Giving In: Surrender Trilogy Read Online Free PDF Page A

there in his eyes, his gaze positively glowing, almost as if he were imagining her biting him and taking much pleasure in the act.
    Gah, she had to stop this train of thought and push the conversation to the topic at hand.
    “So you’ve read my analysis,” she said in a crisp, businesslike tone. “What do you think?”
    He paused a moment and then evidently decided to let her have her way. Again, something she was certain was rare for him. He appeared to her to be a control freak. Was she surrounded by them? Tate, her best friend’s husband, she knew to be in absolute control. Chessy had relinquished it willingly in their relationship. But Dash . . . She still shook her head over that one. Only recently had it come to light—at least to her—that he was every bit as dominant as Tate, and more shocking was that it was what Joss had wanted.
    Her head-in-the-sand approach to life likely made her unaware of a lot, and she was happy that way. Wasn’t she?
    So much was changing around her, in her very small circle of friends. Dash and Joss married. Happy. Jensen coming on board, replacing Carson. And only Kylie was the same. Predictable, dull, scared-of-her-shadow Kylie.
    She grimaced her disgust and Jensen’s eyebrows rose.
    “You think I hated it?”
    She shook her head. “Sorry. Was thinking of something else.”
    “Care to share? It must not have been very pleasant.”
    “Just reflecting on what a coward I am and how I live my life with my head in the sand.”
    Her frank admission shocked her. She couldn’t believe she’d just blurted it out. She never did things like that. It appalled her that she’d just broadcast her weaknesses to a complete stranger. No, maybe he wasn’t a complete stranger, but he certainly wasn’t someone she’d ever seen herself confiding in. And she couldn’t even blame it on alcohol since they weren’t drinking wine.
    “You’re too hard on yourself, Kylie,” he said gently.
    She shook her head, waving her hand in a dismissive gesture. “Please. Let’s just forget I said that. I can’t believe I did. We’re supposed to be talking business. What
did
you think of my analysis?”
    He sent her one of those searching looks, one that told her he could see beyond her prickly exterior to the heart of her. The timid, freaked-out heart of her. And that was never a person she wanted anyone to see. Ever again. Only Carson had ever seen her that way. He and their father.
    She had to call back the shudder that even thinking of that monster evoked. It took everything she had to sit there, looking at Jensen expectantly, calm and collected, when her insides were a seething, writhing mess.
    “It was very thorough,” he said. “And dead-on. I admit, especially when you said you didn’t have the heart for this sort of thing, that I thought you wouldn’t be objective and wouldn’t go right to the heart of the matter when it came to cutting positions.”
    Her cheeks warmed under the praise. Her hands trembled and she dropped them into her lap so he wouldn’t see the effect he had on her. As though she needed or wanted his approval.
    She shrugged instead, giving him the impression his words had no effect whatsoever.
    “I looked at areas where they could reduce costs, and honestly, there was a lot there that is completely unnecessary. They could reduce employee perks, the things that don’t really matter, and not have to reduce benefits, the things that
are
necessary.”
    He nodded his agreement. “I too saw a lot of unnecessary expenditures, and by focusing on those areas, it will eliminate the need to cut some of the positions, though there are those that could easily be absorbed into other jobs.”
    She stared thoughtfully at him a moment. “You don’t like cutting jobs. I mean, they aren’t just nameless, faceless people to you, are they?”
    She wasn’t at all certain what had given her that flash of insight into his character. It was something in his tone though, and the brief