Eternally Seduced (40 page)

Staffan told himself not to expect too much. Even though Saffi March had so far proven different from all his pre-conceived notions of women who were after his fame, fortune, and fucking, in the end she would still be like the rest. She would still have an agenda, would want him to---

“Please be happy, Mr. Aehrenthal.”

Staffan stiffened.

Saffi said with nervous determination, “I love how you dance. I love how you sing. I love your lyrics, and I just think…it would be such a waste if it’s true that you’ve been…”

Staffan’s heart started to beat fast. Then he told himself that she wouldn’t say it. Of course she wouldn’t because at the end of the day, she was his fucking fan, she worshipped the fucking ground he walked on, and she would never risk antagonizing him even if---

Saffi closed her eyes. “I just hope you’d realize how much you mean to your fans, Mr. Aehrenthal,” she whispered. “I just hope you’d stop…doing the…stuff you’ve been doing recently because we really don’t want to lose you. You have so much to give.”

He should have been incensed. She was a fucking nobody, and he was Sweden’s #1 somebody, the #1 on Billboard charts, and in everything else.

He should have been creeped out. Was she a fucking stalker or what? How the fuck did she know that he had been drinking every night and taking the craziest risks that his insurance company had terminated its contract with him?

He should slam the phone down, but he didn’t. 

And he wasn’t mad.

Staffan wasn’t even creeped out, not when the earnestness in her angelic voice made him remember the old days, back when he used to be in her shoes once, and he, too, had been one of the first to know what was happening with the singers he had idolized. In fact, it was because he had been such a great fan of another rock legend that he had found his mentor – and eventually his calling.

His iPhone made one last final beep.

Staffan said quietly, “Thanks.”

But it was too late.

Saffi March, Facebook Status: Single

Three Months Later

“Ooooh. Are you checking her Facebook again?” Yanna suddenly appeared at his back, leaning past him to sneak a look at his laptop.

Staffan managed to snatch his Macbook away from her, slamming it shut to prevent her from taking a closer look.

“Spoilsport!” Yanna exclaimed indignantly just as a tall, golden-haired man in the balcony walked back into the hotel room. He was gorgeous and impeccably dressed, his coldly beautiful face softened by the smile that touched his lips when he saw Yanna.

Staffan scowled at the other man. “Control your girlfriend, will you?”

Constantijin Kastein settled into one of the armchairs. “Were you?” His question was directed at his friend, but all he had eyes for was the woman he loved, sending her a lazy smile while his gaze promised her something wicked.

Yanna blushed, but already she was walking towards Constantijin, her body drawn to him like a magnet.

“Was I what?” Staffan had to say the question twice before Constantijin finally heard him, leaving him exasperated and amused with the lovesick way the pair acted when they were together.

Constantijin drawled, “Were you checking on her Facebook again?”

Faint color stained Staffan’s high-boned cheeks. “Fuck you.”

His friend only grinned in response, taking Staffan’s baleful look as an affirmative. But Constantijin was quickly distracted, with Yanna finally reaching his side. When she made an attempt to sit on the armrest, he shook his head and pulled her onto his lap instead.

“Constantijin!” Even though they had been dating for almost a year now, she still wasn’t used to her Dutch billionaire’s extremely public displays of affection.

Staffan smirked. “Don’t mind me.”

Yanna glared in response. When she tried to get up, Constantijin pulled her back and murmured, “Stay, schat.” She sank back onto him after that, never able to resist his tender commands.

Something in Staffan twisted at the tenderness in his friend’s voice. He didn’t like hearing it, didn’t like to remember that once he had been like that with a woman, too. But unlike Yanna, that woman had ended throwing him under the bus and running Staffan over as many times as she could get away with it.

He said abruptly, “I want to go over the list of raffle draw winners for the tickets one last time.” When the operational head of his fan club filed for sick leave, Yanna had volunteered to step in, thus becoming in charge of all promotions meant to increase funding for the club.

Yanna gasped, scrambling off Constantijin’s lap as she exclaimed, “I forgot the list! I think it’s in the car. Constantijin had it with him but I don’t remember him taking it out.”

Knowing that Staffan’s words were only an alibi to get Yanna out of the room, Constantijin shot him a dark look before offering, “Let me get it, Yanna.”

But Yanna had already fished out the car key from his pocket. “No, it’s okay. Let me get it while you stay here and catch up with Staffan.” She sent him a teasing smile. “I know you miss your friends.”

Constantijin scowled. “I do not.”

“Yes,” Yanna sang over her shoulder as she skipped to the doorway, “you totally do!”

This constant teasing had at first bothered Staffan. In the years he had been going out with Chloe, they had only ever teased each other about sex. His history with Chloe had made him think that the other couple was unlikely to stay together for long.

Constantijin was an overtly sexual man, his appetite for women known by the entire world, while Yanna had obviously led a sheltered life. But after spending more time with the two, Staffan had realized that somehow the love-hate chemistry between the pair worked, and it did so in a way that he and Chloe had never experienced, no matter how intensely passionate things had always been between them.

The moment the door closed behind Yanna, Constantijin said, “Next time use another alibi. I don’t want Yanna tired for no reason---”

“She’s only going to tell your head of security to get stuff from your car,” he said exasperatedly. “How hard can that be?”

Constantijin shook his head. “Wait until that girl on Facebook has her hooks in you and you’ll know---”

“Just tell me if it’s done,” he growled, hating how the two made it appear as if he was stalking Saffi March. And he wasn’t. He just…liked checking out what she was doing online because she was too amusing for words. And unique.

She was unlike any girl he had known. Through his near-constant digging online, Staffan had learned that Saffi was taking up some kind of deep-as-hell post-graduate degree that had to do something with fish.

A smile almost cracked on his lips as he remembered how she would post gushing thoughts about her paper on subjects like
Ocean Law
and
Advanced Ichthyology.
And between those posts, he remembered her comments on every fucking photo of him that made it to the social networking site.

God he’s so…YUMMY.lol,
she had commented on a photo taken of Staffan wearing nothing but a skimpy pair of black swimming shorts while he had been vacationing in Hawaii. The comment had aroused him – he very much liked the idea of Saffi thinking his body was “yummy” - but it also completely bemused Staffan how someone so obviously smart and proper like Saffi was also a diehard fangirl of his.

Constantijin’s chuckle made him snap defensively, “What?”

His friend looked at him pointedly. “Apparently, there’s no need to wait. You haven’t even seen her in person and she already has you wrapped around her finger. That’s so
sweet
.”

“Shut up.” He pulled on his collar, feeling like the air-conditioning in his room had stopped working. “Just tell me if you sent the tickets or not!”

Constantijin laughed. “It’s done. Stop worrying.”

Staffan’s chest eased, and only then did he realize that he had been partially holding his breath. He had cared that much about the outcome, and the knowledge didn’t sit well with him at all. “You’re sure?”

“I got her signature on the acknowledgment receipt. She got the ticket.”

“But do you know if she’ll use it?”

Constantijin’s smirk mirrored his own, making Staffan realize how fucking arrogant he could look when he was the one doing it.
Irritatingly arrogant
, he thought as Constantijin continued to smirk.

“Well?” Staffan demanded.

“That’s what FB stalking is for.” Constantijin’s bark of laughter echoed throughout the suite when Staffan answered him with a one-fingered response.

His friend gestured towards his laptop. “Just fucking do it while Yanna’s not here to tease you.”

“Go to hell.” But Staffan was already opening his laptop and indulging in his secret hobby for the past three months. By using the Facebook account of his fan club, he was instantly connected to Saffi’s. And her page was very illuminating.

Staffan’s eyes widened when he read the topmost conversation thread at her wall.

Seeing his expression, Constantijin swiftly crossed the room, standing behind his friend to read what was on the screen.

“Goddammit, Kastein. When did you turn into a fucking gossip?” He tried to close his laptop again, but Constantijin quickly swiped his laptop out of the table.

Helene: So you’re all set to go to LA?

Saffi: Yep! I’ve got the concert and plane tickets already. *Sigh* What can I say? He loves me so much that he can’t bear to go on stage without me watching from the front row.

Helene: ROFL

Saffi: No, really. He totally texted me that. He even said he’s going to die if he doesn’t see me!

Helene: Yeah, sure, sure. Enjoy the concert! So happy for you!

Saffi: lol I will. Thanks, Helene! Will post pics as soon as I can.

When Yanna came back, Constantijin was still in the throes of laughter and completely impervious to Staffan’s scowls. Yanna frowned. “What did I miss?”

“Kastein,” he growled in warning.

But his friend was suddenly selectively deaf. He said very seriously, “Let’s just say I found out from an extremely reliable source that our good friend here will apparently die---”

As Yanna gasped, Staffan gritted out, “Shut the fuck up.”

Constantijin laughed harder.

~~~

“L.A.” Saffi’s mother, Pearl, sounded shell shocked as she repeated the name of her youngest child and only daughter’s destination. “And without the bodyguards?”

Saffi answered firmly, “Yes, Mom. Without
any
of the bodyguards.”

A part of the five-way-call that Saffi had initiated, Senator Samuel March – who also happened to be Saffi’s dad – answered darkly, “It’s too dangerous.”

“No, it’s not. I bought first class. I’m checked in at a five-star hotel, and I’ve had the hotel hire my own driver and car while I’m here. You guys always tell me first class is enough to---”

“But
L.A.
”

In spite of her resolve to stand firm, Saffi found herself smiling at the note of real distress in her mother’s voice. There were several coughs from the other ends of the line, and she guessed that her other siblings, Steel and Silver, were doing their best not to laugh out loud.

Pearl Beaufort March was a lady’s lady, a woman who could trace her lineage all the way back to its Mayfair legacy. She had been educated in an all girls’ school and a ladies’ college, and she had
never
taken the Lord’s name in vain.

Saffi was honest enough to admit that she wasn’t the most street smart person in the world, but Pearl was even worse, a throwback from centuries past, the kind who thought women were quite “brazen” to say ‘hi’ to a man without a proper introduction.

“I’m going to be okay, Mom. I promise.”

“But what about your fishies, sis?” This one was from Silver, who was three years older than Saffi. “Can you bear to leave them for the weekend?”

She rolled her eyes. “Hmph! As if you really care.” Even so, she made a mental note to herself to call Mary, the undergrad student living across from her room. Saffi had to make sure Mary would indeed look after her aquatic pets.

Steel, five years older and the more serious minded of her brothers, asked quietly, “Can’t you reconsider, Saffi? At least keep one bodyguard with you.”

“No.” She obeyed them all the time, and had no problems doing so. But this was different. This was…not for them to know about her. “You all know you can trust me, right? I’m not the type to go wild. You know that.” She crossed her fingers as she spoke, hoping God wouldn’t strike her dead for saying such a big whopping fat lie.

All for the love of Staffan Aehrenthal
, she reminded herself.

“Fine,” the senator said in a heavy tone. “You win. But only because you asked it as your birthday gift.”

She grinned. “Love you all.”

“Happy nineteenth,” Samuel said gruffly.

“Happy birthday again, sweetie,” Pearl sniffed out.

“Take care, sis,” Silver added.