My Arrogant Boss Did The Unthinkable To Save Face — And Now I’m Trapped
Part 2
“We were just leaving.”
“Brenda is prone to severe chills in the morning air, and I will not have my future wife falling ill.”
He pulled me to my feet.
My legs were entirely numb from the hours spent shivering on the leather sofa.
The French silk of my dress clung uncomfortably to the damp skin of my back, the fabric hopelessly crushed.
I stumbled forward, my ankle giving way as my blistered heel protested the movement.
Tyler caught my waist immediately.
His fingers dug deeply into the stiff fabric of my waist.
It was not a romantic gesture.
It was a structural necessity.
He practically hauled me past the gaping, paralyzed maid and the hyperventilating HR director.
He dragged me out of the library and down the grand sweeping staircase of the Harrington Resort.
The morning air outside was vicious.
A wet, gray dawn had broken, smelling sharply of wet asphalt and rain.
The valet, sleepy and slumped by the front doors, snapped to attention, openly staring at the disheveled pair.
Tyler ignored them utterly, snapping his fingers at the driver with a sharp, echoing crack that cut through the fog.
We did not speak as the heavy black SUV lurched into motion.
I sat rigidly against the dark leather seats.
The adrenaline that had spiked in the library was rapidly draining out of my blood, leaving a hollow, sickening exhaustion in its wake.
I looked across the cabin.
Tyler was staring out the tinted window at the passing rows of trees.
His jaw was locked so tightly I could see the muscle ticking beneath his skin.
In the harsh, unforgiving morning light, the deep lines of fatigue around his mouth made him look a decade older than thirty-two.
“You didn’t have to announce us like a corporate acquisition,” I spat, my voice vibrating with sheer resentment.
The adrenaline was rapidly turning into a corrosive anger at his high-handed arrogance.
“Announce what?” he asked, his tone cold and calculating as he refused to turn his head.
“That we are to be married.”
“You could have said we were trapped.”
“You could have told her the door was locked.”
Tyler slowly turned his face toward me.
His pale gray eyes were entirely devoid of warmth.
“Explain to Megan, the woman who spread a rumor that our CFO was embezzling simply because he missed a Tuesday meeting.”
He let out a harsh, bitter breath.
“By noon, the story will be that I compromised you on a conference table.”
“By dinner, they will say you are already pregnant.”
“The only defense against a scandal of that magnitude is a wedding band.”
I swallowed hard, tasting bile at the back of my throat.
“My father will kill you.”
“Your father is drowning in corporate debt, Brenda,” Tyler stated, the truth brutal and unvarnished.
“He will likely kiss me.”
The reality of the statement made my stomach turn.
When the SUV finally ground to a halt outside my father’s house, a crumbling suburban estate with peeling paint, Tyler did not leave me at the door.
He followed me inside.
The foyer smelled of cheap floor wax and old coffee.
My father was sitting at his messy desk, eating dry toast while looking at the ledger of his failing agency.
He looked up, his eyes widening to comical proportions at the sight of his eldest daughter dressed in ruined evening wear at seven in the morning, accompanied by my billionaire boss.
“Your daughter and I are to be married,” Tyler said.
He didn’t sit down.
He stood by the hearth, commanding the cramped room with sheer, exhausted authority.
My father blinked.
The initial shock and anger drained from his face with terrifying speed, replaced immediately by a greedy, opportunistic calculation.
He looked from Tyler’s wrinkled shirt to my pale, hollowed face.
“I found myself overwhelmed by my affections,” Tyler lied smoothly, his tone brokering no argument.
“I compromised her honor.”
“I am entirely at fault, and I am here to make immediate financial reparations by acquiring your firm’s debts.”
I stood by the door, my hands trembling inside the oversized pockets of the wool jacket.
I felt like a piece of antique furniture being appraised.
My father didn’t ask if I was unharmed.
He didn’t ask if I had consented.
“Well,” my father said, clearing his throat and straightening his posture.
“Then I suppose congratulations are in order.”
Tyler pulled a thick leather portfolio from his briefcase and unfastened the straps.
I stared at the contract he pushed across the table, my hand trembling as I reached for the pen, wondering what exactly Tyler West really wanted from me, and what terrifying clauses were hidden at the bottom of the page?
