Page 45 of Forged in Peril

She paused to take a breath, and he suppressed the question that rose within him.

After she’d sacrificed so much to make it to the top, what could have possibly been bad enough to make her give it all up and start over?

“Not everything was good,” she said, glancing up from his shoulder and giving him a quick flash of a smile. “Lawyers, well, they tend to live up to the stereotype. Jaclyn Mercier is a total pussycat compared to most of them, especially the senior partners. I got used to being screamed at for the smallest mistake, to the point where I no longer bothered to cry, not even while hiding in the bathroom. Not to mention the fact that they expected me to drop anything in my personal life with about ten seconds’ notice, or face, you guessed it, more yelling.”

Cameron tightened his fists. “What a pathetic bunch of scum,” he said, narrowly avoiding unleashing the several creative swear words that they most certainly deserved.

Bristol only shrugged.

“There were other things, too, little things that never quite added up. Sometimes I found files with irregular numbers, or billing sheets that were clearly filled out wrong, things like that. There were also some smaller companies that made zero sense for the firm to have as clients, yet kept showing up on their books. But that wasn’t until later, when I had started to gain more of their trust and less of their rage, and by that point…”

She trailed off, looking down at her knees as her body drew a couple of inches away from his own.

He wanted to reach out for her hand, to pull her against him, to assure her that no matter what she was going to say, it wouldn’t change anything about how he felt about her.

Instead, he sat still, staring out at the lights of the tall office towers and condos that lay beyond the window.

They were far enough from the ground that he couldn’t hear the sounds of honking horns, sirens, or screeching brakes, and the only people left in the FBS building now would be the security guards making their rounds.

To him, it was peaceful, but for Bristol, nowhere felt safe. It made him feel sick, and he would do whatever it took to make sure that one day, she’d be–and feel–safe again.

“Sorry,” Bristol said after a while, letting her head fall against his shoulder once more. “This is the hard part. The part I’ve been putting off.”

“Don’t apologize,” he said, feeling the tickle of her hair brushing against his neck. “Take your time. I’m not going anywhere.”

He wasn’t. If she’d let him, he’d stick around forever.

The risk to his heart no longer mattered, not if it meant that he could make sure she was protected, treasured, and loved like she deserved.

“There was a senior associate named Dillon Warrington.”

She paused, and Cameron breathed in the scent of her hair, trying to calm the anger that was bubbling within him. The tone of her voice was enough to make him hate the man already.

“I had worked with him off and on over my first year and a half at D&P, but in the last six months, I got assigned to him more and more. At the time, I didn’t think much of it, but now it’s pretty obvious that he must have been requesting me. He was on track for partner, if the office gossip was to be believed, and from what I could tell he had some sway with the big dogs.

“Anyway, working with him was no big deal, at least at first. If anything, he was one of the more pleasant lawyers there. He was very good at his job, and I quickly realized that the partners, for once, weren’t really playing favorites. He was young and hungry, and he’d proven himself in a relatively short time, at least in terms of the legal field.”

Bristol paused again, and Cameron looked down at her as she shifted her weight against him.

Instead of pulling away, as he’d expected, she had moved even closer.

Without a word, he placed his arm around her shoulders, drawing her to him, and she sunk into his chest, so close that he could feel her breaths against him.

“Sorry. This is where the story gets rough. I know I need to spit it out, but it’s so hard to make myself say the words.”

“Would it help if I promised not to react?” he asked.

She shook her head.

She was quiet for a long time, and when she finally spoke, the sadness in her voice almost broke his heart.

“Just promise me you won’t let go. That you won’t push me away. Please.”

He swallowed, his throat suddenly thick.

“I promise.”

“There were a lot of late nights in those final months at Dorling & Porter. Really late nights, late enough that there was no one in the office save for maybe a single security guard, who spent ninety percent of his time watching the cameras and sports at the same time.

---