Eternally Seduced(46)

Guiding my arm to curl around his, he slowly led us down the red carpet.  "But it was fun, getting squished by your breasts. I could see the  headlines. Constantijin Kastein's Girlfriend is the Breast Squisher."

"Shut up or I'll kill you!" I couldn't help looking around to check if  someone had heard him, or worse, if someone was already quoting him in a  tweet.

He stopped a few feet away from the hotel's revolving doors. "I'll promise to shut up about it---"

"But?" I finally asked in exasperation, realizing that he wasn't going to speak until I asked.

"You have to kiss me first. Here. In front of everyone." And as if that wasn't enough, he added helpfully, "With tongue please."

I already wanted to die with embarrassment just by imagining what he was asking me to do. "I can't," I wailed.

"Constantijin! Yanna!" Marge's voice reached us, and we already had a  respectable distance between us by the time his mother joined us at the  red carpet.

More flashes followed and Marge gamely posed for it, pulling us close to her on each side.

"Why, you look terribly red, Yanna," Marge said when she decided the  paparazzi had enough photos of us and turned to me with a smile.

"I'm … good." God, I couldn't even make myself look at her. I felt like she had just caught us making out.

"Are you sure?" She turned to Constantijin. "Darling, don't you think---oh."

My head jerked up in confusion at her tone and then I saw her staring  with open-mouthed shock at Constantijin, whose beautifully fit pants  suddenly appeared too tight for his body.

"Constantijin!" she reprimanded, her own cheeks reddening as the newsmen  around us caught us and camera bulbs started flashing again.

"Let me take care of that monster," a woman behind me muttered.

I scowled even as Constantijin gave me a lazy grin, having obviously heard the same thing.

As Marge ushered us in, one of the reporters whistled, and I could feel  the leer in his tone as he said, "Look at those pointed nipples, man."

I covered my chest with a gasp just as Constantijin started back, his eyes blazing.

"Constantijin!" Marge uttered his name in a chilly tone.

He stopped in his tracks, but his body was still tense with rage.

I pulled him towards the doors. "Let's just go, please." I tugged at his  hand repeatedly until he let me drag him into the hotel.

When we emerged past the revolving doors, Marge clucked her tongue, murmuring in reproof, "You two are late."

"My fault," Constantijin owned up to the fault. "My meeting finished later than it should have."

"It's always, always business with you!" she complained with a look of  commiseration directed at me. "I hope you change once you and Yanna get  married---especially when you start having babies." She added wistfully,  "I do want a grandchild soon."         

     



 

And poof!

Everything was ruined.

Trying to salvage it, I laughingly protested, "Marriage? It's too early to speak about that!"

Constantijin gave me a smile of surprised relief.

That hurt...and made my eyes itch.

"It is too early," he agreed. "So let Yanna and I enjoy each other first, okay?"

"You're not getting any younger!" Marge warned. "You should appreciate  the fact that this girl's stupid enough to care for you, you know, and  marry her right away!" She cackled at her own joke.

Oh my God, what was it with tonight? Was it, like, a Kill Yanna Day and  nobody took the time to tell me about it? In a mad effort to throw water  on the bridge his mother was unwittingly burning, I said with mock  seriousness, "I hate to break this to you, Marge, but your son is just  not the guy I'm hoping to marry. He's too much an OC for me when it  comes to household stuff."

But still Constantijin's face remained expressionless.

I went on doggedly. "I mean, imagine, he doesn't let me sleep until he's  absolutely sure I've washed and dried all the dishes. And they have to  be arranged by design, too!"

Taking my hand so we could walk side by side, she murmured, "He got that from me, I'm afraid."

Behind us, Constantijin remained quiet.

Shit. Shit. Shit.



Day Forty-One

"Wait!" A voice called out to me just as I was about to slip the ten-dollar bill into the slot for an energy bar.

I was already smiling when I turned around, and I smiled even more  widely when I saw Drake actually running towards me from the end of the  hallway.

"What's the hurry?" I asked.

"You and this machine don't get along," he answered readily as he took  the bill from my fingers. "So to save you from potential anguish, let me  do this for you."

"Bodyguard mode?" I teased him.

He shook his head. "Mr. Fix It mode."

"Drake!" I was still embarrassed every time he flirted with me, but this  was possibly the only time I welcomed it, too. It made me feel good,  which I hadn't been feeling for quite some time now.

He got the bill in, the light turned green, and when he turned the lever the energy bar fell into the opening without trouble.

I clapped my hands. "Impressive."

He made a little bow. "Anything for a beautiful woman."

"Drake." This time I said it warningly.

"But you are beautiful," Drake said innocently.

And then I felt it, the sensation of someone staring at us  –  at me. I  turned around, just in time to catch the briefest glimpse of  Constantijin walking away from us.

"Fuck," Drake muttered behind me.

I turned back to him with a smile. "It's okay." And that was what really hurt.



Day Forty-Three

"Oh my God, it's that bad?" Alyx shrieked when she came to my place for a  visit while Constantijin was away on another emergency. Lately, he had  been having a lot of emergencies, so much so Kastein, Inc. better be  near bankruptcy or it would be, like, so obvious he was using any excuse  to avoid spending time with me.

I closed the door behind her. "What do you mean?"

Eyes hard, she answered bluntly, "You look terrible."

I supposed it was true. I had lost the urge to fix myself up, not when  how I looked didn't seem to matter one way or another to Constantijin.  In contrast, Alyx looked stunning, her boyishly cut hair making her look  sexier in her micro-mini dress.

"Yanna, tell me what's wrong."

And just like that, I burst into tears. I fell on my knees to the  ground, sobbing my heart out. "Everything's wrong," I confessed to her.  "We haven't made love for weeks, haven't been in the same room even."

I tried to hold back on the tears, but they just kept falling. My voice breaking, I asked, "Alyx, should I, like, leave now?"

"Yes, you should."

I stopped crying long enough to glare at her. "You're supposed to say no, hang on, Yanna!"

"Why the fuck should I do that when he's hurting you?"

"Because," I said, crying harder, "it's what I want to hear."

"No."

I wailed more loudly.

Alyx exhaled. "Okay, okay, you should not leave him. You should totally hang on to him."

The words made me feel marginally better, even though she said them  under duress. Trying to sniff back my tears, I said, "Help me fix this,  Alyx. Please." It took a lot for me to say that last word. I guess in  that way I was like Constantijin, too.

Alyx looked like she wanted to throttle me. But in the end, friendship  won over common sense and she said reluctantly, "I get it, Yanna. You've  always been like this. You hate giving up."

I nodded.

She shook her head. "But this time it has to be different. You see that,  don't you? I know you never want other people to say that you quit and  that's why you like to hang on, but sometimes, you just have to cut your  losses, you know? There's nothing shameful about it."

The truth in her words burned a hole in my heart, and I had a hard time  breathing through the pain of it. Finally, I whispered, "One more  chance---just one more chance for him, and then if we're not, you know,  then it's over."

Even now, I couldn't spell it out clearly.

"It's the right thing to do," Alex said.

I knew that, but it still wasn't what I wanted to hear.





Lesson #12




Your billionaire will not know when to stop until it is too late.



The day Constantijin and I broke up came as a surprise. Would you  believe it? I mean, I should have, like, totally expected it. But I  hadn't, and I paid the price for it.

It was three in the afternoon, and the entire floor of Kastein, Inc. was  completely quiet. It was usual these days, as if everyone was affected  by the tension between Constantijin and me.

These days, I did my best to drown my heartache in work, and I was doing  so well even Charli ran out of snowflakes to pass on to me.

"Go and take a break, Yanna," Charli growled. But because she had this  really cool French accent, it ended up sounding really sophisticated,  like she had just told me her favorite flower was the Casablanca Lily.  You know what I mean.

I planted myself next to the door adjoining our offices. "No. It just  occurred to me that we're not taking advantage of the tween market here  in the U.S. and I found the perfect manga---"