Just Before My Wedding: Trapped By My Ruthless Boss novel Chapter 16

16:28 Thu, May 21 M M

Chapter 16

Chapter 16

KISAREL.

I had woken up to the persistent ringing of my phone.

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I was so spent that I tried to ignore it, but it wouldn’t stop ringing. So, I picked it up, and when I saw who the caller was, I literally jumped out of my sleep.

It was Elgin.

We hadn’t seen each other since he went to further his studies in France. And how, he was

back in town.

I couldn’t even begin to imagine how happy I was. Finally, the shoulder I always visited and cried on whenever the world seemed too cruel was back.

We’ve known each other for just six years, but we’ve been friends like we were born in the same neighborhood.

I guess some tragic incidents mostly come with a blessing as compensation, because, had Gerald not found me on that night six years ago, I wouldn’t have met and become good friends with his grandson, Elgin,

It was quite a long call. We had so much to talk about, and I was thankful Mr. Stark wasn’t sleeping in the room. Otherwise, all that noise would have woken him up.

I couldn’t hold it anymore. I had to free up my bladder.

But I had barely spent up to forty seconds in here when the door suddenly pushed open with a force that startled me.

I spun around so fast it made me dizzy.

“Who the fuck are you talking to?”

Mr. Stark asked, and the look of sheer rage on his face made me go still with the phone still pressed to my ear.

I held his gaze, unsure of what to say.

I didn’t know what this meant, but whatever it was made me uncomfortable.

“Arel?” Elgin called, “Arel, are you okay?”

I gulped down the tension and spoke, “I’ll call you back.”

I dropped the call immediately.

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Chapter 16

“I asked a question. Who was that?” He counted his words through clenched jaws, taking one step at a time toward me.

“My friend,” I replied in one breath, but he scoffed.

“I never knew you had friends. You don’t strike me as a ‘friend’s‘ person,” he tilted his head and stopped walking when he came too close to me that there was no space between him, me, and the wall behind me.

His proximity brought back memories from a few hours ago that I felt too ashamed to picture.

Something pulled low in my stomach, and my heart skipped one tiny beat when I recalled how this man could be both fire and ice at the same time.

And the way he made love to me after he’d fucked me senseless… I’d never experienced it

before.

He literally made love to me.

That was the only term that fit what he did with me. With my body. With my

mind.

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Oh, God.

“Elgin. He’s a good friend,” I suddenly explained when he lifted his hand and tucked a loose lock from the side of my bangs behind my ear, even though I knew I didn’t need to explain anything to him.

But the moment I did, something shifted in his face, and his lips pressed into a tight, thin line, while his brows furrowed.

His hand behind my ear stilled before he slowly brought it to

my jaw.

He observed me for a moment too long, gripping my jaw and tilting my head so I could meet his gaze.

And his eyes looked like a burning furnace.

“You keep male friends, Kiss?”

That name again.

The way he said it felt like everything forbidden. No one ever called me that. Except for him. My boss.

It didn’t sit right. But somehow, it did at the same time.

I nodded at his question. Because what else did he want me to say? Deny my friend?

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Chapter 16

I watched a switch flip somewhere deep behind his grey eyes that made the bathroom feel three sizes smaller than it already was.

“Call him back.” He said, “put it on speaker.”

“What?” I blinked. “What should…”

“Now, Kisarel,” He ordered.

I searched his face for something that explained what was happening right now – some version of Ocean Stark that made this make sense – and found nothing except that cold

gaze.

I lifted my phone without hesitation and dialed Elgin’s number. I held it between us on speaker and waited with my heart doing something extremely unprofessional behind my

ribs.

It rang twice before he answered.

“Arel!” Elgin’s voice filled the bathroom, “Mon Dieu, what happened? One second you were laughing and then poof – gone. Very dramatic. Very telenovela. I was worried about you, chérie.”

Ocean’s eyes were on the phone. Then on my face. Then on the phone again.

“I’m fine,” I said. “I just… I had to step away for a second.”

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“Step away,” Elgin repeated, and I could hear him processing. “Arel. Arel, arel, arel. It is six in the evening on a Saturday, and you had to ‘step away. Where exactly are you right now?”

“It doesn’t matter…”

“It absolutely matters. As my philosopher professor used to say – location is never just geography, it is always also a state of mind. So where is your state of mind right now, chérie, because your voice is doing a thing-”

“Elgin!” I whispered in warning, because I knew Elgin too well. He was definitely about to say something I wouldn’t wish for anyone else to hear.

And he did.

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-a very specific thing that I have only heard it do one other time and that was when you had a crush on the boy in the third floor apartment who turned out to be – and I want you to really absorb this – catastrophically wrong for you in every conceivable way, and as your best friend and personal philosopher I feel it is my duty to point out that the universe tends to repeat its lessons until we-”

“Elgin!”

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Chapter 16

Ocean reached over, took the phone, and ended the call.

The phone went straight back to the counter before I could reach for it.

“You’re not calling him back.” He said coldly. “You work for me. I don’t pay you to hang around and attend to personal matters during work hours.”

I scoffed and shook my head, getting tired of how controlling this was beginning to seem.

“Mr. Stark.” I held his gaze and kept my voice steady, even though steady was becoming increasingly difficult to maintain in a bathroom this small with a man this infuriating. “It is Saturday. It is past six in the evening. I am not-

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“Meant to complain,” He cut me off, “You are my personal assistant, Kisarel Harry.” His fingers found my throat, wrapping around it as he squeezed just a little bit, “Whenever I call, you answer.” His thumb pressed lightly against my pulse point. “Whenever you are around me, it automatically becomes your working hour.”

My hands flew to his hand on my neck in an attempt to loosen his grip, but he didn’t budge a single millimeter.

Instead, he took one more step closer, totally eliminating the last fraction of space between us until his body was flush against mine.

“I told you before, Kiss.” His lips brushed the shell of my ear, and I hated the shiver that moved through me. “I don’t share. I don’t give a fuck whatever you do out there when you’re not at work. But the moment you’re with me, you shut the whole world out and pay attention to me and me alone.”

He let that sink in before he added.

“So, the next time you want to make a personal call such as this,” he paused as if he was filtering his words, “Not in my bathroom. And definitely not anywhere around me. Is that clear?”

I glared at him. Every part of me wanted to say something that would wipe that certainty off his face.

But I gulped it all down.

“Yes. Sir.”

“Good girl,” He murmured, his voice dropping an octave. “We have work to do. But first…”

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Chapter 16

AD