Just Before My Wedding: Trapped By My Ruthless Boss novel Chapter 45

Chapter

Chapter 45

OCEANS.

I kept my eyes on my phone.

Three sixteen PM.

#

For the better part of the one hour I sat in that conference room, I had developed a routine so consistent it had practically become scheduled.

Pick up the phone. Look at the screen like it were a fucking ticking bomb. Register the absence of what I was yearning for. Place the phone face down on the table. And pick it up

again.

Rinse and repeat.

For one hour.

She still hadn’t replied.

Fuck.

I picked up my pen and looked at Hargrove, the client across the table. He was a careful man in his sixties who managed a private equity portfolio that Stark Sovereign Capital had been courting for the better part of three months.

I gave him the version of my attention that I had available right now, which was not the version he deserved and not the version I was known for delivering in settings like this one.

She hadn’t reported to work, either… I returned to my thoughts, keeping half my attention in

the room.

I tapped my pen against the edge of the table and listened to Hargrove talk about his concerns regarding the proposed capital allocation structure.

He said something about risk exposure in the emerging market portion of the proposal, and to his left, my senior portfolio analyst, Davies – a man I had promoted eight months ago specifically because he was always precise and never spoke without being certain of what he was saying was nodding along with an expression of someone who was about to contribute something useful.

“The projected yield on that allocation sits at around eleven percent over a thirty–six–month horizon,” Davies said, leaning forward slightly with his usual confidence. “Which positions you comfortably above the industry benchmark for comparable portfolios in this category.”

Hargrove’s brows shifted slightly.

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Chapter 45

“Eleven?” he asked.

“Yes, sir. Eleven percent over-”

“The industry benchmark for this category,” Hargrove said patiently, “is currently sitting at around thirteen point two. It has been since Q2. The look he gave Davies wasn’t quite an accusation, but it was one conversation away from it. “So, eleven percent doesn’t position me comfortably above anything. It puts me two points below where the market is already sitting without your help.”

The room went quiet.

Davies‘ confidence didn’t collapse immediately. It deflated – slowly, visibly, like something losing pressure from a small hole – as the implication of what Hargrove had just said worked its way through his expression.

I set the pen down and looked at Davies.

Davies looked back at me with the horrified recognition that showed that he understood, in real time, in front of a client worth forty million dollars to this company, that he had walked into this room with the wrong number and presented it with complete conviction.

“Mr. Davies.” My voice came out very even, and everyone in the room immediately understood I wasn’t as calm as I sounded. “Would you like to explain to me where that figure came from?”

“Sir, I… it was an oversight. The data I was working from must have been…”

“An oversight.” I let the word sit there for a moment, so he could hear it back and digest it. “You walked into a meeting with Hargrove Capital, representing this firm and everything attached to its name, and you presented an inaccurate benchmark figure to the client because of an oversight.”

“It won’t happen again, sir. I can pull the correct-

“Clear your desk.” I cut him off coldly, already lifting up my phone.

“Sir…?” Davies couldn’t contain his shock, same as everyone else at the table. But they knew better. I’ll never condone incompetence.

I could feel Harold’s

glare piercing daggers at me from two seats to my left, but I didn’t even glance in his direction. He could depict whatever he wanted.

I didn’t give a fuck.

I didn’t lift my gaze from the phone. I stared at it and wondered what my next course of action would be if the day ran out and I still couldn’t reach Kisarel.

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Davies‘ words sounded distant to me until I couldn’t hear them anymore.

I placed the phone back on the table and lifted up my gaze.

He was gone.

Good.

“Apologies for the inconvenience,” I said to Hargrove, “Shall we p

***

This was the best decision I could come up with. I kept telling myself that the entire drive over, with enough repetition that by the time

y driver pulled into the parking lot, it had

stopped sounding like a decision and started sounding like a justification.

I didn’t wait for the door to be opened for me. I pushed it myself and stepped out, adjusting my jacket, and stood for a moment in the evening air doing a quick, quiet inventory of my own state of mind before I walked up to that door.

I had a hectic day at the office, but I stayed at the office until past seven. Not because the work demanded it – the work had been done by five, or as done as anything gets on a day where your head is somewhere else entirely – but because I had to be here at the perfect time.

At least, no matter what happens, I should meet someone at home who would be able to give me the information I needed.

I knocked on the front door and waited patiently for an answer, even though for no reason, my suit was beginning to feel warmer than normal.

I had already rehearsed all I was going to say. So, I held the words in my throat, eager to pour them out and get it over and done with.

I lifted my hand to knock again when the door pulled open, and someone peeped out.

Shit.

Something in me deflated.

Not the face I expected to see.

“Oh, my

God!” Moonie’s voice filled the doorway and then filled the space around me as she launched herself forward and wrapped both arms around me with an enthusiasm that I had never once reciprocated and had never once been able to convincingly fake.

I managed a brief smile and gently extracted myself.

“What in the name of the heavens! You never told me you were coming!” She was genuinely

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Chapter

delighted, which under any other circumstances might have registered as something. But right now, to this man standing here, it registered as an obstacle between me and the information I had driven all the way here to collect. “I love surprises! Come on in!”

She pulled me inside, and I followed her into the living room, my eyes already scanning the space for a familiar long, silly dark hair with bangs that always added to her frustration whenever she was frustrated.

There was no sign of her.

“Mum! Dad! Guess who’s here!” Moonie calls excitedly.

She turned to me as I took a seat, her shoulder–length blonde hair swinging with the movement, totally unable to fathom what to do with this moment. “What do I get for you? What do you drink?” She calls out to the maid before turning to face me again, “I’ve been calling you all through your trip. I mean… I was worried, you know?”

“Was busy,” I replied, hoping I sounded as engaging as she expected.

She nodded.

The maid arrived, and all I could ask for out of curtsey was water, even though Moonie would have preferred I had the finest of wines they had.

“And to think I was going to invite you for dinner next week,” she said, settling onto the sofa across from me.

I nodded.

That’s how it’s always been with us. She pushed too hard whenever she had the luxury of being around me, and I never found it cute.

What was there to find endearing reminder of the one cursed night I couldn’t take

the daughter of a fucking blackmailer whose very

existence in my life was a daily, life was a daily,

back?

“Where is Kisarel?” I cut straight to the exact reason I drove for forty minutes after waiting for three fucking hours in the office for the perfect time to be here.

She blinked, “What?” Her smile faltered, but she did her best to maintain it.

“Where is Kisarel?” I repeated, a little slower this time, just in case I was too fast for her to catch up the first time.

“She doesn’t live here anymore,” She said simply, and for a second, I hoped she was just playing around. Until she added, “She left about a week ago.”

I narrowed my brows, “Where did she go? And why?”

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Chapter 43

1 felt my heartbeat beating more times per second than it was normal.

‘Please, tell me it wasn’t Jace. I don’t want to fucking break something in this house now… Please.‘ I prayed in my heart.

I heard Fred and Freda’s voices at the top of the stairs, but I kept every ounce of my attention on Moonie’s face and the next words that were going to come out of her mouth.

She shrugged, “I don’t know. She does this a lot leaves whenever she feels like it, comes back whenever she feels like it. We stopped making it our business a long time ago.” She reached for her glass. “She’s not a child.”

For the next fifteen minutes, I sat there, my body present in that living room while every single functioning part of my mind was somewhere else entirely, as Fred and his wife kept going on and on about things that I didn’t give a fuck about.

Every instinct I had was pointing in one direction and screaming the same thing on a continuous loop that I was

eing in my power to keep offr

face.

“FIND HER.”

Nothing any of them said grabbed my attention or pulled me back into that room faster than the next words Fred dropped after he cracked a silly joke that only his family found funny.

“Your wedding is less than four months away,” he said pleasantly. “It’s time to make the engagement public.”

My gaze snapped to his face immediately.

“Pick a date for the engagement party.”

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