Clients

Clients.

Everything David had built his identity around.

Watching.

As agents escorted him through the planetarium lobby, he twisted toward me.

“You ruined me!”

I shook my head.

“No, David.”

Camera phones rose around us.

“You just finally got audited.”

PART 7: They lost the lives they built using my silence

Grant Thornton placed David on immediate suspension before midnight.

By Monday, he was terminated.

His partnership interest was frozen while civil claims and restitution proceedings moved forward.

News outlets found the gambling debt.

Then the false audit authorizations.

Then Samantha.

Her photograph from the Violet Hour became evidence that David had deliberately engineered a conflict of interest around me.

She wasn’t charged with David’s financial crimes, but she admitted her role in the setup.

Her father stopped paying her condo fees.

Her charity board quietly removed her.

Chicago society didn’t exactly exile people for being awful.

But it did stop returning calls when awful became embarrassing.

My firm offered me a settlement.

Then a promotion.

I declined both until Rebecca finished negotiating a written public statement clearing my professional record.

I wanted my name back.

Nothing else mattered first.

Dominic had consequences too.

Several inherited operations were seized.

Two senior members of his organization were indicted.

Romano Holdings sold three subsidiaries and withdrew from questionable port contracts.

Dominic spent more time with federal lawyers than with me.

Good.

He had choices to answer for.

One night, he came to my apartment.

I opened the door but didn’t invite him in.

Lincoln Park was quiet behind him.

Somebody’s television glowed across the street.

An American flag hung from the porch of the brownstone next door.

“You could have disappeared,” I said.

“So could you.”

“I almost did.”

“I know.”

He looked tired.

Human.

That was new.

“I meant what I said that first night,” Dominic told me.

“Which part?”

“When I asked your name.”

I folded my arms.

“You’ve said a lot of dramatic nonsense since then.”

His mouth lifted.

“I want you.”

“There it is.”

“But I don’t own you.”

I held his gaze.

“Correct.”

“I learned that.”

“Painfully?”

“Extremely.”

I smiled.

Just a little.

Then I stepped aside.

“Coffee?”

He entered.

“Is that forgiveness?”

“No.”

I shut the door.

“It’s coffee.”

PART 8: I walked away with my name, money, and choices intact

Six months later, I opened Robinson Forensic Advisory three blocks from the river.

My name was on the glass.

Mine.

No David.

No partnership committee.

No man deciding whether I was useful enough to keep around.

My first clients were companies that suspected internal fraud.

Turns out being publicly framed by your managing partner gives you a certain amount of credibility in forensic accounting.

Rebecca became outside counsel.

My mother insisted on bringing sandwiches to the opening even though we had catering.

My dad spent twenty minutes trying to straighten a sign that was already straight.

Normal things.

Good things.

Samantha sent flowers.

I donated them to the hospital lobby.

Dominic arrived last.

No entourage.

No bodyguards inside.

Just Dominic.

He handed me a small box.

I stared at it.

“If that’s a ring, I’m throwing it into the Chicago River.”

“It’s not.”

Inside was the silver ring he had worn the night we met.

The one I remembered catching the bar light when he stopped his guards from approaching me.

I looked up.

“What am I supposed to do with this?”

“Keep it.”

“Why?”

“A reminder.”

“Of you?”

“No.”

He stepped closer.

“Of the night somebody tried to humiliate you, and accidentally introduced me to the most dangerous woman I’ve ever met.”

I snorted.

“That line probably works often.”

“Never used it before.”

“Sure.”

Outside my office windows, afternoon traffic crawled across Wacker Drive.

A horn blasted.

Someone cursed.

My receptionist laughed in the next room.

Life.

Messy.

Loud.

Mine.

Dominic touched my waist.

Lightly this time.

Asking.

Not claiming.

I didn’t move away.

“You know what’s funny?” I said.

“What?”

“That night, Samantha thought kissing you would prove I could take a risk.”

“And?”

I looked at the office with my name on the glass.

At the case files stacked on my desk.

At the life nobody had handed me.

“The kiss wasn’t the risk.”

Dominic tilted his head.

“What was?”

“Believing people who kept telling me I should be grateful just to be included.”

He went quiet.

Then he smiled.

I took his jacket lapel in my hand.

“But since you’re here…”

He laughed once.

I kissed him.

Not because somebody dared me.

Not because he demanded it.

Not because I needed a billionaire, a mafia name, or anyone else to tell me I was desirable.

Because I wanted to.

When I pulled away, Dominic looked almost stunned.

That felt pretty damn good.

“You still taste like lime,” he murmured.

I smiled.

“And you still talk too much.”

Then I walked back into my office and made him follow me.

On my terms.

Always.