HIS STRIPPER, HIS WIFE novel Chapter 25

Chapter 25

Chapter 25

Ádrain

“Is she on her way now?” I asked Felix the moment I got into the car.

“Yes boss. Adam will be her plus one,” he replied, and I nodded once.

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The car pulled out and I looked out the window, it was not like her coming to this event was something I had planned carefully or thought deeply about. I just did not want her sitting in that hotel room all evening going through spreadsheets when there was a perfectly good event happening that she could attend.

My father is stable now, the hospital had confirmed it was a medication reaction, wrong dosage, caught early enough and they have it under control. The weight of that has lifted and my head was clear now in a way it had not been in days.

And with a clear head came the honest admission, at least to myself, that I also wanted to see her. That was the other/reason I sent the invite because I wanted to see her and because going to that hotel was not something I could do without it becoming a whole media event and I did not have the energy for that.

So the next best thing was to make her come to this controlled environment, a public event with enough people around that nothing could get complicated.

I arrived at the venue before the crowd get too much and moved through the room doing what I always did at these things, the necessary conversations, the handshakes, the careful small talk that was really just business dressed up in socializing clothes.

I closed two conversations I needed to close before the program started and then made my way upstairs where a few of my friends had gathered near the railing that overlooked the main floor.

It was quieter up here, better view of the room below, and we stood there with drinks, watching the crowd fill in.

“That is a very beautiful woman,” one of them said, and heads turned.

I did not turn, I was not interested in whoever they were pointing at. I had been to enough of these events to know that describing women across rooms was basically tiring.

“I agree,” someone else said.

“She’s with a man.”

“Not like we care.” Another added.

“Well, it depends. Are they married? Or about to separate for me?”

That got a laugh out of the rest including me and I finally let my eyes move in the direction they were all looking, mostly just to have something to do.

The back view stopped me first, something familiar in the way she was standing, the set of her shoulders. Then she turned.

I genuinely could not feel myself for a few seconds. I had always known she was beautiful, that was not new information, but this was something different from the office version of her or even the version of her I had spent time with on that plane.

This was Bianca in a black dress under proper lighting, “Arghhhh she looks so beautiful.” I took a slow sip of my drink and said nothing.

“Is that who you have all been talking about?” I asked, keeping my voice very casual.

“Yes,” one of them said.

11:54 Wed, Jul 22 JTD

Chapter 25

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I nodded and my glass down looking elsewhere like I was completely unbothered but deep down I was so affected by Ker presence. What I did not do was walk downstairs and go over there, even though some part of me had already drafted the route. I knew how many steps it was from where I was standing to where she was. I did not do the calculation consciously, it just appeared in my head fully formed, which I chose to ignore.

Adam, I guess was next to her, they were talking about something, close enough that their heads were tilted toward each other, and she laughed at whatever he said. I felt irritated by watching them do that.

When the announcement came that the program was starting, we all moved to our seats and Felix appeared at my side the way he always did.

The briefing ran the way these things always did, structured, thorough, the kind of presentation that required actual attention and I gave it most of mine. Most, a reasonable portion of it kept sliding sideways toward the table where Adam was leaning toward Bianca and pointing at something in the program and she was nodding, and at one point she wrote something in her notes app and showed him the screen and he laughed.

My chest did something annoying and I looked back at the stage.

When the formal segment ended and the room shifted into the mixing portion of the evening, people standing again, drinks refilling, the noise level climbing, I stayed where I was for a moment and watched Adam put his hand on the small of her back to guide her through the crowd.

“Is that your cousin?” I asked Felix.

“Yes, boss.”

“He’s doing a good job with her,” I said, the way you say something when you are gathering information and trying to make it sound like general observation.

“Very much so,” Felix agreed. “He’s been talking about her since he left the hotel this morning. Kept saying she called him handsome. He’s quite taken.” He added.

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