Just Before My Wedding: Trapped By My Ruthless Boss novel Chapter 93

KISAREL

Elgin leaned toward me as Nessa walked farther away from us. “She is good.”

“I know.”

“But, that worries me.”

“Everything worries you.”

“No. chérie. Bad people are easy. You see the teeth, and you prepare for biting.” His eyes stayed on Nessa as she stopped in front of a stall glowing under amber lights. “Sweet people are complicated. Sometimes the sugar is there to hide the poison.”

I looked at him.

Then Nessa turned and waved us over, her smile bright enough to make the warning feel far away.

“Come on,” she called. “If you’re slow, I’ll eat yours too.”

Elgin straightened his tie like he had just been challenged to defend his bloodline, “Well,” he murmured, walking ahead of me, “if she is poison, at least she comes with dessert.”

I rolled my eyes and followed him.

“This woman with the recipe,” he said, after his first bite, holding the cake carefully, “must be protected by law.”

Nessa grinned. “I told you.”

“You did not prepare me emotionally.”

“You looked too serious. I had to weaken you somehow.”

He pointed one finger at her. “Manipulative.”

“Accurate,” she said easily.

I laughed.

For the next hour, I forgot all about Oceans and everything else that came with him. Nessa had made sure of that. She made Luna Park feel like she had personally negotiated joy into the place.

We sat near a low stone fountain with our drinks, watching people dance badly to live music.

“So,” Nessa said, brushing crumbs from her fingers, “what’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to you?”

Elgin blinked. “That is a very dark question for a pleasant evening.”

“I’m not asking for trauma.” She smiled, but something in her eyes shifted. “I’m asking about the thing that changed you. The thing you survived.”

The silence that followed was brief but heavy.

“Well, we’ve all experienced bad days, haven’t we?” I broke the awkward silence.

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Yeah. Sure. Nessa looked down at her hands. “For me, it was eleven years ago.

We went quiet.

“I was in love with a man,” she said quietly. “Completely. Foolishly. The kind of love where you stop checking if the other person is still holding the rope because you’re too busy tying it around your own wrists.”

Elgin’s brows pulled together.

“He betrayed me,” Nessa continued.

“Of course. Men will always be men.” Elgin remarked with disgust but Nessa only smiled.

“He chose himself when he should have chosen us. And when I almost died because of his choice-” She paused. her throat moving. “He actually let me die,” she said after another moment. “Or at least, he thought I died. And do you know the funny part?”

Neither of us answered.

“He never looked for me.” Her voice stayed soft. “Never came to my grave. Never stood there with flowers. Never asked the ground if it had swallowed the wrong woman.”

Her voice cracked on the last word, and something cold moved through my chest.

“Who was he?” Elgin asked.

Nessa shook her head slowly. “It doesn’t matter now. I’ve forgiven him.”

“Nessa,” I said.

“No, really.” She looked down at her cup. “I forgave him. I moved on. He moved on too.”

Elgin did not look convinced. “That does not sound like forgiveness.”

Her smile grew a little.

“Forgiveness is not always warm, Elgin. Sometimes forgiveness is simply deciding not to dig the grave yourself.” She looked back toward the dancing crowd, and her eyes were dry, but they held pain. “Besides, one day, he will lose someone he cares deeply about. The way I lost everyone I loved that night. That is how karma works. It does not need help. It only needs time.”

I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the evening breeze.

Then Nessa blinked, and her face softened back into warmth. “Sorry. That was heavy. I don’t know why I said that.”

“You don’t have to apologize,” I said.

“Let’s talk about something fun,” she declared. “Elgin. Tell me about the worst date you’ve ever been on.”

Elgin straightened dramatically. “How much time do

you

have?”

The tension broke. Elgin launched into a story about a man who brought his mother to their first date, and Nessa laughed so hard she nearly dropped her pastry. I smiled and nodded in the right places, but Nessa’s words kept replaying in my head.

“He never looked for me…

He thought I was dead, and he buried me and moved on…

Something about it felt familiar. Too familiar. But before I could dwell on it. Elgin’s phone beeped

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He pulled it out and glanced at the screen. His expression changed almost immediately

Confusion first, then focus, and then something close to alarm.

“Elgin:” I asked. “What is it?”

He handed me his phone without a word.

I looked down at the screen.

‘Marcus: Narrowed the burner purchase location to a zip code. 10038. The activation ping came from a tower cluster around East 47th and Lennox. One outbound call was made before the phone went dark. The number routes to a shell company registered under a serviced office on the same block. I’m trying to pull the company name!

I knew that zip code. I walked through it every morning.

East 47th and Lennox…

It was where Stark Sovereign Capital was headquartered.

My stomach tightened.

I handed the phone back to Elgin and looked up at Nessa, who was watching us with casual curiosity.

“Everything okay?” she asked.

“Fine,” I said. “I just need to use the restroom.”

She pointed toward a row of portable units near the tree line. “Over there. I’ll save your spot.”

I nodded and stood, walking away from the lights and the music and the warmth of the crowd, totally consumed by what Marcus said and convincing myself that I couldn’t keep on linking everything to Oceans, simply because my stupid heart kept looking for slight opportunities to beat for him.

I was still lost in my thoughts when I bumped into someone so hard that my shoulder jerked, and I stumbled sideways, catching myself against the edge of a stall.

“Sorry.” I gasped, turning quickly.

But the person was already moving away, swallowed by the crowd before I could properly see them. He was putting on a jacket sleeve and a baseball cap pulled low. Nothing else.

My pulse jumped.

For one second, I stood completely still, watching the gap in the crowd where the person had disappeared.

Then I felt a sharp sting on my upper arm, like a bee or a needle.

I slapped my hand over the spot and rubbed, but there was nothing there. No bug or blood. Just a small red dot.

“Everything okay?”

I spun around, and Nessa was standing a few few wide

“Fine,” I said. “I bumped into someone.”

away, her head tilted, and her expression soft with concern.

Nessa’s eyes stayed on my face for a beat too long. Then she looked down at my arm, where my hand was still pressed against the spot

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“Let me see,” she said.

“It’s nothing.

“Kisarel.”

Something in her voice made me lower my hand.

She stepped closer, her fingers brushing lightly over the small red dot on my upper arm. Her touch was gentle. Then she pulled back and smiled.

“Probably a mosquito. There are a lot of them near the trees.” She said. “Let’s go.”

Not too long after that, an awkward, uncomfortable quietness settled between all three of us, like we were all lost in our own mental battles.

That was our cue.

We had to go home.

“I hope we do this some other time,” Nessa said with a sad smile as we hugged each other good night.

Elgin and I had no interest in revisiting Marcus‘ text just yet. All we wanted, especially me, was to freshen up

and sleep.

I felt a little too tired and feverish, but of course, I was stressed… Who wouldn’t be?

I woke up to Elgin shaking me.

“Arel. Arel, wake up!”

My body felt like it was made of lead. My head was pounding. My arm–my arm was on fire.

“Chérie, you’re burning up.” His voice was tight with panic. “I’m calling an ambulance.”

I tried to tell him I was fine, but the words didn’t come out.

The last thing I saw before the world went dark was Elgin’s face, white with fear, his phone pressed to his ear.

Then there was nothing.

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