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Cam collapsed back into the metal chair as the interrogation door slammed shut behind Dani Wellford, laughing under his breath.

Where in the hell did Whitney, Marcos, and Pinter find a firecracker like her? She was emphatically not that firm’s cold-blooded style.

Oh sure, she had the charcoal gray suit and black leather briefcase that was practically the company’s official uniform. But that fire-engine red hair and those curves busting out all over her snugly tailored suit had no business withering away in the frigid halls of that dusty firm.

It had been a while since he’d been surprised in his work. But she’d managed to do so several times in quick succession, today.

What on earth was she thinking, turning down what was a pretty damned generous plea bargain for a clearly guilty client? Hell, he’d stuck out his neck and gone to bat for her client. He’d actually argued with his boss, the District Attorney, to get that good a deal, pointing out that the kid was young and a doctor, and there was no need to ruin the kid’s life before he even started living it. Koronov could do a lot of good in the community and grow up some while he was at it.

He’d gone out on a limb for her…

…and she’d said no .

He’d turned on the charm and she’d still said no.

Hell, he’d threatened to throw the book at her client and she’d still refused his offer.

Reluctant respect lodged in his chest. Not many women turned him down flat like that, not professionally and definitely not socially. Something else lurked behind his reaction to her, niggling at him like a splinter in his thumb.

Interest. That was it.

Along with that flare of interest came another realization. One that shocked him. It had been a long time since any woman had truly interested him in this town. It wasn’t that he’d become a jaded playboy because he wasn’t one in the first place.

It was just that, in the circles he ran in, sex was casual and meaningless. People slept together to blow off steam or scratch an itch but not because they were looking for any kind of emotional or personal connection.

He supposed to some guys that sounded like paradise. And yes, he’d enjoyed the hell out of it for a couple of years, sleeping his way through the hot female attorneys and paralegals in the city.

But recently, he’d begun to wonder if maybe sex should mean something and not be purely about momentary gratification. Hell, maybe he’d just gotten cynical about the fast, superficial, dating scene in the big city.

His grandparents, who’d mostly raised him, had a great marriage. Gram and Pops had been sweethearts since the sixth grade, married immediately after high school, worked each other through college degrees, raised a loving family, and never once looked at anyone else.

Honestly, his parents’ marriage had been decent until his dad’s mental illness had taken over their lives. Cam never had blamed his mom for deciding to divorce his father. Hell, he’d wished for months that she would leave and take him with her before she’d finally tried to get out.

Even though he knew his dad’s schizophrenia and psychosis weren’t his dad’s fault, he still struggled not to blame his father for his psychotic break and the attack on his wife when she told him she was filing for divorce. Dad went to jail and Mom lingered in a coma for nearly a year before finally slipping away.

As for him, he’d been damned lucky Gram and Pops had been there to pick up the pieces of him and put him back together with years of patience and love. They were both gone now, and he keenly missed them and their steady support, at least, when he allowed himself to think about it.

Maybe it was their influence starting to creep forward in his subconscious, making him secretly yearn for a family of his own.

Or maybe he just wanted an actual relationship. It didn’t have to be the love of his life or some grand passion that swept him off his feet. He would be good with meeting someone steady and dependable who would be there for him when he needed some companionship and calm.

Honestly, he wasn’t convinced the kind of devoted, life-long love his grandparents had displayed for each other even existed anymore.

He sighed and closed the Koronov file. Dani Wellford would probably turn out to be like all the other female attorneys he’d met so far in New York—aggressive, one-hundred-percent career driven, and ultimately more shark than human. Of course, she probably needed to be all those things to make it in this town and not get eaten by bigger sharks.

As for this case, he would be shocked if she could find any judge who would let it go to trial, given how obvious her client’s guilt was.

He stuffed the file in his briefcase, pondering how to maneuver this case onto the desk of a judge who could twist some arms over at WMP. Make them get their junior do-gooder under control and off his docket.

Yes, indeed. He was going enjoy shoving a nice, quiet plea bargain down her oh-so-attractive throat.

He had to admit, he was a little turned on by the way she’d glared him down and dared him to put up a fight. Most women were so busy planning how to trap him into marriage and sucking up to him…or sucking down on him…that they posed no challenge whatsoever. But he sensed Dani Wellford would be a hell of one. He would also bet his next paycheck she was a tiger in the sack?—

Dammit.

He knew better than to get personally involved with opposing counsel. It was unprofessional not to mention wildly distracting.

Above all, he had to keep his focus on winning. He was driven, some might even say obsessed, with winning every case. Even the drunk driving cases where the perp was so guilty the Pope would convict him . He had plans for his career. Big plans. And they didn’t involve getting stuck in a dead-end city prosecutor’s job. He was definitely not going to end up a drug-addicted, alcoholic loser who fried his brain and destroyed his family. He was nothing like his old man.

Right. And maybe if he told himself that enough times, he might actually believe it.

Regardless of his personal shit or fixation on winning—hell, maybe because of both—he had no business thinking of Ms. Wellford as anything other than the enemy.

But that feisty attitude and quick wit—he always had been a sucker for a smart woman. It didn’t hurt that her smarts came with fuck-me eyes and curves that could bring a man to his knees. The way her ass had twitched as she stormed out of the interview room…

…Dani Wellford was one smoking hot attorney for the defense.

Deeply annoyed at his complete loss of professional decorum with her, he headed outside to flag a taxi so he wouldn’t be late for the swanky party he’d been invited to by one of the most powerful attorneys on the east coast. The guy was undoubtedly going to put a hard sell on him, try to convince him to leave the D.A.’s office and come work for the private defense side of the courtroom.

He was going to say no, but he planned to be a hell of a lot more diplomatic about turning down the deal than Dani had been to him. Frankly, he was interested to see how much the guy and his firm were willing to offer him to change his mind and accept their job offer.

He liked to think he wasn’t for sale at any price, but he wasn’t that na?ve. Everybody had a price. He just didn’t know yet what his was.

He might be willing to bend his moral spine when it came to enough zeros on a paycheck, but he still would never, ever, sleep with anyone he might end up on the other side of a courtroom from in any context, professional or personal.

Nope. As hot as Dani Wellford might be, she was off limits.