HIS STRIPPER, HIS WIFE novel Chapter 52

Chapter 52

Chapter 52

Bianca

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The next day came soft, with no trace of the storm we had the day before. I walked into the office expecting some kind of tension still hanging in the air, maybe an awkward glance from Adrian or a stiffness between us that would carry over, but

there was none of that.

Everything moved the way it always moved on a normal day. Phones ringing, printers groaning, Amanda complaining about the coffee machine again. It was almost unsettling how easily yesterday seemed to have disappeared, at least on the surface.

Adrian was in and out of the office the whole morning, more than usual. Word went around that the directors had signatures to handle, contracts and documents that needed multiple sets of approval, the kind of thing that usually got split between two or three senior staff so nobody got stuck doing all of it alone.

But for reasons nobody in the office could explain, Adrian decided to handle his own signings by himself, no assistant from the legal team trailing behind him, no one double checking pages before he put his name on them.

A few people whispered about it near the break room, wondering out loud if something was wrong, if he didn’t trust the usual process anymore. I kept my mouth shut and my head down, because I had a small suspicion that whatever was going on in Adrian’s head that morning probably had less to do with the company but a family thing.

By noon, he walked back into the office holding a stack of files against his chest, dropped them on his desk without even looking at them properly, and walked straight toward ming. I felt him coming before I even looked up.

“You’re having lunch with me,” he said. I looked up, at him slowly, trying to decide if there was any version of this where I could say no without making the rest of my afternoon difficult but there wasn’t.

I knew the kind of person he was by now. If I said no, he would find a reason to make my day longer, harder, or just quietly unpleasant in some small way that nobody else would even notice but me. So I didn’t argue. I closed the document I had open, grabbed my bag, and stood up.

“Okay sir,” I said, the same way I always said even though my insides were doing something else entirely.

We walked out together, side by side through the open floor, and I glanced toward Amanda’s desk on instinct, half expecting her eyes to be on me already, ready to ask a hundred questions with just her eyebrows. But her chair was empty, no jacket, no half drunk coffee mug sitting there either. I let out a small breath of relief. I was not ready to explain anything to anybody, not when I hadn’t even explained it properly to myself yet.

Outside, he walked close to me the entire way, closer than he needed to, his shoulder almost brushing mine more than once. I kept adjusting my pace, slowing down a little, speeding up a little, trying to put even the smallest gap between us, but he matched every shift like it was nothing, like walking side by side with me in front of the whole building was something he wanted people to see.

Just as we reached the car and he stepped ahead to pull the door open for me, I caught movement at the edge of the lot. Amanda, walking in from the far end, probably back from wherever she had disappeared to earlier. Our eyes met across the distance, and I watched her own eyes go wide, wide enough that I could read the whole sentence behind them without her saying a single word. “Girl, the gist better be complete when you come back.”

I bit back a laugh and smiled instead, then slid into the car before she could do anything dramatic like wave or shout my name across the parking lot. Adrian shut the door behind me, walked around to his own side, and within a few minutes we were moving through the street, the office was now behind us in the side mirror.

The place he took me to wasn’t anything I expected. No menu on the table, no waiter hovering to take an order, just a quiet private section already set with food when we walked in, like everything had been arranged long before we even left the office 1 figured he must have called ahead sometime that morning, maybe right after deciding I was having lunch with him whether I liked it or not.

Chapter 52

44

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We sat across from each other, and for a while it was just the sound of cutlery against plates, the low hum of music coming from somewhere in the background, nothing dramatic, nothing heavy.

“How’s your sister?” He asked.

“She’s fine.” I said, picking at the food in front of me. “I went to see her yesterday.”

He nodded slowly, didn’t say anything else, just kept eating like the topic didn’t need any more than that.

“You know.” I said, watching him over the rim of my glass, “you can actually stop asking now. I know you already know how she’s doing.

He looked up at that, one eyebrow lifting slightly, waiting for me to continue.

“Felix.” I said simply. “He goes there almost every single day now. I’m pretty sure you get a full report before I even open my mouth to tell you anything.

He smiled at that but he didn’t say anything to deny it, which told me everything I needed to know anyway.

By the time we finished eating, the plates mostly empty, the air between us had loosened into something almost comfortable. “Thank you for the meal.” I said. He waved it off like it was nothing. leaning back in his seat.

“What did you do.” he said finally, “before the club?”

The question caught me a little off guard. I turned my glass slowly between my fingers, buying myself a few seconds.

“Why do you even go there.” I asked instead, deflecting the way I always did whenever a conversation got too close to a door I didn’t feel like opening. “A man like you, with everything you have. What business do you have stepping into a place like that?”

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