All Chapters of Just Before My Wedding: Trapped By My Ruthless Boss: Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

KISAREL."Kisarel Harry. It's been a long time coming..."The strange words from that strange voice replayed in my head, doing all it could to compete with all the emotions I was drowning in.When I answered the strange call in the hallway while holding my breath in order not to cry into the phone, those were the only words that filtered into my ears before the call ended.I tried calling back countless times, but to no avail. And no matter how hard I tried to brush it off so I could focus on the tears that wouldn't stop pouring from my eyes, it still always managed to make its way to the front of my mind.My eyes were so sore from squeezing them too hard for the past two hours that I had no more tears to spare.Slowly, my embarrassment turned into pure, untamed anger.Who the hell did he think he was?Why the hell did he think he could treat people the way he liked and get away with it just like that, because he was the Almighty Oceans Stark?No. He wasn't getting away with this one.

OCEANS.Harold was treading a dangerous path, and he fucking knew it."I'm asking because I genuinely want to understand." He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and looked at me with a careful, unafraid attention. "You buried her. You buried her that very night — the same night it happened — and you have never once spoken her name since, never grieved her properly, never spoke about what happened, never allowed anyone around you to acknowledge that she existed, and you built everything that came after on top of that. This office. This version of yourself. All of it." He paused. "And we both know that. We have always both known that.""Stop talking." The words came out absolutely quietly.He didn't stop."And now you are sitting here, unable to do anything productive, and a PA's name still live in the staff directory because you cannot bring yourself to close that file. And you want to look me in the eye and tell me this is all normal and professional?" He shook his head slowly. "Oce

OCEANS.I kept my eyes on my phone.Three sixteen PM.For the better part of the one hour I sat in that conference room, I had developed a routine so consistent it had practically become scheduled.Pick up the phone. Look at the screen like it were a fucking ticking bomb. Register the absence of what I was yearning for. Place the phone face down on the table. And pick it up again.Rinse and repeat.For one hour.She still hadn't replied.Fuck.I picked up my pen and looked at Hargrove, the client across the table. He was a careful man in his sixties who managed a private equity portfolio that Stark Sovereign Capital had been courting for the better part of three months.I gave him the version of my attention that I had available right now, which was not the version he deserved and not the version I was known for delivering in settings like this one.She hadn't reported to work, either... I returned to my thoughts, keeping half my attention in the room.I tapped my pen against the edge

OCEANS.I barely caught any sleep. I have never had a night as long as this one in my entire life.I was at war all through the night with different versions of myself, and none of them were winning cleanly.The version that kept pushing me to call Reeves at three in the morning just to know what progress he had made.The version that had me three taps away from dialing the police and reporting a missing person before I caught myself and put the phone face down on the nightstand, while staring at the ceiling and asking myself some very serious questions about what exactly I thought I was doing.The one that made me search her up on all the social media platforms to see the kind of friends she keeps and if she had made any posts that could disclose her whereabouts...And there. That's the version of myself I allowed to take the lead.I spent almost an hour scrolling through every social media platform I knew of. It wasn't difficult to find her profile each time. Not many ladies bear ra

OCEANS.Three hours and one hundred and eight thousand dollars later, I hadn't even scratched the surface of what I was willing to do."Oceans." She was slightly breathless trying to keep up with my stride as I led her into the next boutique. "This is already too much. How am I supposed to pay all of this back?""You will," I said, without breaking stride."I already owe you almost seventy thousand from before...""You owed the office seventy thousand." I glanced at her briefly. "What you're accumulating today, you owe me."She processed that for a second. "That still adds up to an obscene amount of money. How long would I have to work to clear all of it?"I stopped walking, and she almost walked into me.I turned and looked down at her, the worry sitting plainly on her face, the way she was doing the mental arithmetic in real time and not liking where it was landing, and put both hands in my pockets."You'll work for as long as it takes, Kiss.""But...""There are other payment plans