by Marian Tee
It didn’t matter that they were outside, where anyone could find out what they were doing.
None of it mattered except---
The billionaire chose that moment to bend his head and lick the tender skin of her neck, and she arched against him with a moan. The movement had his cock pressing harder into her folds, and she moaned again.
The naked sound of her desire made the billionaire swear. “You’re so fucking hot, babe.” He started to suck hard on her neck and was rewarded with Ilse pressing her shuddering body closer to him. “You like how you turn me on, don’t you? When you take a shower, and you know I’m listening, you’ve probably thought of me imagining you…and you like that you drive me mad, don’t you?”
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
And Ilse’s control threatened to slip as the agonizing truth of his words swept over her highly sensitized skin.
And then she felt it---
His hands starting to move under her skirt, skimming her bare thighs---
All of a sudden, her brother’s face popped into her mind.
Jan---
Jan, who only had her---
Jan, who needed her to be strong and whole---
A cry escaped her as Ilse somehow found the strength to place her hands against the billionaire’s chest as she tried pushing him away. “S-stop. Please.”
Even though it was a shamefully weak attempt, the billionaire slowly loosened his hold at the first sign of resistance, and Ilse scrambled away, panting.
The billionaire was also breathing hard, but his blue eyes stayed with her, hard and intense, and she knew then that there was no going back from here.
“I’m sorry.”
The billionaire’s hardened expression didn’t change. “You wanted it as much as I did.” When she only gave him a small nod, he demanded furiously, “Then what changed?” He watched her turn her head away from him, and his frustration seethed.
And then he heard her whisper, “I started reading articles about you.”
The billionaire stared at her grimly. “Is that so?” There were only three types of articles written about him, and all of them tended to be one-dimensional. The most common type only saw him as the billionaire playboy and nothing else; the most effusive only cared about his entrepreneurial prowess, while the last---
Ilse hugged herself at the billionaire’s cold tone, but she forced herself to continue, saying quietly, “Some of them describe you as the black sheep of your family.”
Ah. The billionaire’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Are you asking me if it’s true?”
“I’m not saying you are or aren’t something.” Ilse hated how she sounded like she was begging for him to listen, but she knew she would hate it even more if she didn’t try to make him see the truth.
And that was that he was right.
She did want him, had wanted him from the start.
But she also had Jan to think of, and it was for his sake that she couldn’t let any lies exist between them.
She made herself look at him. “I just want to know you more.”
“There’s nothing else to know.” The billionaire’s laugh was humorless. “I hate to keep disappointing you, babe, but this is it. This is me---”
“Is it?” Even knowing that she was treading on thin ice, Ilse knew she had to go on. “Every time I look at you, I can’t help but feel that you’ve too many secrets---”
“Says the woman who’s forbidden me to look her up in any way---”
“It’s precisely because my life is such an open book,” Ilse answered painfully, “that I needed to keep you from looking me up. I don’t have anything to hide. I don’t have anything to pretend about---”
The billionaire’s jaw clenched as Ilse’s unspoken but implied words hung in the air. “So you’re basically saying I’m a pretentious motherfucker, a coward who’s unable to face the truth---”
“No!” Ilse was left pale-faced in horror at the way the billionaire had twisted her words. “It’s not like that at all---”
But the billionaire cut her off, saying coldly, “It’s exactly like that, and it just shows that you’ve gotten something completely wrong…mevrouw.” All traces of teasing were gone from his voice, and just hearing it hurt because Ilse already knew – oh, she was so painfully sure of it – he was about to hurt her even more.
“I may want you more than any other woman---”
Don’t say it, don’t say it, stop speaking---
“But do not think that my desire for you makes you irreplaceable---”
Ilse’s chest squeezed at the contempt in his gaze.
“Because it does not.”
And there it was, she thought numbly.
He had hurt her, and she knew, just by looking at him, that he had only started.
“Reading about me doesn’t qualify you to psychoanalyze me---”
She was tempted to laugh, and she probably would have if her heart hadn’t started aching so badly.
“That you could even think you do when you’re nothing but a---” He broke off.
But it was too late.
Ilse held herself very still. “Go on,” she heard herself say. “Finish it.” She had thought he was different from the others, but in the end, his true colors had been the same as theirs.
The billionaire wanted to smash something at the soft, neutral tone of Ilse’s voice.
Fuck.
He hadn’t wanted this. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. She wanted him, and he wanted her. It should have been that uncomplicated. So why the hell did she have to ruin it by pretending his family had anything to do with their desire to fuck each other?
“Finish it, mijnheer,” Ilse said tonelessly.
The billionaire’s jaw clenched, and at his continued silence, she released a little laugh, the sound leaving him cold.
Fuck.
Fuck.
Fuck.
He knew then things might be over, completely over, before anything could even begin.
“Ilse---” This time, his voice was tight and urgent, but she cut him off with a shake of her head.
“I’m not sure if you ever stopped to wonder about this,” Ilse said calmly, “but you’re not even the first or second person to assume my choice of profession has something to do with my IQ.”
Fuck. He had an inexplicable urge to get a list of those who had insulted her and kill them, but then he also knew he would probably top that list.
“But because you knew me better than they did, you turned out to be the biggest idiot---”
The billionaire stiffened, thinking that this time the word ‘idiot’ didn’t sound sexy at all but downright insulting. “I know I’m the one who’s in the wrong here,” he gritted out, “but I’d advise you to take care with your words---”
“Or what?” Ilse charged. “If I don’t do as you say, you’d what? Leave me?” Her lip curled. “That only works if I was ever with you – and I wasn’t.” Her voice was strong and proud, the expression on her face disparaging, but even though she had never looked more magnificent---
She hadn’t looked more fragile either, and it killed him, knowing that he was the reason for it.
“Enough of this,” the billionaire said heavily.
“Exactly.”
His head shot up at the utter absence of emotion in her tone. “Ilse---”
“Because I think we’ve had enough of each other.”
FUCK.
“Ilse---”
“If there’s one thing this life of mine has taught me,” Ilse said softly, “then it’s that it’s too precious to waste on lies and pretensions.”
She looked at the billionaire and it hurt, thinking of all that could have been. She had thought he was different…but he was not.
“My job may require me to go out dressed in costume, mijnheer,” Ilse whispered, “but I’m not the one who has been living my entire life wearing a mask---”
She stopped speaking,
the pain suddenly overwhelming her.
Was there no one she could ever depend on?
The billionaire whitened at the despair in her eyes. “Ilse.”
It was the first time her name didn’t sound right on his lips, and she wondered dully if it ever did, wondered if she had just been fooling herself all along, making her see what she wanted to see.
The billionaire’s fists clenched. Ilse, he thought bleakly, had always looked so full of life. But now---
The urge to drive his fist into the nearest wall became almost impossible to resist.
Inhaling deeply, Ilse struggled to keep her voice steady as she said, “I think it would be best if I don’t ever hear from you again, mijnheer.”
No. Fuck, no. The billionaire shook his head sharply. “Ilse, I know I made a mistake---”
Her proud, hurt gaze lifted to his. “We both made a mistake. You failed to see me for who I am, and so did I. We are who we are, mijnheer…and we are not for each other.”
Chapter 8
The last days of October faded into a blur of oblivion for Ilse. Perhaps if an actual relationship had existed, moving on would have been easier, and the memories kinder. But because Jaak de Konigh was neither her boyfriend nor lover, nothing but a man she had been fatally attracted to---
It made her feel as if she didn’t even have the right to hurt.
Mornings hurt because there were no longer calls meant to wake her up, and sometimes she could only curl into a ball on her bed, hating how she remembered the way she would shiver under the shower, knowing that the billionaire was listening to her shower.
Afternoons were just as bad, the silence in the office driving her crazy. Gloria and her co-workers went out of their way to give her space, and Ilse didn’t have the heart to tell them they were just making it worse. She wanted things back to normal, but how did one do it when everyone else was mourning an imaginary loss with her?
All these, however, Ilse managed to bear with a fake smile, but it was when evening came that her defenses completely crumbled. Evenings just left her so broken her body physically ached because of it. Nights were when it was impossible to forget the times he would make Ilse catch her breath with the heated way he looked at her, nights were when all she could hear was the billionaire’s silky voice---
He’d borrow a line from Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poems and recite it to her in Spanish. He’d seduce her with lines from Christina Rossetti’s Goblin Market, making the words feel a lot more sexual because he was whispering them in French. He’d make her laugh by leering at her and talking dirty in Japanese, and when he was in the mood to provoke her, he’d make her gasp in horror as he quoted Jane Austen to Ilse in German.
Jaak de Konigh!
Austen!
They weren’t ever supposed to coexist in the same sentence, and oh, how she would go on, lamenting his gall, but all it did was make the billionaire laugh and promise wickedly that he’d do it forever if it would always make her cry so.
Sweet and sexy nothings, all those words were, but none of them pricked her heart the way he could when he’d speak to her in alternating Dutch and English.
I missed you the entire time I was in the meeting, babe.
Don’t ever change, schatje. You’re perfect the way you are.
I want you, Ilse, more than I’ve wanted any woman.
Ilse squeezed her eyes shut.
Oh, those words were the worst because now she knew they were nothing but lies.
As November settled in, its dark, cold cape of shorter days and longer nights sweeping over the city, Jaak found himself besieged with a gnawing sense of emptiness that refused to leave him even in his sleep.
Work hard, party harder.
Even with the mantra serving as the blueprint of his current lifestyle, the emptiness still didn’t leave him. Even with every minute of his day taken over by meetings and conferences while a whirlwind of social obligations and hedonistic pursuits consumed his evenings, the strange pressure around his chest never eased, and there were times when he could barely breathe at how goddamn alone he felt.
Even when there wasn’t a night he went to bed alone---
Even with all the women chasing him---
It just wasn’t goddamn enough.
Everything reminded him of Ilse Muir, and he had no goddamn reason why.
He tried to drown his memories in a black sea of hatred, tried to make himself remember Ilse like an exquisitely crafted doll: beautiful and cold-hearted, someone who seemed to have made it her life’s goal to never laugh at any of his jokes.
That was what he wanted – needed – to remember.
But his mind was a slick bastard, and as soon as he fell into an exhausted sleep, his dreams would force him to see the truth, to feel the pain, and most of all, those haunted goddamn dreams forced him to acknowledge his unspeakable fears---
And that was that he would never find anyone else like Ilse Muir.
The human heart always had the power to mend on its own, but it was a fact often buried in a whirlwind of depression, lost and forgotten in the deafening, overwhelming sound of denial.
But it could mend.
And it did mend for Ilse, on a day seemingly no different from the unmemorable blank dates on the calendar. She had started to walk into the living room when she saw her brother talking to himself.
He had done so ever since he was a child, and it was both a habit and game to him, a way for Jan to entertain himself whenever he was alone. Today, he had his favorite NBA jersey over his shirt, and he also had a sports band over his forehead as well as a matching wristband. She supposed he was trying to look athletic, but because of his boyishly chubby face and the fact that he had outgrown his jogging pants, he looked more like an extra for an aerobics video from the eighties.
Leaning against the doorway, she simply listened to his conversation, and soon Ilse realized that today’s roleplaying had Jan assuming the role of an NBA coach. Right now, “Coach Jan” was in the middle of giving instructions to his imaginary roster of players during a crucial timeout. “You need to do this---” As he spoke, Jan’s fingers started moving in the air like he had a play board on his hand and he was moving the magnet markers to illustrate the play he wanted his guys to execute.
She watched her brother continue playing animatedly, and she hastily swallowed back a bubble of laughter when he stepped to the right just before his cheeks puffed up like he was blowing on a whistle.
“Foul!” It was “Referee Jan” speaking this time, with Jan seamlessly slipping into a second role.
Jan then moved back to his original position, and he was back to his previous role as coach. “Are you blind?” he bellowed. “That was a foul, alright, but it’s an offensive one! Got that? Offensive! O-P-H-E-N-C-E-A-V-E!”
Ilse’s jaw dropped.
That had to be the most complicated misspelling of offensive, and this time she couldn’t help it.
A laugh escaped Ilse, and Jan turned to her, completely indifferent to the fact that he had been caught talking to himself. “What is it?”
“I…um…have a question.” The words came out of nowhere, but as soon as they slipped past her lips, she could no longer stop her lips from twitching. “I have a question” was what her mom used to ask as a prelude for an old inside joke of the family---
An image of how her family had used to be flashed in her mind.
Her mom grinning, her dad seated on his favorite armchair and doing his best not to laugh---
Ah.
So many memories crashing down on her, she could almost feel herself sinking in their depths, and her throat tightened so hard she almost needed to choke and gasp for breath.
Mama.
Papa.
Jan was talking to her, and his voice slowly drew her out, rescuing her, and she clung to the sound.
As images of her parents started to fade and she started to see her brother again, she had the most terrifying urge to close her eyes and halt her r
eturn to reality.
I miss you so much, Mama, Papa.
So, so much---
“Ilse, Ilse, can you hear me?”
But her brother needed her. And she needed him. Their parents needed Jan and her to stay here.
She opened her eyes, and she saw Jan gazing at her in puzzlement. “Ilse, what’s your question?” Jan was demanding. “Tell me because I need to go back to playing soon.”
His impatience, his sheer innocence, made Ilse shakily draw a breath. It was like feeling her parents’ embrace through it, and oh God, how it hurt, thinking – no, knowing – that wherever they were, her parents were watching over them.
Always.
“So what’s your question, Ilse?”
Clearing her throat, she gave her brother a serious look, asking with utter solemnity, “Are you crazy?”
Her brother shook his head immediately. “No.”
“But you’re talking to yourself,” she pointed out. “Only crazy people talk to themselves.”
“I know that,” Jan said patiently. “And that’s why I know I’m not crazy.”
And here it comes, Ilse thought.
“Crazy people don’t know they’re talking to themselves.” Jan gestured to himself, saying proudly, “I know I’m talking to myself, and so that means I’m not crazy.” He gave her an odd look. “Duh.”
And this time, she couldn’t stop herself.
She laughed.
She laughed until she had tears in her eyes, laughed until the truth was wonderfully clear to her.
She might not be okay now, but she would be…because she had Jan.
Jan, who was God’s greatest blessing to her---
Jan, who was different and special---
Life might always be a little harder because of him, but she also knew that Jan was the reason life would always be a little more beautiful.
Lightning momentarily brightened the overcast skies outside the third-floor office of Glory Hall as Ilse shrugged into a nurse’s uniform that was two sizes smaller. It caused the skirt to ride a little higher than usual on her thighs while also requiring her to use a safety pin to keep the blouse from completely gaping open.
