Denied Love

10.Kiss

Today was another day that Praenarin woke up at her usual time, but she didn’t feel fully rested.

Why, you still ask?

Well, because of her wife's eagerness, of course. The young woman placed her hand on the spot where Kemjira usually slept, but it was empty.

She turned to her side, her beautiful black eyes staring at the empty space as she did every day. And as usual, she was still gone. Kemjira was never there when she woke up.

Normally, she had been sleeping alone like this since she was a child. But today, waking up and not finding her wife made her feel an unfamiliar loneliness deep inside.

Her bare body, due to the love-making activity the night before, slowly got up and moved to the dressing room. The young woman opened her cosmetics drawer and picked up the wedding ring she had taken off.

She noticed that Kemjira wore it all the time, but she, on the other hand, didn’t. Yet, Kemjira never said anything about it.

“I’m sorry, but I’m just too hurt to truly love you,”

The young woman said to the ring before losing interest and putting it back in its place.

Praenarin spent about an hour in the shower and getting dressed, then went downstairs to the dining room for breakfast, as she did every day. Of

course, she would run into her father sitting at the table with her.

Her father usually woke up early to drink coffee and then go for a walk around the house. Afterward, he would come back and have breakfast with her around seven-thirty. This routine had become so familiar to her.

“Dad, does Khem leave for work this early every day?”

As soon as the young woman sat down, she immediately asked her father, since he was likely to be the one she ran into at this time.

“Yep, she left. I heard she’s afraid of traffic, so she packs her lunch and eats it at the office.”

“I’ve never seen her in the morning. Wakes up so early, I don’t know if she’s a person or a chicken,”

She mumbled quietly about her wife while scooping rice. But even though her father was older, his hearing was still sharp.

“Well, she starts work at eight, unlike you, who starts work at nine every day. Sometimes you even come in later than that,” her father replied.

Being caught off guard, Praenarin shot her father a rebellious look.

“Well, I’m a CEO. Even you, Dad, sometimes don’t go to work until three in the afternoon. Some days, you just show up to pressure me to work,”

She retorted. Her father, Wasin, chuckled at how much Pranarin was like her mother. Sometimes, he even thought that Praenarin was more like his

wife than his daughter. But seeing her like this was good. It was better than when she used to sulk, her face always clouded with sadness.

“Well, I’m the chairman of the company. Have you done what I asked you to do regarding that person?”

“Not yet. He hasn’t come to see me, so how could I tell him?” “Then don’t forget. If he comes, make sure you tell him.”

“Okay,”

Praenarin agreed, though half-heartedly. But even if that man were to pursue her, he’d never win her heart because her heart was meant for

women only. And right now, it still belonged to Phrapai. In fact, it might always belong to her.

.

.

A well-known European car entered the CEO parking space near the building’s entrance. As soon as the young woman stepped out.

After getting out of the car, she walked into the elevator. Both male and female employees she passed greeted her, smiling shyly.

Today, the boss was wearing a white chiffon long-sleeve jumpsuit, black polyester pants, black glossy stilettos, and black sunglasses. It was a comfortable, casual look that she liked the most.

It also seemed to be the kind of look that caught the eye of everyone who saw her, creating a reaction completely opposite to her "Ice Queen" nickname.

When the elevator doors opened on her floor, the young woman walked straight toward her office with grace. She was met by Mathuros, who was already waiting by the secretary's desk.

"Good morning, Boss. We have a guest this early today," Mathuros said. "Who is it?"

"Mr. Kiri."

After receiving the information from her personal assistant, the young woman went straight to her office, thinking to herself that Mr. Kiri had been trying to approach her for several months now, ever since he became a client of their company.

In fact, it might have been even before she broke up with Phrapai. They met at her father's birthday party, and he never made her feel like he was pursuing her—until recently. If you asked if she had feelings for him, she would say no, not even 1%.

Creek.

She heard the sound of the door opening, and a tall man, over 180 cm, stood up from the sofa, holding a large bouquet of red roses.

"Good morning. You look beautiful today,"

He smiled, looking almost mesmerized by her appearance. Praenarin felt slightly uncomfortable because she knew she had a part in not telling him from the start, simply because she didn’t want anyone to know she was married, except those who needed to know.

"We don’t have a meeting scheduled for work today. Is there an urgent issue, Khun Kiri? I can call the team for a meeting right away,"

She said, pretending to speak in a professional tone.

"No, it's not that. I have something important to tell you, Khun Rin. I need to tell you."

"What is it?"

"I just wanted to thank you, Khun Rin."

He handed her the bouquet of flowers. Praenarin fell silent—not because

she was shocked by his confession, as she had seen this coming for a while now—but because she was trying to gather the right words in her head to reject him kindly, especially since he was the company's biggest client this year, and someone she had known for some time now.

"I like you so much that I don't even know how to put it into words. And if it’s not too forward, I’d like to say that I love you," he said.

"Khun Kiri…"

She didn't accept the flowers. The bouquet of roses he handed her slowly lowered as the look of disappointment crossed his face.

"Why?" he asked.

"Is there something about me you don't like? Just tell me, I’m willing to

change everything about myself for you. I just want to be with you. I think if we were together, we’d make the perfect couple, and everyone would envy us."

He spoke with such confidence, and Praenarin had to admit, she could see where he was coming from. Khun Kiri was the heir to a very wealthy real estate business, while she was the heir to a multi-billion-dollar design company with international branches.

The two of them were well-matched in both looks and wealth. But the thing was, he wasn’t her type. No matter how much more handsome he became, it just wouldn’t work.

"It’s not like that, Khun Kiri."

"Then why don’t you like me?" he asked, genuinely confused. "Because I’m married. I already have a husband."

Upon hearing this, his face went blank, and he took a step back, as if struggling to accept the truth. Praenarin stood there quietly, waiting.

"I'm not lying."

"I don’t think you are. I’m just surprised because I had no idea."

"I’m already married. And besides, you’re not my type. But don’t feel bad

—this whole world isn’t my type either."

She wasn’t sure if that would make him feel less hurt, but she felt awful having to say this to someone who had just gathered the courage to confess. She liked women, but men often flirted with her.

Usually, she would reject them politely. But with him, she couldn’t do that.

He was someone she needed to maintain a good relationship with for the company’s benefit.

It might not directly benefit her, but if she thought about it, there was one upside—his presence could make Khemjira uncomfortable whenever they were together in the canteen.

.

.

Surprisingly, instead of feeling heartbroken after being rejected, Kiri wasn’t upset at all. He returned to his condo with a large bouquet of flowers that had now become useless. He didn’t throw them away, though—he still thought they had some use.

As soon as he opened the door and stepped inside, someone rushed into his arms as if they hadn’t seen him in years.

"P’Kiri! I haven’t seen you in so many days. I missed you!"

He smiled, gently pushed the girl’s shoulders back, and glanced at the bouquet—now a reminder of his rejection.

"Here, take these flowers."

The girl, who was receiving flowers from the person she loved the most, smiled brightly. But instead of taking them, she just looked at them silently.

"P’Kiri, did you really buy these for me?"

She asked, looking back and forth between his face and the flowers. "Yeah. Take them."

"But you know I’m allergic to pollen, right?"

Kiri froze for a moment, then grabbed a large plastic bag, wrapped the bouquet tightly, and tossed it into the trash can.

"I forgot. Sorry."

He took off his jacket, threw it over the sofa, and turned his back to her, pretending not to care—for both their sakes.

"P’Kiri, I love you."

Phraphai had been waiting here patiently, enduring everything because his mother didn’t accept her. As soon as she saw him, she quickly hugged him from behind. Even though he had brought flowers that could trigger her

allergy, she still felt like he was everything to her—he always had been, even before she broke up with Praenarin.

"Even if I hurt you?"

"I love you. Even if it hurts, I still love you." " "

"Don't try to push me away. No matter what you do to me, I will still love you."

Kiri couldn’t resist her fragile presence. He turned around and wrapped his strong arms around her delicate frame. He had lured her into loving him— just to make her leave Praenarin, to clear the path for himself, just as his

mother had planned.

He had told himself he wouldn’t fall in love. But now, holding her in his arms, he couldn’t help but feel possessive of her, even though he had done everything to suppress his emotions. If this path would lead him to hell, then he was certain—he’d be falling into the deepest pit of all.

.

.

Today, Khemjira wasn't in the team's office. Instead, she was in the Working Space on the upper floor of the department, working on an urgent task given by Khun Ji the day before. She sat working while playing soft background music, but the music soon faded into the sound of a call from her wife's secretary, Khun Mathuros.

"Hello, Khun Mathuros,"

She said, setting her work aside to answer the phone. She always anticipated receiving a call from Khun Mathuros, as it meant she would get to see her beloved wife.

"Khun Khem, once you finish lunch, please come up to see the boss," Khun Mathuros said.

Khemjira glanced at her silver wristwatch. It was nearly noon, just ten more minutes. If Khun Mathuros hadn’t called, she might have been so engrossed in her work that she’d forget it was time for a break.

"Where does the boss usually go for lunch?" Khemjira asked.

"Normally, the boss eats outside, but recently, the boss has started having lunch in the office. Khun Mai handles the lunch arrangements for the boss now,"

Mathuros replied. Khemjira cheerfully smiling, found this amusing since today, she would be having lunch with her wife instead of her mentor.

"Then... does the boss like bubble milk tea?"

Khemjira asked casually, but there was a long pause on the other end of the line before Mathuros answered with uncertainty.

"Um... I’ve never seen the boss have it. The boss usually drinks coffee. The boss likes everything from black coffee to sweet lattes. You can say, if it's

coffee, the boss will drink it. Another favorite is chocolate—either hot or cold."

"And what does the boss not like?"

Khemjira asked, trying to get more details.

"Fresh milk. The boss doesn’t like drinking milk unless it’s mixed with coffee," Mathuros answered.

Khemjira nodded slowly. So, the boss didn’t like fresh milk. It made sense since cow’s milk could upset the stomach in some people and even trigger inflammation, which wasn’t ideal for someone of the boss’s age. Khemjira guessed that’s probably why Praenarin avoided it.

"Thank you,"

Khemjira said before ending the call. She smiled to herself, already planning what to do. If the boss wasn’t going out for lunch, she would bring food up to the office and share it with her wife.

With that thought, Khemjira quickly packed her things to return to her

office, so she could grab some lunch and enjoy it with her beautiful wife.

It wasn't as long as she had expected. The canteen allowed her to borrow

reusable food boxes, so she could take her meal to eat elsewhere. Once she had the box, Khemjira stopped by the milk tea shop and said goodbye to her two mentors, claiming she wanted to change the atmosphere and eat in her office. But in reality, she was heading straight to the CEO's office.

.

Knock knock knock

"I'm here!"

Khemjira knocked a few times before entering. The person inside was sitting at her desk, having lunch. Without hesitation, Khemjira sat down in the chair across from her and placed her food on the table.

"Why are you here so early? Didn’t I ask you to eat first and come after?"

Praenarin didn’t scold her; she was just curious as to why Khemjira didn’t eat with her mentors like usual.

"I came to eat with you, of course. Can I join you for lunch, my dear wife? Then we can discuss business later."

Khemjira picked up her meal, and Praenarin glanced over. Today, Khemjira had brought a bento box from a nearby shop, while Praenarin's meal was a delicious-looking basil stir-fry with a fried egg, accompanied by two cups of drink.

"What’s that?"

Praenarin asked, looking at the food.

"This is Khem's lunch, and this one is your iced latte."

Khemjira handed Praenarin the iced latte, while her own drink was a bubble milk tea.

"Did I ask you to get this?" Praenarin asked, raising an eyebrow.

"No, I bought it for you. I saw that you didn’t get a full eight hours of sleep last night, so I thought you might need some caffeine."

Praenarin raised her elegant eyebrow with a smile, noticing Khemjira's expression turn slightly flustered. Khemjira shot her a playful glare but continued eating, clearly a little annoyed, though she didn’t say anything.

Once they finished their meals, Khemjira noticed Praenarin had finished the iced coffee she bought for her, leaving only half a glass.

Khemjira felt a sense of satisfaction, almost as if it were like the comforting feeling of hugging Praenarin as she slept.

"Alright, let's get down to business. The reason I called you here is that I want you to write a detailed report on everything you've done since your

first day at work, from when you start in the morning until you go home. Use the template I just sent you."

It was time to tease her wife again. Praenarin pressed send on the email with the task, attaching the work report guidelines. She wanted Khemjira to focus on this report so she wouldn’t have much time to do other things, like homework.

Otherwise, if this continued, she’d grow old and wrinkled before her time due to lack of sleep.����

"A report? In detail?"

Khemjira asked, raising her eyebrows in surprise.

"Yes, in the most detailed way. The company needs to evaluate your work performance to decide whether to pass your probation or not."

Praenarin sat back, crossing her arms and feeling content with herself for making Khemjira so busy. She knew that the report would be difficult for Khemjira, having to remember everything she had done for nearly a month.

"And when does it need to be submitted?" Khemjira asked. "Tomorrow,"

Praenarin replied, watching Khemjira’s face as she processed the short deadline. Khemjira bit her lip. This was no ordinary request.

The detailed report with such a short deadline meant that Praenarin probably wanted to keep her too busy to focus on anything else—just like last time. But that was fine. Khemjira was confident she could handle it.

"And what if I can't finish it on time? What will you do?" Khemjira asked.

Praenarin stared at Khemjira in silence for a moment after hearing the unexpected reply. She was still trying to process how easily Khemjira accepted the terms, especially when she had made them sound so harsh.

“You’re really not going to argue at all?” Praenarin asked, genuinely curious.

Khemjira stood up, looking unbothered, and casually pulled out her lipstick. She applied it effortlessly, as if the whole situation were a minor inconvenience, something Praenarin couldn’t fully understand.

“No, I’m not,”

Khemjira replied with a calm smile.

“This is my first real job after graduation. I don’t really know how the work system here works, so whatever you want me to do, I’ll do it.”

As she spoke, she put the pink gloss back into her bag and walked over to Praenarin's desk. Leaning over it, she placed both her hands on the armrests, closing the space between them. Praenarin remained seated, crossing her arms, her confident expression intact, though a hint of surprise flashed across her face.

“And sometimes, I might even make it feel like an order,”

Khemjira continued with a smirk, deliberately choosing her words. Before Praenarin could respond, Khemjira swiftly leaned forward, catching her off guard by planting a kiss on her lips.

Praenarin blinked, caught between surprise and a rush of emotions.

Khemjira had once again managed to disarm her in the most unexpected way.

She cupped her cheek again, leaving a faint pink lipstick mark behind. "You!"

Praenarin pushed her wife away, raising a hand to touch her cheek before quickly grabbing a small mirror from her desk drawer. She checked the lipstick mark and wiped at it.

She wasn’t upset that her wife touched her—she was more worried about cleanliness. What if she got pimples? How was she supposed to deal with that? Would her wife take responsibility?

"I touched you because I love you, Khun Rin."

"Are you crazy? I’m your boss! How dare you touch me? How dare you say you love me?"

She frowned at her, scolding her seriously, but this shameless woman just smiled back, unfazed.

"It’s still lunch break, which is personal time for employees. And I touched you while you were on break from being everyone’s boss. So, I didn’t do anything wrong."

"Smart mouth."

"And my heart belongs to you too. See you later, wifey!"

With a bright grin, her tall wife grabbed her trash bag and walked away. Praenarin let out a deep sigh, feeling both annoyed and frustrated. Dealing with a younger wife wasn’t easy. If this continued for another six months, she might need therapy.

.

.

At exactly 3:00 PM, it was time for Khemjira to submit her work.

The Development Team 1 had a small meeting where everyone in the team, along with the department head, gathered. After taking a seat next to her two mentors, Khemjira focused on listening to her team members present

their project updates. Then, finally, it was her turn.

"Everyone has finished presenting their work. Now, it's your turn, Khem. How’s your task going? I already reminded you that we needed to review the progress today, and your work should be finished."

Ji, one of the team members, asked with a smug expression, while Hong, Ji’s close colleague, looked on with a similar attitude. Khemjira didn’t understand why they seemed to dislike her so much, even though she had already explained that she had nothing to do with Ji’s boyfriend getting fired.

"Did you really give this task to the new hire, Ji? Why didn’t you let Jay or Balloon handle it like before? This is an urgent project. If she can’t finish it on time, it’ll slow us down even more."

The department head, a woman in her early forties, asked Ji with a mix of surprise and mild disapproval. Ji glanced at Khemjira briefly before responding with a confident smile, as if expecting her to mess up and get scolded.

"Everyone in the team should be able to handle any task. Khemjira has already learned quite a bit, so I didn’t think it would be a problem to assign her this modeling task."

"Have you finished it? This may be a small project, but it’s urgent. We need to send the draft to the sales team today so they can present it to the client."

The department head turned to Khemjira directly. She glanced at her two mentors, who looked nervous, while the rest of the team remained silent, waiting for her response.

"Well..."

Before she could say anything, Ji interrupted with a mocking tone.

"Not finished yet? Usually, new hires can do this kind of task after a week or two of training."

Khemjira refused to let herself be belittled. She smiled at the department head, then calmly connected her laptop to the projector.

"Actually, I was just about to say that the task was easier than I expected. I just finished rendering a few minutes ago."

Without wasting time, she displayed her work for everyone to see. The department head’s expression made it clear that her work wasn’t bad at all

—in fact, it looked pretty good.

"Hmm, this means your mentors taught you well. This task might be simple for experienced employees, but for someone new who’s just learning our specialized software, it takes time to get used to the system. But this is good..."

" "

"Alright, today you can combine the project and add the tasks into the system. Once you're done, let the sales team know to check it out."

This time, her mentor standing beside her seemed visibly relieved. If she couldn't complete the task, it would mean that P'Jay and P'Balloon might get blamed for not teaching her properly. And when everything went smoothly, their little meeting started to break up.

It was clear that the person in charge, Khun Ji, wasn’t very happy that she finished the work on time. She didn’t even want to think about what would happen if she hadn’t been able to finish it.

If the work wasn’t completed on time, the company would be at a loss. Fortunately, she loved the 3D modeling subject and had secretly practiced with the program P'Jay used before, so she could do it herself. Otherwise, her mentor might have been blamed for not teaching her well.

The woman named Ji didn’t deserve to be a team leader at all, as it was obvious she was trying to cause problems for the team just to make things difficult for her.

.

"Khun Khem, I was really nervous just now. I thought you weren’t going to finish it in time."

While heading back to the office, the three of them stopped to grab a cup of hot cocoa to clear the bad atmosphere from the meeting room. The others had already walked ahead to the office.

"I was nervous too. Just now, I almost didn’t make it in time. Luckily, I was the last one to present, so I had a little extra time,"

Khemjira said with a relieved smile. But Jay, who was still feeling uneasy, couldn’t shake off the question in her mind.

"Khun Ji is still difficult. We know we didn’t teach Khem how to use the program, so why give her the task instead of us?"

"Forget about that. Right now, let’s hurry back to the office and add the tasks. After work, we can grab something to eat,"

Balloon quickly said as she linked arms with the new girl and her friend. But Khemjira probably wouldn’t join them today because she had to help Khwanrin move into her new apartment on her first day.

"Um, I can’t join today. I have a little errand to run."

"Okay, then. We’ll go together. If you change your mind, let us know."

Balloon raised her finger in an "okay" gesture and gave her the biggest smile, making Khemjira laugh. The battle had been won for now, but the next battle would be the report war between her and the beautiful wife.

And don't think that Khun Ji would make her lose; there was no way that would happen.