Page 75 of Love Story

His brow furrowed.“I don’t understand.”

I swallowed hard, the words caught in my throat.“I’m not just burned out, Sam.I’m a freaking whistleblower.”

“What?”

“I single-handedly destroyed a billion-dollar investment firm.And now…” My chest tightened as panic began to claw its way up.“They want me to go to the prison.”

His mouth dropped open, and he went pale.“No!I won’t let them.”He was so fierce.“I’ll… I don’t know… We’ll go somewhere, we’ll get lawyers, we’ll—”

“No, stop!Notmein prison.”I rubbed my eyes.“They want me to meet with one of the people who…”

My breath hitched, and I pressed a hand to my chest to force the panic away.Sam was on his feet instantly, crossing the room to sit beside me on the bed.He took my hand, lacing his fingers with mine, his touch grounding me.

“How about you start from the beginning,” he said, his voice shaky.

I exhaled and relaxed enough to breathe, then let the words flow.It was easier now, with him beside me instead of across from me, offering quiet reassurance.

“NDAs,” I said, but keeping secrets had left me exposed, and now it was going to cost me the only good thing I had in my life.“I don’t knowwhereto start.”

“How about why you left Boston?”Sam asked, his tone soft but insistent.

“My lawyer said I needed to leave.”

“Why?”

“To stay out of the way, to not get involved.Out of sight, out of mind.”I glanced down at our joined hands, the sight of his fingers wrapped around mine giving me the courage to speak.“I didn’t lie to you.Iwasburned out,” I admitted.“But it was more than that.I was… I am…” I drew in a deep breath, forcing myself to continue.“I reported fraud at the firm I worked for.Massive fraud.It took everything down—the firm, the people running it.And now they’re trying to get me to testify in open court because the guy I worked with says I knew more than I let on.But I didn’t!”

“Of course you didn’t,” Sam murmured.“You’remyBen.”He said it matter-of-factly as though he trusted me completely after the two months we’d been in each other’s lives.It meant something that he gave me blind faith when so many different people didn’t trust me at all.

“I thought leaving would make things easier,” I said.“That I could escape it all.But if I can’t prove I knew nothing, it could follow me to you, Sam, Harriet, your friends and family, and the small town that finally let me breathe.The real truth is tangled up in litigation, and I haven’t told anyone everything.Not even Harriet.It’s always there—lawyers and reporters.And if I bring that back to Caldwell Crossing…” My voice cracked, and I shook my head.“I can’t do that to you.To anyone.It would ruin everything.”

“Okay…” he prompted when I paused too long.

“I wasn’t lying about being an IT consultant at an investment firm in Boston.Nor the routine audits, coding, backend systems—that was my world.”I hesitated.“It’s the rest.I noticed anomalies in the code he dismissed as me being too anal.Lines that created phantom cash investments to balance funds.If a fund was short by a hundred thousand dollars, the code made it look whole.Counter-instructions reversed the fake deposits later, creating the illusion of stability.It was so subtle that you’d never notice unless you were digging.Hundreds of thousands.Sometimes millions.”I rubbed my temples.“At first, I thought it was a bug or an error, but the deeper I dug in my own time, the clearer it became that it was deliberate and worse, my work colleague Brad—my friend—was part of it.”

He squeezed my hand, and I leaned against him for support.

“At first, I thought Brad didn’t know what was happening, and I kept my research to myself, given he was so upset that I was digging into things that might get me into trouble.I thought he was looking out for me, but the more I unraveled, the clearer it was—Brad was involved, and it wasn’t just him.Executives were siphoning funds into private accounts.The whole system was rotten like one giant Ponzi scheme.I had to report it.So, I went to the SEC first.Then, the FBI.I couldn’t ignore what I’d found.But it wasn’t just about reporting—I needed protection because what if I was implicated just by being in the systems?I was scared.”

He released my hand and put his arm over my shoulders, tugging me close.“I’m sorry.”

“That’s when I was connected to Theo Brookes, a whistleblower attorney.He warned me that if I went on with what I was doing, it would get ugly, but he’d guide me through it.”

“And it still got ugly,” Sam said, his tone heavy with understanding.

“The fallout was worse than I imagined,” I admitted.“The firm imploded, jobs were lost, and the media spun everything into chaos.The people I exposed were looking for someone to blame, and Brad was arrested.It was like I blew up everyone’s lives with one decision.”

He pressed a kiss to my temple.“You did the right thing,”

“Sometimes I wonder,” I murmured.“It cost me everything.And even now, it’s not over.”My voice cracked.“Brad’s lawyer said there was information that could clear my name once and for all, revealing who knew what and when.Brad’s using it as leverage and wants to meet me at the prison tomorrow before he gives my lawyer the passwords for the documentation we need.I agreed to go, but he might be playing me.If I don’t see him and he does that, fuck… if I’m arrested, the media will find out who I am, and I can’t let that follow me to Caldwell Crossing.To you.”

Sam squeezed my hand, his gaze fierce but steady.“Sweetheart, you need to breathe.”

“I… am… breathing,” I managed to choke out, but my chest was so tight I was seeing spots, my pulse thundering in my ears.The world felt was as if it were caving in, every thought spiraling out of control.

Sam pulled me close before I could panic further, his hands firm but gentle as he tilted my face up to meet his.Then his lips were on mine—warm, insistent, grounding.

The kiss silenced the storm in my head.His hand slid to the back of my neck, anchoring me, and I melted into him.His lips moved against mine with a tenderness that made me forget everything else—lawyers, trials, Boston—until there was only Sam—his touch, strength, and quiet reassurance.

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