Just Before My Wedding: Trapped By My Ruthless Boss novel Chapter 90

Chapter 90

OCEANS

Seeing Kiss with Jace did something violent to my self–control.

For one second, the whole restaurant narrowed down to her hand under his.

His hand.

On her.

Across a table I did not own, in a restaurant I had not chosen for her, with a man whose face I had imagined breaking more times than I cared to count.

She was wearing black. A dress I had never seen before–one that hugged her body like it had been painted on, with a neckline that dipped low and a slit that showed too much of her thigh.

Her hair was different. It looked softer and wavier. It fell over one shoulder, leaving her neck bare.

I almost stopped walking.

Moonie said something beside me, but I didn’t hear it. My eyes were locked on the woman who had walked out of my house on Friday night, texted me yesterday, and I had not responded to her because I didn’t know what the fuck to say.

She looked beautiful.

That was the first problem.

Then the doors closed behind me, and the sound made her look up.

Our eyes met, and her face did something complicated. Pain. Shock. Something that looked like betrayal.

Then she looked at my hand.

Moonie’s fingers were wrapped around it.

Fuck.

I had forgotten I was holding her hand.

I had walked in holding Moonie’s hand because she had reached for me in the car, and I hadn’t pulled away because I didn’t know how to anymore. Not after I realized I owed her everything.

Besides, the room was full of people, and now, every public movement between Moonie and me was now being watched and measured. After the restaurant incident Friday night, the media had already started chewing on rumors of trouble between us.

Jace touched Kiss’s hand.

My jaw locked so hard that pain shot into my temple.

She stood up so fast her chair scraped against the floor.

“I need to go.”

I did not hear the words from where I stood, but I read them on her mouth.

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16:42 Fri, May 22 M

Chapter 90

She turned and walked toward the exit, and every step she took felt like a door closing between us.

My body moved before my mind gave permission.

One step.

That was all I took.

One fucking step before Moonie’s hand tightened around mine.

“Oceans?” she called softly.

I stopped.

Kiss turned away from the table and walked toward the exit.

Then, Jace stood up, threw cash on the table–enough to cover both meals and more–and ran after her.

Jace fucking ran after her, and I didn’t.

Something dark and ugly slammed into

my chest.

Everything in me wanted to go after her, grab Jace by the back of his collar, and put him through the nearest wall for thinking he could chase what belonged to me. I wanted to catch Kiss by the wrist, drag her out of that restaurant, and ask her why the fuck she was sitting across from him in a dress that made my hands ache.

But the fucking public was watching.

“Oceans.” Moonie tugged my hand gently. “Is everything okay?”

I looked down at her. At her blonde hair, worried eyes, and the red dress that matched the lipstick she had reapplied in the

car.

“Fine.” I said. “Let’s sit.”

We sat, and the waiter appeared and took our order. Moonie ordered for both of us without asking what I wanted, but I didn’t fucking care because I kept my eyes on the door.

What was I expecting? That’s what she’d come walking through the door again?

Stupid me.

Moonie was quiet for a while, and that was new.

Usually, silence around me offended her. But today, she watched me like she was afraid of the wrong movement.

Or maybe I only imagined that because guilt had started rewriting her in softer lines.

“Oceans,” she said after the waiter left. “Are you angry with me?”

My eyes lifted to hers.

Before, I would have said something cold and reminded her not to make my mood about herself.

But today, I did not.

“No.” I said.

Her face shifted slightly, as if the answer surprised her.

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16:42 Fri, May 22 M.

Chapter 90

“Okay” She tried to smile. “You’re just quiet.”

“I’m thinking.”

“About what?”

I almost said ‘Kiss. Instead, I said. “A lot.”

Moonie nodded slowly, “Me too.”

I looked away immediately, because looking at her too long kept forcing the same impossible sentence into my head.

‘She saved you.

‘Moonie.

‘She saved you!

She opened her purse and brought out her phone. “I wanted to show you something.”

Normally, I would not have looked.

But obligation reached across the table and closed its hand around the back of my

So I looked.

She turned the screen toward me.

neck.

It was a photo of a wedding setup. Tall white floral structures, glass aisle, bad soft gold lights.

“This is one of the designs I liked,” she said, and for the first time, her excitement sounded almost shy. “I know you probably don’t care about flowers or lights, but I thought this one looked elegant. Not too much.”

I looked at the screen.

It could have been a board report for all it moved me.

Still, I forced myself to study it.

“It’s fine.”

Her eyes brightened immediately, and that made my guilt fucking worse.

“Really?”

“Yes.”

She smiled.

I hated that a small part of me felt responsible for that smile now.

“I was thinking maybe the aisle could be less dramatic,” she said, scrolling to another picture. “Something simpler. I don’t want it to look like I’m trying too hard.”

“You always try too hard.”

The words came out before I could stop school myself, and her smile faltered.

My jaw tightened.

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16:42 Fri, May 22 M

Chapter 90

Fuck

That was the kind of Careless, honest, cruel thing I would have said before.

So, I exhaled.

“I mean,” I said, hating every word, “you don’t need to.”

She stared at me.

Then she smiled again. “That almost sounded like a compliment.”

I nodded, and her smile widened a little.

I looked away.

Fuck.

This was hell.

The waiter served something I wouldn’t have ordered on a regular day, and I cut into the food immediately, because sitting without doing anything made my hands restless, but I did not taste a thing.

She kept talking about things I usually wouldn’t concern myself with, and I was obligated to respond with the best version of everything I had.

“I’m glad fate brought us together,” she said suddenly, and my hand stilled on the glass.

She was watching me, her fingers wrapped around her phone. “I know we didn’t start like normal people,” she continued. “It was business. Families. Expectations: All of that. But after everything…” Her lashes lowered. “Maybe it was supposed to happen this way.”

I didn’t know what the fuck to say to that. Because fate had become a word I no longer trusted.

Fate had turned the woman I wanted into the woman I was betraying, and the woman I disliked into the woman I owed

breath to.

Moonie looked down at her plate.

“I keep thinking about that night.”

My pulse changed.

Her fingers twisted in her lap, and when she spoke again, her voice was smaller. “I was so scared,” she whispered. “I didn’t know if I was going to die. I didn’t know if anyone would come for me. I just lay there, bleeding, waiting for someone to help.”

My jaw tightened.

“I still have nightmares sometimes,” she continued. “I wake up, and I can feel the bullet. I can feel the ground beneath me. I can feel the blood.”

“Moonie-”

“I’m sorry.” She shook her head quickly, trying to blink the tears away. “I know this isn’t the right place. I just… I feel like I’m back there again. And now that I know you were the one standing there… Every time I close my eyes. I feel like my body goes cold”

“I think I need therapy. She looked up at me with wet eyes.

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16:42 Fri, May 22 d M

Chapter 90

“Yes. Maybe you should start.” I replied.

“I’ve been thinking about it for a while. But I’m scared to talk to just anyone about it. She said.

“I can arrange someone discreet,” I said. “No one will know.”

She hesitated. “Would you… Come with me?”

My brows narrowed.

She looked embarrassed, like she regretted asking the moment it left her mouth.

“I know it’s too much,” she rushed. “Forget it. I shouldn’t have asked. I just thought maybe if you were there, I could talk about it because you were there too. Even if you didn’t know it was me.” Her voice broke again. “I don’t think I can sit in front of a stranger and say all that alone.”

My first instinct was a clean, hard NO.

I did not do therapy. I did not sit in small rooms and hand strangers parts of my head to rearrange.

But this was all my fault. She needed therapy because she tried to save me. The least I could do was to be supportive. So…

“Of course. I’ll go with you.”

AD