All Chapters of Involved with my Boss's Fiancee's Lover: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

▪ Melly ▪The Jeremy Empire building is too much glass for nine in the morning, but Anella forgot her anxiety meds and I'm a phenomenal best friend.I've just finished a brutal twelve hour shift at Saint Mercy Hospital. My teal scrub top doesn't match my navy blue pants, my hair is piled on top of my head in a messy knot that defies gravity and I smell like industrial bleach. Yet here I am standing in a corporate lobby that probably costs more than my medical degree.Anella is the strongest person I know but lately she looks like she's carrying the weight of the universe. She's paying for Jericho and his endless physical therapy sessions. She's constantly on edge. I know she's hiding something huge from me because best friends always know when the foundation is cracking. So when I find her little orange pill bottle on my kitchen counter after she crashed at my place last night, I don't think twice about bringing it to her.I bypass the front desk security with a brilliantly delivered

▪ Kerry ▪My father's office always smells like expensive scotch and bitter disappointment, two things I've grown intimately familiar with over the last twenty-six years.I sit rigidly in the oversized leather wingback chair across from his desk. I keep my spine perfectly straight and my ankles elegantly crossed. My posture is something designed to hide the fact that my hands are trembling slightly in my lap. I dig my nails into the expensive fabric of my Chanel skirt to anchor myself.Marlon Showers doesn't even bother looking up from the financial ledger open on his desk. He pours himself another generous measure of wine from his crystal decanter. The clinking sound of ice against glass echoes loudly in the spacious room."It's incomprehensible to me, Kerry," my father begins in that highclass drawl that always makes my stomach turn, "how you have managed to wear a ring of such extraordinary value for six entire months without having the bare minimum competence required to extract a

The midnight oil burning in the conference room feels like it's literally suffocating us both.The rain in New Greenland is relentless outside. It batters against the floor-to-ceiling glass of the conference room, turning the city lights into smeared streaks of neon blood.It is 10:45 PM.June left three hours ago to have dinner with Kerry. Before he left, he dropped a stack of merger contracts on my desk, thick enough to kill a man, and gave me a simple order: “Don’t let Mr. Shield leave until he signs every single page. I don’t care if you have to chain him to the chair.”So, here I am. Chaining him. Metaphorically.Foxe Shield sits at the head of the long mahogany table. He discarded his jacket hours ago. His charcoal dress shirt is rolled up to his elbows, revealing forearms that are distractingly bulging with muscle. He's reading a clause in the contract with the focus of a predator watching a gazelle, twirling a Montblanc pen between his fingers.He hasn’t spoken in forty minute

The smell of Saint Mercy Hospital always tastes like bleach.I stand silently in the doorway of room 400 and watch my brother sleep. Jericho looks too small in the hospital bed. The heavy pain medication finally dragged him under after a grueling two-hour physical therapy session. His face is exceptionally pale. His jaw is drawn tight with exhaustion. I lean against the cold metal doorframe and feel my heart completely shatter inside my chest.I close my eyes and remember a time before the car crash. Our parents died when I was sixteen; a drunk driver crossed a solid yellow line and ended their lives in a matter of seconds. Jericho was only thirteen at the time, but he immediately stepped up to protect me. Our house used to smell like warm bread and old books before the bank took it away. Jericho promised he would never leave me alone. He worked three part-time jobs in high school just to make sure we had food on the table while I studied for my college entrance exams. He sacrificed h

My apartment is my sanctuary. It's a tiny, overpriced shoebox on the 12th floor of a building that perpetually smells like boiled cabbage, but it's mine. It is the one place in New Greenland where I don’t have to be Anella Bymor, Executive Assistant. The one place where I don’t have to deal with June’s manic episodes or Kerry’s hate.And, theoretically, the one place safe from Foxe Shield.I unlock my door, hobbling inside, feeling exhausted. It’s been three miserable days since the wet floor sign "accident" in the executive lobby. My left ankle is still wrapped in an ACE bandage, throbbing with every step. I've successfully managed to avoid Foxe completely since. I blocked his personal number. I aggressively routed his emails to my spam folder. I've been determined to cut the dangerous billionaire out of my life permanently.I kick off my right flat, groaning as I drop my keys on the small kitchen counter.“You really need to upgrade your deadbolt, darling. It took me less than twelv