HIS STRIPPER, HIS WIFE novel Chapter 34

Chapter 34

Chapter 34

Bianca

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I walked in and he did not look up, I stood at the edge of his desk and waited for him. One second, two, five and nothing.

This man was looking at his screen like it contained the answers to questions the rest of the world hadn’t thought to ask yet: I cleared my throat quietly, “Good afternoon, sir.”I said,

“Good afternoon,” he replied, without looking up…

I stayed where I was, he didn’t move, didn’t acknowledge that I was standing in his office, didn’t say anything that suggested he was even aware that he had turned the last hour of my life into a small but genuine emergency. Just sat there, scrolling. completely at peace with himself.

“Sir,” I started.

“So how can I help you?” he said, finally looking up.

The way he said it, likel had wandered in from the street, like he had not personally arranged for every single thing I owned in this building to be moved without a word of notice or explanation.

I breathed in slowly. “Sir, my desk was moved from where it was and I wanted to talk about it because I don’t think…”

“Look around,” he said. “You’ll find it.”

I stared at him. “That is exactly why I’m here, I was directed to it and I found it. I just don’t agree with where it ended up.”

He tilted his head slightly. “You don’t agree with it.”

“No sir, I don’t.”

“And why not?”

“Because I liked where I was sitting,” I said. “It makes me work better.”

“And why is that?”

I hadn’t expected him to keep asking, so I took a breath and gave him a real answer. “Because that’s where everyone is, I’m used to the environment, the noise actually helps me focus, and being near the team keeps me on top of things. I pick up information faster, I stay in the loop, and I…”

“You came here to work,” he said. “Not to see people.”

I stopped, he held my gaze for exactly one moment, completely unbothered, and then looked back at his screen. “When you’re ready, you know where your desk is.”

I stood there for three more seconds to confirm that he was genuinely done speaking. Then I turned around and walked to the desk sitting along the far side wall and sat down.

It was my chair, my monitor, my plant was on the corner, my pen holder, everything was where it was meant to be. Whoever carried out this operation had been disturbingly thorough.

I opened my screen, I looked at what was waiting for me and went very still. Then I stood up, pushed the chair back, and walked back to his desk.

“Three impossible deadlines,” I said.

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Chapter 34

He didn’t look up.

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“A mandatory Saturday meeting.” I waited. “reduced break time and some minutes ago, you moved my desk closer to yours.”

“Yes,” he said.

“On purpose?”

“Yes.”

I looked at him and he also looked at me. There was nothing apologetic in his expression, no attempt to package this as some kind of routine operational reshuffling. He had done it intentionally and he was telling me so without any emotion about it, like it was absolutely the most normal thing to do.

“Sir,” I said carefully. “I want to understand something.”

“Go ahead.”

“Those two deadlines you added, the investor timeline and the company audit, both of those are for tomorrow morning.”

“Yes.”

“And the Saturday meeting.”

“Eight a.m..” he said. “I’ll send the details.”

I looked at him for a long moment. “And my lunch break,” I said. “It was changed to thirty minutes.”

“Floor standard is thirty.”

“I was getting one hour.”

“You were getting more than you should have been.”

I pressed my lips together. “So to summarize,” I said. “More work, less time, and a new desk inside your office so you can monitor me well?.”

“That’s accurate.”

“And you don’t see anything unreasonable about that combination.”

He looked at me. “Is there a question in there?”

“Yes,” I said. “Several.”

“Ask one.”

I crossed my arms, “Why?”

He stood then, and came around the desk toward me, and I don’t know how it happened exactly but somewhere between his movement and my everything, I ended up between him and the big file box behind me with genuinely nowhere left to go. The office suddenly looked small and the strange thing was I didn’t feel like moving.

I looked up at him, his jaw was set the way it always was. His expression gave nothing away and somehow communicated everything anyway, which I had privately decided was one of the more inconvenient things about him.

‘Because I wanted you close,” he said. “And this was the best way to do that.”

I held his gaze and tried to find something useful to say. Something professional that confirmed I was a functioning adult

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