Savage Collision: A Hawke Family Novel (The Hawke Family Book 1) (10 page)

But someone has to crack eventually. I just hope I found that person. If not, I’m back to square one and the notebooks full of rumors, innuendos, and theories I have at my apartment become nothing more than kindling for the fire I can’t have in my non-existent fireplace. Maybe Savage will let me borrow his?

A nice roaring fire in that thing would set quite the mood. I could watch my career go up in smoke as he fucks me on the floor, and the couch, and the coffee table, and the chairs. That familiar throb starts between my legs and my only consolation is that I’ll see Savage any minute and, hopefully, this night will end with our clothes off and our needs fulfilled.

I look down at my dress and wonder if I may have overdone it for a dinner at Savage’s place. The red sundress looked casual and flirty when I examined myself in the mirror before I left, but now, now it feels like I’m overdressed and begging for something. The plunging neckline and high hem are practically an open invitation to him.

Who am I kidding? He has an open invitation to anything and everything he wants.

A door down the hall opens and a strange, fast clicking noise races toward me. I turn and find the most adorable dog I’ve ever seen racing from around the corner.

I don’t remember Savage ever mentioning he had a dog.

My love for animals is only rivaled by my love of shoes, so I’m more than happy to welcome the little one. A pink bow on the top of her head alerts me it’s a girl, and I crouch down to greet her.

“Oh, hi!” She jumps up, her front paws barely reaching my knees, and wiggles so hard I think she might fall over. I laugh and run my free hand over her soft, fluffy head, reaching down to find the dog tag on her collar. “Princess, eh? What kind of man has a Yorkie named Princess?”

“One who’s a total fucking sap.”

I jerk, surprised to hear his voice. I hadn’t noticed him enter the room. I glance up with a smile, and lose all control of my body and senses when I finally catch sight of him. A barely-audible gasp escapes my mouth and the bottle of wine falls from my hand, crashing to the floor and shattering, sending glass and dark, red wine spraying across the floor.

Princess yelps and bolts away, disappearing down the hall.

Shit.

Oh.

My.

God.

What did I just do?

Looking down at the mess on the floor, I avoid his eyes and, instead, watch the dark red liquid spreading across the floor.

Say something!

“I’m so sorry,” I whisper, still keeping my eyes firmly planted on the mess I’ve made.

“It’s okay.” His voice is calm and understanding, but I just can’t bring myself to look at him, not after how I just reacted.

Why didn’t he tell me?

I hear him leave the room and look up as he disappears into what I assume is the kitchen. My knees give out and I grab the back of the couch and lean against it while I stare down at the wine on the floor.

He reenters the room and stops in front of me without a word. I glance up and reach out, taking a handful of towels from him before dropping to the floor to sop up the wine.

“Be careful, don’t cut yourself.”

Tears well in my eyes at his concern.

Christ, I am such an idiot.

Savage uses a small vacuum to suck up the broken glass as I push it to the side. When the floor is finally dry, I hand him the wet towels without making eye contact.

A loathsome combination of embarrassment and disgust at myself has my stomach churning. The desire to leave while he’s out of the room is one I have to fight—hard. I can’t leave now. That would really make me a thoughtless bitch. I may be a lot of things, but I’m not that.

Instead, I make my way around the couch and drop down into the corner with my back to the kitchen. I rest my elbows on my knees and drop my head into my hands, closing my eyes and cursing myself for the millionth time.

I sense his approach and his feet appear in front of me. His black shoes are gleaming, almost as if he’s had them professionally shined recently. Every single moment I’ve spent with Savage runs through my head—our meeting at his office, our dinner, the late night phone calls and videos—and I try to figure out what I missed.

Why didn’t he tell me? Why didn’t I realize?

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.” His voice finally breaks the tense silence between us. I’m thrown by his calm reaction to my not-so-adult response to the new information.

How can he be so fucking calm right now?
The longer I avoid looking at him, the more the apprehension builds and the shittier I feel.

Pulling myself together, I shake my head and glance up at him, finally meeting his sympathetic blue gaze. He smiles at me, and it seems genuine, but it does nothing to ease the tension in my body or the situation.

“I didn’t do it intentionally…not tell you…. It just…never came up. I knew you probably couldn’t see in my office, and I beat you to Angelo’s the other night, so…”

He trails off and watches me expectantly.

Say something! Don’t leave him hanging like this.

I manage a tight smile and wring my hands together in front of me. “I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t invite you to go dancing.”

As soon as the words come out, I clamp my hand over my mouth, wishing I could take them back. My verbal diarrhea has reached epic proportions, and heat floods my face and neck.

Did you really just say that to a guy in wheelchair, Dani? Really?

His eyes widen slightly and I want to crawl into a hole and die. I look away and am tempted to get up and run out of here as fast as my Sergios can carry me, but then, he bursts out laughing, his entire body shaking and he reaches out to pull my hand away from my mouth.

I dare a quick glance at him and find him grinning at me. “Wow, look at you, already making jokes, huh?”

What the fuck kind of a reaction is that? Why the hell is he laughing?

He pulls my hand up to his mouth and presses his lips to my palm.

“Relax, Danika, just because I can’t walk doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate a good joke. And, for the record, I would have said yes.”

“Huh? Said yes to what?”

He smiles again and squeezes my hand. “To dancing. I play basketball. I’m sure I could figure out the dancing thing, too.”

His reaction helps me release the breath I’ve been holding, and I try to calm the churning in my stomach. I look into his unfairly handsome face and just can’t avoid asking it. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

He sighs and releases my hand before running his back through his hair. “I don’t know, honestly. It didn’t come up at my office, or at dinner. I knew you couldn’t see my chair from where you were standing in my office, and I beat you to the restaurant and was already in the booth. It isn’t really something you tell someone in a text message.” He pauses and drops his hands onto his lap. “And, frankly, I was worried about what your reaction might be. This is the first time I’ve been interested in someone since the accident.”

Accident.
The word sends chills down my spine before I even know what happened. Whatever it was, it must have been violent and awful for him to end up like this. “What happened?”

When he closes his eyes and drops his head back, I fear he isn’t going to answer me.

Shit, maybe I shouldn’t have asked.

Just as I suck in my breath to apologize for being so intrusive, he drops his head forward and meets my eyes again.

“Car accident…almost three years ago. I was in Europe, skiing with my sister, Star. I took her there as a graduation gift. She had just finished getting her nurse practitioner license. Skye, her twin, was supposed to come with us but she ended up ditching the trip to be with some guy. Our third day there, we were driving back to our lodge and a semi jackknifed on the road. I couldn’t swerve to avoid it. We were on a mountain pass and there was a giant cliff on the other side.”

A picture forms in my mind of a dark, narrow, winding mountain pass—those roads are terrifying enough without envisioning a giant semi-trailer barreling at you. I try to hide my reaction, but a shudder runs through me and I know he notices because he winces slightly. “The trailer hit our SUV and pushed it through the guardrail. We rolled down into the ravine. I lost consciousness at some point and don’t remember much, which is probably a good thing,” he says, glancing down at his hands clenched in his lap.

My eyes are burning with tears, but I refuse to cry right now.

Pull yourself together!

I shake my head and wipe at my eyes while he’s not looking at me. When he glances back up, I notice a sheen in his eyes too and it makes my stomach lurch into my throat.

“I was in a coma for almost two weeks. When I woke up, I was in a hospital in Germany…” He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “…and my whole family was there to tell me my sister was dead.”

A gasp escapes me before I can stop it and the tears that have been threatening finally fall. He gives me a sad smile, and I can only imagine how much talking about this must rip his fucking heart out. I want to climb onto his lap and hold him but that would probably be inappropriate, given my actions today.

“I’m so sorry.” I manage to eke the words out in between sobs and when I wipe my eyes again, I see tearstains on his face too. He nods, never taking his eyes off me.

“In addition to lots of broken bones and lots of cuts and gashes, I underwent several back surgeries while I was there. I won’t bore you with all the medical shit. My spine was partially crushed, but because it wasn’t severed and the injury was so low, I’m actually pretty lucky.”

“What do you mean?” How can someone call themselves lucky when they’re paralyzed?

“I have what’s referred to as an incomplete spinal cord injury and it’s at the base of my spine, which basically means I still have some feeling in my legs and have very minimal movement of them, but not enough that I can really control them and I’ll never walk again. I work with a personal trainer who is also a physical therapist almost every day to help keep myself in as good of shape as I can.”

Just thinking about all that sounds horribly painful. “Holy shit. How long were you in the hospital for?”

“Almost six months. The hospital I was at is one of the world’s leading treatment centers for spinal cord injuries. I let them do everything they could for me before I came home.”

Jesus. I can’t even imagine what he’s been through.

“That is a long time to be away from home.”

He nods and smiles, but it doesn’t touch his eyes. “It was. Before the accident, I was engaged.”

My inner green-eyed monster appears out of nowhere at the thought of him marrying someone. My lunch tries to make an appearance and I clench my hands into fists on my lap.

“Were? What happened?”

He shrugs. “I guess it was all just too much for her. We had been together almost four years and were supposed to get married that spring. We had a house, and a dog,” he says, looking at Princess, who has made her way back over to us and jumped up on the couch next to me, “and she flew over to see me immediately after the accident. She stayed for a week, but had to go back for work. She made it over a couple more times in the next two months, but somehow, I knew she wouldn’t be back when she left that last time. Things had changed between us, and she didn’t know how to deal with everything. Hell, I didn’t either. At least I got to keep Princess.”

At the sound of her name, she leaps down off the couch and jumps up into his lap. A true smile appears on his face for the first time in this conversation, and seeing him doting on that damn tiny, girly dog has me smiling, too.

Jesus, he’s a total softy.

He turns that killer smile on me. “So, are you ready to run screaming yet?”

My smile must falter because his expression changes rapidly. “I was just joking,” he says, placing Princess back on the couch, “but seriously, if this has all been too much for you and you want to skip dinner, I totally understand. It was kind of a dick move for me to spring this on you when I’m on my home turf.”