Just Before My Wedding: Trapped By My Ruthless Boss novel Chapter 84

Chapter 84

OCEANS.

Something damp gathered at the back of my neck despite the cold air in the restaurant. My hand tightened around the watch, and I realized, with a kind of detached fury, that my fingers were not steady.

I was shaking.

Fuck.

Her eyes flared, and so did my patience. And I could tell from her pulse that her heartbeat was beginning to turn frantic.

Moonie sat across from me with her fingers frozen around the strap of her bag, with her eyes on the watch in my hand.

I saw something move rapidly behind her face that she was trying to get ahead of before it showed properly.

I watched her brain working in real time, assembling something, testing it, discarding it, and trying again.

“What? It’s just a watch.” She gestured at the watch breathlessly, trying to force a smile.

My eyes stayed on hers.

“Try again.”

She blinked. Her throat moved. “Oceans, you’re scaring me.”

“Where. Did. You. Get. It. From?” I counted my words through gritted teeth, squeezing the watch in my palm.

“Please.” Her voice dropped. Her hand trembled around the bag strap. “Don’t ask me this here.”

I leaned forward. “You have ten seconds.”

I wanted to grab the answer out of her throat. I wanted to shake her until the truth fell out. I wanted to tell her the story and see if recognition lit her face.

But I couldn’t.

If she were the girl, she would know.

She had to know.

So I kept my voice low, even though my control was beginning to break at the edges. “Where?”

She looked down at the watch in my hand, then back at my face, and swallowed nervously, “I’ve had it for years.”

Everything inside me went quiet.

Years…?

I sat up slowly.

My heart was doing something I had not felt it do in a very long time. Something loud and urgent and completely outside my control, beating against the inside of my chest with desperate insistence.

My grip tightened around the watch.

“How many?”

22

O

16:40 Fri, May 22 M.

Chapter 84

She opened her mouth to speak, but closed it again.

Wrong answer,

Her eyes flicked past my shoulder toward the man at the bar with the camera. Then to the window. Then back to me

I saw the slight tremble of her lips, the glisten in her eyes, and the small inhale that made her chest rise like she was trying

not to cry.

I watched all of it with curiosity and impatience.

“Moonie.” I called in a rough whisper.

“I can’t do this.” Her voice broke as she stood up. “Not here.”

She grabbed her bag and hurried out.

I wanted to run after her, but fuck. I suddenly felt like a coward.

My body sat frozen in place as I saw the last piece of the puzzle settle in.

Could Moonie be the girl who saved my life?

The thought almost made me sick.

Not because she could be the woman. No. But, because I did not want her to be.

Not now that I had decided to give up on the mystery woman and concentrate on Kiss.

What if she bought the watch from a thrift store?

What if it was stolen and resold, and Moon was the one who coincidentally bought it?

Fuck.

My head was a total mess.

The photographers outside the window caught Moon leaving. I saw the flashes through the glass, and I already knew what the headlines would read by morning – his fiancée, in tears, exiting dinner early.

Ten seconds was all I allowed myself.

Then I picked up the watch, stood, and left the restaurant without looking at the meal, the bill, or the reporters pretending they were not feeding on my life.

By the time I got outside, Moonie was already gone.

Of course she was.

I got into the back of the car and called Reeves.

He answered on the second ring. “Sir.”

Find Moonie. Keep a close eye on her and wait for my orders.”

***

KISAREL.

O

16:40 Fri, May 22 M

Chapter 84

Waiting for Oceans felt humiliating in a way, but I did everything possible not to feel that way. I had a shower, prepared dinner, and even watched TV. But it wasn’t working.

What kind of woman waits in a man’s house, knowing fully well that he was on a date with another woman?

Jesus. I felt cheap.

I hated myself for the way my body reacted every time the elevator sounded outside the private entrance. I hated the quick lift of my head and the way my heart jumped like a foolish thing. The way jealousy sat like acid in my throat whenever I pictured Moonie across from him, smiling that perfect smile, while touching his hand.

But his words… They constantly replayed in my head, no matter how hard I tried to brush them off.

I even caught myself smiling at one point when I recalled how he spoke to me just before leaving the house.

By the time the front door finally opened, I was standing near the window with my arms wrapped around myself, pretending I had not been listening for him as my life depended on the sound of his return.

He walked in.

And immediately. I knew something was wrong. Not because he looked angry. No. Oceans always carried some version of anger under his skin. This was different.

He looked so quiet in a way that made the room hold its breath. And there was something dead cold in his eyes that had not been there when he left.

He did not look at me when he walked in.

That was the first cut.

He walked past the living room entrance with his phone already at his ear.

“No. Check Freda’s house first. If she’s there, keep eyes on the gate. Do not approach until I get there.”

I turned slowly.

Moonie.

My stomach tightened.

He was looking for Moonie.

Did she do something wrong?

“Oceans…” I called after him, but he moved toward the bar area and poured himself nothing. He picked up a glass, set it down, then turned away like he had forgotten why he reached for it.

“Is something wrong?” I asked, panic already setting in.

He picked up his phone and immediately made another call.

“Jeff,” he called the chief housekeeper. “Get the room right next to mine cleaned up immediately.”

What?

My heart was thudding so fast now.

“What’s going on. Oceans? Why is the room being cleaned?” I came to stand in front of him with my arms folded across my chest. “Are you expecting a visitor?”

22

O

O

16:40 Fri, May 22 d

Chapter 84

KEGA MA

His eyes flicked to me for half a second. “Yes.”

That was all he said to me.

I swallowed and pushed, “Who is…”

“What the fuck, Kisarel!” He snapped, “Give it a rest! Go to bed, damn it!”

I flinched so hard I almost choked on air.

This wasn’t the Oceans I had come to get comfortable with. The same one who kissed me like he was leaving pieces of himself in my mouth and made me feel like I was standing at the center of something he could not control.

My eyes burned, but I looked away quickly. I refused to cry because he came home from dinner with my cousin, acting like her disappearance had rearranged his entire bloodstream.

He continued speaking into the phone, low and clipped.

“No, she doesn’t get far. Pull traffic. Use private feeds where public feeds are slow. I don’t care whose building it is. Buy access if you have to.”

I stood there, trying to understand how the night had shifted so fast.

“Oceans,” I called again in a softer tone. I know I should have stopped, but the raw hurt kept pushing me. I swallowed down the burning in my throat and took one step closer. “You are getting me worried.”

His eyes closed for half a second before he ended the call slowly.

The silence that followed was terrible.

He lowered the phone from his ear and stood there for one moment, staring past me like I was one more thing standing between him and whatever answer he needed tonight.

Then his eyes came to mine.

They were cold, but it wasn’t the usual cold I had learned to survive around.

This one had panic under it. Something raw and wild and furious that made his entire face look terrifying.

“Why are you still talking?” he asked.

The words stung.

I blinked. “What?”

“I told you to go to bed.”

I stared at him, my heart beating in my throat. “You came back from dinner with my cousin acting like something happened, and you expect me not to ask questions?”

“Yes.”

A breathless laugh escaped me before I could stop it.

His phone buzzed again.

He looked down immediately.

That was the second cut.

22

O

O

16:40 Fri, May 22 d M

Chapter XI

No.

Maybe the third.

Maybe I had lost count.

Whatever was happening with Moonie mattered enough to pull his eyes away from me in the middle of this, and I hated the small. wounded part of me that noticed.

The burn in my eyes was getting worse, and everything in me kept pulling in two directions simultaneously- the part that wanted to cry and the part that refused to give him that.

I nodded, turned around, and climbed the stairs with my heartbeat in my ears and my vision too blurry to trust.

My hands shook as I pulled his shirt over my head.

His scent clung to my skin, and that made the tears fall even harder.

I hated that too.

I hated him. I hated Moonie. I hated myself most of all for believing a man like Oceans Stark when he stood half–naked in front of me and said love like he knew what it meant.

I put on my own clothes. My fingers kept fumbling with the buttons. One refused to close properly, and I almost tore it off in frustration

I found my phone on the nightstand.

There were two missed calls from Elgin, but I didn’t bother to return the call, as I picked up my bag and left the room.

As I hurried down the stairs, I heard Oceans‘ voice from the living room again.

“No one approaches her until I say so.”

Her…

Moonie…

My grip tightened around the strap of my bag until it hurt.

His eyes moved to me for one second, and there, I saw the ruthless Oceans Stark that I used to dread… The one who could destroy a person and make a call before the body hit the floor.

“I’m leaving.” I said, and I swear, it sounded stupid, even to me. But what made me feel even more stupid was when he just looked away like I wasn’t even standing there at all.

I walked to the door, hoping he’ll call me back and tell me I was misunderstanding things.

But he didn’t.

Until I walked out the door and closed it shut behind me… I waited for one second like a fool….

But he didn’t come after me.

Just as the gate slid shut and the lonely street came into view, my phone buzzed.

Unknown mumber.

“Good girl. Now you’re learning. He was never yours to keep.”

22

O

16:40 Fri, May 22 d