THE OFFICE, PT. 1

Your words will always have power, babe. Be careful with what you say.

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CHAPTER XIV

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“YOU'RE PLANNING TO go to church looking like that?”

“Yeah? What's wrong?”

“Araceli! That is way too revealing,” Emma yelled as I rolled my eyes at her antics.

“When God created Adam and Eve, he didn't give them any clothes,” I said as she let out a huff of annoyance and turned away from me. “In fact, they only started wearing clothes when they disobeyed God's wishes and felt ashamed. They wore clothes because they had something to hide.”

Emma froze for a second and just stared at herself in the mirror before slowly turning around and staring at me. “I have many issues with what you just said,” she said as I folded my arms across my chest and gave her a challenging look. “But I think my biggest one is the fact that a part of me agrees with you.”

I gave her a victorious smile and turned to the full length mirror, deciding to reconsider my outfit instead of basking in my minor win. I wore a dark blue high waisted skirt that reached my mid-thigh and a plain white crop top with short sleeves and a swoop neckline. The outfit only revealed a tiny bit of my stomach and not much of my chest, but a lot of my legs and arms.

“Do you think it really is revealing?” I asked as I began to doubt my confidence.

“No,” Emma said, rolling her eyes as she opened the door to leave. “Be Adam and Eve.” And then she left.

I huffed and pulled on my white sneakers before grabbing the light, grey cardigan sitting on the chair and throwing it on over my shoulders. I followed Emma out of her room and ran down the hallway after her until I was walking by her side.

She was wearing a large NY shirt tucked into her own denim skirt and grey vans.

“I mean,” I began as she opened the front door and walked towards the outdoors garage. “It's not like what you're wearing isn't a little revealing either.”

“It is revealing. But you know what I'm not going to do? Go for confession. That's what,” she said as she walked up to the driver who was standing under the canopy.

I rolled my eyes as she began conversing with him and looked around the open garden. The sun beat down heavily on the large courtyard and, while the people hid away behind the shade, the large trees and flower bushes thrived and flourished. A lot of them even looked like they were going to start growing fruit soon.

“Emma?” I snapped my gaze towards where the voice was coming from and felt my heart flutter once I realised it was Daniel. He was dressed casually in a pair of dark jeans and a white, body hugging t-shirt.

He paid no attention to me even though I couldn't be anymore obvious with my flashy white top and instead kept his focus on his sister as she turned to look at him.

“Daniel! Araceli and I were going to head into town. Did you want to use this car?” she asked him.

At the mention of my name, his eyes finally met mine and I felt my breath hitch as he took his time to take in my 'revealing' outfit.

Without a word spoken to me, he diverted his attention back to his sister and I was pushed to the sidelines as the two siblings conversed. I ignored the aching feeling in my chest and instead turned back to my surroundings again.

It was Sunday and although I had missed mass waiting for Emma to get dressed and ready, I still planned to show up to church anyway. Maybe request for the priest to pray for me in his free time and light a candle or something.

“Araceli.” I snapped my eyes away from the ever-growing trees and towards Emma as she turned to me with a frown. “Daniel says he wants to come with us into town because he has a bit of business to do and he doesn't want me out alone. Do you mind?”

“Why should I mind?”

She rolled her eyes and scoffed at the confused look on my face, annoyed at my lack of reaction. “Because we're going to be stuck in the office for a while. And then when we're not, we're constantly going to be having my big brother watching over us as we shop.”

I watched her expectantly for a few minutes, waiting for her to say the part that I actually would have a problem with only to realise moments later that in her mind she had. She really didn't know that an ideal day to me was a day spent in Daniels company.

“Oh no. That's awful,” I said half heartedly.

“You're such a bad liar.”

“Maybe. Or I might just want you to believe that,” I said as Emma opened the door and gestured for me to get in. Without even thinking, I slid into the car only to halt in the middle seat when I noticed Daniel sitting in the driver's side.

Wordlessly and with a changed demeanor, I slid all the way to the side door as Emma came in and shut the door behind her.

The ride was tense and filled with an awkward silence as I tried all I could to avoid looking at my boss. Every time I did, my mind would drift off to my last punishment and I'd end up getting either really aroused or really ashamed. Sometimes, maybe even both.

Daniel seemed to have no problem at all ignoring my entire existence as he kept one hand on the steering wheel and weaved through light traffic. Eventually, we pulled up into the outside parking lot of a tall, glass skyscraper that stole my breath away from for a few seconds.

I snapped out of it as I heard the car door shut and quickly got out of my seat before running after the siblings that were already making their way towards the back door of the building.

“There's Pablo,” Daniel said, stopping in front of us and turning to Emma as he pointed to where the dark haired man was standing by the door with a cigarette between his fingers. “Stay either by me or by him at all times. Don't stray away.”

“Bye,” was Emma's immediate response as she began to walk away from her brother towards Pablo instead. I didn't know whether to stay by Daniel's side or make my way over to Emma, but the man that approached me seconds later didn't allow me the option.

“Hey, beautiful,” he said as he instantly reached out to trail his fingertips down my arm. I stared at where he was touching me before looking back up to meet his blue eyes. He had slight stubble around his mouth and was more on the lanky side with dark hair.

He wasn't exactly beautiful, but he wasn't ugly either. A solid five out of ten, maybe. That wasn't my main concern though.

I snatched my arm away from him, finding it disrespectful of him to just come up to me and start touching me without even making a decent attempt at conversation.

For the first time in my entire twenty years of life, I wished that I had some kind of infectious skin disease so I could pass it on to him.

“What's wrong, beautiful? Don't like it when I touch you?” he asked, not getting the jist and grabbing my arm tightly before pulling me roughly into him.

I let out a sound of pain, but tried tugging my arm out of his grasp again. At this point he was only doing it because he knew I didn't like it. I knew the best way to get out of this confrontation was to stop struggling and act passive because he wasn't going to hurt me, but my heartbeat was skyrocketing and I wasn't willing to have a panic attack right in the out and open.

Men were so difficult to deal with.

“Why don't you try talking to me and then I might consider letting you go?” he said, tugging my arm violently. I let out a small cry of pain and hoped that nobody heard, but someone seemed to have.

“Miguel. Leave her alone. Let her go.”

I looked up with grateful eyes as Pablo came to my rescue with Emma staring worriedly at me from behind him.

The man - Miguel - kept his grip on my arm, but turned back to sneer at Pablo.

“And why should I do that? I'm only trying to teach this bitch a bit of respect,” he said, digging his nails into my skin as I bit my lip to hide my pain. I had no idea how I had disrespected him for wanting my own basic human right, but now wasn't the time to argue.

“Leave her alone,” Pablo reiterated slowly as if talking to a toddler. “She's Daniel's girl.”

That was an obvious lie between him, Emma and I but if it was going to get me out of the situation faster, then I wasn't going to go against it.

Not that I would have even if I wasn't in my awful position, but that fact wasn't up for discussion.

“Bullshit,” Miguel said as his grip loosened on my arm. I didn't miss the fleeting look of trepidation that appeared on his face. “If she was, he wouldn't have left her here. He would've come down to get her.”

He had a fair point.

“For now,” was all Pablo had to say before Miguel had let go of my arm completely.

I pressed my palm to the bruise that was forming on my skin and hissed at the pain, but Miguel showed no signs of remorse and instead smirked at me as he slowly started to back away with his hands raised in surrender.

“Well then, sweetheart, when boss finally gets tired of you, you know where to find me.”

I couldn't even dish to him one of my more 'disrespectful' attitudes as he was already gone. And I was kind of scared for my life, not going to lie about it.

“Go to Daniel,” Pablo said as I looked to him. I didn't want to go to Daniel because that meant walking through the building filled with horny men alone. Plus, he had been ignoring my presence since this morning.

I didn't want to be put in a situation where there was nothing else left to do but* acknowledge me only to have him still not do it.

“Go,” he said, pushing me towards the elevator at the end of the large reception. “You'll be fine. He's on the fifteenth floor.”

With a small, hesitant nod, I began walking towards the elevator, ignoring all the lingering stares I felt on me as I went. I actually had the urge to pull my skirt down and that was all new to me.

Eventually, I found myself alone in the spacious elevator, ascending the floors until it had reached the fifteenth and the doors pinged open.

I stepped out into the lavish space and started wondering why I wasn't rich again. I mean, I sure deserved it.

The floors were made of polished white marble and the walls were floor to ceiling windows on this floor unlike most other floors.

The place was completely open with glass walls to separate different rooms so you could see into offices, conference rooms and guest lounges, although the option to bring down the blinds were always there. There was a space completely blocked off from my view by the wooden vibes and after reading the sign on the door, I quickly found out that it was the staff room

What staff? I bit down the question and continued looking around with childlike wonder.

The small bits of decor that wasn't office furniture were either green like the large plants or black like the sofa and the coffee tables in the lobby.

“What are you doing here?” someone asked from my side, startling me out of my gaping as I spun around to see Daniel rummaging through some files on a wooden desk.

The door was wide open, making it possible for me to hear him and the blinds were only partially drawn.

Upon not getting an answer from me, he looked up and raised an eyebrow at my silence.

“Um, Pablo told me to come up here,” I said, clasping my hands in front of me. I didn't know if I should continue standing there if I should make my way over to him. He looked busy as he worked his way through the papers with furrowed eyebrows.

“And why did he tell you to do that?”

*****

IMPORTANT! PLEASE READ.

So, between now and next week I'll be changing essentially everything about this book. I'll be changing the title, the cover and, quite possibly, the description (if I can think of anything better.)

I'm changing the title of this book to 'His Woman' so I can name the sequel 'His Queen'. It makes sense lmao.

As for the cover, I'm not sure about them so if you could tell me which one you like the most, that would help me a shit ton. Here are the two options:

Or

I know they're not that great, but I really want to use one of these because Araceli isn't white.

Also, since you're still here, do you mind telling me your most preferred for the sequel as well?

The last one was a cover created by @key she also made one for MK as well and I'm so grateful.

Thank you for your time! I'm updating again in a few minutes because... Lmao... This is a split chapter. I still haven't learnt my lesson.

:)