Just Before My Wedding: Trapped By My Ruthless Boss novel Chapter 25

Chapter 25

Chapter 25

KISAREL

“I can do this. I can beat the time.”

12 Vouchers

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I was still chanting it under my breath when I slammed the taxi door and hurried toward Jace’s entrance, which was optimistic considering it was already 9:38 and optimism was about all I had left at this point.

I had made peace with missing the ten o’clock mark somewhere between the jazz bar and the cab ride over. Eleven was still a reasonable hour. Besides, that was the original time I had asked for, which he vehemently refused to grant me.

Besides, the most important thing was to be at his place for the 4am trip. It shouldn’t matter when I got there.

“This is no longer funny, babe,” Jace murmured, moving toward the small bar in the corner of the sitting room. He spoke quietly, without heat. “I didn’t see any of this coming when you got this promotion.”

“I’m sorry, Jace. But these things happen.” I settled onto the barstool and watched him pour. “You have a PA yourself. You can relate.”

“I don’t overwork her like this.” He slid the glass across to me. “And I don’t drag her across the world on trips.”

I received the drink and took a small sip before I answered. “With respect, your company and Stark Sovereign Capital aren’t in the same conversation. You can afford to travel alone. Mr. Stark needs a full team around him for a trip of this scale. That’s just the nature of the role I accepted.”

There was silence.

A frown crossed his face. “You didn’t have to insult me to make a point, Arel.”

I looked at him and felt the small, genuine pang of guilt. “I’m sorry. That came out wrong. I wasn’t trying to-”

“It’s fine.” He said and turned to pour something for himself.

“I was just making the point that I don’t have much control over the workload. That’s all.” I paused. “And besides, you’re the one who told me I couldn’t work at your company, remember? So.”

He exhaled through his nose. “We’ve been through why.”

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“I know. I’m not bringing it up as an argument.” I met his eyes. “I’m just saying this is what I have. So let me have it without the guilt.”

He looked at me for a moment, then nodded slowly.

We left the mini bar, and I was leading the way to the living room when he stopped me.

“Upstairs.” He touched my arm lightly. “Come on.”

“Jace, I won’t be staying long. Living room is fine-”

“I’ll drop you home, no matter the time.” His hand stayed on my arm. “Don’t worry about

that.”

My heart did a small, uncomfortable thing. There was absolutely no version of tonight where I could tell him where I was actually going after this. Not one. Because, no matter how I explain it, he will never understand.

Even the most generous, most charitable framing of ‘spending the night at my boss’s house‘ – logistical, professional, and purely practical – would not survive contact with the reality of what Jace would understand and deduce when I explain it. And he wouldn’t be wrong to understand it that way.

I followed him upstairs, my mind already working on the best possible way to leave without him having to drop me off.

His room was warm and dimly lit, the way he always kept it in the evenings. I settled into the chair by the window rather than the bed, which was an intentional choice that I hoped he wouldn’t comment on.

He didn’t.

He just moved around the room, loosening his watch, and setting things down, as I finished the last of my juice, set the glass on the windowsill, and checked my phone.

10:17.

I was already past the line. Whatever was coming from Oceans could wait until I was in a cab.

“I was thinking,” Jace said, dropping onto the edge of the bed. “The moment you’re back from Sydney, we should sit down with a planner.”

I looked up from my phone.

“The wedding, babe.” He said it gently. “It’s less than four months away, and we haven’t moved on a single thing yet. I don’t want us to be scrambling at the last minute.”

I held my phone in my lap and looked at him.

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The wedding.

Something squeezed in my chest at the word. It was the feeling of a future you had once mapped out in detail, suddenly looking like a road you didn’t recognise anymore.

“We’ll start looking at venues,” he continued. “Nothing too complicated. Just get the big things. locked in first and work from there.” He watched my face. “Arel.”

“I’m listening.”

“You’re not.” He leaned forward slightly. “Are you not happy about it anymore?”

I looked at the genuine, open question sitting in his face, the worry underneath it, and the need for reassurance.

“Of course I am,” I said, keeping my voice warm and my expression open as I gave him exactly what he was asking for. “I can’t wait to start planning. The moment I’m back, we’ll sit down and sort everything out. I promise.”

The worry eased, and he smiled. I smiled back, and neither of us said anything for a

moment.

Then the room tilted.

It was subtle at first. A slight unsteadiness at the edges of my vision, the kind you could almost dismiss as tiredness if you were inclined to dismiss things. I blinked, but it didn’t

clear.

“You okay?” Jace asked, from somewhere that sounded marginally further away than he should have been.

“I’m fine,” I said. “Just tired.”

But the room tilted again, more decisively this time, and my hand went to the arm of the chair without my permission. The windowsill, the glass, the lamp on the bedside table- everything had acquired a slow, unreliable quality.

“Hey.” Jace was in front of me. I wasn’t sure when he’d moved. “Hey, come here. Lay down. You’ll feel better.”

“I just need a second-”

“You’re exhausted, babe. Come on.” His hands were on my arms, guiding me toward the bed, and I let him because the alternative was arguing with a room that wouldn’t stop moving, and I didn’t have the capacity for it right now.

I sat on the edge of the bed and pressed my fingers to my temple. The dizziness wasn’t easing. It was deepening, which was wrong. Tiredness didn’t deepen like this. It settled. This

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Chapter 25

was something else with weight and direction, pressing down from the inside.

“Jace.” My voice came out strange to my own ears. “Something is-

“Here.” He was beside me, holding some papers. “Sign these quickly, and then you can lie down.”

I looked at what he was holding, and the words on the page moved, sliding sideways, and refusing to resolve into anything legible.

“What are they?” I heard myself ask.

“Just sign, Arel. It won’t take a second.”

“I want to-” I pressed my palm flat on the mattress to stop the tilting. “I want to lie down, Jace. What are these-”

“Sign first.” His voice was still gentle. “Three signatures. That’s all. Then you can sleep.”

The pen was in my hand, but I didn’t remember taking it.

The page in front of me was white, and I couldn’t make out a single word on it, couldn’t find the edges of the paragraphs, couldn’t hold my eyes still long enough to read anything at all.

“Where do I—”

“There.” His finger guided the pen to a line. “And there. And there.”

My hand moved three times, producing something that barely resembled my signature.

I was desperate to get it over with so I could just lie on the bed. That was all that was making sense to me at that point. The bed.

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As soon as the pen left my fingers, the darkness came all at once, like a door closing in on me.