Just Before My Wedding: Trapped By My Ruthless Boss novel Chapter 99

16:45 Fri, May 22 M

Chapter 99

Chapter 99

OCEANS.

The moment Jace stepped out of the room, Elgin glanced toward the door, then excused himself to the small restroom attached to the ward.

I couldn’t tell if it was intentional or just good timing, but whatever it was, God bless his sweet heart.

I moved closer to Kiss, “Kiss.”

“Oceans, no.” She shook her head, still staring at the door behind me. “I don’t want to hear it.”

She wouldn’t even look at me.

I took a deep breath. “Look… I… Fuck.” The words couldn’t come. Not one useful sentence. Maybe because there were no right words for what I had done. Maybe because there was nothing left to say that wouldn’t make everything worse.

She held my gaze, and whatever I had planned to say next lost shape in my mouth.

She wasn’t just angry. She was hurt.

I could handle her anger. I knew what to do with anger. But the way she looked at me now carried too much damage, as if she had stopped expecting me to protect anything soft in her.

“Please,” she whispered, and the softness of it nearly ruined me. “The only favor I’m asking from you is to let me go.” My jaw locked.

“I don’t want to work for you anymore,” she continued, her voice shaking even though she tried to steady it. “Please.”

For a moment, I just stared at her.

The word ‘no‘ was already sitting on my tongue, but I tried to garnish it in a way that won’t sound offensive.

“No,” I said. There was no softer way to say it.

A bitter laugh broke out of her. “What else do you want from me?”

“Kiss-”

“I left your house that night, and you didn’t even care.” Her voice rose, then broke at the edge. “You didn’t care if I got home. You didn’t care if I was okay. You just let me go like I was some whore you could just discard whenever you wanted.”

“I knew you were fine, Kiss. Reeves…”

“Of course.” She laughed again, but this one had no humor in it. “Reeves. It’s always Reeves.” She looked away, blinking hard. “It goes a long way to show how much importance I hold to you.”

“Don’t sound like that,” I took a step forward, but held myself back before I did something we’d both regret.

“I shouldn’t sound like what?” she asked. “Like someone who finally understands her place?”

Something dark moved through my veins. “You don’t understand a damn thing.”

“I understand enough.” Her gaze snapped back to mine. “I understand that you’re finally happy with the fiancée you never wanted.”

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16:45 Fri, May 22

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Chapter 99

She stressed the last words carefully, like they had cut her mouth on their way out.

“Let me go.” Her eyes were moist. Her lips trembled. And she looked at me like I betrayed something…

“Why?” I asked, and she looked like the question threw her off guard for just a second.

Her eyes flickered. “Because… Because I don’t like the way you treat me whenever you feel I have become disposable or unimportant,” She pointed a finger to her chest. “You only act right when you need me in your bed!”

My control thinned.

“Wasn’t that the agreement?” I asked, my voice calm enough to hide the damage under it.

She stared at me.

Then she scoffed softly, like I had slapped her and asked why she was bleeding. “Of course. Of course.”

Her throat moved, and her voice dropped to a whisper. “Then you went ahead and told me you loved me.”

“And you asked me not to.” I held her gaze, assessing her. “Remember?”

She swallowed her next words. I saw it happen. I saw the thought rise, reach her mouth, and die there because she was too scared to hand it to me.

“Oceans… Please…” She whispered, “Just… Let me go.”

My heart was racing. My heart never raced this fast for anyone.

But this woman was in my head, in my blood, in my very soul, doing things to me now that no one else could do.

“I can’t. And I won’t.” I took a step forward, and her eyes dashed to the door and back to me.

Fuck. I wanted to close the stupid distance between us and kiss her lips until she stopped doubting everything I felt for her.

My gaze dropped to her pulse point, and it was literally fluttering

She licked her dry lips nervously, swallowing a lump down her throat, and I nearly lost the last clean thought in my head.

“Kiss…” I called in a voice even I couldn’t recognize as I stopped a little closer than professional.

Why did she look this hurt?

She had always fought me, even when she trembled. Even when she wanted. Even when she hated herself for wanting.

But this was different.

This was not defiance.

This was a wound.

But, no. I couldn’t begin to let myself think what it was already thinking.

I was tempted to ask the question, but… Fuck it. I asked anyway.

“Are you in lo

with me?”

The room went completely still.

Her eyes widened for half a second before she recovered, and in that half second, my entire body leaned toward an answer

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16:46 Fri, May 22 M

Chapter 99

she hadn’t given.

I wanted it.

Christ, I wanted it badly enough to hate myself.

I wanted her to say it once. Even if she took it back afterward. Even if she said it like a curse.

Instead, she scoffed and looked at me like I had lost my mind.

“What the hell would you think that?” She brushed a stubborn strand of hair off her eyes, “I am in love with another. And he’s just outside this door.” She pointed at the door.

I smiled faintly, though nothing in me felt amused. “You don’t sound convincing. Not even to yourself.”

I made to take another step, but she held out her hand.

“Stop. What are you doing?” Her eyes darted to the door again. “Jace is just outside.”

She panicked as I took one more step.

“God, I want to kiss you, Kiss.” I brought a hand up to her face, caressing the side of it,

“Jesus, Oceans.” Her whisper shook. “What the hell? Stop it. Move.”

But she didn’t move away.

Not immediately.

That almost finished me.

“We need to talk,” I said, lowering my hand before I forgot the door, Jace, Elgin, everything. “Will I see you after you leave the hospital?”

“No.”

“Kisarel.”

“No.” Her eyes turned wet again, and the sight of it made my chest feel tight. “So you can use me and throw me away again?”

“I’m not trying to use you.”

“You’re not?” She gave me a look that almost made me flinch. “Then what are you doing?”

“I want to explain.” I forced the words out because she deserved that much, even if I hated how weak explanation sounded. “You deserve to know what’s going on. Why I have to be with Moon.“,

Her face changed at Moon’s name.

“Please,” I said. “Give me the audience.”

She looked away from me, breathing unevenly. “I’ll see you at the office tomorrow.”

We’ll

go to your apartment after office hours,” I said.

“Elgin’s?”

No. Yours. The one you ran away from

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Chapter 99

“I didn’t run.” She countered.

“Of course.”

“Besides, I am moving in with Jace for now. So, I can’t…

The rest of the sentence stopped meaning anything

“You’re not moving in with him.” The words left my mouth before I could filter them.

Her eyes narrowed. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me.”

She scoffed before holding my stare with a glare. “Stop me if you

eyes fn.”

moment.

There was silence as we both stared each other in the

I smirked. “I love challenges.”

Her lips parted, but I stepped back before she could anything else.

“See you tomorrow.”

I turned and left the room before I did something that would make Jace’s blood necessary on the floor.

In the hallway, I pulled out my phone and dialed Reeves.

He picked.

“Check every CCTV around Luna Park,” I said. “I want to know what happened to Kiss while she was there.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And Reeves?”

“Yes, sir?”

“I hope it doesn’t take you six fucking years to give me results.”

I ended the call before he could respond.

As I rounded the corner toward the ward exit, I saw Jace.

He stood near the far side of the hallway with his phone pressed to his ear, one hand dragging over his face. He looked like a man drowning quietly, trying not to disturb the water.

I slowed.

Whatever he was saying was certainly discreet because I caught nothing at first, only fragments too broken to matter.

Then one sentence slipped through.

wanted her dead.”

My steps nearly stopped.

Jace turned at that exact moment, and the call ended so fast it might as well have been cut with a knife.

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Chapter 99

Panic crossed his face before he managed to bury it.

The did he hear all I just said?‘ Kind of look crept all over his face

I looked at him and let my face give him nothing.

No suspicions, not even the violence already waking inside me.

“I’ll be leaving now,” I said evenly. “Take care of her.”

His brows pulled together, thrown by the softness of my words. “What?”

I walked past him, and his confusion followed me down the hall.

Good.

Let him choke on it.

By the time I got into my car, my pulse had gone cold.

I shut the door, picked up my phone, and called Reeves again.

He answered immediately. “Sir?”

“While you’re on the task, look into Jace and Fred.”

Reeves paused. “Fred, sir?”

“Yes.” I stared through the windshield at the hospital entrance. “They’re onto something.”

“What exactly am I looking for?”

I thought of Jace’s words, “…wanted her dead.” And my curiosity just wouldn’t sit its ass down.

My fingers tightened around the steering wheel.

“Everything they might be doing together,” I said. “And Reeves?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Start with anything that would make a man talk about a woman dying while standing outside the hospital ward of a woman who just escaped death.”

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