“My offer was retracted before the internship ended.”
“Why?”
She sniffs, “Professional misconduct.”
“Jesus Christ, what did you do?”
“That’s really none of your business,” she bites. “The point is, it didn’t work out, and I was still too busy licking my wounds to take onthis,” her hand drags through the air, gesturing towards me and the contract on the dark wood between us.
“This?”
Leaning forward, she spreads the pages, “I wasn’t qualified for what you needed.”
“But that’s not why you turned it down.” She hasn’t outright said it, but it’s written across her face that her reasoning for rejecting the offer isn’t as black and white as she’s pretending. “So what is? What is in this contract that scared you away?”
Shaking her head, she focuses on the papers before us, her eyesdarting everywhere but near me, "You work with a lot of legally demanding substances and machinery. I don't know much about your line of work, so I can't really say what's standard, but a lot of this seems out of the realm of normal.”
Suspicion crawls up my spine. I can't say what compels me to accuse her, but I can't stop it. "You're lying to me. Again."
She stumbles over her argument, "N-no, I'm not."
"What are you hiding from me, Brigit?" I stand, both hands on the table, leaning over it, trying to contain my frustration. It’s not her fault that she’s somehow holding a portion of my past. But I’m desperate to understand what could have been so bad that she turned down a job that paid exponentially more than she could have made as a junior lawyer elsewhere.
A heavy breath escapes her unbidden, and goosebumps rise along her arm where it rests on the table near mine.
"I'm not hiding anything," she insists. "I'm just..." she clears her throat.
“Just...?”
“Look,” she sighs, leaning forward. “This compensation package, plus some of the strange wording about legal proceedings if there’s a dissolution of our agreement, and the lack of conduct expectations… not to mention the very thorough NDA, I knew from one glance at this contract that you did illegal shit.”
“You do illegal shit,” I laugh.
A small smile drags the corner of her lips up. “You forget this was years ago. Alothas changed for me since then. But I was 24, I had just beenfiredfor misconduct. I could see red flags all over youandthis contract and couldn’t afford to get wrapped up in another fucking mess. But I figured you were just using banned imports or something. I never expected that you...”
“Ran a crime ring and killed people.”
She pushes down a heavy, nervous swallow. “Yeah. That.”
I let out a breath.
I don’t remember my last lawyer leaving, but I do know she wasgood at her job. If she had written my hiring contracts and NDAs, they would have been ironclad.
“What did you get fired for that made you so sensitive to this?” I can’t stop the curiosity, even though the answer to this question won’t change anything about our situation. It didn’t escape my notice that she said she saw red flags all over me, too.
“I’m not answering that,” her lips purse together, and for the first time since we’ve met, I know I’ve found a line she won’t let me cross. I’m sure somewhere in my arsenal I can dig for the truth, but Iwanther to tell me. I want to be the person she trusts with her secrets, not someone she hides herself from.
“Fine,” I nod.
She stands, smoothing her dress again, “Great. Can I go now, Mr. Fomori?”
“I think we’re past such formalities now, Brigit,” I chuckle, the sound dark and wild with desire, “I’ve had my hand buried between your thighs and licked your cum off my fingers.”
She has no response, silently seething as her cheeks burn red and her eyes drop to the hand that brought her to orgasm less than thirty minutes ago.
I can’t help but chuckle, taking in the beauty of her furious expression. “Come on. I’ll take you home.”
“I’ll get a cab,” she tries to speed walk away from me, but in her sky-high heels, there’s no way she’s escaping that easily.
