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Todos los capítulos de Once His Nightmare, Now His Employee : Capítulo 101 - Capítulo 110

127 Capítulos

101 ~ Earlier That Morning

>Dorian had taken the stairs two at a time, straightening his jacket as he reached the bottom, and pulled in a breath of clean morning air as he crossed into the living room.He was heading for the dining room when the front door opened behind him.He turned.Ronan was in the doorway and that was the most charitable way to describe what was happening. He wasn’t walking so much as he was a man being operated by a much smaller, significantly more exhausted man inside him. His jacket was wrinkled. His eyes were somewhere else entirely.“Man.” Dorian took a step toward him. “What happened to you?”Ronan’s legs resolved the question before his mouth could. They simply stopped working. He folded in a slow, inevitable collapse and hit the floor with the graceless certainty of someone who had decided that gravity was correct and they were done arguing with it.Dorian abandoned his briefcase without hesitation and crossed the room. “Hey — hey, talk to me. What’s going on?”Ronan looked up

102 ~ Dorian’s Sassiness

“Who wants to take my place in this company?” Dorian’s question settled over the boardroom like a cold draft. He stepped inside, let the door close behind him, and walked to his seat without looking at anyone in particular. He set his briefcase down. Sat. Crossed one leg over the other.Then he looked at Mr. Bianchi.Mr. Bianchi looked back at him.“Mr. Keene.” Mr. Bianchi recovered his voice first. “We weren’t expecting you so quickly after your wedding to the CEO.” “Clearly.” Dorian smiled. It was a perfectly pleasant smile. “Please, don’t stop on my account. I believe you were requesting the head of finance position?”Murmurs crept around the table.Caspian sat beside him, quiet, watching every step. Dorian opened his briefcase, drew out a file, and placed it on the table without any hurry. “Before we entertain that request, I think it’s only fair that the board hears what Mr. Vale and I have already discussed.” He glanced around the room slowly, making brief eye contact with e

103 ~ The Seat She Bought

“I believe my paperwork is already in order.” Victoria set her handbag on the table and pulled out her chair like she had been sitting in that boardroom her whole life. She smoothed her blazer, crossed her legs, and looked at the document Bianchi slid across to her with the calmness of someone receiving exactly what they had always been owed.Nobody spoke.Dorian watched her pick up the document and look it over. She wasn’t reading it. She already knew every word on every line. She was performing the reading of it, slowly, for the benefit of everyone sitting around that table.He picked up his pen and tapped it once against his notepad.Caspian sat beside him with both hands flat on the table.The board members exchanged glances the way people do when something has gone wrong and nobody wants to be the first one to say so. The HR head cleared his throat but didn’t follow through with any words. The finance representative stared at her folder.Bianchi stood up.“I trust everything i

104 ~ Something Growing

Immediately Dorian stepped out of the house and Amara persuaded Ronan a little, the house grew into a quiet space. Amara then went over to the living room window and watched the car back out of the driveway until it disappeared around the corner. Then she turned back inside, pulling her cardigan tighter around herself even though it wasn’t cold.The morning had that particular stillness that only came when the busier people in the house had gone off to be busy somewhere else. No briefcases. No Xavier appearing at the door. No Dorian moving through the hallway like a man running slightly late and pretending he wasn’t.Just the house. Just her.And Ronan, who was on the couch with his legs stretched out, staring at the ceiling with the blank expression of a man who had been staring at that ceiling for a while and had not yet found whatever he was looking for up there.Amara sat on the opposite end of the couch and tucked her feet beneath her. She picked up her book from the side table

105 ~ Date Night

Dorian stood in front of the wardrobe for longer than he would ever admit. He pulled out a shirt, held it up, and put it back. Pulled out another one. He held it up. Caspian appeared in the doorway behind him, already dressed, jacket on, and watched this process for approximately ten seconds.“You look fine in everything you own,” Caspian said.“That’s not helpful.”“It’s factual.”Dorian put the second shirt back and reached for the first one again. Caspian pushed off the doorframe and crossed the room. He reached past Dorian into the wardrobe, pulled out a deep navy shirt without hesitating, and held it out.Dorian looked at it. Then at him.“That one,” Caspian said simply.Dorian took it. Caspian walked back out without another word and Dorian stood there holding the shirt for a moment with a small, private smile that he made sure nobody was around to see.~~~~~The restaurant was quiet in the way that good restaurants are quiet. Not empty, not loud, just full enough to feel alive

106 ~ Fifty Fifty

Dr. McMasters had a way of delivering difficult news that Dorian had noticed the first time he met him. He didn’t soften it too much and he didn’t drop it on you all at once either. He found the middle ground, the place where honesty and care could sit in the same sentence, and he spoke from there.That morning, he sat across from both of them in his office with the file open on the desk in front of him and his hands folded on top of it.“The condition has progressed,” he said. “Not dramatically, but enough that we can’t keep pushing the surgery back. If we wait much longer, we start losing options. Which is why I’ve done my best to shift Dorian’s name forward as promised.”Dorian nodded. He had his hands rested on his knees and he was listening with the focused stillness of someone who had already made up their mind and was now just collecting the information they needed to move forward.Beside him, Caspian sat with his back straight and his eyes on Dr. McMasters and said nothing.“N

107 ~ Crack in the foundation

Four days had passed since the hospital meeting with Dr. McMasters. And life had a way of continuing around difficult things, filling in the spaces with ordinary moments until the difficult thing felt less like a wall and more like something you were learning to carry. The surgery date had not been confirmed yet. Dr. McMasters had said he would contact them by the end of the week. Until then, there was work. There was breakfast in the morning. There was Amara laughing at something Ronan said too loudly and Alexandra telling them both to behave at the table.Life continued. And in continuing, it helped.Dorian and Caspian arrived at Vale Enterprises on Monday morning and walked into their respective offices the way water finds its level. Naturally. Without forcing anything.Dorian had been gone from the office long enough that some of the newer staff didn't know him by face yet. He was aware of this. He used it. He spent the first hour walking through quietly, observing, asking quest

108 ~ The Night Everything Shifted

108 ~ The Night Everything Shifted. Victoria hadn't come to have dinner with her parents. She had come with a plan—to obtain some important documents from her father.Martins kept physical copies of everything important in the safe inside his bedroom. Contracts, company records, and old agreements that predated digital filing. She knew the safe's combination. She had watched him open it enough times over the years without him ever noticing.Dinner was just the cover.They ate. The family didn’t have much to say other than the older couple discussing their health status. But Victoria’s mind was elsewhere.“Can they just finish eating already?” She muttered. “Victoria,” her mother called gently. “Don’t you think it’s high time we leave Caspian alone?” “Why?” She asked.“He knows everything already. We took his sister. You kidnapped Dorian.” Martins replied.“And so?” She asked her father.“If he takes this up legally, we might get cooked. Even now, I’m scared the sins of our pasts

109 ~ What She Did After

Dorian and Caspian were halfway down the stairs when they heard the sound emitting from the television in the living room. The morning news anchor’s voice carried clean and clear up to where Dorian and Caspian had both stopped walking at the same time without deciding to.“Breaking news. Martins Keene, CEO of Keene Enterprises, was pronounced dead late last night at the family residence. Authorities confirm the death is being treated as suspicious following toxicology findings. A suspect is currently in custody.” Dorian gripped the stair railing.They came down the rest of the stairs quickly and walked into the living room. Alexandra was standing in front of the television with a dish towel in her hand and her mouth slightly open.Nobody said anything.The anchor continued.“Eloise Keene, wife of the deceased, was taken into custody late last night following evidence linking her to the incident. Sources close to the family confirm that financial disputes and pending divorce proceedi

110 ~ What She Told Him

Dorian had known Eloise his whole life. She had always been a neat woman. And she had always been careful with her appearance in the quiet way of someone who considered it a form of self-respect. Even on ordinary days she had carried herself with a stillness that felt deliberate.The woman sitting at the table looked nothing like that.Her hair was loose and unwashed. Her clothes were the same ones from the night before. There was a dried streak on her cheek that she hadn't wiped away and her hands on the table were not still. They moved constantly, her fingers pressing together, releasing, and pressing again.Dorian sat across from her. "Eloise."She didn't look up."Eloise, look at me."She raised her eyes. When she saw his face something in hers crumpled briefly before she pulled it back together."Dorian," she said. Her voice was rough."Tell me what happened."She looked back down at the table.The room was quiet.Outside the door, a phone rang somewhere down the corridor and w

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