That One Time (4 page)

She answered him with a beam and a nod.

“I suppose so.” He had barely finished replying when she quickly leaned back on the chair, clasped her fingers with his, and lifted both their hands in the air. And then she started taking photos with her iPhone. When she had taken about twenty and showed no signs of stopping, he asked with genuine puzzlement, “What is this for?”

“Souvenir.”

“Our hands?”

She nodded, her attention still on taking photos. “It’s kind of my thing. It looks very cute, you know, with your hand so much bigger than mine.”
 

It was only after she took another twenty that she appeared satisfied, thanking him with another beaming smile as she let go of his hand. He gazed at her, not knowing what to think.

Sensing his regard, she turned to him with another smile, showing him her phone. “I’m going to post it on IG. But first, I need to choose the right filter. I don’t use the standard filters, though. I have another app for photo editing. You can even add frames and then provide a different filter for each framed shot…you can add text, too…”

She kept chatting, explaining the process step by step. He should be bored, but he was not. Everything she said or did fascinated him – she could talk to him about everything under the sun and Nic had an uneasy feeling that he would still be entertained. He just could not get enough of the way she did not seem to hold anything back.

The editing part took her about half an hour. By the time she was done, he was even more fascinated – and she was sleepy. Laughing softly as she struggled to keep her head up, he dismissed her protests and pulled her towards him.

“Sleep,” he commanded.

“But I want to post it—”

“Later. You’re obviously tired.”

She tried to protest but ended up yawning instead. He raised an arrogant brow at that, an ‘I told you’ expression on his face, and she grimaced.

“Sleep.”

“So bossy,” she retorted, but it was completely ruined by another yawn she couldn’t control. With a sigh, she snuggled closer to him.

He wished he could place her on his lap but knew it would be too much, even for someone like him.

“Tell me a story.”

He rolled his eyes. “Do I look like a storyteller to you?”

“Please.”

“No.”

“But I can’t sleep without a story.”

“Are you seriously asking me to tell you a story?”

“I’m seriously asking you to tell me a story.” And she promptly ruined that by giggling. She couldn’t help it, with Luuk sounding so aghast. Rubbing her eyes sleepily, she pleaded, “Just one, please? I have a hard time falling asleep when flying.”

Letting out a frustrated sigh, he said, “What the hell do I know about bedtime stories?”

“It doesn’t have to be a bedtime story like a fairytale,” she answered quickly. “It can be, like, anything…like…why are you flying to Amsterdam?”

“It is where I live.” He should not have said that, but he had.
 

“Oh.” She waited for him to ask why she was flying to his city. When moments passed and he did not, she laughed, knowing that it was typical arrogance that had him refraining from asking any questions. She told him, “I’m on my way to Paris.”

“I know,” he said dryly right away. “You let me read your travel itinerary, remember?”

“Oh.” She made a face even with her eyes closed. “I forgot about that.”

He chuckled. “You are sleepy. Admit it and go to sleep.”

“I’m trying.”

He sighed again. “What else do you want to know?”

“Umm…what’s your job?”

“Troubleshooting.”

“Oh…” When he didn’t say anything else, she didn’t press him, thinking that he might be one of those types who were self-conscious about their jobs for whatever reason.

Deciding it was his turn to ask, he returned the question to her.

“My job? I’m a troubleshooter, too, in a way. I do search engine optimization for websites and blogs.”

He was impressed. Nic had no doubt Ayah was a nice girl, but with how impressionable she seemed to be, he had assumed that she was not the type to have such a technical job. “You work for a company?”

“I freelance. It’s how I get to travel.”

They exchanged more questions and answers, her words becoming slurred and slurred, and in another few moments she was sleeping, her breathing becoming deep and regular.

Her face was a picture of innocence – and it would not stay that way if, after this flight, he maintained contact with her.

The hours passed.
 

He could not sleep, could not stop staring at her, and worst of all he could not find a way to convince himself that he did not feel anything for this woman he had known for less than a day.
 

She made him feel weak and powerful at the same time.

She made him…
feel,
bottom line, and Nic just couldn’t have that.
 

The overhead light for the seatbelt option lit up and the pilot’s voice boomed out of the speakers as he announced the plane’s imminent safe landing in Amsterdam. He secured her seatbelt for her, but she did not stir.
 

The plane landed and still she did not wake.

He was not the kind of man who believed in fate, but for this special girl whose trusting soul he had taken advantage of, Nic was willing to give it a try.
 

If she woke up, it meant…

The plane had touched down, and the passengers started to walk past them. He straightened in his seat and with a swift scan of his surroundings, Nic saw that they were the only ones left.

Still, she slept.

He couldn’t breathe.
Wake up, Ayah. Wake up. Wake up.
 

A flight attendant paused next to their aisle. “Sir?”

He said hoarsely, “Let her sleep for a few more minutes. She’s exhausted.” The look on the other woman’s eyes made him want to snarl. It was clear she knew what they had been doing and it was just as clear what she thought was the cause of Ayah’s exhaustion.

Nic gazed at the woman with the kind of contempt that only someone born to a family whose lineage could be traced back for centuries and whose wealth had survived regimes and empires could pull off. She paled and scurried away at the sight.

Nic looked back at Ayah.
Wake up, lieverd.

But her eyes remained closed to the possibility of the future that he wanted to share with her. His body taut with tension and ruthlessly suppressed emotions, Nic bent down and slowly pressed a kiss to her forehead.
 

He had gambled on fate, and he had lost.
 

Goodbye, Ayah.
 

And then he carefully extricated his arm from her. He walked away, not looking back.

~ Four ~
 

“Ma’am?” The flight attendant’s voice was cool, almost insultingly sharp. “You really need to go down now.”

She nodded. She should move now. She really should. But she couldn’t. She kept gazing at the vacant seat next to her. It was almost like everything that had happened was a dream, and there wasn’t a single clue left to prove that it wasn’t. That he had been real.

“Ma’am?”

Swallowing, Ayah forced her shaking limbs to move. She accepted the tote bag the flight attendant handed to her, mumbling her thanks.

She walked out of the plane without seeing anything. She passed through immigration successfully, going through the motions without being truly aware of her surroundings.
Surely…surely he would be waiting for her?

Ayah stopped moving.

He had to be waiting for her.

He had to.

She looked up, tears slowly forming in her eyes. She could not believe it would end just like that between her and Luuk. The connection between them was special. She knew it, and she would bet everything she owned that
he
knew it, too.

She closed her eyes.

Her mom used to say that if she wished for something hard enough, that if she believed hard enough she would get her wish – she would.

She squeezed her eyes as tightly shut as possible.
 

Please.
 

Please.

Please don’t take him away from me, too.

****

Nic watched her from afar, the same way his
own bodyguards watched him from a respectable distance.
Move, lieverd. Leave me. Forget about me.

But she remained a still figure in the middle of the busy airport crowd, all of them indifferent to her silent pain – all of them but him, who was the cause of it. She stood there, a symbol of hope and innocent childhood dreams lost. He knew everything about her, and she knew nothing about him. He had all the cards. She had none.

He did not love her, but against all odds she loved him - the person he was and not Nicolaas de Koningh.

With a curse, he swung away and walked out of the airport.

She was not of his world, was not for him, and would never deserve someone as cynical as he was.

Nic started drinking the moment he stepped inside his limousine, and by the time he arrived in the family’s palatial compound, liquor had numbed his senses, enough to bury the regret and pain deep inside him.

It was over. He had to accept that.

The main estate was ablaze with light when his limousine rolled down the paved driveway. It was a sure sign that Willem was once again performing his duty as the head of the Amsterdam side of the clan and hosting a party for one of their family members. Nic was tempted to turn away and drink himself into a stupor in his own estate, but years of hard-earned lessons in self-discipline prevented him.
 

Taking a deep breath, he strode inside, his handsome face wearing a courteous smile that revealed not a hint of the deep and clawing regret he felt inside him. All female guests, with or without partners, stopped to observe his entrance. Many stared at him with coy invitation in their eyes. Others openly gawked. Only those who were also part of the de Koningh clan were impartial to the air of brooding mystery and haughty aloofness that Nic exuded and which all the other women found so incredibly attractive.

“Nic,” Willem greeted his youngest brother with warmth, making sure not to pull Nic into a welcoming hug and instead only offering his hand for a shake.
 

Nic nodded.
 

Willem took one look at his brother’s eyes and knew two things:

Firstly, Nic was drunk.

Secondly, Nic was in trouble.

He said quietly, “Come to my study and let’s talk about it.”

Nic immediately shook his head, knowing what his brother was up to. “I am fine. I’ve made my decision.”

“Made a decision about what?”

“About her—” Nic stopped speaking.

Willem only continued gazing at him, and Nic expelled his breath in frustration. He knew that look on his brother’s face. Willem would only quietly and stubbornly keep at him until he was forced to reveal the truth.

And that was…what? That he might have just found out love at first sight could happen? That it
did
happen? Even to his own ears, it sounded fucking crazy.

“You can talk to me about anything, Nic,” Willem stressed.
 

“Later,” Nic finally said. “After the party.”

Willem’s body slowly relaxed. “Understood.”

They did not speak after that, both of them concentrating on their own thoughts and neither of them aware that one woman was eavesdropping on their conversation. This same woman would later successfully wrangle an invitation to stay behind and spend the night in the de Koningh estate. Afterwards, when all the guests and staff had departed, Thelma Laarson would quietly slip out of her room to search for Nicolaas de Koningh.