Just Before My Wedding: Trapped By My Ruthless Boss novel Chapter 83

OCEANS.

M

I sat across the table, leaning against the chair, totally uninterested in the meals lined up before me.

Moonie was acting like she’d just won the VIP ticket to the rest of her life. She laughed too loudly at something the waiter said. She touched her hair every few seconds, a nervous habit I had never noticed before or maybe had never bothered to notice. She kept looking at me with those eyes that wanted something I had never offered and never would.

The restaurant was the kind of place that charged eight hundred dollars for a steak and made you feel grateful for the privilege. Crystal chandeliers. White tablecloths. Fresh flowers arranged so perfectly they looked fake. Candlelight flickered between us, catching the diamonds at Moonie’s throat and the silver of her fork and the edge of her smile.

I fucking hated all of it.

I hated the way she reached across the table to touch my hand. I hated the way she said my name like she had any right to it. I hated the way the photographers camped outside the window, angling their lenses toward our table, capturing every staged smile, every fake laugh, every moment of this stupid performance.

The only thing that kept me going was the woman in my bed.

“The duck is apparently extraordinary here” Moonie’s voice reached me from across the table. “The chef was trained in Paris. I read about it.”

I looked at the food in front of me with disgust.

“Oceans.” She set her menu down. “The photographer from the Post is at the bar. Third stool from the left. He’s been pointing his lens at us for the last ten minutes.”

“Good for him,” I said.

cream silk, her She exhaled through her nose with controlled patience. She had been managing her frustration for the better part of an hour and was running low on the resources required to keep managing it. She was dressed well tonight blonde hair down, the kind of effortful presentation that communicated she had understood this dinner was being watched and had prepared accordingly.

She had even kissed my cheek when I arrived. I had let her.

“You could at least look like you want to be here,” Moonie said, reaching for her wine. “For appearances. That’s all I’m asking.”

“I’m here,” I said. “That’s what you get.”

“The merger-”

“It’s fine.” I picked up my water glass. “The merger doesn’t require me to perform enthusiasm over duck.”

She set her wine down. Looked at me with the grey–green eyes that had never once produced in me what she wanted them to produce, and said nothing for a moment. Then she let out a social smile.

“Did you hear me?” She tried again after a while.

“No.”

Her smile faltered before she quickly recovered it, glancing briefly past my shoulder where one of the fake diners sat. “I said Mum has been asking when we’ll finalize the cake tasting. She thinks we should bring the date forward if your schedule allows it.

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Chapter 83

“No.”

Her brows twitched. “No?”

“No.”

M

She laughed lightly, but there was a sharp edge beneath it. “Oceans, you can’t just say no to everything”

“I can.”

She pressed her lips together, still smiling for the room. “You’ve been impossible lately.”

I looked at her long enough for her smile to strain.

“Careful.”

Her throat moved. For one second, the performance slipped, and I saw the real Moonie underneath the polished, irritated, entitled one. Then she turned her face slightly toward the restaurant again and wore the pretty version like a mask.

“You don’t have to threaten me over dinner,” she said softly.

“I didn’t.”

Her fingers tightened around the stem of her glass. “That sounded like a threat.”

“Then you heard correctly.”

Her mouth parted, but she stopped herself from saying whatever came first. Smart girl. Not smart enough, but she had survival instincts when my mood was obvious enough.

The waiter approached to ask if everything was satisfactory. I dismissed him with one look. He disappeared before finishing

the sentence.

We sat in silence for a moment longer as she gathered her composure.

Moonie tried twice more over the next twenty minutes. Said something about a property Fred had been in talks about, Something about a venue she had been considering for the engagement party. I received both pieces of information with the minimum audible response that kept her from escalating and returned immediately to the place my head had been since I sat down.

“You’re embarrassing me.” Moonie’s voice had dropped. The social brightness stripped out of it, replaced by something with more edge to it. She leaned forward slightly across the table. “There are four journalists in this room, Oceans. Four. And you are sitting there looking like a man who has been told he has six months to live. Can you please, for one evening-”

“I don’t give a fuck about the journalists, Moon.”

She stared at me.

“I’m here. We’re having dinner. That’s the arrangement.” I met her eyes. “Don’t push for more than what we agreed.”

I leaned back again, already done with the conversation.

My phone was face down beside my plate.

I had checked it twice since we arrived. No message from Kiss. No call. Nothing. And it kept me completely restless.

We were already hurting people.

That was the truth.

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Chapter 83

But I did not care enough to stop.

The only thing I gave a fuck about was her – Kisarel.

Everything else was damage control.

Moonie snapped her fingers softly near the table to drag my attention back.

That was a mistake.

My eyes moved to her hand first. before moving to her face.

She went still.

“Don’t do that again,” I said.

Her lips parted. “I was trying to get your attention.”

“You have it.”

She swallowed.

For once, she did not seem to know what to do with it.

Then irritation climbed over her fear, and she sat back, digging into her handbag. “Fine. Since conversation with you is apparently a punishment from God, I’ll give you the thing I brought, and we can end this disaster before the blogs start saying you looked like you wanted to murder me over dinner.”

I watched her search through the bag with growing irritation.

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The handbag was small. It should not have contained half the things she was pulling out of it, but Moonie was a woman who could make even clutter look intentional when she wanted to. A compact fell out first. Then lipstick. Then some folded receipts. Then a small perfume. Then another lipstick because apparently one mouth required options.

She cursed under her breath and searched harder.

My patience thinned.

“What are you looking for?”

“Just wait.”

“I don’t wait well.”

“I noticed,” she snapped, then immediately looked around to make sure no one important saw the crack.

The photographer near the glass wall lifted his phone again.

I considered having security remove him, then decided I did not care enough about any of this to move.

Moonie kept digging.

Her frustration grew with every second, and I watched her with the same interest I would give a contract–wasting my time.

Then she pulled our something else, and my entire body went fucking still.

For one confused second, everything around me disappeared, collapsing into the object in her hand.

It was a watch.

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Chapter 83

My watch.

The custom–made watch I had lost six years ago. The one I had put inside my jacket before covering the girl bleeding on the pavement. The one Reeves had searched for. The one that had vanished with her before I got back. The one that had become part of the only unresolved account in my life..

I watched Moonie place it on the table, totally unaware of the way my heartbeat had changed, and everything else inside me went dead cold.

Moonie noticed my stare and paused, her brows pulling together. “What?”

I didn’t answer. I kept my gaze on the watch.

The black leather strap was worn at the bend. The case had the same small scratch near the side from the night I shattered a glass table in Geneva during a negotiation that ended badly for the other man.

And at the back, hidden unless turned over, were my initials.

O.S.

My fingers tightened slowly around the edge of the table as I sat up slowly.

I reached across the table and picked up the watch. And the moment it touched my hand, the years between then and now folded in on themselves.

Blood on concrete.

Crowd screaming.

Reeves grabbing my arm.

A girl on the ground.

Dark hair across her face.

My jacket covering her.

My hand reaching to move her hair.

Then being dragged away before I could see her.

My eyes lifted to Moonie’s face.

She was watching me with confusion and nervousness.

My voice came out so rough and low that I almost didn’t recognize it.

“Where the fuck did you get this watch?”

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