HIS STRIPPER, HIS WIFE novel Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Bianca

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The meeting ended and I walked to the bathroom at a pace that was still professional so I won’t draw attention but was about four steps away from a full sprint.

I pushed the door open, checked under the stalls, confirmed I was alone, and then gripped the edge of the sink and stared at myself in the mirror.

“What the actual fuck.”

My reflection stared back at me, offering nothing useful.

“What. The. Actual. Fuck.”

I turned on the tap, mostly for something to do with my hands, and started pacing the small stretch of tile between the sinks and the wall.

“Okay.” I held up one finger. “Okay, so the man. The man from last night.” I paused. “The man I was moaning under, who I assumed I would never see again in my entire life.” I stopped pacing. “That man is my CEO.”

I tried to laugh but it came out slightly unhinged.

“He is my boss.” I pressed both hands flat against the counter. “He owns this building, he owns my desk, he owns my chair. He technically, in some corporate sense, owns me.”

I looked at my reflection again. My reflection looked like it was having a small breakdown.

“And he smiled.” I pointed at myself in the mirror “He smiled, Bianca. What does that mean? Why did he smile? People do not smile like that unless they are planning something or are about to make your life very difficult.”

I turned the tap off. “This is fine,” I said out loud. “This is completely fine. People have awkward encounters with their bosses all the time. This is normal. This is a normal, everyday, completely manageable situation.” I paused.

“But Bianca you slept with your CEO.” I dropped my head into my hands.

I stood there for another full minute just breathing, then I straightened up, smoothed my blouse, and looked at myself one last time.

“You have survived worse,” I told my reflection. “A cheating boyfriend, Emma’s surgery, weird jobs, years of struggles in this city. You can survive one man with a jawline.”

I walked back out.

My desk suddenly felt very exposed. I sat down and opened my emails and stared at them without reading a single word. The words were just shapes because my brain was occupied.

He was on the other side of the floor now, being walked through the departments by the director. I could see him from where I sat if I looked up, which I kept doing anyway.

Every department head they introduced him to seemed to stand a little straighter, smile a little harder. He barely changed his expression for any of them. He shook their hands, asked what sounded like one or two very precise questions, and moved on.”

No small talk, no warmth, no wasted words. Just that flat attention that somehow made people want to work harder just to earn a reaction from him

11:52 Wed, Jul 22

Chapter 10

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I looked back at my screen, I thought about how different his hands had been last night, the way he held me and…

“Fuck!” I closed that thought immediately and deleted it from my mind like a spam email.

“He was thorough,” I muttered under my breath, typing nothing in particular. “Professionally speaking. Very thorough.”

I stopped typing. “Gosh! I need to focus.”

I pulled up the expense report I had been supposed to finish yesterday and forced my eyes onto the numbers. Numbers were good, numbers were safe, numbers did not smile at me or make me feel uneasy.

I was three lines in when Amanda appeared, she dropped into the empty chair across from me, leaned forward with both elbows on her knees, “His name is Adrian Delacroix.” She said.

I kept my eyes on my screen. “I know, Amanda. They said his name in the meeting.”

“Billionaire.”

“Also mentioned.”

“Youngest in the industry.” She said it the way someone announces a sports record. With genuine awe. “Like, youngest self- made CEO to acquire a company at this scale. He is twenty-nine, Bianca.”

I looked up. “Twenty-nine?”

“Twenty-nine.” She tried to hold the number in the air between us. “And he looks like that.”

I looked back at my screen. “Good for him.”

“Divorced.” Amanda added, dropping her voice just slightly, the way she always did when the gist is becoming hotter. “His wife left him or he left her, depends on who you ask.” She tilted her head. “I heard she cheated on him.”

That made me look up again. “Cheated on him?”

“Can you imagine,” Amanda said, spreading her hands like she was presenting in a board room. “You have that, at home, waiting for you, and you cheat.” She shook her head slowly. “Some people genuinely do not deserve nice things.”

I looked across the office again before I could stop myself. He was standing with his back to us now, asking something to the head of finance, who was nodding so quickly his head was practically vibrating.

“He does not look divorced,” I said, mostly to myself.

“What does divorced look like?”

“I don’t know. Sad? Tired?.” I shrugged. “He doesn’t look like anything bothers him.”

“That’s the scary kind,” Amanda said with full confidence. “The ones that go quiet. They don’t cry, they just move on.” She stood up and smoothed her skirt. “Anyway. The girls in reception are already trying to figure out if he’s seeing anyone.”

“Are they.”

I told them they have absolutely no chance.” She said it with zero cruelty, “A man like that doesn’t date office girls, Bianca. He dates women who own things.”

She walked away and I sat very still. Women who own things, right. Not women who worked two jobs and had spent last night in a private room at a club doing things that could never, under any circumstances, be mentioned in this building.

I turned back to my expense report. Across the office, I heard his voice cut through the general noise, not loud, but clear. Something about quarterly projections not matching the integration forecast. The finance head started explaining himself

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11:52 Wed,

Chapter 10

very quickly.

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