Page 68 of Mischievous Lies

His eyebrows arch in surprise. I feel stupid after I say it. My God, he probably thinks I’ve gone gaga after we’ve becomeexclusive, and I’m jumping into some happily ever after fantasy. I’m an idiot. I should’ve just taken the punishment of tickles.

He’s quiet as he tries to hold the chopsticks the right way. I try not to laugh as I push through the awkward tension and show him how to use them again, which makes him uncomfortable.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make it weird. I just meant?—”

“It was nice,” he says sheepishly, looking down at his food and then up at me. I can see the vulnerability there. “It’s nice to be taken seriously for once.”

My mouth opens and then closes.

“I think you’d be a cool mom, for what it’s worth. Do you want kids?” he asks, unable to meet my gaze, and it’s so strange to see this side of him.

“Yeah. I’d love to have kids. I had a really good relationship with my parents, and I think it’d be cool to have tiny humans running around. What about you?”

I never expected to have a conversation like this with Hawke. At least not so soon. I’ve been so used to being labeled as the party girl that I can share his sentiment of no one ever taking me seriously. But I was never ready for the conversation of marriage and kids. I find it ironic that I’m talking to Hawke about it.

He seems to think it over carefully. “I think it’d be really cool having kids. I love them, but we’re never around them. But I didn’t think it was something possible for me, you know? Considering what I do for work and all.”

“Are you ashamed of what you do?” I ask carefully. I thought Hawke loved working for Eli, and his parents run the underworld auctions, so it’s not like he’s going to live a cookie-cutter type of life. That’s just not Hawke.

“Fuck no. I love my job,” he says with a cheesy grin. “But it’s not exactly a mood setter with women. Not that I’ve ever found a woman I want to do that with.” He looks at me and then quickly diverts his gaze, and I feel like I missed something importantas he continues. “But I’ve done things, awful things that I don’t think make me a good person.”

My eyebrows furrow in confusion as I place my untouched box of noodles down and place my hand on his knee. His cock twitches, and I try to remain serious because his body is far too responsive, but it’s the hurt in his eyes that concerns me.

“You’re a good person, Hawke.” He tries to smile, but it’s so weak it breaks my heart. “I’m a vault, remember? You can tell me anything.”

His dark-brown eyes snap back to me again, and he seems to struggle with his words. It’s the first time I’ve seen him shrouded in shame, and I want to shake it right off him because this is not the Hawke I know. “Talk to me.Please,” I say, cupping his cheek.

He’s staring through me now, into my soul, as if searching for something. For what, I’m not entirely sure.

“I killed a woman,” he confesses. My heart stops. Not because he killed a woman but because of the pain that’s loaded in that statement. Hawke kills people all the time. I wait for him to continue so I can fully understand. “Ford and I always had a rule that we would never hurt women or children. I know I’m not all that good because I kill people, but that was our absolute rule, so we didn’t feel like complete monsters. When Billie was kidnapped, and Ford went after her, I asked you to track them for me, but I never told you what happened afterward.”

I swallow as I watch him break apart, his tough persona crumbling, and I see a side of this man I immediately know I have to protect.

“When I got there, she was running toward her car. I pulled up and saw that she was holding one of Ford’s crowbars. I justknewin my gut she did something to him. I knew he was close by. I knew they were in trouble. And when she pulled out the gun…” He looks down, ashamed, but I lift his chin and force him to look at me. I will not let him be ashamed of whatever this isany longer. “I had to make a choice. And I chose my brother. I’ll always choose my brother. So I shot her between her eyes.” His voice breaks, and I can see he’s fighting tears. “I see her every night when I try to sleep. I replay what I could’ve changed, but every time…”

“You listen to me,” I say, digging my nails into his skin to bring him back to the present. “You did what you had to in order to save your brother and my best friend, for which I am so grateful to you. You’re not a monster, Hawke. You could never be a monster, not in my eyes. What you did washeroic.Think about the lives you saved instead of the one you took. That woman knew exactly what she was doing. If anything, you probably set her free from her own demons.”

His eyes widen, and I see something shift in him. Instead of letting me see him tear up, he pulls me in for a hug, his warmth immediately spreading through my chest. I pat the back of his head, stroking his dark, wet locks. I’ve learned many things about myself these last months, but I’m learning even more about Hawke. This great oaf, who has been hovering around in my life for almost a decade, has become such a beacon to my heart.

“How about instead of focusing on her and what you might’ve been able to do differently, you focus on me,” I suggest. Hawke is a simple man in the way he expresses himself, the way he focuses, and the way he loves. “You can focus on protecting me now instead.”

His hold on me tightens, and I feel when he releases his breath as I continue stroking the back of his head.

“It would be my honor, Ivy Walker, to protect you,” he says earnestly. Before the situation with Jared, I never considered myself someone who needed protection. Although I can still stand on my own, it’s nice to know I have someone like Hawke covering my back in instances that I might not be able to myself.It’s nice to know that no matter what might happen between us in the future, I can also give him this peace. I can give him something else to focus on besides this thing that’s clearly been eating him alive since the incident happened. I knew he’d been acting differently; we’d all noticed. And I wonder if this was part of the conversation Billie had overheard. I truly hope Hawke can heal from this because no matter what he does for a living, even if he gets sickening pleasure from it, I can never see him as a bad person.

“Told you it wasn’t a mood setter,” he grumbles as he pulls back, pressing a kiss to my cheek. He then looks down at his noodles and pulls a face, and I can tell it’s because of the vegetable in there he doesn’t like.

“Eat your greens,” I reprimand as I try to cover my laugh. “And you set plenty of moods.”

“Yeah, well, none that will ever make a woman think,Wow, he’s the one!” He rolls his eyes, and I jerk back, shocked.

“Hawke, did you just saythe one?”

His eyebrows furrow. “Yeah. Don’t you believe in that shit?”

I bite my bottom lip, always surprised by this brute of a man who sometimes has the heart of a sixteen-year-old girl who needs to be protected from the world.

“Do you want to watch a rom-com tonight?”

---