Page 77 of Forged in Peril

Cameron tried to reach for her hand, but she yanked herself away from him, the rolling chair scraping loudly against the leg of the desk.

“Bristol, I worded that poorly,” Cameron said, his voice sounding especially calm after her own anger. “Please don’t be like this.”

She crossed her arms over her chest, forcing air into her lungs, but she could find no calm of her own. If anything, his patient attitude had succeeded only at ticking her off.

“I’m not some crazy, irrational victim,” she said, the rage in her voice cooling into ice. “I started looking over my shoulder long before I came to FBS. I know what it’s like to feel like someone is lurking behind every hedge. I know how to tell that paranoid anxiety voice to shut up. This is something else.”

“Gabe is certain that Jaclyn is okay,” he replied, gripping the edges of his own chair and staying seated. “Not only did he look into every claim that she made–as I said, it all checks out, right down to the two Alberts and the timing with Reilly and Senera–he went home last night, grabbed more coffee, and took another deep dive into her personnel file.”

Bristol pursed her lips. Gabriel staying up late to make sure he was being thorough was admirable, but she still felt uneasy, as though Cameron was attempting to convince her to ignore her instincts.

“We do extensive checks into every single person we hire, including the maintenance staff and interns. Needless to say, we were exceptionally thorough when it came to hiring the person who was going to be our emissary to the legal system.

“Jaclyn has almost as high of a security clearance as me and my brothers. We didn’t make the decision to hire her lightly, and Gabe took the time to confirm every bit of documentation again, just because he trusted me and wanted to take my concerns seriously. And my concerns were based purely on the fact that I trust you, including your instincts.”

Bristol felt as though she’d been slapped.

“So, you trust me, until your big brother says the word. After that, I go back to being the paranoid, crazy rape victim,” she said, her voice sounding hollow to her own ears..

She should never have come to him with any of this. She should have found something more concrete on her own, something impossible to dismiss.

Even Gabe could miss something, and this time, he must have. She was sure of it.

“Please, try and understand this from my perspective,” Cameron said, his face filled with hurt. “I still trust you. Present tense. I’m just trying to be fair to Jaclyn as well as to you. I can still have someone check into Albert Ziggoni–”

“It’s not about him,” she said, her voice soft. She had run out of the energy that snapping at him would have required. “It’s not about Gabe, either, and it’s not about Jaclyn.”

The familiar sick feeling in her throat bubbled up again, tears threatening to pour over.

She was so tired of crying over him.

“It’s about us, Cameron,” she continued. “It’s about the fact that before you came in here this morning, I was thinking about what my life would have been like had I agreed to marry you all those years ago.”

Cameron winced as though she had slapped him.

“I thought about what it would have been like to wake up next to you every day. I thought about you bringing me breakfast, and making me laugh. I wasn’t expecting for you to turn around and treat me like I’ve lost my mind. But maybe I should have.”

“I’ve never said anything like that,” Cameron said, his voice dangerously low. “But I’m sorry you took it that way.”

Bristol felt herself clenching her hands into fists against her lap.

Some apology.

Who she was, who she wanted to be, what did that matter?

No one believed her anyway. Thanks to Dillon Warrington, not only her body had been tainted, but her mind, as well.

She’d hoped that he was different, and that he could see her more clearly, could see that her word was still trustworthy.

But she was wrong.

“Look,” Cam said, his voice pleading now as he tried to catch her gaze. “I don’t want to fight like this. We both knew when we talked last night that this was never going to be a simple situation. It doesn’t mean we throw away what I know we have.

“I know I’m not perfect,” he continued, swallowing hard as he leaned ever so slightly toward her. “I know you warned me that you were going to mess up again, and I should have been clear that the same is true for me. I’ve changed a lot since I was that cocky nineteen year old kid with a diamond ring in his pocket, but I know I still have a long way to go. I’m trying. I just need you to let me.”

As she looked at him, she felt her resolve beginning to falter once again.

His blue eyes, his charm, his promises.

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