HIS STRIPPER, HIS WIFE novel Chapter 13

Chapter 13

Chapter 13

Adrain

Immediately the door clicked shut behind her, I let out a slow breath and leaned back in my chair.

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“She is doing so well.” the thought came before I could stop it, and I let it sit there for a second because it was true. The board call running over, the legal addendum, the procurement disaster, and through all of it she had not flinched once She just moved from one fire to the next like she had been doing this for years.

I picked up the revised briefing she had just dropped off and told myself I was reading it.

I was not reading it, I was thinking about the way she walked in this morning in that fitted black pencil skirt with the white blouse tucked in just right, and the way she smelled when she crossed the desk to take the schedule card from me, close enough that I had to actively redirect my attention back to the documents in front of me.

She was still doing that thing where her face said “professional” and her eyes said something else entirely. And she had absolutely no idea what she looked like standing in my office doorway holding that notepad, and I was starting to think that was the most dangerous thing about her.

I should probably just bend her over this table, this wouldn’t be the first time…

“No.” I pressed two fingers to my temple. “Adrian, stop. She is your employee.” I said it quietly trying to put myself together as I picked the document back up.

I heard a loud knock and the door opened before I finished saying come in, which meant it was Felix, because Felix operated on his own timeline with doors.

He stepped inside, took one look around the office like he was confirming it was real, and then looked at me. “Boss,” he said.

“Felix.”

“I went to your house this morning.” He let that land. “Your housekeeper told me you had already left for the office.”

“As you can see, that’s correct.”

“Boss.” He spread his hands slightly. “You said yesterday we were not resuming here yet. You said it yourself. I have it in my

notes.”

I stood up from behind the desk and walked around to the front of it. “Change of plans.”

He opened his mouth.

“Felix.”

He closed his mouth, then he opened it again because Felix had never truly learned. “But boss, the logistics alone, I had to reschedule three things this morning, and nobody told the security team, so when I got here they had me waiting downstairs for twenty minutes like I was a walk-in client, twenty minutes, and I was wearing my good shoes today of all days and the lobby floor is slippery and my back has not been the same since…”

“Is it here?” I cut him off.

He stopped, reached under his arm and brought out a folder he had been holding the whole time and handed it over.

I took it and flipped it open, inside was everything and by everything. I meant everything. Employment history, education records, address and family history.

One sibling, a younger sister. Currently admitted at the hospital, surgery was three days ago, apparently successful.

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Chapter 13

Outstanding hospital bill sitting at exactly twelve thousand and forty dollars.

I stood there for a moment and read that last part again. Could this be the reason she has a double life?

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“Interesting.” I said, mostly to myself but loud enough that Felix straightened up slightly because he knew that particular

tone.

I closed the folder. “Pull the remaining balance on the hospital bill,” I said.

“Whatever is still outstanding, move it from the miscellaneous budget and have it wired to the hospital anonymously. Do it today.”

Felix blinked. “Boss, are you sure that you want to…”

“Right away, Felix.”

He looked at me for one more second, doing the mental calculation of whether this was a hill worth standing on. It was not and he knew it.

“Yes sir.”

“And leave whatever you have on Bianca on your way out.”

He nodded, set a thin separate document on the edge of my desk, and turned and walked out without any further editorializing, which was honestly a personal record for him.

The door clicked shut. I stood in the quiet of the office and looked down at the folder in my hands, then at the document Felix had left on the desk.

I picked up the photo that had been clipped to the inside of the folder. ft was a standard ID photo, the kind that was not meant to be flattering and still somehow was. She was looking directly at the camera with that expression she wore when she was trying very hard not to let her face be interesting.

I set it on the desk, twelve thousand dollars in hospital bills. A sister she had not mentioned to anyone here, not even in her work report and she was trying to work diligently while carrying all of that around like it weighed nothing.

I sat down, the document Felix had left was thinner than the main file, just a few pages, and I flipped through it slowly. In between it, was her picture somewhere that looked like a beach, she looked effortlessly beautiful and calm.

I set the document down on the desk and looked at her photo for a long moment.

“Bianca Fernandes,” I said quietly.

Outside the glass wall I could see the floor, the open plan desks, and I could see her desk from here. She was leaning back in her chair slightly, looking at the ceiling like she was doing a private audit of her own life, which, given what I now knew, made a certain amount of sense.

Even from here she looked tempting and… I pulled my attention back to the document. I tapped the photo once with two fingers.

“Bianca Fernandes,” I said again, and this time I let myself smile, just slightly. “Or should I say Scarlett?”

I leaned back in my chair and looked at the ceiling, then back at the photo on the desk again.

“You are in for a very long ride.”