All Chapters of Just Before My Wedding: Trapped By My Ruthless Boss: Chapter 121 - Chapter 130

KISAREL.Nessa unlocked her phone with a swipe, her thumbs moving quickly across the screen. I watched her scroll, my pulse already climbing."After the man died—the one who bumped into you at the park—I couldn't let it go." She didn't look up. "I paid someone else to pull footage from the motel. Someone who owed me a favor."She found what she was looking for and turned the phone toward me.For a second, I didn’t want to see whatever she had. I wanted to stand up, walk out of the diner, go back to Jace’s house, and pretend I had not seen that ring or dragged Oceans into this mess by force.But my curiosity got the best of me.The clip was short. Maybe thirty seconds. The quality was better than the vendor's, even though it was still terribly grainy; the lighting was a bit stronger.It was an indoor footage of a narrow corridor with a row of identical doors and a flickering light at the far end that the camera kept trying to correct for. The timestamp in the corner had been cropped ou

MOONIE.Just for the record, I'm not crazy. I want that on record before anyone tries to make me feel crazy.I am not crazy.There was something uniquely humiliating about being beautiful and still unwanted.Being overlooked or ignored by ordinary men with ordinary taste would have been easier to dismiss.Men wanted me. Men always wanted me. Men looked twice, stumbled over words, and even pretended not to stare at my perfectly toned legs when I crossed them.But Oceans Stark?My fiancé?He looked at me like I was a debt he had agreed to pay in installments.And Kisarel, with her sad little eyes and stupid quiet suffering? All she has to do is walk into a room, and suddenly, my fiancé forgets how to breathe.I hit the gear some more.The city lights blurred past my windshield, but all I could see was his face at dinner when Jace knelt in front of her. That crack of glass. His blood. His eyes on her like the rest of us had stopped existing.Kisarel had somehow become a problem to me agai

OCEANS.I'd barely cleared the threshold of my own office before the door slammed open behind me.I didn't turn around to know who it was. I knew the weight of that walk.Harold had followed me the whole way from the boardroom, close enough that I'd felt him at my back like a second pulse."What the fuck is wrong with you?"I turned slowly. "Excuse me?""You heard me." He crossed the room, stopping inches from my face. "What. The fuck. Is wrong with you?"I set my jaw and took a step back. "Lower your voice. There's glass on three sides of this room." I rounded my desk."I don't care about the glass." He came after me, planting himself at the edge of my desk. "I care that I just watched you stand in front of that board and dare them to vote you out. Over a girl. I watched you do it.""Then you saw a man refuse to fire someone who's done nothing wrong," I said coldly."No." He said. "I saw a man set fire to his own house to keep one window warm."I dropped into my chair because standin

OCEANS."Oceans..." She said my name like it was a door she was trying to talk me back through, softly reaching for the version of me that listened to reason.He wasn't here.I'd left him in the boardroom, or maybe on the floor of my office next to Harold's blood.Whoever was sitting on this couch with her hands on my ruined knuckles had gone somewhere past reason and had no intention of coming back."Take it off," I said again, a bit slower, so there'd be no mistaking it.She held my gaze without looking away, and something in me went tight and hot watching her decide.I watched the exact moment she stopped arguing with herself."It's just for now," she said quietly.My eyes closed like the words had touched somewhere deeper than my skin.“Now is enough,” I said, though we both knew it wasn’t.She slid the ring off so slowly I felt each second in my blood.She pulled it up to her knuckle, and it resisted there for half a heartbeat. My breathing changed, and I knew she heard it becaus

OCEANS.We lay on the floor, curled up in each other's arms, and I swear to fuck, I'd rather not move a muscle if it means staying in this moment forever.The sun had climbed high while we forgot the rest of the world existed.Kisarel’s skin was warm against mine, smooth and a little damp from sweat. Her hair was everywhere, dark strands sticking to her cheek, her bangs messy across her forehead.She smelled like me now - like us... Like something I had no business needing this badly and no intention of surviving without.Her breathing had evened out against my chest, with one of her hands resting over my ribs.I traced the curve of her spine with my fingers.The war in my head had gone quiet. The silence was complete.This was the only place the war stopped.She shifted slightly, and I tightened my arm around her on pure instinct.She lifted her head, her sleepy eyes narrowing at me. “Oceans.”"No." I tightened my grip. "Stay. Five minutes."Her mouth curved a little. “We need to cle