How Not to Be Seduced by Billionaires (29 page)

            His fingers tightened around my breast. “Yanna, answer me.”

            “But are you mine, too?”

            “Of course I am.”

            “Then…why did you go out with another woman
again
?” I didn’t even have to close my eyes to imagine Constantijin with the woman I had seen on TV at his side, another blond beauty who shot my confidence to pieces. She looked so right next to him, the way I knew I never could be.

            Cute, fun, perky – people used those words over and over to describe me, but Constantijin didn’t deserve a woman who sounded like a hyperactive poodle. He needed someone sophisticated and glamorous as he was, and I was still scared that there’d be a day he’d realize that, too.

            Constantijin took my hands and placed them on his chest, allowing me to feel his heartbeat. It remained calm and steadfast, like an inevitable truth, as Constantijin answered, “I wanted to hurt you for choosing him over me.” His head lowered, his lips touching the upper slope of my breast, leaving a kiss that felt like a promise. “I won’t do it again, Yanna. But you must promise me the same. You must not choose anyone else over me.”

            For one infinite-like second, I was terrified of what was happening. I was falling too hard and too fast for this man, and he was asking so much of me without really offering anything in return.

            He wanted me, but for how long?

            He said he was mine, but until when?

            Yet in the end, the lack of answers was something I could only close my eyes to – something I had to pretend didn’t exist. It was too late. I was already unquestioningly his, even if there came a time that he wouldn’t want me anymore.

            “Yanna?

            My arms around him tightened. “I’m yours, Constantijin. Only yours.”

Lesson #2

Let your billionaire think all you want is his money.

He will hurt you less when you do.

Constantijin had me dressed in seconds, so quickly I could only blink as he helped me put on my underwear and pulled my gown back down. “Hide,” he said grimly.

            I blinked in confusion. “But I’m already dressed---”

            He shook his head. “I know those men. They’d talk about you the moment they’re done being hung over. I do not want the first thing that people will say about you when they find out about us to be an ugly thing.” He kissed my fingers. “I want it to be perfect between us.”

            A lot of butterfly wings fluttered inside my stomach when I heard those words.

            He caressed my cheek. “When I leave, wait for five more minutes before going out. I will be waiting for you then.” And then he was gone, calling out something in Dutch to the pair of intoxicated men, whose footsteps already sounded awfully near.

            Five minutes, huh?

            I knew exactly what I could do with that. Closing my eyes, a smile already touching my lips, I let myself imagine the pleasure I had experienced in Constantijin’s arms. In an instant, I was aroused again, my body yearning already for his touch. It made me blush, but the wanton feelings also made my smile widen. I wanted him madly, but he wanted me just as madly, too.

            Reluctantly opening my eyes when I felt that five minutes had already passed, I slowly retraced my path out of the forest. Here and there I’d let my fingers graze the bark of a tree, a flower’s tender soft petals, their textures a way of cementing the fact that this was all real.

            Constantijin might never admit it, but something had changed between us tonight – and it was a step closer to him loving me back someday.

            A swooshing sound took me out of my thoughts, and I saw two women almost stalking their way into the conservatory, the doors swinging heavily shut behind them. My eyes widened when I realized that the younger woman was the same one I had seen with Constantijin on TV last night.

            Why was she here?

            “Oh, did you see how he snubbed me, Mother?” Constantijin’s date screeched.

            “Calm down, Brittany. You won’t win him back with your temper.” The older woman opened her purse, taking out a lighter and a cigarette. Blowing out a circle of smoke, she continued, “But honestly, darling, I don’t care if you don’t get back together with him. His bloodline is…as you know...dirty.”

            “
Honestly,
Mother, I don’t give a damn even if his mother had fucked every guy in the city---”

            “Oh, darling, I think she truly did back then.”

            “---but what I do care about is being his wife and getting access to his billions.”

            Maybe this seemed like exaggerating, but even this far I could practically see the dollar signs shining in Brittany’s eyes as she hissed, “
Billions,
Mother. Don’t you think that’s worth ignoring he’s got a hooker for a mother?”

            The words took me so much by surprise I accidentally knocked the electrically lit pillar next to me.

            Shit.

            “Who’s there?” Brittany asked shrilly.

            I was so busted.

            Or maybe I wasn’t. Maybe I could hide---

            A blazing light suddenly went my way, blinding me. I blinked, automatically trying to shield my gaze from the glare of the other woman’s Blackberry torch-like lighting.

            When I looked up, Brittany and Brittany Sr. were right in front of me.

            “Eavesdropping cheap bitch!”

            And there went the first missile, from the older woman no less.

            But because I preferred Switzerland’s neutral role in wars, I pretended the words didn’t rankle and said evenly, “I understand why you think that, but---”

            “Oh my God, Mother, I know who this bitch is! She’s that woman Constantijin couldn’t stop staring at a while ago.” Brittany gave me a look from head to toe. I’d be lying if I didn’t feel smaller as she did – and it didn’t even have anything to do with the fact that she towered over me by at least half a foot.

            “Who are you?” Brittany Sr. snapped.

            “None of your business.”

            Her eyes narrowed. “If you’re planning to tell Constantijin about what you think you heard---”

            Wow. She was really taking that route? I cleared my throat. “I know exactly what I heard.”

            Brittany suddenly pushed herself between her mother and me. Taking me by surprise when she suddenly yanked me by the hair, she snapped, “Listen, you little bitch. I’m going to ruin you if you ever speak one word about this.”

            The doors opened, and its sound made me close my eyes in despair.
Another
surprise guest? The night just kept getting better and better. Not.

            “Please release my guest, Brittany.” The familiar cultured voice made my eyes flare wide open.

            It really was her – Marge Kastein, Constantijin’s mother.

            When the other woman didn’t move, Marge’s voice turned into steel. “
Brittany.”
 

            Brittany released me with a curse. I curled my fingers into a fist. If I didn’t, I would be touching my scalp because it honestly hurt, and I didn’t want the blond bimbo and her mother to know that.

            Brittany Sr. drew herself up stiffly. “I don’t appreciate you taking that tone to my daughter, Margaret.”

            “And if I ever learn about you or your daughter mistreating my guest again, I’ll sue both of you for manhandling.”

            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.