Savage Hearts Read Online Free PDF Page B

him. Deliberately provocative.
    He let his gaze wander over her face until he caught her eyes. Whatever this was, it was important.
    “Did you do it?”
    “No.”
    “You’re sure? You don’t even know what you’ll be accused of by the end.”
    Soren leaned forward in his chair. “I have never harassed a woman in my life. I’m a Dom, for fuck’s sake, I get consent. Always.”
    Cate didn’t bat an eyelash.
    “What am I going to find out?” she said.
    “You’re going to find out that I’ve fucked a lot of women,” he said, watching for her reaction carefully. “You’re going to find out that I’ve dominated a lot of women. And you’re going to find out that they all enjoyed it.”
    Cate cracked a smile. “Probably I’ll rephrase that for the press. Any committed relationships I can point to? Even from the past? Someone who will come to your defense?”
    Soren gritted his teeth.
    “No.”
    She raised an eyebrow. “None?”
    “I don’t do relationships. I do honesty.”
    Cate uncrossed and recrossed her legs again, taking Soren’s gaze with her. God damn .
    “That’s a good line,” she said. “I might steal it.”
    Maybe it was because of those legs that Soren took a second to process what she said. When he did, he could swear he actually heard the world crack in two. In one half, he’d misunderstood her, and nothing had changed. In the other half, Cate had just announced that she didn’t do romantic attachments. And in that version of the world, he’d have her.
    “What?” he demanded.
    She raised an eyebrow. “I said I like that. Honestysizhat. Ho. I think I’d rather have honesty.”
    “You’re saying you don’t do committed relationships or monogamy or whatever the hell people are calling it now?”
    “Yes,” she said, amused. “‘Whatever people are calling it now.’”
    “You don’t seem like the type,” he said.
    That earned him a withering look. Fair enough. He just needed to be completely sure.
    “Live and learn,” Cate said.
    Soren stared at her. She was serious.
    “Well,” Ford said, clearing his throat. “We should schedule a meeting for—”
    “No,” Soren said. He kept his eyes locked on Cate. “She’s fired.”

chapter 3
     
     
    Cate froze. It was like when she used to go running in the winter back when she lived on the East Coast, and she’d take off her sweatshirt and feel both hot and freezing at the same time; her rampant insecurities were running headlong into her badass professional persona, and it was confusing as hell. Public Cate and Private Cate did not mix at all.
    Had Soren Andersson really just fired her?
    Normally, there wouldn’t be a conflict in a ridiculous situation like this. Normally, her professional persona would take over and she’d just wipe the rhetorical floor with him. But this was the man she’d just revealed herself to. This was the gorgeous stranger who actually knew something about her.
    It felt like the bitterest rejection, and that in turn felt pathetic. It was infuriating.
    “Excuse me?” she said.
    “Soren, what the hell is wrong with you?” Ford exploded. “Cate is one of the best litigators in the entire country . They see her on the other side of the table and you will actually have a chance. We are unbelievably lucky that she’s even in this room right now, and you—”
    “Not her,” Soren said again. He was still staring at her. “Not you, Cate.”
    “I hadn’t yet agreed to represent you,” she said. She sounded almost detached, which as weird, because she was feeling anything but. “You can’t fire me. And you are unbelievably stupid in addition to being unbelievably lucky.”
    In a professional sense, it was true. Intellectually, Cate knew she was a star, and had been ever since her first big judgment against one of the corrupt energy companies, right after she passed the bar. It was a case no one else would take on, and she’d won it all on hert h own against impossible odds, working late