I'm In Love With My Bestfriend's Billionaire Fiance!
Chapter 113: Not In The Board Meeting!

Chapter 113: Not In The Board Meeting!

(Casey’s POV)

_____________

The conference hall where the meeting was being held felt like a prison, and I was the inmate losing my grip on time.

The meeting was supposed to be important—I needed these new clients if I was going to progress any further once Kira’s wedding was over—but I couldn’t focus even if my life depended on it. The air around me felt thick, oppressive, like it had taken on weight. Words were flying across the room—strategies, action plans, analytics—but they slid past my ears like water over glass. None of it landed. None of it mattered.

Not when every second that ticked by drove a deeper spike of dread into my chest.

I sat there, barely blinking, my eyes constantly flicking down to the smooth, dark surface of my phone resting face-up beside my tablet. It hadn’t vibrated. No ping, no buzz. Just a black screen, as silent and unmoving as a corpse. I tapped it again, just to make sure—once, twice. The screen flared to life. Full signal. The battery was nearly full. No missed calls. No messages.

So why hadn’t she called yet?

Where the fuck was Janet?

It had been ten minutes since she told me she was getting on the bus—ten minutes that felt like a slow bleed. Ten minutes where my mind had conjured every conceivable catastrophe: a wrong turn, a broken-down bus, a mugger on the street, a shadow following her from a distance... ten minutes that made Paragon Park feel like it was on the other side of the world instead of just a few miles away.

I clenched my jaw and forced my eyes back to the front of the room. One of the clients was still speaking, her voice was a bland monotone— for some reason, she seemed focused on the kind of flowers that would be present at the wedding. I could barely hear her through the pounding of my own heartbeat in my ears.

A bead of sweat slid down the back of my neck.

No one noticed how rigid I sat, how I hadn’t taken a single note in nearly half an hour. They were too absorbed in the giddy feeling that came from wedding jitters to see that my world was slowly unraveling.

Another glance at my phone. The son of a bitch was still dark.

I wanted to scream.

She should’ve reached by now. Janet had said that she was close to the bus terminal, and I knew that from there Paragon Park wasn’t far at all, and security—hell, how long could that possibly take? A couple of guards with bored expressions and metal detectors? Unless... unless someone stopped her. A security official?

Just then, the thought hit me like a slap—like a flickering lightbulb in the back of my brain. A single image, uninvited but razor-sharp, cut through the fog clouding my thoughts. A face. His face.

Maven.

That damned photograph of Maven I saw last night—staring away from the camera like he knew someone was watching. That face had burrowed into my subconscious, waiting for the perfect moment to claw itself out—and now it did.

The eyes. The set of his jaw. The familiarity was still there, something that gnawed at the edges of my memory like rats in the walls of a crumbling house. Why the hell was this bothering me so much? Why now?

I’d seen him before. I knew I had. But the context kept slipping through my fingers like smoke. I’d tried to place him last night. I spent nearly an hour scrolling through old social feeds, old contact lists, and even public forums, hoping to find a match—some link to a forgotten party, a brief encounter, or anything. But nothing stuck.

And now, it was still the same thing!

The memory hadn’t returned, not fully. But the feeling had.

The one that kept me awake for hours. That whispered that something wasn’t right. That sense of recognition twisted with dread, like walking into a room and realizing too late you’re not alone. However, I had to take back control. I couldn’t allow Maven to keep handling us like this.

I cast a quick glance at Liam.

His brow was still furrowed, lips pursed tight in that familiar expression that usually meant he was silently panicking—but holding it together. Bless him. Despite whatever chaos was ricocheting off me like invisible bullets, he was soldiering through. Sitting upright, nodding at the right times, asking the right questions, even flashing that effortless, charming smile when needed. He was trying to keep the meeting from unraveling completely. And for the most part, he was succeeding.

God knew I wasn’t.

My mind wasn’t in that room. My body was seated there, stiff in the designer chair, but everything else—my focus, my calm, my sense of control—was caught in a whirlwind of anxiety spinning violently around Kira and Janet. Every scenario that hadn’t happened yet, every disaster that could be unfolding while I sat there pretending to care about table arrangements and floral arches, kept dragging me further away from the conversation.

I heard my name—or something close to it—and jolted like someone had tossed a bucket of cold water in my face.

"So?" one of the clients said, her voice cutting cleanly through the fog in my head. "Do we have a deal?"

It took me a full second to realize she was waiting for a response.

I blinked and offered a faint, polite smile, even as my fingers pinched the inside of my thigh beneath the table—hard. The pain shot upward, snapping the mental loop of worst-case scenarios long enough for me to force a breath through my nose. I nodded faintly, easing myself back into the present.

Focus. You have to focus.

I turned my attention to the client—the one who had spoken. She was petite and delicately built with a light frame. Her skin had the sheen of someone who either had an excellent skincare regimen or was currently high on the intoxicating delusion that love solved everything. Maybe both. And she kept flashing her engagement ring like it was a beacon—twisting her hand just so the light hit the stone. Every ten seconds.

She didn’t care whether I noticed or not. She just needed the world to know. She was getting married. To him. The love of her life.

I didn’t care. Not even a little.

But what I did care about was delivering her the kind of wedding she could brag about for the rest of her life—and not just because it was my job. Because it was the only thing right now that felt remotely in my control.

I cleared my throat, voice steadying. "You’ve certainly given us a lot to consider," I said smoothly, as if I hadn’t just mentally walked through a dozen firestorms. "Some of the requests will take a bit of coordination and restructuring. But not to worry. We’ll go through everything and make sure nothing gets overlooked."

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Liam shift slightly in his seat. His head turned toward me, just a fraction. He wasn’t saying anything, but I could feel the confusion rolling off him. This wasn’t the script. We were supposed to close the deal today. Everything had lined up for a perfect sign-off. But I’d veered.

And I kept going.

"We’ll have a detailed plan ready for you by tomorrow," I added. "It’ll include the adjustments we can make, as well as some creative enhancements to elevate the whole experience. Liam—" I gestured toward him with practiced ease "—will reach out shortly to get the remaining specifics."

Both women—still giggling, still glowing—nodded happily, oblivious to the slight temperature shift in the room. They stood, gathered their leather folders and color samples, and offered quick thanks before breezing out the door like two butterflies unaware of the hurricane nearby.

The moment the door clicked shut, the air turned leaden.

Liam snapped toward me.

"Are you seriously trying to sabotage the firm?" he hissed, his usual cheer nowhere in sight. "This was done, Casey. Wrapped with a bow. All you had to do was say yes. Why delay it?"

I didn’t respond at first. I just sat there, staring at the now-empty chairs across the table, my heart racing again—not from his anger, but from the echo of something far more dangerous unraveling outside those walls.

Liam stood, pacing now, his hands slicing through the air with every word. "You know how many big accounts have fallen through for less? They’ll go home, rethink it, call another firm, and boom—we’re the cautionary tale at brunch."

Still, I said nothing.

Because I finally understood what I’d just done.

I nodded slowly, the weight of it pressing hard against my chest. I could see it now, clear as day. That tiny decision—delaying a simple yes—wasn’t just a crack in the meeting. It was a fault line through everything I’d built.

As his words rose in the air, I slowly nodded. I could see now how careless my tiny act had been. There was so much more at stake than just Kira’s safety.

My future was also at stake here! And if I wasn’t careful, I could lose it as well!

Search the lightnovelworld.cc website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.