by Marian Tee
He came with a shout, his body jerking, and I gulped everything it all in, savoring all the while the pleasure on his face.
“Yanna,” he breathed.
But before we could say anything else, Alyx was pounding on the door. ”You two woke me up!"
Shit!
I grabbed the covers and pulled it over me just as my friend opened the door.
“Hello, Alyx,” Constantijin said calmly.
“I’m guessing the lump under the covers is my friend?”
I groaned as Constantijin admitted easily, “I’m happy to say, yes.”
“Constantijin!” I wailed.
Day Ten
“Are you sure you’re going to be all right alone here?” Charli asked as she locked the door to her office. It was a Friday evening and Charli was visibly in a hurry to leave.
I slung my bag over my shoulders. “I’m good. I’ll just wait for Constantijin at his office now that you’re leaving.”
When I entered his private suite of offices, Glenda was also getting ready to leave. “He’s still in his meeting, but you can go ahead. If you switch on the CCTV in his monitor, you can watch him.”
The revelation made me giddy and I threw my arms around her. “Thanks for letting me know that!”
“Enjoy,” she said laughingly over her shoulder as she went to the door.
Racing inside Constantijin’s office, I switched Constantijin’s expansive touch screen monitor open. The sleek machine beeped, prompting for a password. This one I knew since Constantijin had given me a bunch of passwords to memorize yesterday, alongside my own set of undercover bodyguards. He had said it wouldn’t do not to be too careful, now that a lot of people knew who I was in his life.
The screen went alive, focused on one of the numerous conference rooms of Kastein Inc. This one was all in red, white, and blue – I’m guessing he used this to impress potential business partners with how Americanized his products could be. Smart, bold, in-your-face move, that one, but that was and had always been Constantijin’s style.
Constantijin stood at the head of the table, which was occupied by a dozen of executives from several film production companies. He looked extremely hot, his beautiful face proud and his voice smooth and confident as he discussed the latest offerings of Kastein Inc.
Dressed in a black and white suit, minus a tie, he looked exactly like the conquering billionaire CEO he was, and it made my heart go still for more than a moment. “Oh my God,” I whispered.
Constantijin stopped speaking.
The executives were looking around the room. “Did I hear that?” one of them muttered.
“Shit,” I said before I could stop myself. Did this thing have speakers?
When I glanced back at the monitor, Constantijin was staring straight at me.
“Shit.”
“Apologies, gentlemen,” Constantijin drawled. “My girlfriend is apparently impatient that I have not yet finished with the meeting to take her to bed.”
The good-natured laughter from the executives only made me feel more like disappearing.
“Now, sweetheart, do us all a favor and switch off the speakers. I’ll be with you in ten.”
Constantijin was laughing when he strode into his office at exactly ten minutes later. I threw my shoe at him, but he caught it without even breaking his stride.
“Did you miss me?” He scooped me out of his chair and I automatically wrapped my legs around his waist while twirling my arms around his neck.
Leaning away from him, letting Constantijin carry my weight, I glared at him. “Do you really have to let everyone know I’m…you know…you?”
“Fucking---oww!” he yelped when I pulled on his ear, but he was still grinning.
I couldn’t help grinning back even though I still thought he was an ass for saying what he said. God, he was so adorable when he was like this.
He cleared his throat, looking serious all of a sudden, and it made me frown. “What is it?”
“Will you be terribly mad if I tell you I need a half hour more to finish work? I want to be able to send the contract to Summit Entertainment tonight so I can be free for the weekend.”
Constantijin actually looked tentative, and that made me love him more. I smiled at him. “No problem.” Wriggling so he’d put me down, I padded barefoot towards the couch after taking my bag off his desk. “I’ll wait for you, don’t mind me.”
“You don’t mind?”
“Constantijin.”
“Just thirty minutes,” he promised, but I could see that his mind was already on work.
Plugging my ears, I switched my iPad on and started watching the latest episode of The Walking Dead. When the episode ended on another cliffhanger – oh my God, that prison scene totally blew me away --- I started in shock when I realized Constantijin was crouched down in front of me, his gorgeous face inscrutable but with a soft unfamiliar gleam in his silvery eyes.
Flustered at his nearness, I unplugged my ears and said lamely, “Hey.” Ten days. This man had been my boyfriend for ten days and I still couldn’t believe it.
"Hey." He looked up at me for a long silent moment. Then his lips curved. "Do you know you're the first woman I know who cared to wait for me here for work?"
"Did you ask them to?"
"Yes."
"Oh." Then I shrugged helplessly and said, "Why shouldn't I wait for you? I don't mind."
He kissed my nose. “And that’s what I like the most about you.”
After that, it just seemed natural to be the first one to lean close so I could kiss him. The kiss was sweet for a moment, but soon Constantijin took over, and it turned blazing hot, leaving me dazed and breathless when he pulled away.
“Yanna?”
"Mmm?"
“What do you feel about moving in with me?”
My arms fell away from him as I waited for Constantijin to repeat what he said. When he only looked at me, I stammered, “D-did I really just hear you ask me to move in w-with y-you?”
“I want to be with you all the time,” he said levelly.
Oh my God, like, like, oh my God, oh my God. The longer Constantijin stared at me, the more a ditz I became, with my common sense melting away bit by bit.
Squinting at him, I tried looking for any signs of amusement, proof that he was joking. But there was none.
“It is…what is the word…too fast for you?” Constantijin must be rattled himself if his normally flawless English failed him and he couldn’t remember those two extremely simple words.
They were apt, too, and I didn’t hesitate to seize it immediately, head bobbing and relief flooding inside me as I said, “Yes, you’re right. It’s too fast. I mean, you probably said it impulsively, right? And now you think---”
“Yanna.”
I shut up.
“It feels right with me.”
“I-it does?”
Constantijin stood up, demanding, "Why do you doubt my desire to have you in my home?”
“Because you’re you?” I asked weakly. It’s like I had to point out how different we were all the time. Couldn’t he see that for himself? He hadn’t even wanted to court me, and that wasn’t in any way a commitment. And now he wanted me to move in with him?
“People change,” he returned coolly.
I watched him stalk away, stopping when he reached the ceiling-to-floor windows of his office. Staring at the skyline, his back to me, he asked quietly, “Don't you want to move in with me?"
"But it's too soon," I blurted out.
Silence.
Constantijin turned around. “I know it is, but I also know what I want and it is you, with me, all the time.”
His voice was quiet and sincere, which I supposed I had to be grateful for. If he had tried seducing me into saying yes, he was likely to have succeeded. I was plain hopeless in his arms, his kisses and touches able to make me do things I never thought I’d do or say.
But with the small distance separating us, my mind was able
to work – barely. And it was shouting all sorts of protest. Constantijin and I had only known each other for a few months, and in those days he had managed to change my life so much. He had given me my first taste of sexual desire, of heartbreak, of the most terrifying and exhilarating kind of love that I would know in my life.
And now he wanted me to take this one giant leap away from the safety and comfortable familiarity of my old life.
Constantijin said fiercely, “Tell me your objections.”
“I...my…it will kill my parents if they find out I’m living together with a guy.”
“Then do not tell them. Leave all your stuff at Alyx's place and you can create new memories with me.”
God, he was good. If he had told me to shop for new stuff like my old belongings didn’t matter, I would have baulked. But when he said it that way, oh dear Lord, I wanted it, too. I wanted new memories…any memories --- more memories with Constantijin.
“Is that all, Yanna?” There was a wry note to his voice, as if he knew I was simply grasping straws.
I started to feel panicky. That was the biggest – and admittedly lamest --- objection I could come up with but Constantijin had solved it in one shot.
Swallowing, I blurted out, “But Constantijin…what if you lose interest in me because of that?” It was my greatest fear and I wanted to cry just for saying it out loud.
“Yanna…”
I shook my head, not wanting to look at him because I was already crying. God, this was so embarrassing. All the women he dated in the past probably never cried in front of him because that would scare him away. And here I was, practically scaring him every day.
I only sensed Constantijin was near me when he was on his knee and pulling my hands away from my face. “Yanna, listen. You are the first – the only – woman I had ever courted, the only woman I had worked hard to have back in my life. You are the only woman I want enough to move in with me. How will it be possible for me to lose interest in you when I want you so much?”
“But there are so many others,” I sniffed. Pathetic, I knew, but it was also pathetically true.
His smile looked a bit ironic as he spoke. "You're the only girl I've dated that I'm not really sure of. I'm worried that there'd be something I'd do wrong again and you'll leave before you let me explain. You're the only girl I constantly look for---I always miss you when you're not with me."
I cried harder at his words. "But I'll never leave you," I choked, wishing I could say more but knowing he wouldn’t want to hear what else I had hidden in my heart.
“Take this risk with me, sweetheart,” he whispered as he tipped my chin up. “Please?”
God, he was so good. He knew I was such a sucker when he used that word to me. How could I not fall for it when I knew he had never used that word with anyone else?
I said shakily, “All right, but…I have conditions.”
“Name it,” he said readily, “and it’s yours.”
If I moved in with him, I needed to make sure no one would have reason to think that I was sponging off him. But I also had to be practical – there were a lot of things in his life that I would never be able to afford.
Chewing on my lip, I said slowly, “We’ll split expenses. I know that’s unrealistic since the upkeep for your home is more than what I earn in a year---”
“You’re exaggerating,” he said with a roll of his eyes, but his eyes were laughing, and I knew it was because he was happy.
The knowledge that I was the cause of that happiness made me giddy, and I couldn’t help giving him a crazy goofy smile as I continued, “So, I’ve decided…I’ll take care of the groceries---” Catching the look of uneasiness that briefly crossed his face, I demanded, “What?”
“I’ve seen the kitchen you share with your friend. You don’t even buy fresh produce. You eat canned food or if not you buy takeouts all the time. And you want to be the mistress of my kitchen?”
“But canned food is not that bad! And it’s cheap!” Yes, it was my exaggeratedly cheapskate genes from my Quaker grandparents talking.
Constantijin just stared.
I cringed. “Seriously? We have to buy fresh food all the time?”
“I’m always willing to take over all the expenses---”
Scowling, I cut him off, “Fine. Okay. Fresh produce all the time.” I shook my head. “God, you’re so high maintenance!”
He choked.
“What?” I growled.
Constantijin shook his head, a mysterious smile playing on his lips."Nothing. I just marvel at how unique you are.”
"Is that good or bad?" I asked suspiciously.
He suddenly pulled me to him, and I shrieked as we fell on the floor, me on top of him.
“Fucking good,” he breathed under me, his cock already hard and throbbing against my sex.
He tugged a lock of my hair, which was his favorite way of getting my attention. It was another childish trait of Constantijin, an unbelievably cute one that I secretly couldn’t get enough of.
“What?” I said, bracing my hands on his chest as I did my best not to be distracted by his erection. It was so, umm, hard.
“You’re moving in with me then?”
I giggled. “What do you think?”
“I think we need to seal the deal with sex.”
“Constantijin!”
Lesson #8
Your billionaire may be an angel to others,
but do not be too sure he will be the same to you.
“Are you really sure this interior designer is not one of your billion of exes?” Three days later and I was waiting at a coffee shop near Kastein Inc., forcibly ejected out of my workplace by the CEO himself. Yesterday, he had taken me to the vacant pad next to his. He said it would be my “own” space, and I could do whatever I wanted with it. His only requirement: that I slept in his bed every night, even when I was pissed with him.
“There you go again, exaggerating.”
I could hear him smiling and I did my best not to smile back because I knew he’d sense it, too. But honestly, I wasn’t exaggerating. Lately, it seemed like he had bedded a woman for every dollar he had in his bank account.
Last week, I learned the receptionist at 25/F – who was best friends with the guy George was dating on and off – had been one of his innumerable one-night stands. Needless to say, she hated my guts.
The previous weekend, I was on my way back to Constantijin’s private box at the theater and someone “accidentally” threw a tart on my back. No pun seemed intended but whatever. However, tickets to that play cost several thousand dollars so seriously, what was wrong with these wealthy chicks that Constantijin dated?
Unfortunately, it wasn't even the last straw. If you thought those things were, like, uncool, Alyx taught me the other night that Constantijin’s European exes could be a lot worse. She had DM’d me a tweet of this super famous movie actress in Germany. When I ran it through a random web translator, this was what I got: Inexpensive she-dog nabbed the horse that I rode so well.
So, you see, I totally had reason to be wary about any unknown woman I got to meet these days.
“You will like her, this woman. She has very good taste. In fact, she was the one who decorated my pad.”
A now-familiar green-eyed monster reared its head at the tone of admiration in Constantijin’s words. Even though I thought his pad was beautifully decorated as well, I heard myself saying noncommittally, “We'll see. I mean, we’re from different generations.”
“Are you saying I’m old?” Constantijin mock growled.
“No. I’m saying your interior designer is probably someone you did date and she’s old. Like, cougar-old---”
“Yanna?” a cultured voice floated up to me.
Shock had me choking because I accidentally swallowed half of my donut. Scrambling to my feet, I had this insane urge to bow, curtsy, and salute all at the same time. Even though I now knew about her difficult past, none of it changed the way I saw her.
> As Alyx would be inclined to say, this woman “got balls”.
Constantijin was still talking. “Let me speak with my mother, Yanna. I just want her to know that you think she is, what did you say---”
I ended the call. Nobody surely was interested in what Constantijin had to say.
Marge pulled me close for a brief, warm hug and kissed my cheek before releasing me. “You look more and more beautiful every time I see you, dear,” she said as she took a seat across me.
