Just Before My Wedding: Trapped By My Ruthless Boss novel Chapter 58

OCEANS.

The clevator doors slid open, and the first thing I saw was Kiss.

She was standing against the wall with her eyes glassy and her jaw set, and the tears sitting at the corners of her eyes that hadn’t fallen yet, and the sight of them hit me somewhere so immediate and so complete that I stopped moving for exactly one second.

The smirk on Jorinda’s face died the moment she registered who had stepped out of that elevator. I watched the confidence drain out of her expression and get replaced by something she reassembled into composure almost fast enough for it to look natural.

“Mr. Stark.” She straightened, adjusted her coffee cup, and produced a smile that had nothing genuine in it. “I’m so glad you’re here, actually…”

I walked toward them.

“…because I was just trying to help. Kisarel’s family has been worried sick about her, her aunt and uncle have been asking after her, and I was simply passing along the message, and she… Jorinda gestured toward Kiss like she had been wronged by the person she had just shoved into a wall, “…completely overreacted. Honestly, the way she behaved just now was so unprofessional, I don’t even know how she…”

I wasn’t listening to Jorinda.

#

I was looking at Kiss, and at the tear that broke free from the corner of her left eye and traveled down her face while Jorinda kept talking.

Something tore open in my chest at the sight of it.

“…and I think someone should really consider whether this company’s image is being served by keeping someone like her in such a prominent position, because frankly…”

Iturned to face Jorinda, and she stopped talking.

I looked at her for a long moment.

“Clear your desk,” I said.

She blinked. “I’m sorry?”

“Your desk. My voice was completely even. “Clear it. Immediately. The

forward.”

The color left her face.

“Mr. Stark, I… I was only trying to…

pany won’t be requiring your services going

“Security will assist you if you need help with the process.” I held her gaze without blinking. “I suggest you start immediately.”

-1 totally ignored the tears and ramblings of Tim sorrys‘ coming from a kneeling Jorinda as I turned to Kiss, reached out, and

brushed the track of the tear from her check with my thumb.

Come on.” I said quietly. “Let’s go.”

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Chapter 58

Where are we going?” She was watching the streets through the window with focused attention, like she was trying to solve a puzzle from limited information. “It’s still working hours. We can’t possibly be heading to your house.”

“You’ll see.” I found her hand on the seat between us and covered it with mine.

She looked down at our joined hands and said nothing.

my chest put there.

I looked out my own window and let the city slide past, and sat with the quiet thing that had been happening in since I pressed my thumb to her cheek in that corridor and felt the dried track of a tear that Jorinda had

I knew what desire felt like and I knew how It was the same thing that happened every time she was close. It wasn’t desire to manage it. This was something lighter than that and considerably more dangerous for being lighter… It’s something I hadn’t felt in so many years.

I was feeling it now,

And the fact that I was feeling it around her made me a bit worried.

She was still watching the streets, her chin slightly lifted, her curiosity sitting openly on her face. Her bangs had fallen forward again.

I reached over, my fingers finding her chin and turning her face gently toward mine. I brushed the bangs back from her eyes with my other hand, slowly, and she looked up at me and smiled.

Her lipstick had worn down to almost nothing over the course of the day, just the faintest suggestion of color at the center of her lips, and something about that specific, unstaged detail of her moved through me with a completeness I hadn’t budgeted for.

I leaned in slowly, and my lips found hers. She stiffened for a second before letting go and kissing me back.

I pulled back but kept my hand at her chin and my eyes on hers.

“Why did you spend so much time with Tim?” I asked.

She blinked. Then her brows pulled together, and a laugh escaped her before she could contain it. “Are you serious right

now?”

Completely

“Talking to my colleagues is a crime now?”

“Not a crime” I held, gaze. “But

I you were down there for fourteen minutes, and he’s not even funny.”

She laughed and shook her head like she couldn’t quite believe the

say something.

conversation was happening. She opened her mouth to

“Starting tomorrow,” I said, before she could, “you eat in the

lounge.

The laugh stopped.

Im not an executive,” she said immediately.

“You’re the PA to the CEO

“That doesn’t make the

Whatever I say stands, Kiss. I let my thumb trace the line of her jaw once. That’s not a negotiation.”

She was just about to argue when the car slowed down. She turned toward the window, and the protest dissolved into

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Chapter 58

something else entirely.

She looked at the street outside the gate, then at the building the car had stopped in, and then at me.

“This is the street just before yours” she said slowly. “Whose house is this?”

I looked at the confusion on her face and brought my hand to the side of her face and turned her gently until she was looking at me instead of the building.

“Oceans?” She called with narrowed brows.

“It’s your new house, Kiss.”

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