and slugged him.

She’d loved her husband’s dominance in the bedroom, but only because she agreed to the submission. That spanking had been unexpected and totally without her approval. They’d both learned something that day. He had never again done anything without making sure she was on board with it, and she had agreed that if he happened to do something she didn’t like, a simple no would suffice instead of a slug to his jaw.

As the memories took her down a road she couldn’t afford to go, she said evenly, “The op is over. It’s done. Let it go.”

He shook his head. “I’ll never forget seeing you run toward me like that.”

“I couldn’t let you die, Nic,” she said softly.

“I know that, Livvy. I know.”

They stared at each other, the words unspoken but heavy in the air. Love, bright and burning, eternal. Oh sweet heavens, why wasn’t it enough to destroy the darkness?

A commercial on TV, louder than the news program Hawke had been watching, broke the spell. Olivia pulled her eyes away from him and said, “What are the news reports saying?”

“Various suppositions but no speculation yet that they’re related.”

That’s what they’d planned. On paper, none of the targets were related to one another. All the bombs had been different. There had been no similarities for anyone to say for certain that one particular group or entity had been the cause of all of them.

“And everyone is healthy and accounted for?”

“Yes.”

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