Eternally Seduced (33 page)

“Constantijin!” she reprimanded, her own cheeks reddening as the newsmen around us caught us and camera bulbs started flashing again.

“Let me take care of that monster,” a woman behind me muttered.

I scowled even as Constantijin gave me a lazy grin, having obviously heard the same thing.

As Marge ushered us in, one of the reporters whistled, and I could feel the leer in his tone as he said, “Look at those pointed nipples, man.”

I covered my chest with a gasp just as Constantijin started back, his eyes blazing.

“Constantijin!” Marge uttered his name in a chilly tone.

He stopped in his tracks, but his body was still tense with rage.

I pulled him towards the doors. “Let’s just go, please.” I tugged at his hand repeatedly until he let me drag him into the hotel.

When we emerged past the revolving doors, Marge clucked her tongue, murmuring in reproof, “You two are late.”

"My fault," Constantijin owned up to the fault. "My meeting finished later than it should have."

"It's always, always business with you!" she complained with a look of commiseration directed at me. “I hope you change once you and Yanna get married---especially when you start having babies.” She added wistfully, “I do want a grandchild soon.”

And poof!

Everything was ruined.

Trying to salvage it, I laughingly protested, “Marriage? It's too early to speak about that!”

Constantijin gave me a smile of surprised relief.

That hurt...and made my eyes itch.

"It is too early," he agreed. "So let Yanna and I enjoy each other first, okay?"

"You're not getting any younger!" Marge warned. "You should appreciate the fact that this girl's stupid enough to care for you, you know, and marry her right away!" She cackled at her own joke.

Oh my God, what was it with tonight? Was it, like, a Kill Yanna Day and nobody took the time to tell me about it? In a mad effort to throw water on the bridge his mother was unwittingly burning, I said with mock seriousness, “I hate to break this to you, Marge, but your son is just not the guy I’m hoping to marry. He’s too much an OC for me when it comes to household stuff.”

But still Constantijin’s face remained expressionless.

I went on doggedly. "I mean, imagine, he doesn't let me sleep until he's absolutely sure I've washed and dried all the dishes. And they have to be arranged by design, too!”

Taking my hand so we could walk side by side, she murmured, “He got that from me, I’m afraid.”

Behind us, Constantijin remained quiet.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

Day Forty-One

“Wait!” A voice called out to me just as I was about to slip the ten-dollar bill into the slot for an energy bar.

          I was already smiling when I turned around, and I smiled even more widely when I saw Drake actually
running
towards me from the end of the hallway.

          “What’s the hurry?” I asked.

          “You and this machine don’t get along,” he answered readily as he took the bill from my fingers. “So to save you from potential anguish, let me do this for you.”

          “Bodyguard mode?” I teased him.

          He shook his head. “Mr. Fix It mode.”

          “Drake!” I was still embarrassed every time he flirted with me, but this was possibly the only time I welcomed it, too. It made me feel good, which I hadn’t been feeling for quite some time now.

          He got the bill in, the light turned green, and when he turned the lever the energy bar fell into the opening without trouble.

          I clapped my hands. “Impressive.”

          He made a little bow. “Anything for a beautiful woman.”

          “
Drake.
” This time I said it warningly.

          “But you are beautiful,” Drake said innocently.

          And then I felt it, the sensation of someone staring at us – at me. I turned around, just in time to catch the briefest glimpse of Constantijin walking away from us.

          “Fuck,” Drake muttered behind me.

          I turned back to him with a smile. “It’s okay.” And that was what really hurt.

Day Forty-Three

“Oh my God, it’s that bad?” Alyx shrieked when she came to my place for a visit while Constantijin was away on another emergency. Lately, he had been having a lot of emergencies, so much so Kastein, Inc. better be near bankruptcy or it would be, like, so obvious he was using any excuse to avoid spending time with me.

          I closed the door behind her. "What do you mean?"

Eyes hard, she answered bluntly, "You look terrible."

I supposed it was true. I had lost the urge to fix myself up, not when how I looked didn’t seem to matter one way or another to Constantijin. In contrast, Alyx looked stunning, her boyishly cut hair making her look sexier in her micro-mini dress.

“Yanna, tell me what’s wrong.”

And just like that, I burst into tears. I fell on my knees to the ground, sobbing my heart out. “Everything’s wrong,” I confessed to her. “We haven’t made love for weeks, haven’t been in the same room even.”

I tried to hold back on the tears, but they just kept falling. My voice breaking, I asked, “Alyx, should I, like, leave now?”

"Yes, you should."

I stopped crying long enough to glare at her. "You're supposed to say no, hang on, Yanna!"

"Why the fuck should I do that when he's hurting you?”

"Because,” I said, crying harder, “it’s what I
want
to hear.”

“No.”

I wailed more loudly.

Alyx exhaled. “Okay, okay, you should
not
leave him. You should
totally
hang on to him.”

The words made me feel marginally better, even though she said them under duress. Trying to sniff back my tears, I said, “Help me fix this, Alyx.
Please.
” It took a lot for me to say that last word. I guess in that way I was like Constantijin, too.

Alyx looked like she wanted to throttle me. But in the end, friendship won over common sense and she said reluctantly, “I get it, Yanna. You've always been like this. You hate giving up.”

I nodded.

She shook her head. “But this time it has to be different. You see that, don’t you? I know you never want other people to say that you quit and that's why you like to hang on, but sometimes, you just have to cut your losses, you know? There's nothing shameful about it."

The truth in her words burned a hole in my heart, and I had a hard time breathing through the pain of it. Finally, I whispered, “One more chance---just one more chance for him, and then if we’re not, you know, then it’s over."

Even now, I couldn’t spell it out clearly.

"It's the right thing to do," Alex said.

I knew that, but it still wasn’t what I wanted to hear.

Your billionaire will not know when to stop until it is too late.

The day Constantijin and I broke up came as a surprise. Would you believe it? I mean, I should have, like, totally expected it. But I hadn’t, and I paid the price for it.

          It was three in the afternoon, and the entire floor of Kastein, Inc. was completely quiet. It was usual these days, as if everyone was affected by the tension between Constantijin and me.

          These days, I did my best to drown my heartache in work, and I was doing so well even Charli ran out of snowflakes to pass on to me.

          “Go and take a break, Yanna,” Charli growled. But because she had this really cool French accent, it ended up sounding really sophisticated, like she had just told me her favorite flower was the Casablanca Lily. You know what I mean.

          I planted myself next to the door adjoining our offices. “No. It just occurred to me that we’re not taking advantage of the tween market here in the U.S. and I found the perfect
manga---
”

          “If you do not leave your office in five seconds and have your lunch, I will assign you to take on a classic literature project with Arian.”

          “I’m going.” God, Charli was so devious. She just knew what my worst fears were. If that ever happened, I knew Arian would take every chance she could get to make it clear to me that her Ivy League diploma made her the better judge about literature.

          “Yadda, yadda, yadda,” I muttered to myself as I stepped out of the office.

          And then I heard it.

          Across the hall, near the doors leading to Constantijin’s offices, I heard his voice – and
hers.
Arian’s.

          They were just talking about…work. They had to be talking about work. What else would they even talk about? By the time I finished rationalizing the situation, I was standing around the corner of the hallway, and one step was all it would take for them to see me.

Arian was giggling. "Mr. Kastein, you shouldn't say such things!”

“Constantijin, please. You make me sound too old for you when you call me that.”

Arian’s tone became husky. “Then
Constantijin,
you can’t say I’m beautiful. It’s not right when you have a girlfriend.”

“Why is it wrong when I’m only stating a fact?”

My heart lurched. It was like déjà vu, a nightmarish version of the exchange I had with Drake a few days ago.

Constantijin
wasn't
saying anything wrong. In fact, he wasn't even saying anything I hadn't heard before. Constantijin was the type who dished out compliments all the time. He told his sixty-something housekeeper she was beautiful all the time. He complimented the shy receptionist at the lobby all the time, telling her she had great taste in clothes, that her hair was pretty.

He was that kind of man, and none of it used to matter.

Until now.

This time, his words sounded different, and my chest slowly started to ache.

"How are you and Yanna?"

Damn her, goddamn her for asking!

There was a moment for silence before Constantijin replied, a bit flatly, “We are okay.”

          Ha! Take that, Arian!

          Granted, it wasn’t the best thing to say about a relationship, but “okay” was still better than “not okay”.

          Constantijin continued, “We enjoy each other's company, that's all."

"You mean you love each other," Arian teased.

Damn her. Goddamn her. I so knew what she was after and it was my blood – my blood, which was, like, already flooding the entire floor in an invisible stream of heartbreak.

I hurt so much I thought my heart couldn’t bleed any more, but Constantijin proved me wrong with just one word. “No.” And as if that didn’t hurt enough, he said lightly, “Yanna’s known since day one that it was never about that."

I covered my mouth before they could hear me gasp.

Constantijin’s voice took in a warm, seductive tone. “But who knows? Maybe someone like you could change my mind."

Arian didn't get to answer that anymore because by then, I had gone around the corner. “What the fuck did you say?”