Just Before My Wedding: Trapped By My Ruthless Boss novel Chapter 67

Chapter 67

KISAREL

“Jesus, Arel! What the fuck are you doing?” Jace grabbed me by my shoulders, shaking me vigorously until I snapped back to reality with a gasp.

I looked around me and saw the commotion just beside me.

The strange car had crashed into a stationary car just across from where I stood and driven off.

He had obviously tilted just a little bit milliseconds before he hit me. I couldn’t tell because my eyes were closed.

The person in the stationary car was slumped against their window.

People were already scrambling. Someone was on their phone calling 911. Someone else was trying the door of the damaged car. The street had transformed from quiet to chaos in the space of thirty seconds, and I was standing in the middle of it, unable to feel my hands.

“Why didn’t you move, damn it!” Jace continued, not minding how shaken I was.

He was also obviously scared, with the look in his eyes.

“I… I’m… I’m sorry. I just…” My voice came out in pieces. “I couldn’t… I didn’t..

He pulled me into his arms. His hand came to the back of my head, and he pressed his lips to my forehead with tenderness.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I should have been right there. I should have seen it coming before you did.” He pressed another kiss to my forehead. “You must have been terrified.”

I was.

I still was.

I pressed my face into his shoulder and breathed. I wanted to say ‘terrified‘ wasn’t the right word, and that what I had felt in those three seconds was something colder than terror.

But I just stood there, breathing in his cologne and grounding myself.

By the time we got into the coffee shop, every single enthusiasm that I may have managed to scrape from a place of disinterest and gathered for whatever surprise Jace had for me had been thoroughly dismantled.

I sat across from two polished, professionally dressed women with matching portfolios and identical pleasant smiles, and tried to arrange my face into something that communicated presence while my brain continued to replay a black car with no plates and the sound the air made when something moving that fast passed close enough to touch you.

“Babe.” Jace’s voice reached me from somewhere to my left.

I blinked and pulled myself back to the table, to the two swatches the planner nearest to me was holding up with a patient

smile.

“Uh… Yes. Sorry, I apologized.

The red or the blue one?” Jace skipped to the question, and it took me a second to recall why we were there.

O

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Chapter 67

M

M

My wedding and birthday preparations.

The planners.

“Blue,” I said.

“Excellent choice.” The planner set the red swatch aside with a small, satisfied nod. “Blue in this fabric, particularly something to the light that very few colors can claim. You’ll feel like the room was built around you.”

I almost smiled.

Jace looked pleased. He reached over and squeezed my hand briefly before turning back to the planners.

The catalog open on the table in front of me had prices in the margins.

I had clocked three of them already.

“For the ceremony flowers, we have two directions we love for this time of year.” The first planner turned a page in her portfolio and slid it across the table. White peonies and trailing greenery on one side. Deep burgundy roses with gold accents on the other. “Which speaks to you more?”

I looked at the photos.

Then at the price printed discreetly in the corner of each page.

I kept my face neutral.

“The white,” I said, before Jace could answer for me. “Simpler.”

“Beautiful.” She made a note. “Clean and timeless. It photographs extraordinarily well.”

it does

“Guest count.” The second planner had her own portfolio open now. “We find it helps to have a working number early – even approximate so we can begin venue conversations with accurate capacity requirements.”

I was still on the price matter.

I was doing the kind of math in my head that produced numbers so large they stopped feeling real and started feeling theoretical like I was calculating the GDP of a small nation rather than the cost of a single afternoon in someone’s life. when Jace leaned back in his chair and answered.

“Two fifty. Maybe closer to three hundred.”

I looked at him.

Three hundred guests.

I had approximately fourteen people I would want at my wedding. Fifteen if you counted the woman at the dry cleaner who always remembered my name.

“That’s a beautiful size, the planner said warmly. “Intimate enough to feel personal, significant enough to feel like an occasion. She turned another page. “Speaking of venue we have three directions depending on your vision. Garden…”

Her voice trailed off. I was uncomfortable for reasons I couldn’t tell.

It felt like someone was watching me… The hairs at the back of my neck stood, and the uneasy feeling became too

verwhelming.

You okay?” Jace asked quietly, as the planner continued to describe their preferred band contacts.

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Chapter 07

“Fine.” I smiled. “I just need the restroom.” I pushed my chair back. “And another coffee. I’ll grab one on the way back.

“I’ll order for you-”

“I’ve got it.” I was already standing. “I won’t be long.”

I picked up my bag and walked toward the back of the coffee shop.

The moment I walked into the restroom, I heaved a heavy sigh as I turned on the cold tap, pressed both wrists under it, and breathed.

I stood there, looking at my own reflection, and tried to locate the version of myself that had walked into work this morning with a functional nervous system.

I couldn’t tell how long I had been standing there until one of the stall doors opened behind me.

I didn’t look up. I was too occupied with the project of getting my hands to stop trembling to pay attention to anyone else in the room.

The woman moved to the sink beside mine and turned on the tap, and that was when her scent reached me. It was something so warm and expensive and distinctly floral without being sweet, the kind of perfume that made you turn your head slightly without knowing you were doing it.

“That car had absolutely no business moving that fast on this street.”

I looked up.

The woman at the sink beside mine was looking straight ahead at her own reflection as she washed her hands.

I stared at her in the mirror.

“Excuse me?”

She turned.

And I revised my first impression immediately because my first impression, formed from a side mirror, had been inadequate.

a bathroom

She was… she was genuinely, almost distractingly beautiful. Blonde curly hair that fell past her shoulders in the kind of effortless waves that suggested either very good genetics or very expensive product and possibly both.

A face that was strikingly beautiful with a deep dimple on her left cheek that appeared the moment she smiled, which she did now, warmly and without the performance of a stranger trying to seem friendly.

“Pardon my manners.” She reached for a paper towel. “I didn’t mean to be cryptic. I was coming out of the stall when you came in and…” she paused, “…I saw what happened outside.” Her eyes were direct and kind simultaneously. “You were really shaking on that pavement. I noticed.”

Something in my chest loosened by a degree.

“Oh.” I exhaled. “I thought for a second-” I stopped and almost laughed at myself. “Never mind. I’m sorry. I think that whole thing has me jumping at everything.”

“Don’t apologize.” She dropped the paper towel and leaned against the counter slightly. “That was frightening. A car with no plate’s moving at that speed on a street like this?” She shook her head. “You’re allowed to need a moment.”

She sinelled extraordinary up close.

I didnt know how else to think about it. Whatever she was wearing had the kind of quality you kept noticing even when you

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were trying to focus on other things.

“I’m fine.” I said, “I’m getting there.”

She smiled again, and the dimple appeared.

“Good.” She turned back to check something in the mirror briefly. “Don’t let it overshadow everything else. You have too much ahead of you.”

I frowned slightly. “What do you mean?”

“The wedding.

My brows furrowed. “How did you know about my wedding?”

She gestured vaguely toward the coffee shop beyond the restroom door. “I was sitting at the table just across from you when you came in. The planners, the catalog…” she raised an eyebrow lightly, “…it was fairly visible from where I was. I didn’t mean to look. The flowers on the cover were just very white.”

I laughed, feeling at ease again.

We talked some more and walked out of the restroom together.

She was so warm and friendly. I liked her.

At the coffee counter, she stepped up beside me and looked at the board like someone who took coffee seriously.

“What do you usually get?” she asked.

“Vanilla latte.

She made a small disapproving sound. “Try the honey oat instead. Same comfort, better depth.” She caught the barista’s eye. “One honey oat latte and… she glanced at me.

“That’s fine,” I said quickly. “But I can…”

“It’s on

me.” She said with a casual wave of her hand.

“Consider it a welcome back to having a functional heart rate.”

I smiled. “Thank you. Really.”

We stood at the end of the counter, waiting, and I realized, with mild surprise, that my hands had stopped shaking entirely somewhere between the bathroom sink and here, without me noticing the transition.

She was a miracle.

The bartender handed me my coffee.

“I should get back. My… I hesitated over the word, “…fiancé is waiting.”

“Of course.” She smiled, but before I could walk away, she stopped me. “Actually…” She reached into her bag. “Let’s exchange contacts. I’m new here, and I have the social circle of a person who just moved to a city, which is to say…

“None”

entially none.” She produced her phone.

I found mine.

we exchanged numbers.

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Chapter 67

“I’m Kiss,” I said, as I saved her contact.

She looked up and smiled.

“Just call me Nessa.”

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