How Not to Be Seduced by Billionaires (3 page)

            I tried to struggle out of his hold. “Please stop this,” I managed to say. “I’m not interested.”

            One hand still imprisoning mine, he used his other hand to cup my chin and make me look up.

            His smile was breathtaking, and it made my nipples harden even more. “Of course you are,” he whispered.

            He had already released me by the time I managed to get all my wits back. Constantijin was opening the door, his tone business-like and perfectly at odds with the sensual heat in his gaze. “Till later, Ms. Everleigh.”

            When the door closed behind me and a voice on the PA system announced the name of the first interviewee, I practically ran to the restroom so I could call Alyx privately.

            “You won’t believe what just happened,” I half-shrieked when she answered.

            Alyx answered promptly, “You were fired,” and made some weird guzzling sound afterwards. She was thirty floors down, bribed into waiting for me with a drink-all-you-can treat at Starbucks. Daria – our other best friend and who completed our decades-old-threesome – would have been with her, too, if she wasn’t currently sailing the Mediterranean on her honeymoon with her Greek tycoon.

            I glared at my iPhone, wishing I had just FaceTimed Alyx so she would see exactly what I thought of her verbal show of support.

            “Very funny.” Not waiting for her to answer back since Alyx was unbeatable when it came to smartass comebacks, I said right after, “Constantijin Kastein is flirting with me.”

            I waited for her reaction with a madly beating heart. Alyx was a journalist and she knew everything about anyone who mattered. One look at Constantijin and you knew he absolutely mattered, more so than a billion people’s lives probably.

            Alyx didn’t disappoint, and when she actually stopped slurping down her frappe to exclaim, ‘
Whoa’
, the pace of my heartbeat shot up dramatically.

            “Constantijin Kastein – the VP of your company? The guy BBC dubbed as the King of European Media and Netherland’s #1 playboy? The one
Hello
magazine had on its cover last month and a spread of his twenty-three properties all over the world and his forty-something collection of sports cars and classics? That Constantijin you mean?”

            Of all the things she said, just one thing stood uppermost in my mind. He was the #1 playboy in his whole country? No wonder my nipples were still hard as pebbles. How many women did he have to bed to get that kind of title? The thought of that beautiful body next to another woman’s created a twinge of pain in my heart, but I told myself it was out of disgust. I was looking for true love, not sex. I had to remember that.

            “Yes,” I finally said glumly. “That’s the one.”

            “Why do you sound sad?” Alyx demanded. “Isn’t that a good thing? It would mean that he’s dynamite in bed!”

            I couldn’t help giggling, but only because Alyx talked as if she had oodles of experience when I knew she was as much a virgin as I was. “Like you’d know.”

            “I watch porn. You don’t.”

            “I’m blushing for you,” I said, and it was true.

            “Look, Yanna. You know I don’t believe in your true love nonsense. If Constantijin Kastein wants you, I say go for it. You can’t ask for a more perfect guy to deflower you---”

            “Alyx!” I couldn’t believe what she was saying.

            “I’m just being honest,” she said defensively.

            “You’re, like, not helping, you know?”

            “You’re, like, totally turned on, aren’t you?”

            Just this moment, I wished she wasn’t such a true friend. That way, she wouldn’t have found it so easy to see through me.

            “Yanna Everleigh for interview.”

            I jumped at the words, stunned that even the restroom also had speakers connected with the building’s PA system. I glanced at my watch, my eyes widening when I realized that only ten minutes had passed. Wasn’t I supposed to be the last one interviewed? They were all interviewed then?

            “I got to go,” I told Alyx, near to hyperventilating at the thought of going face to face with Constantijin again. God, I was so hopelessly entranced with him.

            “Don’t forget to use a condom,” Alyx managed to sneak in just before I ended the call. I glared at my iPhone the second time even as our call ended. Condom? Yeah, right.

            Standing in front of the glass doors, I had to take another deep breath before knocking. My heartbeat was still thumping so loudly it completely drowned out the sound of my knock. I turned the knob with shaky fingers and went in, murmuring, “Mr. Kastein?”

            As the door closed shut behind me, I saw Constantijin standing in the middle of the room, his back to me. He seemed to be gazing at the magnificent view outside the 180-degree windows spanning half of the room. When he turned around, I couldn’t help but swallow.

            He didn’t have to say a word for me to know what he wanted.

            The blazingly hungry look in his silvery gray eyes was more than enough.

            “Call me by my name,” he invited huskily.

            I hastily averted my gaze before he could command me into doing anything he wanted with his eyes alone. “I don’t think that’s appropriate, Mr. Kastein.” I wanted to sound prim and standoffish, but I couldn’t fool myself into ignoring the breathless quality of my voice. I sounded just as hungry and frustrated as he seemed.

            Shit.

            When the silence lengthened, I found myself glancing at him. He was smiling, a dangerously sexy smile that had my hand unconsciously creeping upward to my chest. It was a futile effort to calm my erratic heartbeat.

            “Yanna?”

            “Y-yes?”

            “I didn’t interview the others.”

            That stumped me. “W-what?”

            “I knew right away who I should hire or not. But you…” He frowned. “I really do need to interview you.”

            He did? Why did he?

            “I will objectively evaluate your answers and I make no promises about your chances for getting the job.”

I nodded, still not looking at him.

“But after that…” He paused.

When the silence stretched, I was unable to resist the temptation.

My knees buckled at the promise in his eyes. But it was gone in a flash, replaced by an impassive mask falling over his face as he spoke. “Sit down and we’ll start the interview.”

When I practically collapsed on the seat he had courteously pulled out for me, I had to pretend I didn’t hear him laugh out right. He took the seat next to me again, pushing his seat closer to mine, closer and closer until our knees touched once more.

I glared at him.

His eyes laughed at me, as if daring me to be the first to acknowledge what was happening between us.

Constantijin said solemnly, “So it says in your resume you used to work for your father’s pharmaceutical company. Why did you leave?”

Still painstakingly aware of the heat from his body and the way my knees tingled with every instance he moves and his knees bump into me, I said haltingly, “It wasn’t for me.”

“But if I take you…”

My eyes widened.
Take me?
Like, take me, like, now?

He smirked. “Oh, Ms. Everleigh, what are you thinking?”

I turned red, realizing he knew exactly what I had been thinking.

He said smoothly, “I’m just wondering how I can be sure that if I take you in my company you won’t feel the same in the end?”

It took me a few seconds to answer. “I worked for my father’s company out of family loyalty – I gave it a fair shot but I just wasn’t a good fit. But the job your company is offering – I want it for no other reason than I know I’m going to love it and work hard to be the best for it.”

He looked at me, as if waiting for me to say more.

I looked back at him steadily since I knew there was nothing else I could say.

Finally, he spoke again. “Well put, Ms. Everleigh.”

The whole interview took about half an hour, and he ended it with the usual, “Thank you for your time, Ms. Everleigh, and we’ll be calling you about the results soon.”

He sounded so businesslike I started thinking uneasily maybe I had just misread the situation, and he hadn’t been really hitting on me. When he stood up, I did so, too. I opened my mouth to thank him, but he beat me to speaking. “Now that’s over with…”

In the act of taking my bag from the seat, I froze at the strange tone of his words. Had interviewing me been that much of a bore?

“We can start talking about us then.”

Shock made my fingers go limp, and my bag fell back onto the seat soundlessly.

“Look at me, Yanna.”

My heart raced faster at how different my name sounded when he said it with his Dutch accent so pronounced.

“Yanna,” he said again, warningly this time since I still hadn’t looked at him.

The command in his voice was like music my body couldn’t resist dancing to and I found myself slowly lifting my head up to look at him.

God, he was really too beautiful for words. It hurt to look at him and
not
touch him, and it hurt even more to force myself to stay still when his words were so blatantly raw with his need.

“I want to fuck you, Yanna.”

My lips parted in shock at what he was saying even as the rest of my body melted. Every nerve in my body was screaming,
undress now, undress now!

When had I become such a shameless hussy?

He walked towards me, and I could only stand there, a slave waiting to be claimed by her master. The thought made me cringe. Where did that come from again?

            “Mr. Kastein.” I could barely hear myself over the racket my heart was making. I started backing away from him when I realized he really was determined to close the distance between us.

            Looking over my shoulder to make sure I was backing my way to the door, I glanced back at him.

            “Call me by my name,” he commanded.

            I gulped at the smoldering look in his gaze but said stubbornly, “Mr. Kas-
tein
!” I ended up shrieking the last syllable when his hand suddenly shot out, taking me by surprise as he grabbed hold of me.

            Suddenly I was locked in the circle of his arms, his breath fanning my face, and Constantijin staring down at me in satisfaction.

            “You’re the only woman I know who’s not dying to obey me,” he whispered.

            “Then I think you must have been dating dogs, not women.”

            He chuckled, but his tone was dead serious when he murmured, “I’m going to kiss you now.”

            My eyes widened in panic. I knew without a single doubt that my life would change completely if he did. “
No
---”

            Constantijin had already bent his head down, his lips conquering mine.