I started forward, craning my neck once in a while in hopes of catching a glimpse of a familiar head of gold and copper hair.
I'm not gatecrashing, I'm not gatecrashing, I'm not---
I accidentally tripped on the hem of my own gown – a strapless two-toned creation that Daria had shipped to me all the way from Athens – causing me to stumble into a waiter, who lost hold of his tray of champagne flutes. They crashed on the floor, and all eyes were suddenly on us.
Including the silvery gaze that had been haunting me in my dreams.
Constantijin stared at me. He was dressed all in white, which should have made him look utterly ridiculous, but no. He didn't. He looked perfect. At that moment, I realized just how much I had missed him – still missed him. He turned my life upside down with just one glance, made me come alive with a single touch –
And when Constantijin turned away, he broke my heart all over again in a single instance.
A soundless gasp was torn out of me. People were snickering all around me, and the silent and insolent stares were even worse. I lifted a hand, searching sightlessly for something to hold on to, but I dropped it again when I realized that I would only be able to grasp air.
Someone suddenly took hold of my hand.
I looked up, and my lips parted in shock. This had to be the worst coincidence in my entire life. "Drake?"
A familiar wry smile touched his face. "Don't sound too happy."
My cheeks flushed red. God, what a bitch I was. Drake Morrison would have been quite a catch in any woman's eyes. He even looked more gorgeous when he was dressed formally, and he still wasn't doing anything to hide how much he, umm, enjoyed my company.
"Sorry, Drake. I didn't mean … " With a sigh, I confessed, "You just have the best and worst timing, Drake."
His smile turned into a grin. "Because Kastein keeps catching you in my company?"
My eyes widened. "How did you---" I paled. "Did I give myself away?"
He shook his head. "Relax, Yanna. Neither of you gave yourselves away. But I like you – a lot – and because of that, I see things more than other people do."
"It's not what you think."
He raised a brow.
"Really. We're not … we're just dating."
"Not exclusively?"
Thinking about the latest blond bombshell I had seen him on TV with, I answered slowly, "No." Saying it out loud hurt, and it made me unconsciously search for Constantijin again, as if I really had to confirm the truth of what I was saying with my eyes. I needed to see him with another woman – in person. If I did, maybe I could finally give up on him.
It didn't take more than a second to find Constantijin, as if fate was just waiting to give us a chance for our gazes to collide. He stood poised on another pair of glass doors that led into the museum's conservatory.
I knew I wasn't the only one looking at him. There were so many others – it was a gut feeling I had. But Constantijin only had eyes for me.
Oh my God.
The raw emotions in his gaze made me catch my breath, but then Constantijin suddenly turned away, with such abruptness he almost appeared rough, nothing like the utterly urbane and larger-than-life billionaire he was known to be.
When he disappeared through another set of doors, I knew he had decided to walk away for me yet another time – maybe for good.
"Drake, I'm sorry---I have to go," I choked out even as I was unable to take my gaze off the doors that Constantijin had just gone past.
Tears burned my eyes, and I did my best to blink them away before they could ruin my mascara and I ended up looking like someone who just escaped from an asylum and security would have to kick out of the party.
Behind me, Drake said in a quiet voice, "Go get him."
It made me look at him over my shoulder with a wobbly smile. One day soon, I really had to ask him why he seemed to know me so well, why he always seemed to be there for me at the right time and place.
But not now – not when I finally accepted what my subconscious had known all along.
My feet started to move, the heaviness inside of me dissipating with every step I took towards the man whose gorgeous face hid a wealth of heartbreaking faults.
This time would be different. This time I'd court him myself if I had to because this time, for better or for worse---this time I knew I was in love with him.
BOOK 3: CAGED
Lesson #1
When you tell your billionaire you belong to him,
He will fuck more than your body.
"What the fuck are you doing here?"
Those were not the first words I wanted to hear from the man I had just realized I was in love with. I expected him to be surprised that I had come after him, but he wasn't. If anything, he appeared furious, coldly and oddly so. It made me shift nervously on my feet, and my heels screeched against the floor as I did. The sound echoed around the conservatory, bouncing against the wooden domed ceiling.
A thick air of silent tension swirled around us, the heavy doors behind me succeeding in filtering most of the party music being played outside. The conservatory was as vast as the other exhibits of the museum, which his parents had rented out for their fundraiser.
The theme was black and white, and according to the message on my two-thousand-dollar ticket, it was supposed to emphasize how prostitutes should not be seen that way.
Even the conservatory had been redesigned to match the theme, with its original lighting switched off and replaced by black-and-white waist-high pillars illuminated from within and lining the pathways that weaved through the cultured rainforest behind the stone fountain. All in all, I felt like I had stepped into a giant-sized tree house filled with shadows and white light.
A carpet of Bermuda grass separated Constantijin and me, but it looked more like an entire ocean in my eyes. I willed Constantijin's gaze to soften, to give me even the smallest sign that he still wanted me back. Because he had to – surely I couldn't have fallen in love with a man shallow enough to leave me the first time I didn't do something he asked?
But his beautiful face didn't soften, and his silvery eyes remained impassive.
"I want to talk to you privately." The words were supposed to come out even and confident, but they sounded squeaky instead. Shit.
His gaze strayed up, and my eyes followed his.
"Shit." The word escaped my lips when I saw the CCTV dome cameras installed on the ceiling, a red light blinking underneath each and every one of them. Didn't that mean it was recording everything going on here? Shit.
The dome camera suddenly moved, making me jump. I looked around and bit back a gasp when I realized all the cameras were trained on us.
Shit. It seemed to be the only word my brain could come up with. Was nothing really going to go my way tonight? Did they think I was cornering him here to do God knew what?
Shit.
I waved my hands madly above me, staring at the cameras. "I'm. Not. Going. To. Kidnap. Him." I turned to Constantijin, exasperation briefly winning over my heartbreak when he remained standing there without uttering a word on my defense. "Please tell them I'm not going to kidnap you!"
He tossed me a glance of disgust before he started to move. When he reached me, he took a firm hold of my shoulders.
I froze, wondering madly – and hoping just as hard – if he was going to kiss me.
But all he did was set me out of his path and he continued past me to reach for the communication box planted next to the doors. He pressed the speaker button and said curtly, "Switch the camera off and don't say a fucking word about this."
Constantijin walked back to the fountain, as if he needed to place as much distance between us. Crossing his arms over his chest, he raised a brow at me.
"Let me explain about Drake---"
His face hardened. "No."
"Please."
"No."
Brrr. He just kept sounding colder and colder. Taking a deep breath, I muttered, "If you don't listen to me, I'll---"
His eyes bored through me.
Oh, God, I hated it when he looked at me like that – like he was a god, and I was the shit he had just stepped on.
I knew that was how the world saw the two of us. After all, Constantijin Kastein was still the most beautiful man I had ever seen in my life, with wonderfully soft golden-copper hair and eyes the shade of liquid silver. His body was just as beautiful, and the fact that I once had the right to touch his fair skin, to feel the hardness underneath it – a right I didn't have now – it hurts.
Next to this man, who had every woman salivating for him not only for his sheer gorgeousness but also for his billion-dollar bank account, I was ordinary – an old-fashioned twenty-something woman who used to believe true love had to come first before lust.