That One Time (5 page)

She was a beautiful woman, made rich from divorce money. But she wanted more and she had long decided that Nicolaas would be her next husband. As he was the only male in the prestigious de Koningh family who was likely to fall for her trap, Thelma was determined to do everything she could to make her dreams of becoming part of his family come true.
 

Nic’s story as the poor rich little boy became known throughout the Netherlands when a friend turned paid source revealed his history to the tabloids. His mother had tried to abort him, not wanting to suffer another nine months of pregnancy and having to work hard to regain her slim figure after birth. His father had been just as callous, treating Nicolaas like a bastard child because that was exactly what he thought Nicolaas was until DNA tests proved him wrong.

His horrible childhood had made Nic the most frighteningly aloof man in the de Koningh clan, but Thelma knew that same childhood would also most assuredly make him vulnerable emotionally in certain ways. All she had to do was to discover the largest chink in his armor – and tonight was her best chance of finding it.
 

It took Thelma nearly fifteen minutes to find Nicolaas, who by then was sprawled on one of the velvet couches in the patio facing the estate’s sculptured gardens.
 

He stirred awake at the sight of her. “Thelma?” His voice had the barest hint of intoxication to it, but that was more than enough for her.
 

“Can I join you for a drink?” she asked throatily even as she took a seat next to him on the couch, not really caring to wait for an answer.

“Of course,” Nic replied, striving to perform the usual niceties even as he tried to clear away the cobwebs on his mind.

Thelma gave it her all then, entertaining him with amusing banter, plying the billionaire with wine, and in between she asked him the most subtle of questions. She was patient but methodical in the way she extracted information, and in time she had all the answers she needed.

Ayah.

Her bitch of a rival’s name was Ayah.
 

Whoever that little upstart was, she had successfully made Nicolaas de Koningh believe in the
possibility
of love, but Thelma was having none of it. In order to get Nic to marry her, she had to do whatever she could to disabuse him of the notion. Nic would never marry Thelma out of love, but he would out of necessity, and that was more than good enough for her.

~ Five ~
 

Nic woke with a stinging headache and the worst case of guilt.
 

He was not the type of drunk who forgot what he said or did upon waking up. He was the opposite, and Nic winced as he realized the extent of what he revealed, not only to Willem but also to Thelma Laarson.

Checking the clock, he counted the time and something inside him withered as he realized it had been fifteen hours since he had last seen Ayah Chandler.

What was she doing now?

Was she thinking of him?

Did she hate him?

He was already reaching for his phone by the time he realized what he was doing. Nic swiftly pulled his hand back.
 

No. He could not contact her. He must not.
 

It had to be this way.

****

Two days had passed
. The thought crawled into her mind like a virus that infected and hurt, but she pushed it away. Alone in her hotel room, with the lights switched off, Ayah found herself staring at her iPad. It had been like this since she had last seen Luuk.
 

She didn’t care if people who found out what she was doing would think she was crazy and stupid for waiting. They could believe whatever they wanted, she told herself. She knew her heart best, and it told her that she could not – should not – give up.

Her eyelids began to droop, but she didn’t want to sleep, fearing that if she did, something would happen and she would forever lose the chance of seeing Luuk again.

Straining to keep herself awake, she flipped onto her back and grabbed her iPad again. Then she began to type, praying all the while that her virtual message in the bottle would one day find its way home.

When she woke up, it was because of the insistent ring of the phone.

Luuk!

The bedside lamp almost crashed to the floor as she shoved it away in her haste to reach the phone. She answered breathlessly, “Hello?”

“Good morning, ma’am. This is your wake-up call.”

Shit.

She wanted to cry then and there.

Maybe there was no hope after all.

“Ma’am?”

Tears choking her voice, Ayah stammered, “T-thank you.”

No hope, she told herself. There was no hope and it was time she stopped believing. She grabbed her iPad from the table, clicked on the Facebook icon, and waited for her profile page to load.

When it did, she started to cry.

There weren’t any new posts or messages, but someone had tagged himself in the photo of souvenirs she had uploaded.

Luuk Aafjes.

AFTER

~ One ~

Summer, One Year Later

Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong

Mrs. Lee beamed at Ayah as she huffed and puffed while half-carrying and half-rolling the lady’s two oversized Louis Vuitton suitcases out of the escalator and hurried towards the guests under her care. The departure area for ferries bound for Macau and other ports was crowded, and she had to snake around groups of tourists and shoppers like someone intent on winning The Amazing Race.

“I told you, Ayah,” Mrs. Lee said to her in Mandarin when Ayah reached her side, “We’re not going to be late.”

Ayah could only smile. She’d talk later, once she managed to catch her breath. She knew everyone who came to Hong Kong had shopping in mind, but the luggage had been seriously heavy. Were folks from Taiwan into buying rocks or something now?
 

Mrs. Lee’s gaze flitted to the queues in front of the ticketing booths. Her hands fluttered. “Now, to buy some ferry tickets to Macau…” She paused.

Ayah asked obediently, “Would you like me to buy the tickets for you and your son, Mrs. Lee?”

The woman’s eyes brightened. “Oh, would you? If it’s not much of a bother…”

“I’d be happy to, Mrs. Lee.” And she honestly was. She loved helping people, really. It was one of the reasons why she preferred working in a guesthouse rather than a hotel. There was just something nice about being able to frequently interact with tourists and personally help them, something Ayah knew she wouldn’t be able to enjoy in the often sterile and austere environment of first class hotels.

It took about fifteen minutes to buy the tickets, which she immediately handed to Mrs. Lee. “Here they are, Mrs. Lee! I hope you enjoy your stay in Macau.”

“Oh, how sweet of you.” Mrs. Lee beamed. “Thank you for all your assistance, Ayah. Our stay here in Hong Kong was so much easier than the last time because of you.”

The words made Ayah flush with pleasure. She knew Mrs. Lee was only trying to sweet talk her into forgetting that she hadn’t ever been given a tip throughout their stay, but she didn’t mind. She could see that Mrs. Lee did mean her words, and that was cool.

“It was my pleasure to help you, Mrs. Lee.” She pointed to the clock. “But I think you guys need to get going or you’ll miss your ferry.” They exchanged a few more words of niceties and then it really was time to go. Ayah turned away, a smile on her face.
Mission accomplished, Mom. Another satisfied customer guaranteed—

Someone shouted from behind, “Ayah, wait!”

She looked over her shoulder, startled and puzzled. That was when she saw Johnny, Mrs. Lee's tall and attractive nineteen-year-old son walking determinedly towards her.

Ayah gave him a questioning smile. “Yeah?”
 

He answered by holding her face between his hands and kissing her sweetly on the lips.

Oh my God!

Ayah jerked away from him the same time Mrs. Lee dragged Johnny off her and the crowd around them applauded. Everyone was looking at them, and she could feel herself turning red, especially when Mrs. Lee started reprimanding her son.

Johnny was grinning at her, seemingly deaf to his mother’s furious words. “I’ve wanted to do that since day one.”

She turned even redder at his words. Ayah turned to Mrs. Lee helplessly, hoping for some help but she got the cold shoulder instead, a look of contempt on the older woman’s face. Her eyes widened in shock. What had she done?

“Go get our luggage now, Johnny,” Mrs. Lee ordered, and this time, seeing the hard look on his mother’s face, a frowning Johnny did as asked. He was only a short distance away when Mrs. Lee spun around to face Ayah, snarling, “So that’s why you’ve been so nice to us! You thought to seduce my son and make him marry you?”

Her jaw dropped. “What are you—”

Mrs. Lee wagged a finger at her. “You will not outsmart me! I won’t let a gold digger take my Johnny away!” She said a few more words to Ayah, the kind that she didn’t want to translate in her mind because it only sounded so much worse in English, before stomping away.

When Ayah recovered from her shock, she saw that everyone was still looking at her, and everyone had understood every word.

Oh, dear.

Ayah took long locks of her hair and used it as a makeshift mask to cover her face as she began her walk of shame out of the building. She normally took her time walking down the busy streets of Tsim Sha Tsui, loving the vibrant atmosphere of the city. She liked to think of the city as Asia’s Big Apple, with its huge shopping complexes, glittery retail ads, and the nonstop flow of people from every direction.
 

After escorting guests to the ferry station, Ayah tended to take the longer but more scenic routes on her way back to the guesthouse. She would either go through Kowloon Park, taking the time to feed the ducks and swans and sometimes even spinning around several times before she attempted to make her way out of its waist-high hedge maze. Other times, she’d take the overhead walkway that intersected Canton Road, just so she could watch the fancy tourist ships and old school fishermen’s boats cross the bay. And when she was in the mood to be a tourist, she’d take the most crowded path of all, walking down the Avenue of Stars while munching on fried squid.
 

But now, she did none of those.
 

Now, she went directly to the nearest subway station, held on to a vacant pole, and took out her phone. In a few clicks, she had what she needed.
 

The most recent photo of Luuk, a bare-chested selfie that she had managed to convince him to take for her birthday last month. She had been begging him for the longest time to send her another photo. It was only fair when he always managed to convince her to send him a lot of her new ones. But for her birthday, she had laid on the guilt pretty thickly.

The memory of how he had choked in surprise and growled in frustration when she requested that he be bare-chested made Ayah smile now, cheering her up enough to forget the unfortunate incident at the ferry station.

“Take off my fucking shirt? What am I? A gigolo?” he had snarled during their Skype call that day.

“Mm…yup. My gigolo.”

There was a pause and then— “You always know what to say to disarm me.” That time, his voice was a mixture of exasperation and irritation.

“What I know is that I always like looking at you. It makes me miss you a little less.”

Another pause. “Just say the word, lieverd.”

She shook her head. “No. You were honest with me that first time – about your marriage and not having enough money to fly here. I don’t want you to be in debt just because I’m being selfish, missing you.”

The memory faded and she sighed, wishing she could call Luuk. But he had been very explicit. His divorce was still in the process of being finalized and as long as it still wasn’t approved, he would not be able to afford being openly seen with any woman. Even his calls could be screened at work, which was why she could only wait for his call and they only ever came at specific hours of the day—