Just Before My Wedding: Trapped By My Ruthless Boss novel Chapter 47

OCEANS.

I barely caught any sleep. I have never had a night as long as this one in my entire life.

I was at war all through the night with different versions of myself, and none of them were winning cleanly.

The version that kept pushing me to call Reeves at three in the morning just to know what progress he had made.

The version that had me three taps away from dialing the police and reporting a missing person before I caught myself and put the phone face down on the nightstand, while staring at the ceiling and asking myself some very serious questions about what exactly I thought I was doing.

The one that made me search her up on all the social media platforms to see the kind of friends she keeps and if she had made any posts that could disclose her whereabouts…

And there. That’s the version of myself I allowed to take the lead.

I spent almost an hour scrolling through every social media platform I knew of. It wasn’t difficult to find her profile each time. Not many ladies bear rare names such as hers.

But for the most part, I found nothing useful. Almost no activity. A sparse profile that told me almost nothing about her, where she was, or who she was currently with, which was frustrating.

Then, I found one photo I took particular interest in and stopped scrolling. She was younger in it. Twenty, maybe twenty–one. And, her smile… It made me realize I had never seen her smile genuinely, like this, before.

this was something that had nothing

I had seen the polite professional version of her smile, and the small, reluctant one that appeared when she was trying not to smile. But this to do with any of that.

–

It was fascinating how a genuine smile looked on her face.

Her eyes were lit up from the inside as she looked into the selfie camera. And her bangs didn’t look like they made her feel as frustrated as they made her feel now, whenever she was stressed.

She looked happy and… Perfect. Those were the safest words I could pull out of the sea of words that were pushing through my head.

I clicked on the ‘save‘ button before I even caught myself doing it.

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Fuck.

Sometimes my hands moved faster than my brain, huh?

But of course, my brain, to its credit, was perfect at bringing up reasons to justify every silly thing my hands did on their own… Just like now…

A photograph of a missing employee was exactly the kind of thing you presented to the police if the situation escalated to that point. Having it saved was not sentimental. It was preparation. It was the kind of practical, forward–thinking action that any responsible employer would take when a staff member’s whereabouts were unknown.

I heaved a sigh the moment it made sense. Because what other rational reason would have made a boss have his PA’s photo saved on his phone? None.

By the time it was eight in the morning, I was already running on rage and impatience as I brushed my hair, getting ready to go to the office and hoping I wouldn’t fire any more of my staff at the slightest provocation.

Then, my phone pinged.

I grabbed it from the nightstand and swiped it open.

It was a text from Reeves.

An address.

Relief crashed over me so hard it was almost dizzying.

I schooled myself the entire drive over.

What to say. What not to say. How to stand, how to speak, and how to be Ocean Stark walking into a professional situation rather than whatever the alternative was. I had the words arranged by the time the car stopped. I had the tone of the entire speech calibrated. I was prepared.

What I was not prepared for was the door taking longer than five seconds to open, which tested every last thread of the restraint I had spent the entire drive constructing.

I stood at the doorstep with my hand loose at my side and my jaw set, and told myself very firmly that forcing someone’s front door open was not a proportionate response to a five- second wait, regardless of how it felt in the moment.

Then the door opened.

And it was a man.

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1. Fucking. Man.

I instantly wished I were at the wrong address.

He tilted his head so he could have a better look at me, and for whatever reason, he just stared at me like I was a ghost who had shown up late to an appointment he had personally scheduled, and he was still working out how he felt about that.

I held his gaze and felt every careful, professional thing I had constructed on the drive over strain against something considerably less professional.

I unclenched my jaw with effort and forced calmness into my voice.

“Where is Kisarel?”

The young man didn’t answer immediately. He ran his eyes over me with one hand folded across his chest and the other resting halfway over it, his finger moving slowly across his chin.

I couldn’t help but notice that he was lean and long–limbed, dressed in a loose sleep shirt and joggers… I was already assessing him to know what my very first order to Kisarel would be once she returned to the job.

There was something in the way he carried himself… the tilt of his head, the ease of his posture… that didn’t read as masculine in the conventional sense and wasn’t trying to.

“Hm.” The corner of his mouth pulled up. “The all–talked–about Ocean Stark.”

“Where is she?” I bit out.

He hesitated before snapping out of whatever assessment he was carrying out. “She’s…”

The door pulled further open before he could finish his statement, and Kisarel came standing right beside the young man.

Something in my chest unknotted so fast that I had to work to keep it off my face. My shoulders dropped by a degree I hadn’t sanctioned. The tension that had been living in my jaw since Monday afternoon released all at once.

She was fine.

She was standing right there, and she was fine and….

“Mr. Stark?” She called, wide–eyed, “What… How did you find me?”

I took a full second to take in the sight of her until my gaze rested on the shorts she was wearing, which were barely visible underneath the oversized shirt she had on. Which meant that from where I was standing, what I was looking at was a woman who was essentially wearing a shirt and very little else in front of a man she was apparently comfortable enough

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with to dress this way around.

Why would she feel so comfortable around a man to reveal so much skin around him? Who the fuck was he to her?

It didn’t matter who he was. Brother, friend, neighbor, whatever classification made this look most innocent, it didn’t matter. You didn’t walk around like that in front of a man. Any man.

Not that I had a position on what she wore or didn’t wear or who she wore it in front of.

I didn’t.

The young man beside her cleared his throat, dramatically.

“Mr. Stark?” Kisarel’s voice pulled me the rest of the way back, clutching the door frame slightly.

I held her gaze for a second.

“Can I at least come in?”

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