by Chloe Cox
It was killing her.
She even sort of hoped that all the new research her team was doing would somehow uncover something that could make her fall even a little bit out of love with him. She wasn’t proud of that desperate, frustrated thought, but it had happened, and she could live with it.
But even though they were scrambling to catch up with this drug den of sexual perversion story precisely because Soren had failed to tell her about Julia Goode, the long-ago ex-girlfriend who had died of a drug overdose shortly after leaving him, she still couldn’t find a way to paint him in a bad light. Oh, she knew how she’d do it if she were suing him; that was easy. But that was because as a lawyer she was only really concerned with the perception of truth.
As a woman? She cared about the actual truth. And all she could see, the more they uncovered about Soren’s affair with Julia Goode more than ten years ago, was the possible source of Soren’s conviction that he wasn’t capable of love.
Cate shook her head, going through the file one last time. It wasn’t helpful for her to make assumptions. That was just a clever way of getting her hopes up.
And her traitorous brain kept freaking doing it.
Because she was in love with him. More than that, this was the first time she’d felt love that felt…real. With Jason it had been about her own screwed-up issues; with Soren? She’d love him even if she never saw him again. She wanted him to be happy. She wanted him to feel what he’d allowed her to feel.
It was a good thing, a warm thing, something that made her better. It felt like it was about who she wanted to be, not about something she was running from.
She couldn’t explain it, and she certainly couldn’t justify it, and if she were being honest, it even kind of embarrassed her a little bit, because who fell in love like this after the age of, like, sixteen? To the point where they read the same sentence in a report over and over again without ever understanding the words?
And here was the torturous part: the fact that it was so dramatic, so certain, made her question it all the more. Because what if she really was broken and just couldn’t see it? What if she had been right, in the beginning of all this, to tell herself never to trust her feelings for a man, never to trust her judgment ever again?
She had gotten approximately no work done. This was ridiculous. This was adolescent.
Cate felt like she might cry.
So of course that was when Jason showed up.
“Ms. Kennedy, I have your husband for you,” Verna squeaked on the intercom.
Cate practically shot out of her seat. She was standing there, hands on her desk, wild-eyed and stock-still like a deer in the headlights when Jason strode into her office.
She noticed he closed the door behind him.
Cate felt her eyes darting about, felt her blood pumping, her heart racing. It was the shock of it. She watched Jason, watched him carefully, looking for any of the telltale signs that would warn her of an impending incident. He looked…he looked smug. He looked proud, the way he did right before he was going to knock her down.
She hadn’t had to operate like this, from this vigilant place, in so long that part of her was seeing it clearly for the first time. It was insane. It was insane that anyone could make her feel like this, let alone someone who supposedly cared about her.
But insane was good. Insane meant it felt wrong. It felt other. It felt like the past.
“Jason, what do you want?” she said.
He smiled at her. He smiled at her warmly, in that way that might have seemed caring once. Now she knew it to mean something else. And in this context it just seemed triumphant.
“I just wanted to see how you were doing,” he said. “The case isn’t going so well, huh?”
Cate wanted to laugh. He was so incredibly, absurdly transparent. It was like he’d seen Cate get beat up in the press for a professional failure and immediately his dick had grown about three inches. He just needed to come in and lord it over her.
“I am not talking to you about the case,” Cate said. “Please get out of my office.”
“Cate, don’t be petulant,” Jason said. “So you’re losing your first big-league case. Mark Cheedham has a lot of experience.”
Cate just stared at him. First big-league case? Mark Cheedham was a bottom feeder. She’d gone up against multinational corporations and won.
And still, it stung. She could feel her old insecurities waking up, beginning to nip at her heels. She had been distracted by Soren, it was true. She never should have been blindsided by this Julia Goode dying of a heroin overdose thing.
“You know you’re going to have to settle,” Jason said, picking up the ship in a bottle she had on her desk. It had been a gift from a law professor when she’d graduated. She only just now realized how much it resembled Soren’s tattoo.
Wait—Jason was asking about settlements?
This was even more ridiculous than she’d thought. She watched Jason peer into the bottle as though he didn’t care about her answer, like it was unimportant or incidental. The man was a terrible poker player. He always, always let his ego get in the way. And now with this little display of affected nonchalance, he’d made it clear to Cate why he was really here—on behalf of Mark Cheedham, feeling her out for settlement opportunities.
Which told her a few things. One, Jason was still looking for a job, principally with Cheedham, and he hadn’t told the truth about the state of his marriage; and two, Mark Cheedham’s actual case was as weak as she suspected it to be. If he had the slam-dunk he’d projected to the press, he’d be begging to go to court for a chance at a giant jury award.
It was a satisfying few seconds of deduction. The only reason she didn’t laugh out loud was because this was Jason at his most dangerous.
Right when he was feeling big, and feeling powerful. Right when he was feeling alpha. Anything that disrupted that, anything that threatened to bring him down, could set him off.
Of course, so could nothing at all. Sometimes he just liked to feel even bigger by making Cate feel small.
Cate found herself automatically preparing for that eventuality. For that possibility. Like it was something she had to just accept. And that made her so, so angry.
“Jason,” she said through clenched teeth. “Get out of my office.”
“C’mon, Cate,” he said, sitting on the corner of her desk and giving her those soft, concerned eyes. “I’m not just here to talk about the case. We can drop the case, that’s fine. I’m here because I’m worried about you.”
Cate fought to keep the bile down.
“You’re my wife, Cate,” Jason said, reaching for her hand. “My wife. And I think it’s time you stopped this and came home.”
Cate snatched her hand away and backed away from her own desk, moving around the edge of the room. For some reason, that did it. That snapped the string of experiences connecting her to the idea of this past self completely. She could see why she’d put up with Jason, why she’d allowed this to go on, and it was because for a long time she hadn’t known it could be any other way. And she’d been afraid that even after breaking away, there’d be some sort of pull. That she’d believe him. That she’d never be able to do better.
But now she knew better than that. And she was done with this.
This time, she laughed.
“You’re insane,” she said.
Jason’s face went dark. He stood up swiftly, replacing the ship in a bottle with a gesture of exaggerated care, the way he did when he was angry.
“Don’t push me, Cate,” he said. “I really will do it. I will show everyone what you really are if that’s what it takes to get you to see reason.”
“Don’t you push me, Jason,” she spat back. “I’m getting this divorce one way or the other. I don’t care what you threaten me with anymore. I don’t care if you tell everyone I’m a kinky slut. You think I have secrets? Fine. So do you. How do you think Mark Cheedham will react when he finds out I’m suing you for physical an
d emotional damages? Think you’ll get your job?”
It was like she’d hit him in the face with a frozen mackerel. The expression was priceless. She actually wished she could preserve it.
Then she watched it turn to white-hot, impotent fury, and she had to fight back the fear. The fear was smart. She knew that. But she didn’t want to live like that anymore.
She didn’t want to be prey.
“Watch how you talk to me,” Jason hissed. He stood up off the desk and turned towards her in silent threat.
Cate took one last, good look at this man who had been such a big part of her life. Such a big, terrible part. He hadn’t started out abusive, but he’d always been a selfish narcissist, and that had made it easy for her to be with him. Pretty easy to hide yourself away from a narcissist.
But now that she didn’t have to do that?
She looked at Jason, and she saw almost the negative image of Soren. The contrasts between them were just astounding. And she knew Soren wasn’t here, in this room with her, but that was ok. She was the one about to kick some ass all on her own. She just knew Soren would liked to have seen it.
Cate walked to her office door and flung it open. She looked directly at Jason.
“Verna,” she called out. “Please call security and have them escort Jason Whittier from the building. Do it now.”
Verna didn’t hesitate. She picked up the phone.
“You’re fucking joking,” Jason said. “You’re fucking hysterical, is what you are. It’s embarrassing, Cate. You’re humiliating yourself.”
“I’ve asked you to leave three times,” Cate said. “I’m not hysterical, and I’m not embarrassed. I’m standing up for myself. You should get used to it.”
“I warned you,” Jason sputtered. “I warned you not to talk to me like that.”
Cate didn’t respond. Nobody responded. Verna simply stayed on the line, quietly relating events to whatever security dispatcher was on the other end, keeping an eye on things. For the first time, Jason had an audience for his behavior, and they weren’t giving him the kind of response he wanted.
That turned out to be a bad thing.
Jason walked red-faced to the open door and slammed it closed, cutting them off. Trapping her with him. Then he turned to look at her, the vein in his forehead throbbing, and shook his head.
Cate didn’t even flinch.
She wasn’t sure why. She should have been terrified. Maybe it was the knowledge that security was on its way, or that Verna had a key to her office door, or that this would soon be over. If Jason assaulted her, he’d be going to jail for a very long time. It would be over.
Or maybe she was just beyond fear. He could hit her, but he couldn’t terrify her anymore. She didn’t believe him anymore.
And then the door opened back up. Cate watched a swarm of gray uniforms spill into her office, covering Jason, slamming him down on her desk. She didn’t even feel particular satisfaction; mostly she was relieved that she didn’t have to think about this anymore. She’d already done all the self-assessments available online—Jason wasn’t likely to threaten her, emotionally or physically, after he was removed from her life. He’d never threatened to kill her, and his threats had been limited to maintaining a public image. And if she was wrong, Cate had the resources to take extraordinary measures to protect herself. She was actually incredibly lucky in that respect.
Jason was, however, still a grade-A shithead, and she’d make sure he was treated as such.
“Blacklist him from the building,” she said to the guard on duty. “And, if I may, I’d like copies of your security reports for my own purposes.”
“Standard, ma’am,” he said.
And they swept out of there, dragging Jason along, cursing and shouting, his hands secured behind his back with truly uncomfortable looking twist-ties.
Cate looked around the outer office. Everyone was standing around, mouths agape, except Verna. Verna was smiling.
“Listen up,” Cate said. “My soon-to-be-ex-husband is not a nice man. If he approaches you, alert security. If you see him on the premises, alert security. None of you should have to deal with this, and I will do my best to make sure it never happens again.”
“I never liked him,” Verna said.
Cate smiled back. This was why she had Verna screen her calls. If only Cate actually listened to her all the time.
“This divorce could get ugly. Whatever happens…” Cate wasn’t exactly sure what to say. I hope you’ll all support me? I hope nobody looks at me differently when Jason starts a smear campaign?
As if reading her mind, Verna clucked at her. “We’re all behind you, ma’am,” she said, waving her hand. “And we’re all going to go back to work. Now you have Rubin waiting on line two,” she said, eyebrow raised.
Verna knew what that meant. Rubin was her go-to, ace-in-the-hole investigator. The guy lived for the hunt of information, no family, no friends that Cate knew of, and, as far as she could tell, he lived out of his car. She had no idea where he put the obscene piles of money she paid him.
And Rubin was currently on Soren’s case. Which meant this was a call that never should have been kept waiting.
Cate practically ran back into her office, hip-checking the door shut behind her.
“Rubin!” she shouted as she picked up. Maybe she had had a bit of an adrenaline spike from the whole Jason thing. “Tell me you have good news.”
“Your hunch was right, Cate,” came the raspy voice. He was chewing something. Cate bet on a bacon double cheeseburger, extra pickles. Same every time.
“Go on,” she said, careful not to get her hopes up.
“I don’t have it all yet,” he said. “Still connecting all the dots, but I’ll get there in a few days. It’s a sister in Nevada. She hasn’t been as careful as Daniella Collins and Cheedham, and I think I know why Daniella took the money.”
“Tell me it was greed,” Cate said. “I really don’t want to have to feel bad going after her for fraud.”
“You’re gonna feel bad, Cate.”
“Crap.”
The hardest part of this job was finding out that sometimes people did terrible things for good reasons. When she could, Cate tried to find ways to spare those people the worst consequences of their actions, but it usually wasn’t her call. And this time the case had gotten so big, and they’d gone so public…
She sighed.
“You’re going to have it all tied up for me?” she asked. “With a bow on top?”
“Yes, ma’am, definitive evidence going to credibility. It won’t prove perjury, but…”
“That’s my job, Rubin,” Cate said.
She smiled as she disconnected and dialed a new number from memory. By the time she was done, her heart was thudding a raucous chorus in her chest, and she could feel her cheeks burning up. She hadn’t spoken to Soren in days, not since she’d broken it off out of a desperate sense of self-preservation. That, of course, was before she’d found out about Julia Goode. And it was before she had actual, real good news to share with him.
No answer.
Cate frowned, her heart skipping a beat. Soren had always picked up for her.
She tried Declan’s number and tried to ignore the growing ball of anxiety sitting in her gut like a lead shot.
“Cate!” Declan said when he picked up. “Have you heard from him?”
“What? No, I’m calling you because he didn’t answer his cell,” she said. Maybe too quickly, she followed that up with, “I have news about the case.”
“Well, that’s nice, but he’s not here.”
“Where is he?”
“Back east. He just up and left. I had to call his sister to figure out what the fuck is going on.”
Cate’s voice was strangled by fear. “What happened? Is he ok?”
“Who knows,” Declan said. “He’s an idiot. His stepfather had another heart attack, passed away. Soren didn’t tell anyone about it. He just left.”
Cate
sat down heavily. Declan sounded pissed off, frustrated. And Cate could see why.
But she also knew why Soren had left on his own. Why he didn’t even tell his best friend. This was Soren’s version of hiding away: going off on his own to deal with the worst parts of his life. He’d see it as protecting the people he cared about from the mess of his family, but it was the same thing. He was alone.
Cate couldn’t bear it.
She knew him. She knew what he was going through, what he was feeling. She knew the instinct that told him to leave, that told him to go do it on his own. She thought about how Soren hadn’t let her get away with it, how he’d shown up at her place when she was most fragile and afraid and turned it into something wonderful. Something painful, too, but wonderful and beautiful, and something she’d never give up in a million years.
He took that risk. He pushed her, just for the chance to show her how it could feel to let someone in.
And now she wanted to do the same for him.
“Are you following him?” Cate asked.
“Of course we are,” Declan said. “He knows I know where he lives. We’re just getting everything packed up now.”
“Can I come with you?” Cate said. “I’m not really asking, it’s just…less weird if I’m polite about it. I’m coming, one way or the other.”
Declan was silent for a moment.
“Be at LAX, terminal 3, in an hour,” he said. “Cate? The man is my brother. He can take care of himself, but I don’t like it when people make that harder on him than it has to be.”
Cate smiled into the receiver. Declan couldn’t know it, but knowing Soren had this kind of family around him made her happier than she thought possible.
“Me neither,” she said quietly. “That’s why I’m coming.”
Sixteen
Soren flipped up the collar of his leather jacket and cursed. He hadn’t thought to check the weather report before he’d jumped on a plane, and he’d forgotten how crappy East Coast “wintry mix” could be. He’d insisted on walking from Declan’s uncle Jim’s place, where Soren always stayed when he came back home, to his mother’s house. He figured he’d take the time to clear his head, get in the kind of mood he needed to be in to see his mother and sister.
