Savage Hearts (19 page)

“Oh, I hope you’re right,” Amy sighed, handing over Cate’s giant bag of takeout. “That man is too pretty to be one of the bad ones.”

Cate smiled as she handed over her cash, and then froze as she looked toward the exit. A man had just come in.
A man who was storming toward her in a blazer and wingtips and perfectly combed hair.

Jason.

“Well, you can’t always tell th Klwan.Cate
said softly.

It took her too long to snap out of it. Jason had almost reached her by the time Cate realized that whatever crazy thing was going to come out of his mouth, she didn’t want Amy to hear any of it. Cursing at the fact that Jason would know to find her here, that her staff wouldn’t know to tell him to go away when he demanded to know where his wife was, that she was still stuck in this situation at all, she waved her soon-to-be-ex-husband over to a table in the corner.

It wasn’t until she got there that she realized that being alone with Jason was still infinitely worse than being embarrassed by Jason in front of other people.

Her throat felt like it was about to close up.

“Don’t even want the girl behind the counter to hear what you did, huh?” Jason sneered.

“Her name is Amy,” Cate said.

“Who gives a shit?” Jason hissed.

“What do you want?”

Jason’s eyes bulged a little, the way they did when he’d was outraged at Cate’s insufficient response to some imagined slight. It was overly dramatic and foolish, and if it were anyone else, it wouldn’t be so scary.

“What do I want?” he said. “What do I fucking want? I want my wife to keep her fucking legs closed. I want my wife to know better than to go on television with Soren Andersson.”

“Jason, he’s my client,” Cate said.

“Are you fucking him?” Jason demanded. He was practically spitting.

Cate stared at him, horrified that she had once been married to this man. She’d
married
him. He was so unambiguously monstrous, yet she’d married him.

She’d thought that little of herself.

Worse, she found herself actually questioning her conduct. Had she given anything away? Had she been somehow less than professional in public? She’d been so
careful,
she’d worked so hard, how could everybody know? There was a genuine, terrible moment of self-
doubt,
a moment that reminded her what every moment being married to this man had been like.

But then she looked at the veins throbbing in Jason’s neck and remembered: he was the one with a problem. Not her.

So she said the bravest thing she could think of.

“None of your goddamn business, Jason.”

It was brave, but not smart. Because while she was right, she’d also antagonized a man who she knew to be abusive and nuts, even if it felt like she couldn’t have said anything else.

Where did that come from, anyway?

“You are my
wife
,” Jason seethed. “Don’t you forget
it.
I swear to God, Cate, I’ve been indulging this little temper tantrum of yours, but you better get it out of your system soon. If you fuck him, if you even let people
think
you’re fucking him, I swear you will regret it.”

Cate fixed her eye on the door behind him. She figured she might remember this moment later as the moment when she knew she was truly done. She had nothing more to say to this man.

“Get out of my way, Jason.”

“Don’t you walk away from me,” he said, and grabbed her arm. “If I wasn’t waiting on this offer from Cheedham, I’d kill him. Don’t test me.”

Cate looked down at where he held her arm, his knuckles white,
his
intent obviously to hurt her.

“If you don’t let go of me, I will scream, and I will press charges,” she said evenly. “I have photo evidence of the last time you hit me, Jason, and I have sworn statements. We both know I have agreed not to use them provided that you agree to a divorce on my terms, but if you ever,
ever
touch me again, I will ruin what remains of your life. Don’t test
me
, Jason. I’m a much better lawyer than you are.”

“I was drunk,” he said, as though that mattered. Cate noticed he let go of her arm, though the vein in his neck looked like it was about to burst.

“You’re often drunk,” she said. “And I mean it, Jason. I’m done with threats like this.”

“So am I,” Jason said. Then he smiled this nasty little smile. “Be careful, Cate, because when you come to your senses, you’re going to regret pissing me off. And if I find out you’re spreading your legs for that piece of shit, I’ll do it.”

Cate froze.

“I’ll enjoy it,” Jason said. “I’ll release all of your dirty, slutty little fantasies. Every chat log, every story, every photo, every little thing you thought was private. You don’t think people will be interested in the sex life of Soren Andersson’s slut lawyer? Everyone will know what a fraud you are. Everyone will know the real you. You will be
over
.”

***

Cate used the drive out to Malibu to try and decompress. Leave it to Jason to try to ruin the one thing she’d been looking forward to all week by scaring the shit out of her before she got to Soren’s.

And she had been scared. Truly scared, once again. The man was an artist at terrorizing her. “Everyone will know the real you?” Way to zero in on her greatest fear and then just…stab it.

Ironically, if Jason were a different person, he could have used that sort of perceptive sensitivity for good. The world had lost a talented psychologist the day Jason Whittier had gone over to the dark side. Cate remembered how enraged he’d gotten back in law school when she’d did better than he did on exams—it was always because a professor was trying to get her into bed, or because she had flirted her way into the grade. He always needed to cut her down.

And now he’d try to do it again, only this time the whole world would believe him.

All of that was almost
par
for the course. The truly remarkable thing, she thought as she got closer and closer to Soren, was that it wasn’t devastating.

She was still standing!

Just a few weeks ago the very idea that Patrick Cross might see her at Volare and tell Jason about it had been enough to send her literally diving for cover. Not that she wasn’t on edge and freaked out, but she wasn’t hiding, either.

So that was interesting.

It was so interesting that by the time she pulled into Soren’s circular drive she was smiling ear to ear. Because Soren Andersson was waiting outside the door of his home, leaning against a sleek modern wall under the front light, looking sexy and dangerous and so damn promising, she could melt.

And he was waiting for her.

Not even Jason could take that away from her.

Cate had been thinking about it all week. She’d been thinking about everything Soren had said, everything he’d done, and everything he didn’t do—and he’d been right. And because he’d been right to wait, because he’d held back and he’d done what he thought was best for her even when he could have had her, she did trust him.

Clever man.

Clever, gorgeous, muscular, sexy man.

Holy shit, did she want him.

She waited while he walked up to her car, and couldn’t quite believe how pleased she was when he opened her door for her.
Little thing, that.
Simple thing.

Made her feel…feminine.

As did the look on his face when she extended her leg out of the car.

“You’re late,” he said gruffly.

“I’m not!”

“Any time would be late. I’ve been waiting all week.”

Cate took his hand and pondered that. Had he been thinking about this as much as she K mueight="had? The thought made her feel slightly giddy, and then slightly weak, and the combination was powerful.

She looked up into Soren’s face—and felt her stomach drop. God, he was even more beautiful now that she knew what he could do.
And totally, utterly unreadable.
He looked almost…stern?

She didn’t know what to say.

“Inside,” he directed her.

He helped her onto the walkway where her heels wouldn’t be such a hazard and led her toward the door of his magnificent house. It was all white walls and water elements and strategic lighting, and Cate was pretty sure she heard the ocean on the other side, even though it felt completely private. It looked like a great place to forget about the rest of the world.

Except as soon as they were inside, in the light, she could see: Soren hadn’t forgotten about the rest of the world.

He looked troubled.

“What?” she asked.

He had been about to speak, but she’d preempted him. It was something she did when she was nervous. They hadn’t even made it past this wonderfully minimalist foyer yet, and she was nervous.

“Can’t get anything past you, huh?” Soren said, and gave her one of those devilish grins. She smiled, but not knowing was killing her.

“What’s wrong?”

“We need to talk before we get started,” he said, seriously. “About that press conference you did on TV.”

“What about it?”

“It was too aggressive.”

Cate blinked. She looked over the man in front of her, six feet and change of a man no one in their right mind would mess with, a man who’d come after her in the most aggressive way possible, a man who’d actually put his hands on her and taken her under his protection before he even knew her name, and tried to make sense of the words that had just come out of his mouth.

“You’re going to have to be more specific,” she said finally.

Soren smiled slightly, and put his hand at the small of her back, guiding her into his beautiful house. He had a bottle of wine out already, two glasses, a nice set-up in the open-plan industrial kitchen.

“You stopped just short of calling
Daniella
a lying whore,” he said. “She’s not.”

“But she is,” Cate said. “Well, she’s at least a liar. And I didn’t say the other thing.”

“Cate…” Soren shook his head. “You made her out to be a monster.”

Cate wanted to tear her hair out. She could already feel her dream weekend fading away, and it was making her feel sick. She needed this. After Jason, she
needed
this. Maybe even before.

“Soren, she
is
lying!” she said.

“Not out of malice. Not even greed,” he said. He was perfectly calm, perfectly controlled. Just disapproving. And it hurt. Inexplicably, Soren’s disapproval hurt. He held her with those stern blue eyes, and said, “She’s not that kind of person. There’s something else going on.”

“She’s lying because she wants to hurt you, Soren,” Cate said.

“Then find out why,” he ordered.

He
ordered
.

Cate felt the words shiver down her spine. It was the voice. He’d used the voice, the unmistakable Dom voice, and he was looking at her now with those burning blue eyes.

“Are you angry with me?” she said. She sounded so lost when she said it, so sad, even to herself. It made her feel vulnerable all over again, and it made her feel stupid. Only Soren Andersson could disorient her so effectively.