My Burning Desire by RK

Chapter 9

Oliver's POV

Monday morning arrives with the sharp, uncompromising clarity of a starting gun.

Janelle and I walk into the corporate headquarters together. No hiding. No slipping through the underground garage separately, and no waiting five minutes before stepping out of the elevator. I take her hand, my fingers locking firmly with hers, and walk her right through the main entrance and straight into our floor.

The immediate silence that drops over the bullpen is absolute.

Keyboard clacking stops mid-sentence. Heads snap up. For a three-second window, you could hear a pin drop on the thick carpet. I can practically see the collective gears turning in everyone's heads as they look at our joined hands, tracking the deliberate, unapologetic way I lead her to my side.

Then, the murmurs start. Whispers ripple across the open-plan office like a wave hitting the shore.

I feel Janelle tense beside me, her thumb brushing nervously against my knuckles, but I tighten my grip, anchoring her. I didn't spend the entire weekend drafting a special marriage license with a magistrate just to let a roomful of corporate onlookers intimidate her.

As we cross the floor toward the executive suites, though, the tenor of the whispers shifts.

It isn't the scandalized, pitchfork-wielding panic I half-prepared myself to crush. It’s... surprisingly accepting.

A few of the senior analysts nod respectfully as we pass. One of the project managers catches my eye and gives a subtle, knowing smirk. Out of the corner of my ear, I catch fragments of conversation from the administrative desk:

“Honestly? Good for her.”“I mean, have you tried getting a requisition approved by him? Janelle’s the only one who ever managed him straight.”“They actually make sense. She’s always kept him grounded.”

They already loved her. Janelle has always been the steady, beating heart of this floor—a safe harbor for anyone overwhelmed by the corporate chaos, respected because she’s direct, unpretentious, and entirely immune to office politics. They don't see an opportunistic ambush; they see a woman who commands the boss simply by being completely real with him.

I pull open the heavy glass door to my office, usher Janelle inside, and let it click shut behind us, cutting off the noise of the outside world.

The moment we’re enclosed in the quiet privacy of the room, I pull her flush against my chest, burying my face in the crook of her neck, breathing in the scent of her skin.

"See?" I murmur against her pulse, a rough, triumphant edge to my voice. "I told you. The world doesn't care. And even if they did, it wouldn't matter."

She lets out a soft, breathless laugh, her hands coming up to rest against my shoulders. "You're insufferable, Oliver."

I step back, giving her space as she walks over to her desk and takes her seat. I head into my own office, leaving the glass door cracked open.

True to form, she immediately dives into her morning routine, getting all her ducks in a row while letting me handle what I need to clear out. Without fail, exactly an hour from now, she will walk into my room, drop the schedule for the day on my desk, and run through the departmental reports and metrics. We keep our actual meetings for the afternoons, because she knows that once the workday is done, I like to head straight home to decompress and unwind in the quiet.

It hits me then, a sudden, staggering wave of realization: I won’t be unwinding by myself anymore.

A slow, undeniable smile breaks across my face, pulling at the corners of my mouth. She has no idea. She has no clue just how deeply happy I am, or how thoroughly she has anchored herself into every single corner of my life.

Acting on pure, possessive impulse, I pick up my desk phone and dial the magistrate's office. I secure an appointment for the special license at 12:00 PM sharp. As I finalize the details, a profound sense of absolute finality and fierce triumph settles deep in my chest.

Once the paperwork is signed, I'm taking my wife out for a celebration lunch.

I pull back just enough to look down into her eyes, tracing the soft curve of her cheek.

"Maybe," I say, a slow, possessive smirk touching the corners of my mouth. "But by this afternoon, you'll be legally bound to me. Have you called the coordinator yet?"

Janelle arches a single eyebrow, a spark of that delicious, teasing defiance flashing in her eyes as she pushes lightly against my chest.

"Not by this afternoon," she corrects me, a playful smile pulling at her lips. "Before New Years. Remember? You said we have until the end of the year to sort the details, CEO."

I let out a low, rough laugh, the sound vibrating against her as my arms tighten around her waist, caging her against me. The absolute rush of having her here, openly in my space, completely undoes whatever lingering patience I had left.

"Right," I murmur, my gaze dropping to her mouth. "Before New Years. But the special license gets signed today. That part is non-negotiable."

I look back at the weekends activities.

I took her to my parents' house on Saturday evening to drop the news. My mother was absolutely thrilled at the prospect of me finally settling down, and to be honest, she’s always had a soft spot for Janelle anyway.

While my dad and Janelle were chatting near the kitchen counter, my mom leaned in close and whispered, "I'm glad you chose her. That woman loves you."

Wait. What?

Loves me?

My head snaps up, my gaze locking onto Janelle across the room as she laughs at something my dad just said. Feeling the weight of my intense stare, she looks over at me, tilting her head slightly with a reassuring smile, silently asking if everything is okay.

I nod, offering a tight smile back.

She's never said it. Well, neither have I—it’s not a word I throw around, and honestly, I haven't even consciously framed it like that in my own head. But now that my mother has planted the seed, the question starts burning like a live wire in my chest: Does she actually love me?

Because the terrifying truth is... I think I fell in love with her the very first day I met her.

My mother narrows her eyes at my bare hand, then at Janelle’s, catching on immediately.

"Where is the ring?" she asks in a low murmur, crossing her arms.

When I admit I haven't bought one yet, waiting instead for the right moment, she immediately leads me down to the family vault to fetch my grandmother’s heirloom ring—the vintage diamond that has anchored our family’s history for generations. Holding that heavy velvet box in my hand, I know there is no other option. This is it.

After supper, back upstairs with my parents, I insist that we set up a Zoom call with her brother and his wife overseas.

Janelle looks confused as I prop up the laptop on the dining table, her brow furrowing. But she stands beside me as the video connects and her brother's face fills the screen, his wife crowding in close beside him.

"We have an announcement," I say, my arm securely around Janelle's waist. "We're getting married."

For a second, there’s stunned silence on the other end before her brother lets out a loud cheer and his wife shrieks with delight. Janelle’s eyes widen in absolute shock, her head snapping up to look at me, realizing I just made it completely, irrevocably official to her family in one fell swoop.

Before she can even process the tidal wave of what just happened, I drop smoothly to one knee right beside her chair.

The collective gasps echo both through the laptop speakers and around the room. I pull the velvet box from my pocket, pop the lid open to reveal the sparkling heirloom diamond catching the light, and look up at her.

"Will you be my wife, Janelle?" I ask, my voice steady, though my chest is hammering against my ribs.

For a beat, the room is dead silent, and then her brother and his wife erupt into laughter over the Zoom call, pointing out that she hasn't even had a chance to answer yet and that normally the proposal comes before the family announcement.

I don't care about the teasing. All I see are the heavy, shimmering tears spilling over Janelle's eyelashes.

Slowly, she extends her trembling hand. I gently pull the heirloom ring from its velvet slot and slide it onto her finger, a perfect fit.

"Yes," she whispers, her voice breaking on a sob as she nods, tears finally cutting tracks down her cheeks.

Looking up at her, seeing that radiant, overwhelmed smile, a hot, sudden prickle hits the back of my own eyes. I swallow hard, completely undone, as I realize just how deeply she owns every single piece of me.

After leaving the courthouse that afternoon, I didn't let her go back to the routine of sitting at her desk. I insisted she take the rest of the week off entirely to start packing her things and moving into my place. In fact, I made it non-negotiable: by Tuesday evening, she wouldn't step foot back into her apartment for anything. I already arranged professional movers and helpers to handle the heavy lifting so she wouldn't have to stress about a single box.

Back on the office floor later in the week, we gather the team for a quick announcement. I tell them that while we would have loved to have all of them present for the wedding, we know it's the holiday season and everyone wants to spend it with their respective families and friends. Instead, we’ll host a proper celebratory reception with the whole staff after our honeymoon.

And besides, I add with a cocky, unapologetic smirk, "I refuse to go one more day longer than New Year's Eve without Janelle being my wife."

As the office murmurs and laughs at my blatant impatience, my eyes cut across the room straight to Chris. I pin him with a hard, intensely possessive and territorial look—a silent, undeniable message letting him know exactly who won.