Just Before My Wedding: Trapped By My Ruthless Boss novel Chapter 94

Chapter 94

KISAREL

The first thing I felt was my arm. It was burning so hot and deep, like someone had lit a match under my skin and left it there.

The second thing I felt was the cold, sticky sweat plastering my hair to my forehead, soaking through whatever thin fabric I was putting on.

And at the same time. I also felt a kind of feverish warmth… It was not the normal fever… It wasn’t the kind that required a blanket and a plate of hot soup to quench.

I tried to open my eyes, but my lashes stuck together, and my head pounded so hard I thought something inside it might split if I moved too fast.

I tried again, and I was smet with white ceiling, fluorescent lights, and the beeping of a machine somewhere to my left.

Hospital.

I was in a hospital.

“Arel.” Elgin’s voice came from somewhere close. It sounded wrecked. “Arel, can you hear me? Open your eyes. Please open- your eyes.”

I turned my head slowly, and the movement made the room tilt.

He was standing beside me the next second.

He looked wrecked. His hair was a total mess.

Elgin could survive heartbreak and still look composed if given a mirror and thirty seconds. Right now, he looked like he had aged five years in one night,

“Elgin?” My voice came out cracked.

His face changed immediately. Relief hit him so hard his shoulders dropped. “Mon Dieu. You’re awake.”

“Where…” I swallowed, but my throat felt like sand. “Where am I?”

“Emergency clinic.”

I frowned, or tried to. Even that hurt. “Why?”

“You don’t remember?” He reached for a cup of water on the table beside him and held a straw to my lips. I drank. The water was cold and perfect.

“I remember the park,” I said. “I remember coming home. I was tired. I thought it was just… stress.”

Elgin set the cup down.

“You started shivering around two in the morning,” he said. “It was serious. Your teeth wouldn’t stop. I tried to wake you. You wouldn’t wake up.”

His voice cracked.

“I called an ambulance. They came. your arm and told me to wait.”

They asked me questions I couldn’t answer. They put you in this bed and put things in

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I looked down at my arm. There was a bandage on the inside of my elbow from an IV. And above it, near my shoulder the small red dot from Luna Park was now surrounded by purple and yellow bruising.

My stomach turned.

I tried to lift my hand toward it.

Elgin caught my wrist gently. “Don’t.”

“What happened to my arm?”

“That is the question of the morning, chérie.”

The door opened before I could answer. A doctor walked in, followed by a nurse holding a tablet.

“You’re awake. Good.”

I tried to sit up.

Elgin immediately stood. “No. Don’t do that dramatic heroine thing where you rise from your deathbed to prove a point.”

“I’m fine,” I said, and even to my own ears, I sounded ridiculous.

The doctor gave me a look that said he agreed with Elgin but was too professional to say

it that way.

“You’re not fine,” he said. “You had a high fever, significant inflammation at the injection site, and your blood pressure dropped twice before stabilizing.”

Injection site…?

“What?”

The doctor looked at me carefully. “Do you remember being stung or pricked by anything last night?”

My breath caught.

Elgin’s jaw tightened.

“I thought…” I looked down at my arm again. “I thought maybe it was a mosquito.”

Elgin made a sound under his breath that was too sharp to be a laugh. “A mosquito does not carry a syringe, chérie.”

The doctor glanced at him, then back at me. “We can’t confirm exactly what entered your system yet. We’ve sent samples out for more detailed toxicology. But this does not look like a normal insect bite. There was a puncture mark. Small. Very clean. And your reaction was too severe and too fast for a simple mosquito bite.”

My heart began to beat too hard.

“I bumped into someone,” I whispered.

Elgin leaned closer. “At Luna Park?”

I nodded, still looking at the bandage. “Near the restroom. Someone bumped into me, then disappeared into the crowd”

“Did you see their face?” the doctor asked.

“No.” My fingers tightened around the sheet. “Baseball cap. Jacket. I think it was a man, but I’m not sure.

happened too

fast

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Elgin cursed softly in French.

The doctor’s expression remained careful. “Until we know what you were exposed to, you need to rest. We’ll keep monitoring you for a few more hours, possibly overnight, depending on the next set of results.”

“I don’t need to stay overnight.”

Elgin turned to me slowly.

His eyes were wide with disbelief.

“You were half–conscious and burning like a cursed candle six hours ago, but yes, please, tell the medical professional how unnecessary medical care is.”

“I don’t like hospitals.”

“This isn’t about what you like.”

The doctor looked between us, probably used to this kind of argument. “Your friend is right. For now, you stay.”

Elgin lifted both hands toward me like the doctor had just blessed his entire argument. “Merci. Authority has spo

The nurse checked something on the monitor while the doctor asked a few more questions before they left.

The moment the door shut, Elgin turned to me.

His face had gone pale under the anger.

“Tell me everything.”

“I already did.”

“No. You did not tell me a stranger with a baseball cap stabbed you in a crowd.”

“I didn’t know I was stabbed.”

“That is somehow not comforting”

He stood and started pacing, one hand pressed to his forehead. “I knew we should not have gone. I knew it. Suspicious beautiful woman, night market, emotional speeches about graves and karma, then you get punctured like a science project near a restroom. Excellent. Very normal. Very wholesome friendship activity.”

My chest tightened at the insinuation.

“Don’t say that… She came after it happened,” I said, but the defense sounded weak even to me. “She checked my arm. She said it was probably a mosquito,”

Elgin stared at me, and I hated that stare. It was too judgmental.

“I told you. A lot of bad things happen around that woman,” He insisted after a pause.

“Please…” I sighed tiredly.

“No. Don’t” He held up a hand, “First, it was the accident, then the stalker, and now this?” He exhaled and shook his head, “She’s a bad omen, Arel”

As much as I want to argue with Elgin, he was right about the events that had taken place around Nessa. But, on a second thought, it could also all be a coincidence.

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Why would she want to harm me?

My eyes burned.

“I just… God… I just wanted one night where I wasn’t thinking about Oceans,” I whispered. “One night.”

Elgin’s thumb moved over the back of my hand. “And instead, you got a suspicious puncture wound and a hospital bracelet. Your life has terrible taste in plot twists.”

A weak laugh escaped me, then turned into a wince because my head throbbed harder.

“Don’t make me laugh”

“I am trying to stop you from crying.”

“It’s not working.”

“I know. But I am pretty, so my failure has aesthetics.”

Despite everything, a tear slipped down the side of my face.

He wiped it carefully with his thumb.

My phone was on the small table beside the bed. I looked at it. “Did anyone call?”

Elgin’s face tightened in a way I did not miss.

“No one important.”

My heart sank before I could stop it.

Oceans,

Of course, he had not called.

Why would he? He was probably with Moonie. Maybe still at his house. Maybe planning wedding tastings and shopping.

Maybe he had not even noticed I wasn’t at the office.

And I hated that I cared.

“Don’t,” Elgin said softly.

I blinked.

“What?”

“Don’t go there. I can see your face.”

I closed my eyes. “I’m not…”

“Yes, you are. You are mentally walking to Mr. Stark’s house, knocking, and asking him why he does not care. Do not do that, You are in a hospital gown. Have some dignity.”

I opened my eyes and glared at him weakly, and we both laughed.

Then his phone rang.

“Who is it?” I asked.

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“Marcus. He replied as he answered the phone and pressed it to his ear.

It was a brief call. The only thing Elgin had to say was, “Okay. Thanks.” But his countenance had dropped.

“What did he say?” I asked.

He looked at me, and the expression on his face made the heat in my body turn cold.

“The burner phone activated again.”

“What? Where?” I whispered.

“Around Luna Park. Yesterday.”

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