Just Before My Wedding: Trapped By My Ruthless Boss novel Chapter 57

Chapter 57

KISAREL

Jorinda had probably seen me before I saw her, given the expression on her face. She had that slow–assembling smile that Moonie’s friends wore when they encountered something they intended to report back about.

She was tall. immaculately dressed, her natural hair freshly done, holding a coffee cup in one hand and a phone in the other, and looking at me like I was exactly the kind of thing she had been hoping to run into today.

“Jorinda.” I said politely as I attempted to walk away, but she held me back.

“Kisarel…” She came and stood in front of me again before letting go of my arm. “I didn’t know you still worked here…” She eyed me condescendingly. “I mean… After your disgraceful ordeal with the boss the other day.”

I sighed and rolled my eyes.

“Jorinda-”

“No, seriously,” She tilted her head with the particular concern of someone who wasn’t concerned at all. “I heard about what happened in that meeting. Everyone did, actually.” She lowered her voice like she was sharing something confidential, even though the relish in it was barely contained. “He sent you out, didn’t he? In front of the entire board?” She clicked her tongue. “I couldn’t even imagine. I would have died. I genuinely would have dissolved into the floor and ceased to exist as a

person.

I said nothing.

“But then again-” She took a slow sip of her coffee, her eyes staying on me over the rim, “I suppose it depends on the person, doesn’t it? Some people have options. They can afford to walk away from humiliation with their dignity intact.” She allowed a perfectly timed pause. “And some people just… endure it. Because what else are they going to do?” She smiled. “I don’t mean that badly, Kisarel. I really don’t. It’s just the fact that you came back. After all of that. In front of all those people.” She shook her head slowly, like she was genuinely moved by the tragedy of it. “That takes a special kind of person. A very specific kind of… resilience.”

Even the walls knew she meant “desperation” And not “resilience.”

—

“You know Moonie would never.” She continued, warming to herself now her coffee cup gesturing lightly in the air. “She would have walked out of that building and never looked back. But then, Moonie has always had you know.” She waved her hand vaguely. “Options. Support. People in

corner.” She let out another smile. “It must be very difficult, not having that. Having to just absorb things. Because there’s where else

I looked at her, still without saying a word, even

though he

were carefully selected to hit me in specific places.

Moonie had trained her well.

“Are you done?” I asked pleasantly.

She blinked. “Sorry?”

“I have somewhere to be. I smiled at her with all the warmth Had available, which was not very much but was enough to look like a lot if you weren’t paying close attention. “It was lovely running into you, Jorinda. Give Moonie my love.”

I had taken three steps when her hand closed around my arm and yanked me back into the small corridor beside the

elevator

The corridor was quiet with nobody at the elevator bank and nobody coming from either direction

“I wasn’t finished,” she said. Her hands shot out as she pushed me with both palms, flat against my shoulder blades, with

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Chapter 57

enough force that I stumbled forward and had to catch myself against the wall with one hand to keep from going down entirely.

She giggled, straightened up, and adjusted her grip on her coffee cup as if nothing had happened.

“Careful,” she said pleasantly. “These floors can be slippery.”

I looked at her.

“Moonie says hello,” she added, tilting her head. “She also says to enjoy the borrowed time, because, soon, you won’t have a job to hold on to.” She walked closer to me, “Her man owns this place, remember?”

***

OCEANS.

My attention walked out the door the exact moment Kiss did.

One second. I was in the middle of a sentence about the J’erope group’s proposed acquisition timeline, and then the door to our office closed, and my sentence finished itself without me because whatever part of my brain was responsible for professional conversation had apparently decided it had somewhere else to be.

I kept my eyes on Nakamura across the table.

He was still talking, but I was no longer listening.

She had left her phone on the desk. I had seen that in my peripheral vision.

Fuck.

I didn’t know what she was doing. But whatever it was, it was actually working.

#

I reached for my laptop and opened it on the table in front of me with the screen angled just enough that Nakamura couldn’t see what was on it, and navigated to the building’s CCTV system.

Every camera in this complex ran through a system I had full access to. It was a security measure I had implemented three years ago and had never once used for anything other than its intended purpose.

I found the elevator camera first.

ms folded, her eyes on the floor numbers climbing and even

She was in it, standing with her back against the wall, her through the grainy overhead angle of a security camera I could see everything about how pleased with herself she currently was.

I pressed my lips together and looked back at Nakamura and nodded

I switched to the fourth–floor cameras.

small smile she was wearing, which told me

something he said.

Found her immediately. She was at the counter of the dining lounge with a cold drink.

Then someone appeared near her.

I recognized him before he fully turned around because there was only one person in this entire building who moved like he was the main character of a comedy story everyone else had agreed to be extras in. The overly animated quality of his body language was identifiable from any angle, on any camera, at any resolution.

Tum

The loud–mouthed guy who always thinks conversations within a ten–foor radius of him are obligated to become about him

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Chapter 57

eventually.

He was talking. Of course, he was talking. Tim was always talking with the boundless, self–replenishing confidence of a man who had never once in his life received feedback that suggested his conversational output should be reduced.

1 kept my face completely neutral and looked back at Nakamura and said something about the projected yield timeline that I arrived at through muscle memory alone because my full attention was on the laptop screen where Tim had apparently it was the real laugh, the one I had watched her aim at a cab said something that made Kiss tip her head back and laugh driver – and she was aiming it at Tim now, because apparently the universe had decided that today was the day Kisarel Harry distributed her genuine laugh to every man in a twenty mile radius except the one sitting in a meeting and monitoring her on a security camera like a man with serious problems… Or because apparently Tim was that hilarious.

Tim

Was hilarious.

To Kiss.

Fuck.

I wanted to call HR right now and begin the paperwork that would result in Tim clearing his desk before the end of the business day, and I was aware that this was not a proportionate response to a man making conversation in the dining lounge, but fuck what was proportionate! They had been down there for twelve fucking minutes!

I could actually do it in the calm, considered, paperwork–already–drafted way. I could construct a performance review so airtight and so specific that HR would have no choice but to agree that Tim was a liability to the professional atmosphere of this company and that his departure, while regrettable, was ultimately in everyone’s best interest.

I could do this before five o’clock…

“Mr. Stark, regarding the asset valuation-” one of the J’erope representatives started.

“The figures are in the appendix,” I said, without looking away from the screen. “Page fourteen.”

–

On the screen, Kiss was finally moving. She picked up her drink, said something to Tim Tim laughed, because of course

and walked toward the elevator. he did, because apparently everything Kiss said was also hilarious

1 exhaled through my nose.

I switched cameras,

her into the

elevator, and watched the floor numbers.

The elevator opened on the fifth floor.

She stepped out, and I switched

into someone.

to the fifth–floor corridor

I recognized Jorinda before I consciously processed her.

and

I watched her straighten her dress before she bumped

Moomie’s friend. The one who appeared at every event Moonie ed like.

an

I watched them talk, and I was a bit relieved that Kiss was talking to

hand, Fobserved the way Kiss had gone very still, the way she did. Essory that matched the outfit.

show.

I kept my attention on the meeting now, but I kept throwing glances at the

now and not some man. But on the other was absorbing something and refusing to let it

Camera to know where else she’d go.

Suddenly. I saw Jorinda stretch out her hands, and before I could register what she was about to do, her hands came down on Kiss’s shoulders and shoved her hard from behind.

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Chapter 57

And Kiss hit the wall.

What the fuck.

It was at that very moment the entire meeting ceased to exist.

海味

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