How Not to Be Seduced by Billionaires (14 page)

            His kiss sent my head reeling again, so much that I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, and totally hadn’t a clue about what I should do. “Wait,” I gasped against his mouth, close to panicking.

            “Relax,” he muttered as his mouth descended, leaving little kisses on my neck as he did. “Let me take care of everything.”

            And then the phone in his room rang. It was hard to ignore, but both of us did our best. It let out a loud beep, followed by a familiar tone that told me the call had been transferred to his voice box.

            “
Baby, it’s me, Selena. I heard you were in Vegas? I am, too. I’m naked and hot---”

            Buzz kill
was the polite word for it as Constantijin sprang from me, cursing in Dutch – or at least I thought it sounded like cuss words – and stalking towards the phone. He tore it out of its sockets and threw it on the cushion. One part of me was taken aback by the rage in his actions, but another part of me was coldly indifferent to it.

            Too freaking late, my Dutch playboy billionaire.

            Just too freaking late.

            He turned to me, hand outstretched. “Yanna---”

            I avoided his touch.

            His eyes darkened. “Don’t. You know you can’t blame me for her call. I hadn’t had sex with another woman since I met you.”

            I hugged myself hard. “It doesn’t matter.”

            “It fucking matters, and you know it!”

            He was shouting. Wasn’t I supposed to be the one shouting here? “We’re just not a good thing together,” I mumbled. Confusion, pain, and anger blended into a pit of darkness inside me, drowning my heart, and making my body feel numb.

            “Yanna, you know you’re being unfair. You
know
that.”

            I bit my lip hard to keep myself from my crying. “I know.”

            “Then let me---”

            “You
worry
me. You
scare
me.” Constantijin’s face was pale by the time I finished speaking. But now that I had started, I realized I had to let everything out – as usual. Just because he was Constantijin Kastein didn’t mean it was always going to be different with him.

            “We’re too different. You think about sex all the time. You make me think about sex all the time when I
never
even wanted to…” I forced myself to continue. “I never even wanted to touch myself before you.”

            Poor Constantijin.

            He looked more than shocked. He looked sick now. Was he thinking he had a lucky escape – that he had almost had sex with a basket case? Sex was nothing to him and here I was, practically having an emotional breakdown before him.

            “What do I have to do to change your mind?” He was asking the question, but he wasn’t really asking it. You got what I mean, right?

            But I gave him my answer anyway, never mind if I knew he didn’t really care at this point. Everything about Constantijin right now told me so. The impassive look on his face, the stiff stance of his body – everything about it screamed ‘
I don’t do complications’.

           
“Court me.” Walter did that for Carole. Walter – the kindest man I had ever known, my father, the one man I looked up to, and the man Carole once described as the doctor who had affairs with nurses in every major hospital in the world he had been invited to visit.

            Constantijin’s eyes widened.

            “Make me feel you want me – just me.” I gave him a sad smile, my words halting as I spoke the truth. “But that’s not your thing, right?” Constantijin would think this was another power play. It wasn’t, but I couldn’t blame him for thinking that way.

            And he said equally slowly, his words like the final nails burying my heart six feet deep, “No. That’s not my thing.”

            He walked me to my room after that, neither of us speaking.

           
Any time now,
I whispered to myself. Anytime now he’d look back and realize he was about to do the greatest mistake of his life, that things could be so great between us, that I was worth chasing after---

            We reached my door, and I opened it ever so slowly, waiting for something I knew was becoming more and more impossible.
Say something. Please say anything so I can do something to salvage this.

           
I stepped inside my room, and when I turned around to thank him he was already walking away, killing all my futile hopes in a heartbeat.

It was the last I saw of him for the weekend.

BOOK 2: COURTED

Lesson #1

There’s only one way to get over your billionaire.

And that’s for you to see he’s over you.

It had been exactly thirty-one days since I first worked for Kastein Inc. and eighteen days since Constantijin and I had parted ways in Vegas.

            Constantijin Kastein was a Dutch billionaire, a gorgeous blond giant of a man whom the media loved to call Netherlands’ #1 Playboy. Together with two of his other billionaire friends, he made up the society’s infamous Three Pussketeers because of their long line of sexual conquests.

            Constantijin was totally out of my league, but for some strange reason he had desired my body. I had desired his back – but I also wanted more. I had asked him to do something impossible, and he left me because it
was
impossible for him to do.

            The memories had me sighing, like it always did. Lately, I was sighing so much it was a wonder I hadn’t run out of oxygen. I should totally be choking on carbon dioxide by now. Even in my sleep, I had a feeling I still didn’t stop sighing at what had been and what could have been between Constantijin and me.

George was so wrong. What happened in Vegas didn’t stay there. It haunted me, stalked me, and killed me every time my gaze would find Constantijin, and I would see him laughing like nothing was wrong in his world.

            It was Friday today – just a few minutes past six. I should be out by now, having fun with the rest of the world but instead I was stuck at the office. Charli had asked me to stay behind for some last-minute paperwork her own secretary had overlooked. Of course I said ‘yes’. When you were single, heartbroken, and unable to masturbate because one) you couldn’t get pass the embarrassment of it and two) you had an (almost) affair with a billionaire whose cock put every exaggeratedly designed vibrator to shame –
work
was the best painkiller you could ask for.

            The fantastic overtime pay for staying behind at the office was another plus. I sort of – okay, I
totally
blew off my savings in the last two days I had been in Vegas. That was how fucked-up Constantijin had left me. Yes, it was pathetic of me. No, you didn’t have to say it again and again. I knew it. George knew it. But knowing didn’t stop me from feeling lost – like I once had the sun in my grasp and now I was in, like, total darkness.

            I shuddered, hating how poetic and childish I sounded at the same time. Heartbreak so didn’t suit me. If you hadn't noticed by now, I had this, like, really awful tendency to go Alicia Silverstone's
Clueless
mode when I felt super bad.

            George also had overtime work, but he was already done and in a hurry to leave. He had a date with a guy from 25/F, never mind if both of them were already committed to someone else. They had a very elastic understanding of the word ‘fidelity’. Sometimes, I wished I felt the same. Life would have been less complicated and more orgasmic if I did.

"Toodle-loo, Yanna," he told me with an air-kiss on the cheek while resettling his dorky glasses on his nose. For once, his checkered shirts were nowhere in sight, replaced by a smart-looking blazer and a silky blue shirt.

"Toodle-loo," I returned, laughing. This was another thing I loved about George. He was so unashamedly gay. At first glance, you’d think he was the poster boy for Microsoft’s Best Looking. Then he’d open his mouth, and you knew from the moment he called you
dah-ling
that he liked girls the way Paris Hilton like poodles.

It was around eight in the evening when I stretched for the last time, having typed the final period in my report. Being a perfectionist, I had to triple-check it before leaving.

After locking the door to our office, I took my time walking – what was the point of rushing out when both George and Alyx were out tonight? It wasn’t as if the latest
Pendergast
novel from Preston & Child was going to complain if I came home a little late.

Upon reaching the room containing Constantijin’s office, I found myself slowing down to a stop, gazing at my reflection on its tinted glass walls. Why did I do it? I had no idea. I just wanted---

I just wanted another connection with Constantijin, even something this flimsy.

Placing my tote bag on the floor, I straightened, staring at my reflection again. I looked no different from any mid-twenties office girl, with my dark hair lying straight and fine against my shoulders, black and utterly boring workplace outfit, and my even more boring pair of sensible flats.

Did I look like a woman who could attract someone as hot as Constantijin Kastein?

No. I so did not.

 I decided to fluff my hair out, shaking my head like a rockstar until it was one huge mess.

“There,” I muttered, dealing my reflection another critical look.

Did I now look bimbo-ish enough for Constantijin’s tastes, perhaps someone with a mix of classy and hussy like the woman who had called him in Vegas? Her name was Selena Bartholomew and I was so not ashamed I had Google-stalked her, using all my Internet research skills in order to gain access to her locked tweets and private Facebook page.

And what did I learn?

That she was just one of the
many
who was constantly after Constantijin.

My eyes went back to my reflection.

No, not enough,
I decided and fumbled for my lipstick inside my bag. I applied several layers of it to my lips, smacking them before turning to my reflection. Now – now I looked like Taylor Swift gone wild – the brunette version.

But it still wasn’t bimbo-ish enough in my opinion.

I bent down again, letting out an ‘aha’ when I found my very last makeover tool. I applied several layers of blush to my cheeks – the kind that I only applied for clubbing because it was too wild for anything else – and, after a moment’s hesitation, I also shrugged out of my bolero. After pulling my shirt down and plumping my breasts up, I turned back to face my reflection.

Oh my God!

A giggle escaped me.

If Constantijin saw me like this, he would be, like, totally attracted.
Not.
I looked more like a clown than a bimbo.