Caged (How Not To Be Seduced by Billionaires: Book 3) (4 page)

            The older woman’s face became suffused with such rage, everything suddenly became clear. These two had a history, and it wasn’t a good one.

Brittany Sr. screeched, “How dare you? If it wasn’t for Erik Kastein, you wouldn’t even have the right to speak with me, you whore!”

            A pinkish film covered my vision. It was one thing to hear them backstab Marge – which I could honestly forgive since I sincerely believed that what you didn’t know didn’t matter a damn – but it was another thing entirely to insult someone I knew in front of me.

            Marge didn’t even flinch, and for a moment I was filled with such awe for her. Marge’s face, still unlined by age, shone with the kind of beauty that was more than skin deep. And in her floor-length gown, with its long black lacy sleeves and white empire-cut body, she wasn’t the one who looked like a whore. It was the other woman, whose probably royalty-like lineage didn’t appear to have a good effect on her fashion taste. She was dressed as provocatively as her daughter, in a glittery strapless gown that boasted a fake tan and meaty thighs.

Pity underlined Marge’s voice when she spoke. “After all these years, you still feel bitter that he fell in love with me, don’t you?”

            “
Love
?”

I winced at the shrill sound of the older woman’s voice.

“You flatter yourself. No, you turned his head around because of all your cheap little tricks in bed, and of course you’d be able to seduce him away from me. By the time you had a hundred men using your body, I was still a virgin---”

            The pinkish vision turned into fuchsia, no matter how much I was inhaling and exhaling to stop rage from taking over my common sense.

            “And you really had the gall to marry him, even though you know you’d make Erik a laughingstock, with everyone having had a taste of your always-hungry pussy---”

            Fuchsia deepened into crimson, and I clenched my hands together in an effort to control myself.

            “---and worst of all for Erik, everyone knew that when you married him, you were knocked up with someone else’s child, a bastard who doesn’t know his place---”

            Crimson transformed into the bloodiest shade of red.

            I charged towards Brittany Sr.

            “What the---”

            “Yanna, no!”

           
Slap.

           
“You bitch!” Brittany howled behind me. And then she was clawing my back, pulling my hair to keep me off her mother, but I was already lifting my hand.

           
Slap.

            The red marks on each cheek didn’t even satisfy me. “You make me sick, old hag!”
Slap.
“How can you say such terrible words when you’re the ugliest cougar I’ve ever seen?”
Slap.

            “Let go of my mother,” Brittany screeched.

            Dimly, I heard Marge speaking in Dutch, her words fast and furious.

            The doors swooshed open, and all four of us froze for a moment, our eyes swinging to its direction. I hoped it was Constantijin, but this just wasn’t my night at all. A rather large woman in a black-and-white flapper dress gawked.

            Brittany was the first to recover. “I said let go of my mother!” She pulled on my gown so hard I heard a tearing sound.

            I automatically let go of Brittany Sr., clutching my gown to my body before I found myself in my underwear. Of course, that allowed the older blond bimbo to take advantage and suddenly I had one woman trying to get me bald while the other one wanted me naked.

            The large woman screamed, “
Security
!”

            A siren started wailing out of nowhere, as if triggered by the word. More slapping occurred after that, but this time it was me taking a dose of my own medicine. Brittany got to claw my face, but I got to jab her in the eye. And Brittany Sr. did manage to rip my gown off, but I sort of popped something of hers, and the next thing I knew silicone gel had exploded on three of us.

            Then there were the police, the walk of shame – it was all a blur after that, and I couldn’t remember much of it. All I knew then was that Constantijin was nowhere to be found.

Lesson #3

There is no chastity belt

that your billionaire cannot make you unlock.

“Yanna?” It took a while before I realized someone had called my name. I was locked with the blond bimbos in a prison cell, wearing an inmate uniform because my gown – Daria’s actually – was beyond hopeless to repair.

But it wasn’t that bad, not really. It could have been a lot worse. We could have been, like, arrested by sexual maniacs with a badge. Or we could have been thrown into a cell occupied by, like, convicted lesbian rapists.

Compared to all the horrifying thoughts that had crowded my mind during the ride, reality was a lot more pleasant. In fact, the police station appeared to be one of the newest in the city – a fairly small one, with the other two cells still empty. The lady officer even offered us coffee as we waited for someone to bail us out and have the paperwork done on who was going to sue whom for God knew what.

All in all, I counted myself lucky. If there had been a real-life hardcore criminal standing even ten feet away from me in this prison, I would have freaked out.

Like what Brittany was doing – or had been doing since we were taken here.
Ten
minutes ago.

“Oh my God.” That was, like, the five hundredth time she had said that.
Five
minutes ago.

  Seriously, I wanted to freak out, too, and I was sort of doing it, but, like, silently. Besides, the only thing her screams and tantrums did now was to give me a headache.

"This is all your fault!" Brittany spat when she caught me looking at her.

If I didn’t feel so tired, I would have laughed. The shiner I gave Brittany was complemented by her white eyeliner, giving her a Glittery Panda Goddess look. Seeing it made me touch the slash she left on the edge of my face, near my left ear, and I winced in pain because the wound was still fresh.

“Let me out of this fucking hellhole!”

God! Did she, like, have to cuss all the time? Why couldn’t everyone just turn into a ditz like I did when I was stressed out? It was, like, so much calmer – and easier on the ears.

“Oh my God.” That made, what, 501 times for Brittany?

“Yan-na.”

            “Oh my God.” That was me, though.

            What was Alyx doing here?

            “Hello, my beautiful peace-loving friend.” Laughter tinged Alyx's voice.

             I covered my face with my hands. “Shut up.” I suddenly felt sick and miserable, absolutely shamed at how I had gone literally crazy earlier. With my eyes squeezed shut, all I could see was how security had to drag the three of us out – me and the blond bimbos – and straight into the backseat of a police car that was conveniently waiting outside on standby, in case shit like what had happened would happen.

Marge had started to argue with the security, but I pleaded her not to – or at least I hazily recalled somewhat doing so. I hadn't wanted her to get involved and increase the chances that the stuff the B-squares - that was, like, totally what I was going to call them from now on – said about her would leak to the press.

            “I can’t believe you did that,” Alyx told me even though I still wasn’t looking at her.

            She wasn’t the only one. I just wasn’t raised that way. I had never gotten into a fight in my entire life. And before this humiliating fiasco, the closest I got to it was the subtle exchange of digs I’d have with Arian at work, which was totally lame since the best ‘dig’ I could do was make faces behind her back.

            “What are you going to say to your Mom when she hears about this?”

            My head jerked up at that. “
Don’t tell her
.” My life would be over if Carole knew I had been behind bars. Since I was their only child – and my mom only had me when she was almost forty – my parents were nearly fanatical about my safety.

            “Visitors for Yanna Everleigh,” the policeman stationed by the main door boomed.

            Alyx raised an eyebrow at me, saying musingly as she turned around, “This is interesting. As far as I know, you can’t have more than one visitor at a time.”

            “Yanna?”

            “Mr. Fix-It,” Alyx gasped.

            Gasping as well, I caught a glimpse of Drake’s tall form walking swiftly towards me. He was still dressed in his tux, and against the sterile background of the prison cells, he looked like an angel flying in to rescue me. I quickly looked down before his eyes could meet mine. What was he doing here?

            “Yanna?”

            My head jerked up, and my neck started to ache with all the sudden up-down movements I was doing with my head. “
Mrs. Kastein?”
What was she doing here, too?

            The main doors burst open. “Where is she?”

            I bent my head back down again.

            What took him so long?

            Seated on the opposite bench, Brittany’s mother – Beatrice – shrieked, “Where are
my
visitors, asshole?” She sounded drunk even though her test results were negative. Apparently, decades-old envy could have that effect on some people.

            “Constantijin, oh, thank God, you’re here, darling!” Brittany flew to my side of the bars, pushing me out of her way as she did. “It’s all this bitch’s fault! She attacked my mother---”

            “I will give you three fucking seconds to get out of my face---”

            "Y-you don't mean that!"

            "---before I have my lawyers take you to court and sentence you and your mother for life imprisonment." There was a moment of silence.

            "Aaaaawkward,” Alyx said gleefully.

            Brittany burst out, “Are you insane? She was the one who attacked my mother first!”

“One.”

            “Is this fucking for real? You’re going to choose this lowlife nobody---”