Eternally Seduced (21 page)

          Behind him, I saw at least five familiar faces from Finance, the department Drake worked in, as well.

          Oh, shit.

         
This
was what I so didn’t want to happen. I believed Constantijin when he told me he was going to be faithful to me, but --- intentions were just that – intentions. The truth was, I didn’t have yet the courage to have everyone know that Constantijin and I were dating. If he ended up breaking my heart again, people wouldn’t think I was a girlfriend he dumped. Everyone would think I was the floozy who didn’t know better, getting what I deserved.

          “Hello, Yanna.” Drake’s drawl made me look back at him, and the smile on his face was as friendly and as flattering as before. He had his blazer draped on one arm while holding his briefcase and several folders. His polo had its sleeves rolled to his elbows, its tails hanging loose over his pants, and unbuttoned low enough to reveal a sprinkling of chest hair.

          Honestly, I’d be such a liar if I said that I wasn’t momentarily dazzled at how sexy Drake looked right now.

          “We just finished brainstorming,” he continued.

          The way his gaze lingered on my body, the way his eyes were so shamelessly appreciating every curve and inch of skin he saw – I couldn’t help but blush.

          Behind me, I felt Constantijin suddenly tense, as if he had sensed my blushes and didn’t like it.

          Oh shit.

          Realizing that Drake was waiting for me to answer, I stammered, “I…was working overtime for, uhh, Mr. Kastein. He wanted me t-to provide the latest work schedules of the cast for the potential TV adaptation of
Hana Kimi
in the U.S.”

          In the periphery of my eye, I saw Constantijin finally turn around. When I saw him about to curve his arm around my waist, I panicked and moved away before he could reach me.

          Drake blinked when I was suddenly several feet away from all of them and just a short distance away from the reception area. “Are you in a hurry to go home?”

          Trying to ignore the daggers shooting from Constantijin’s eyes, I said, “Umm, yes.” I opened my mouth to say goodbye, but Drake beat me to speaking.

          “Let me drive you home then. I know you just take the bus, but at this time of the night, even independent girls like you need to take more care.” By the time I managed to close my gaping mouth, my mind whirling at the unexpected turn of events, Drake had already reached my side and was taking my bag from me.

          “B-but…”

          “I’ll worry about you endlessly if I let you go home alone tonight,” Drake murmured.

          Oh, oh, shit.

          Constantijin wasn’t just glaring daggers at me now. He was literally trying to kill me with his glare, and I knew that it was just going to get worse.

          Drake was talking to one of his colleagues, leaving last-minute instructions for the minutes of their meeting. A chorus of goodnights followed and then Drake was saying, “You too, sir. Good night, Mr. Kastein.”

          My phone vibrated inside my bag and I hastily fumbled for it, knowing who it was.

If you fucking dare leave with that boy…

          Oh, oh, oh, shit!

          Didn’t he know I had no choice but to fucking leave with this boy – I mean, man? It was too soon for us to go public. It was just too soon, with the wounds he left in my heart too raw, and the memories of the times he had turned me down and pushed me away too fresh.

          The elevator’s arrival chime snatched me out of my reverie. By the time I recovered my senses, Drake was already inside the elevator, holding the open button. “Yanna?”

          I stepped inside.

          The last thing I saw was Constantijin’s cold and impassive face before the elevator’s doors closed in front of us. With the others already walking past Constantijin, their backs to us, I allowed myself to plead with him with my eyes.
A week,
I tried to communicate with him mentally.

          But Constantijin only stared, not a flicker of expression on his face to tell me I had reached him. When the elevator’s doors finally shut, I felt like it was permanently keeping us apart this time.

          “Are you all right, Yanna?” Drake asked beside me.

         
No. I was not. I just had the best moment of my life a while ago and now I was having my worst.

         
Was it going to be like this between Constantijin and me time and time again? Did it always have to be a battle between the two of us?

          Forcing myself to smile at Drake, I lied, “I’m okay. Just tired.” Almost unconsciously, I found myself texting Constantijin.

         
A week,
I typed.
You promised me a week of just keeping things between the two of us, and that seven-day period started tonight.

          But he didn’t reply, even though I waited till the next morning for even the smallest sign that there was still something worth waiting for.

Billionaires don’t lick their wounds when they are hurt. They get even.

“Are you seeing this?”
I shrieked at Daria and Alyx, who I was videoconferencing with on my iPad, as I pointed towards the TV.

          Alyx laughed so loudly I was tempted to flick her face on the screen. “You’re such a kid. You’re actually jumping!”

          “I can’t help it!” I was so mad I wished the floor under my feet would turn into the hard, toned,
sluttish
body of a guy named Constantijin Kastein.

          “He was
courting
me and now he’s out with another girl! On TV!” Glaring at the screen, I hissed, “
Man-whore
.”

         
Daria was grinning. Tall with short curly hair and sparkling gray eyes, she was the most outspoken in our little group. She was also dangerously impulsive, but Alyx and I hoped marriage could curb that somewhat.

          “You should gatecrash the event, show him who’s the boss,” she suggested.

          Or not.

          “Get real. I can’t gatecrash his dad’s fundraiser.”

          “You know, I think she’s right,” Alyx intruded as she pushed a wide hair band up her boyishly cut hair. As she started slapping cream on her face – one of her hundreds of rituals before going to sleep – Alyx added, “He can’t do this every time you two quarrel or have a misunderstanding.”

          I shook my head. Just the thought of gatecrashing – and putting myself out there for Constantijin to humiliate – had me hyperventilating.

          Daria bent forward, her eyes narrowing. “Yanna, I can see you panicking from here.”

          If that was true, then she had better eyesight than Clark Kent since Daria had her iPad positioned somewhat far away from her. I could practically see the entire bed she was seated cross-legged on, which was so enormous it could probably fit an entire football squad.

          From Daria’s side of the screen, I heard something popping in the background, followed by the clink of glass and then the Greek-accented tone of Daria’s tycoon hubby. “Why is Yanna panicking?” Nik asked as he came into view, wearing an unbuttoned white polo shirt and jeans. Tall, dark, gorgeous, and an alpha male to the core, he used to be the world’s greatest jerk. Even
I
hated him, and it took a lot for me to say the H-word. A misunderstanding had caused Nik to mistake Daria for a gold-digging nymphomaniac and he had treated her like shit. Thankfully, true love – and a good dose of the truth - had reformed him, and there was no doubting that when you looked at how Nik acted around his wife these days.

          Taking a seat next to Daria on their bed, Nik handed her a glass of champagne and pressed a kiss on her forehead.

          For a moment, I had to close my eyes, not wanting my friends to see how totally envious I suddenly felt about the closeness between the months-old married couple.

          I made myself look at them when Nik spoke again. “Hi, Alyx, Yanna.”

          Alyx flashed him a thumbs-up sign. “Hey, Nik. So how many is it for today?”

          Daria groaned, Nik grinned, and I frowned in complete confusion. “How many what?”

          “Seven,” Nik answered, his grin widening.

          Daria groaned again.

          “Seven what?” I demanded.

          Alyx said patiently, “Seven orgasms for Daria today.”

          This time, I joined Daria with the groaning. “Really, Alyx? You really had to ask him that?”

          “I was just curious! Daria used to hate---”

          “Oh, look, Constantijin’s date is totally raping him on TV!” Daria burst out.

          We all looked, and even though I hoped it was just her way of changing the subject – it
wasn’t.

         
My chest hurt more and more as I continued watching Constantijin’s date – surprise, surprise, yet
another
blonde bimbo – grind her lips on his. Those lips were mine! Or at least they had been a few days ago. More seconds passed, and the camera continued to focus on their liplock.

Seriously, when had lifestyle shows become an extension of the Playboy Channel? Couldn’t they see that her hand was just inches away from grasping his---

          In a smooth move, Constantijin had forced his date to release him the same time he subtly slapped her hand away.

          “Slut,” I growled.

          “Who?” Alyx asked innocently as she rubbed more cream on her forehead. Her face was now 25% flesh, 75% blue goo. “Constantijin or his date?”

          “Both!”

          “Yanna, stop jumping. You’re giving me a headache.” Daria turned to Nik. “What do you think? You know how Yanna dumped Constantijin for her Mr. Fix It, right?”

          “I did
not
dump him.” I tightened the sash of my night robe, wishing it was a noose around Constantijin’s neck.

          “Why do you call the boy Mr. Fix It?” Nik asked at the same time.

          “He’s not a
boy
,” I groaned. God! Sometimes, Nik was too much like Constantijin I almost didn’t want to talk to him.

          “Because he keeps appearing at the right time and place to play knight in shining armor for Yanna,” Daria explained.

          “Ah.”

          “That doesn’t sound like a good ‘ah’,” I said with a scowl.

          “Because it isn’t,” Nik answered readily. As he scooped Daria onto his lap, he continued, “I know how Kastein feels, Yanna. If there’s one thing men like me can be uncomfortable about---”

          “He means insecure,” his wife added.

          “---then it would be boys who are a lot nicer than we could ever be. That’s one thing we can’t really beat and if you chose Mr. Fix It over him that time, who’s to say you won’t do it again when he screws up the next time?”

          “But it wasn’t like that,” I protested. “I didn’t choose Mr. Fix---I mean Drake---over him. I just thought it was a good idea to leave with Drake so that no one would be suspicious about us.”

          “And that’s one more thing,” Nik said triumphantly.

          Alyx smirked. “Why do I have a feeling that billionaires with the same arrogant feathers stick together?”

          But Nik only smirked back. “Alyx, Alyx,” he purred in a voice so seductive it made me squirm uncomfortably. This was my first glimpse of how, err, attractive Nik could be if he really put his mind to it.

          “Everything about you tells me that when it’s your turn to fall in love, you’ll have the hardest time. You’ll choose a billionaire who’s even a bigger jerk than I was – or even more than Kastein.”

          Alyx lifted her chin. “You wish.”

          Daria cleared her throat. “Okay, break it up, you guys. We do not want you two losing sleep again on another endless WiFi rematch of Wii Boxing.”

          Seeing Daria’s meaningful gaze on me, I did my referee bit as well, adding, “And tonight’s video call is all about me, right?” As soon as the words came out, a wave of depression hit me, and my voice trailed off.

          This call
was
about me because – frankly – I was at the end of my tether. It was terrifying, the way I couldn’t stop thinking about him, the way I couldn’t stop
hurting
with every second that Constantijin wasn’t next to me.

          “Yanna.” Nik sounded sober.

          I managed a smile. “Yeah?”

          “The other thing I was telling you about---well, we can’t handle being kept as a secret. That’s why men make poor mistresses.” He grimaced. “You probably made him feel you were ashamed---”

          “Ashamed of what?
Him?”
I pointed at the screen, which was still on Constantijin since it was an hour-long coverage on the show’s top picks for the sexiest men on the planet.

          The TV showed a shot of him in a fashion event last winter. His golden copper-tinted hair was slightly longer than usual, with a rearview shot of Constantijin revealing how his curls brushed past his snowy-white scarf. His beautifully fitted black trench coat made his shoulders appear even broader and was an exquisite contrast to the light pink shade of his shirt and gray pants.

          He was unbelievably beautiful, and the fact that he had been mine – even briefly – made it hard for me to breathe.

          “Yes, Yanna, he could have thought that. Kastein isn’t perfect – no one is. We all have our secrets. Flaws. Weaknesses – and you could be one of them.”

          Chewing on my lip, I slowly asked, “Are you saying I should really gatecrash the fundraiser?”

          Nik glanced at Daria and a smile immediately appeared on her face.

          “Yuck,” Alyx muttered. “They’re communicating
silently
.”

          Ignoring that, Daria told me, “Yanna, baby, this is one of those times you should be happy you have an arrogant billionaire as one of your friends.”

~~~

I’m not gatecrashing.
I repeated the words in my mind over and over, but they weren’t enough to dispel the anxiety squeezing my chest as I stammered my name.

          The man in a tux flipped a couple of pages. “Right. Ticket please?”

          A couple of other guests walked past me as I took out the glossy piece of paper that had cost Nik two thousand dollars to purchase. I guess their face value was a lot higher than mine. Honestly, the admission price for Erik Kastein’s fundraiser astounded me. In fact, it made me want to back out, but Nik had gone on to buy it, saying that it was for a good cause anyway.

          The security officer scanned my ticket before looking back at me with a respectful smile. “Thank you, Ms. Everleigh. Enjoy your night.”

          He pressed a button that had the tinted glass doors sliding open. I stepped in and found myself in a strange glittering world. So
this
was how the rich and famous partied.

          In my mind, fundraisers were colorless and boring, occasions where you weren’t supposed to show your teeth when you smiled. But this fundraiser – it was out of this world, or maybe the Kasteins just really knew how to throw a good party.

          Constantijin’s father had booked an entire museum for his fundraiser and transformed it into some kind of black-and-white paradise. The walls were covered with black-and-white striped velvet while the floor sparkled like pearls. On one side, the black-glass buffet table was illuminated from below, making it seem as if the rows of cocktail dishes were floating on a sea of gold and onyx.

          Everywhere around me were Kens and Barbies of all shapes and sizes. They could be size 1 to 10, but they still seemed perfect in a shiny, waxy kind of way – if I bumped into any one of them, I was afraid they’d shatter.

          I started forward, craning my neck once in a while in hopes of catching a glimpse of a familiar head of gold and copper hair.

         
I’m not gatecrashing, I’m not gatecrashing, I’m not---

         
I accidentally tripped on the hem of my own gown – a strapless two-toned creation that Daria had shipped to me all the way from Athens – causing me to stumble into a waiter, who lost hold of his tray of champagne flutes. They crashed on the floor, and all eyes were suddenly on us.