Page 31 of Promise Me Forever

He works so damn hard and seems to take on so much responsibility. I remember him telling me he never quite felt good enough for his family—something I will never, ever remind him that he revealed—and I wonder if his workaholic tendencies are all tied in to that. Sometimes, like now, he looks like he hasthe weight of the world on those gorgeous shoulders and nobody to help him carry the load.

He glances up again, running his hand through his thick hair. His eyes narrow, and he sucks on his upper lip. “It’s late.”

I shrug, dropping my purse to the floor. “It’s not even seven, and I don’t like to brag, but all I have waiting for me at home is some leftover roast beef andSex in the Cityreruns.”

The corners of his lips twitch with the hint of a smile. “Which season?”

“I watched the end of season one last night. Carrie dumps Mr. Big for the first time. Are you a fan?”

“That would be telling, wouldn’t it? Well, as much as I hate to deprive you of your exciting night in, Miss Ryder, I have to admit that I actually could use your help.”

“Then I’m all yours for as long as you need me.” I drop into the empty chair opposite his desk, and before I can regret my poor choice of words, I move on. “So, what are we doing here? Was there some kind of explosion?”

Drake sighs. “Opposing counsel just delivered me a whole new box of evidence to go through. They left it until the very last minute, but I’m used to those tactics and expected to spend the night going through it. But then the damn ass fell out of the box when I picked it up, and now I have two thousand pages all out of order. I could ask for more time, but he knows this case has already dragged on for longer than it should have. Fucker.”

“Total fucker,” I agree. “Bet he weakened the cardboard with nail scissors before he sent it over.” I nod at the mass of scattered papers. “So, what are we looking for?”

Drake gives me a brief summary of the new evidence and hands me an index sheet that lists the contents. It’s mainly hundreds of call logs detailing numbers that were dialed to and from office and home phones, along with dates, times, and duration of the calls. “Most of it is probably irrelevant,”he explains, “but when you ask for information like this, they’re perfectly within their rights to provide too much detail. Sometimes it’s because there actually is pertinent information in there waiting to be found and they want to bury it in a pile of pointless dross in the hope that you miss it. Sometimes they do it just to be assholes.”

“What do you think it is this time?” I ask, picking up the first stack of sheets.

“I have no clue. But the first thing to do is get the logs back in time and date order. Only then will I be able to go through them and really check.”

James and James is one of the biggest law firms in the country, and Drake is one of its managing partners. He has a team of literally hundreds working for him and access to some of the best legal minds around. I’ve already learned, though, that he is a perfectionist or a control freak—possibly both. He goes through every scrap of paperwork on every case he works himself rather than passing it on to one of the many paralegals who are specifically employed to do exactly that kind of task.

It sounds crazy, but it seems to work for him. He never lost a single case when he was in Chicago, and he’s renowned for his well-researched ruthlessness in the court room. He’s a shark, but a shark who combines his killer instinct with hours of painstaking attention to detail. He wins because he puts the work in, and the fact that he is trusting me to help him gives me a little warm glow of pride. I have no doubt that the trust is partly borne of desperation, but it’s a big deal to me.

“Okay,” I say, standing up. “We need to relocate. At the moment, you have too many piles too close together, and I suspect you’re losing track of which one is which.”

“You’re not wrong,” he says, sounding annoyed with himself. “I messed them up just before you came in and had to start all over again.”

That explains the cursing. “Well, don’t worry. We’ll sort it. I’m going to set up a workstation over here by the window, and I’m going to make a stack for each day. I’ll work left to right, earliest date first, and then beneath each, we’ll add them in time order. We’ll end up with a grid pattern, and that will make it easier to cross reference.”

He stares at me for a long moment, then nods. “Have at it. How about I go through the papers and shout out the details, and you can add them to the right pile?”

“Sounds like a plan. I’ll stay down here on the ground.” I kick off my heels, and my dress rides up over my thighs as I fall to my knees. It can’t be helped, and it’s not like I’m flashing my stocking tops, but I feel the first hint of a blush as I catch him looking. It’s been three weeks since I started working here, and after the initial super-intense awkwardness, things have settled down. I’m starting to think everything has been made easier by the fact that we managed to find a way to work together without ever actually beingtogether.At least not alone, and not for any longer than a few minutes at a time. This is different. More intimate.

“Okay, I’ve got February Fourth here” he says, holding up a handful of pages.

“Great. Pass it over, and let’s get started.” Following his lead, I concentrate on the job at hand.

This is the kind of work I enjoy most, and time passes quickly once we get going. Having two of us plus a new and, frankly, more logical system in place means that the task doesn’t feel anywhere near as daunting. Once all the call logs are in chronological order, Drake begins to check through his notes and look for the dates when his client claimed she was contacted by the man they’re suing, Franklin Callaghan. So far, either her dates have been off or he used a different phone, one that he didn’t disclose.

Drake rubs his eyes and continues flicking through the pages of his various notepads while I wait for him to call out dates and times. Again, it’s a labor-intensive way to work—he could have had those notes digitized into a searchable database—but it seems to be the way he prefers. Old school. Maybe writing stuff down longhand helps him process it all. I get that, but I also make a mental note to suggest digital backup as well. There are so many great software programs out there now that would really help with things like this.

After what feels like forever, we finally catch a break. He calls out a date and time and tells me the call lasted approximately five minutes. Sure enough, when I check in the relevant pile, I find the page. “It’s here!” I cry. “A call made from his office landline to hers, at exactly that time on exactly that date—call duration logged as five minutes, thirty seconds! Let me check his schedule…”

I crawl across the floor to the small heap of loose sheets that provide a record of Callaghan’s whereabouts during the relevant time period. “Bingo!” I cry, holding one in the air. “He was there that day—signed out twenty minutes later!”

Drake has pulled his tie completely loose, and his hair is still in those thick furrows. His face lights up when I pass him the sheet, though, and it’s like all the weight lifts from his shoulders. He transforms before my eyes, and I can’t help smiling. I don’t know exactly what any of this means for the case, but I do know I helped him. I know he’s pleased. And I know that it feels way too good. I climb to my stockinged feet.

He looks like a little kid on Christmas, waving the printout in the air. “This is great, Amelia. Perfect, in fact.”

These days, he sticks to Miss Ryder, and it feels good to hear my name on his lips again, even though he doesn’t seem to have noticed. He’s lost in his work, grinning down at the call log.

“How does it help?” I ask, genuinely interested.

“Well, it doesn’t prove anything by itself because there’s no recording of the call—we only have our client’s word against his. But he has consistently denied ever speaking to her, and this proves he lied about that. And proving that he lied about one thing, no matter how small, makes it way easier to show he’s a liar about the big things too. Thank you—so much! I couldn’t have done it without you.”

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