HIS STRIPPER, HIS WIFE novel Chapter 54

Chapter 54

Chapter 54

Adrian

10 vouchers

How do I even begin to tell her the real reason I go there. The truth was heavier than anything I was ready to hand over to her, especially not over lunch, not with her sitting across from me like she could read straight through whatever answer I

gave.

I hated the person who was the cause of everything I had been carrying for the past two years. The hate has refused to leave no matter how much time passed and somewhere along the way, that hate had taken something else from me too. It had taken away my ability to want anyone, to feel that small pull toward another person that used to come so easily before.

I tried. God knows I tried, I went out, I met people, I let myself be introduced to women my mother thought were perfect for me, and none of it worked. Nothing stirred, it was like something inside me had simply gone quiet and refused to wake, up again.

That was the real reason I started going to that club, not for the noise or the drinks or whatever anyone assumed a man like me wanted from a place like that. I went because I needed to feel something, anything, even if it was just the small thrill of being somewhere nobody expected anything from me.

I kept waiting for that pull to come back on its own, kept showing up Friday after Friday hoping my body would remember how to want something again.

It didn’t work, not once, not until Bianca walked into that room with her sharp tongue and her special kind of energy.

She was, without question, the only person I had felt that pull toward in longer than I wanted to admit. Not some manufactured attraction I was forcing myself into because it made sense on paper.

It was real and unshakable, the kind that crept up on me slowly until I couldn’t pretend it wasn’t there anymore.

Sy

I almost told her all of this at the table, the words were right there, sitting at the back of my throat the same way I imagined whatever she swallowed about her sister was sitting at the back of hers. But I held it in. I didn’t know what she would do with something that big if I handed it to her too soon.

I didn’t know if she was the type to suddenly start acting differently once she realized exactly how much power she had over me, the type to get full of herself and use it to keep me at arm’s length on purpose, just to watch me chase her. I have met women like that before, I wasn’t ready to find out if she was one of them.

So I swallowed it, I let the moment pass and talked about chicken and seasoning instead, which in hindsight was probably the safest decision I made all day. Glad I postponed it, there would be time and I was not in any hurry, not when I had already waited this long to feel something real again.

By evening, the office had emptied out the way it always did once five o’clock came and went. Most of the floor had cleared, lights dimmed in sections nobody was using anymore, the printers finally silent for the first time since morning. I walked past her desk on my way out and found her still there, bag half open beside her chair, papers spread out in front of her like she had no plans of leaving anytime soon.

“Going home?” I asked, stopping just beside her desk.

She shook her head without even looking up properly. “Not yet, sir.”

“Ohh, till when?”

She finally lifted her eyes to mine, the corner of her mouth twitching like she found something mildly amusing about the question. “I have a lot to do. I won’t be going anytime soon.”

I nodded slowly, deciding not to push it any further than that, and left the building not long after. Two hours passed somewhere between traffic and a call I had to take from my father’s old lawyer about something that didn’t matter half as

1/3

THU

23

C

13:56 Thu, Jul 23

Chapter 54

10 voucheté

much as I pretended it did during the conversation. By the time I made it back to the office, it was a few minutes past seven, the building mostly dark except for the floor she was on.

I didn’t go up, Instead I sat in my office downstairs with the small monitor that fed footage from the cameras scattered around the building, watching her pack her things.

I watched her walk toward the elevator and counted the minutes until she would reach the ground floor, then made my way out to the car park before she did, parking myself just close enough to the exit gate that I would catch her on her way out without making it obvious I had been waiting

She came through a few minutes later, head down, scrolling through her phone, completely unaware of anything around her. I stepped out from behind the car as she passed.

“Let me drop you?” I said.

“Oh Lord, you startled me.” she said, pressing a hand briefly against her chest before letting out a long breath. She didn’t argue. didn’t ask why I was still here this late, just walked toward the passenger side of my car like it was the most normal thing in the world for her boss to be waiting for her in an empty car park past seven in the evening.

The drive over was quiet, comfortable in a way that surprised me a little. I dropped her in front of her building, the headlights catching the front of it just enough to show the gate and the narrow walkway leading toward the entrance.

“Thank you.” she muttered, already halfway out of the door before the words were even fully out of her mouth. I watched her cross the short distance to the building and disappear through the entrance, her figure swallowed by the dim light just

inside.

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify