Just Before My Wedding: Trapped By My Ruthless Boss novel Chapter 79

Chapter 79

KISAREL.

I sat in the back of the cab with my bag clutched against my stomach, watching the city smear itself across the window in streaks of yellow streetlights and passing headlights.

I should have been thinking about how fun the coffee date was.

Technically, it had gone well.

Nessa had been warm. Too warm, maybe. She laughed freely, asked questions that showed that she was trying to care, and listened without checking her phone or pretending to be polite,

There was something about her that made it hard to keep my guard up.

But why did she react that way when I mentioned Oceans?

That question plagued me throughout the drive home.

By the time we left the café, I had almost convinced myself I had imagined it. Because she became more than normal after that moment. She became even brighter and livelier, but I still had questions…

I hated that I was becoming this woman. The kind who saw danger in everything. The kind who could not have coffee with a beautiful stranger without turning one facial expression into a mystery.

My fingers tightened around my phone as the cab turned into the quieter road leading to Elgin’s house.

My gaze drifted to the driver’s mirror, then to the dark road ahead.

Something in my stomach twisted, and all I wanted was to get to the comfort of my home.

The cab jerked a few times.

My head snapped up as the driver cursed under his breath and guided the car toward the curb. The engine sputtered once, coughed hard, then died.

My heart knocked against my ribs.

“What happened?” I asked, already sitting straighter. “Why did you stop?”

The driver tried the ignition again. The engine clicked, struggled, and went silent. He looked at the dashboard, then at me through the rearview mirror. “Sorry. Something’s wrong with the car.”

I glanced out the window at the road ahead. Elgin’s house was close. I could see the turn that led into his street from where

we were.

“How far is the house from here?” the driver asked, looking genuinely embarrassed.

I swallowed and looked at my phone. “It’s just about five minutes away

“I can call another cab for you.”

“No, don’t worry about it. I said.

Are you sure? It’s pretty lare.

Tin sure.” I forced a smule I did not feel and stepped out before I could talk myself into sitting inside a stalled cab until

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Chapter 79

morning. “Thank you.”

He apologized again, and I nodded like I was not already regretting a lot of decisions that had brought me to this point tonight.

I had barely walked for one minute when I heard another sound behind me.

Footsteps.

At first, I told myself it was nothing serious. Someone else was obviously walking. A neighbor, or a man coming back from somewhere, or even a person allowed to exist on the same road as me without immediately becoming a threat.

Then I looked over my shoulder.

A figure stood some distance behind me, dressed in black. Black trousers. Black hoodie. The hood was pulled low enough that I could not see his face properly, but I knew he was facing me. I felt that awful pressure of a stare crawling up my back.

My mouth went dry.

I turned forward and quickened my pace.

The footsteps quickened, too.

A cold wave spread through my body so fast my fingers almost dropped my phone.

No. No, no, no.

Maybe he was just walking fast. Maybe he lived here. Maybe I was being stupid, dramatic, paranoid, all the things people called women right before something terrible happened to them.

I crossed the narrow road without thinking and nearly tripped over the edge of the pavement. My pulse was beating so loudly I could barely hear anything else, but I heard him. God, I heard him.

I almost screamed, but fear had the sound trapped in

my throat.

My hands shook as I unlocked my phone and opened a chat.

Elgin’s chat.

Being followed. Close to the house. Please open the door.

My breath broke out of me in short, ugly pulls as I got closer to the corner that led to Elgin’s street.

The footsteps behind me picked up again.

“Oh, God,” I whispered as I rounded the corner that led to Elgin’s house, ready to run the rest of the way, and ready to bang on every gate in the street if I had to. But something made me look back, and the road behind me was empty.

I stopped so abruptly my knees almost folded.

“What?” I whispered, looking round, but there was no sign of anyone behind me. No sign of anyone being there in the first place.

For one stupid second, I wondered if I had imagined him.

Then my body rejected the drought immediately because imagination doesn’t make your skin crawl like that.

forced my legs to move.

Chapter 79

By the time I reached Elgin’s door, I was shaking so hard I could barely knock properly. I hit my fist against the wood again. and again. “Elgin,” I called, my voice breaking. “Elgin, please open the door!”

The lock turned after a few more seconds, and the door swung open.

Elgin appeared in front of me, “Arel?” his face stripped of its usual lazy amusement. “What’s happening?”

I didn’t reply. I just pushed into the house, shut the door, and locked it.

For a few seconds after the door locked behind me. I couldn’t breathe like a normal person.

My lungs kept dragging in air too fast, like my body had not received the message that I was inside now, safe behind a locked door, with Elgin standing in front of me, both hands gripping my arms while his eyes ran over my face like he was looking

for blood.

“What happened?” he asked, panicked. “Arel, talk to me. What happened?”

I stared at him, and something inside me snapped so suddenly I almost startled myself.

“Why didn’t you open the door sooner?” I yelled.

He blinked. “What?”

“I texted you.” My voice was too close to breaking. “I texted you that I was being followed. I told you I was close. I told open the door before I got here, and you took forever!”

His brows pulled together. “Babe, I opened the door the second I heard you knock.”

“Wha…” I pushed his hands off my arms and stepped back, pushing my fingers through my bangs.

to you

“I was upstairs. I ran down as soon as I heard the bang on the door.” He reached for me again. “Calm down, chérie. Breathe. You’re shaking.”

“I texted you, Elgin! I… My words died the moment my gaze moved past his shoulder. Everything else about the stranger took an abrupt pause, going quiet beneath the sight of Elgin’s living room.

The entire room was covered in shopping bags.

Designer bags sat on the floor, on the couch, beside the coffee table, beneath the window, lined against the wall like expensive evidence in a crime scene.

My stomach sank.

Slowly, I turned back to Elgin.

“What is this?” I asked.

He shrugged. “You already know what it is, Arel.”

“No.” I shook my head. “No… He didn’t…”

Elgin folded his arms and leaned one shoulder against the wall.

“He came through on that threat,” he said quietly. “Every word of it. And I need you to understand how disturbing that is, Arel

God, of course.

My pulse gave one hard, ugly thud.

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Chapter 79

“His men came by an hour ago.” Elgin glanced around the room, looking worried. “Three of them. Very serious. Very allergic to taking ‘no‘ for an answer. They carried everything in like they were delivering national secrets”

My throat worked around nothing as I moved farther into the room. The jewelry boxes from earlier were on the coffee table, arranged in two clean rows.

My heart stopped when I counted them.

Twenty–four.

Jesus. Oceans.

“The clothes and shoes and bags… they doubled too…” I said to myself, but it sounded more like a question. I barely recognized my own voice.

Elgin let out a dry sigh. “I did not count, because I love my peace and my blood pressure, but yes. Whatever you sent back has clearly multiplied.” He gestured toward the room. “Like very expensive bacteria.”

Beside the boxes sat a folded sheet of thick cream paper. It was a handwritten note.

My fingers trembled as I unfolded it and read.

Oceans:

You are not going to outlast me. I will bury you in gifts if I have to. I will fill your office, your apartment, your entire life with things you didn’t ask for and can’t return. And you will still be mine at the end of it.

I have more money than you have refusals. Get used to it, Kiss.’

I read it again.

Something hot and humiliating pressed behind my eyes, but I refused to cry because crying would mean he had reached the part of me he was aiming for, And God, he had.

Elgin came to stand beside me. He was quiet for a moment, then he took the letter from my hand and read it.

“Mon Dieu,” he muttered. “This man is not flirting anymore. He is declaring war. A war you can’t win.”

Suddenly, a knock sounded on the door, and I almost jumped out of my skin.

“Don’t open it. It could be the man…” Before I finished, Elgin was already at the door, looking through the peephole.

I couldn’t help but see how fast his expression shifted from curiosity to concern and a look that says ‘you don’t know what you’ve gotten yourself into before he shook his head slowly and pulled the door open.

“Elgin!” I whisper–yelled, but before I could react, Elgin stepped aside, and I saw a man stride into the room with four men following behind him.

got your text, Kiss. Get your things. You’re moving out tonight.”

Oceans.

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