by Marian Tee
Staffan choked, shooting up on his seat, so amazed that he actually put the phone away from his ear to stare at it in amazement. This time, he hadn’t been wrong. This girl was…weird. Funny as hell but she was still weird. Who the fuck used goddamn species of fish as exclamations of surprise?
“Sorry, sir, I mean, Mr. Aehrenthal.” She wanted to kick herself several times the moment the words went out of her mouth. Playful piranhas! Hadn’t she been rehearsing for this call the entire month? Hadn’t she firmly told herself every day that she would not act like Emily Post’s protégé with him?
Staffan Aehrenthal likes his women slutty. The former groupies Saffi was friends with online had told her that, too!
At the mention of his last name, the ennui resting so heavily on his shoulders fell off like a winter coat he no longer needed.
This girl had broken rule #1 for fans: she had not acted coy. She had admitted knowing who he was.
It was refreshing to say the least. It was interesting, too, enough for him to sit up and take notice, enough to make him forget that most women in the world were only good for fucking.
He said huskily, “Hello, Saffi March.”
THAT VOICE sent shivers down her spine. Saffi slowly covered the mouthpiece of the phone.
And then she squealed, like a baby, and like the excited fangirl she was.
Staffan stopped speaking. The sudden loss of any sound at all from the other end was familiar to him. He knew that Saffi had covered the mouthpiece, probably to…scream? Hug herself? It almost made Staffan smile, but fortunately he held it back in time.
He was Staffan fucking Aehrenthal, infamous for his cruel tongue and foul-mouthed ways. He was the type to smirk, sneer, and snarl. But one thing he did not goddamn do was smile.
The moment he heard her lift her hand off the mouthpiece, he drawled out, “I’m guessing you know why I called?”
Busted.
“Yes,” she admitted sheepishly.
God, that voice was too fucking cute, mostly because none of the women he had dated in recent years had ever sounded naturally sheepish. A thought occurred to him. What the hell did this Saffi March look like anyway?
“Happy birthday, Saffi.” Even as he murmured the words, Staffan was already clicking her name on the iPad screen. A new page loaded, which included her profile picture.
Fuck was the first thought that came to mind when he saw her. Just one glance at her photo, and his sexual drought was over, and now he was struggling to keep at bay the lust that flooded his senses.
Staffan literally wanted to take Saffi March with his cock, see her melting around him, feel her warmth surrounding him as he made her his.
In the photo, she appeared unbelievably young with her face fresh from makeup except for the shimmery pink gloss on her lovely bow-shaped lips. If not for the fact that she had also listed herself as a post-graduate student in her final year, Staffan would have thought she was still a teenager. And God knew that although he was many things, he was no pedophile.
Saffi March was the most feminine-looking thing Staffan had ever seen in his life. She had on an Alice in Wonderland costume. The cerulean silk ribbon on her head was an exquisite contrast with her jet-black hair and almost-as-dark eyes, and as his eyes moved down, his gaze lingered on the delightful cleavage that the tight top of her dress revealed. A lightning bolt of desire struck his body, his cock springing up in attention.
Staffan reluctantly put the iPad down when Saffi spoke again. Fuck, he was so horny he had an embarrassing feeling he just might jack himself off later on while staring at Saffi’s photo.
“Thanks, Mr. Aehrenthal,” she stammered. She wished she had the guts to call him Staffan, like she did in her dreams, but in reality it was just too impossible to do.
This time Staffan couldn’t stop his lips from twitching.
Lately, the women he had banged liked to call him that. Mr. Aehrenthal. It irritated him to no end, and when he had asked Yanna – the only woman he considered his friend nowadays – about it, Yanna had laughingly told him it was the trend now, something that some kind of book with lots of fifties in it had supposedly started.
According to a giggling Yanna, being called “Mr. Whatever” was supposed to be incredibly sexy, but as far as Staffan was concerned, it just made him feel like a dirty old man fucking a Lolita wannabe.
“Mr. Aehrenthal?” Saffi prodded uneasily when the silence between them lengthened.
His cock swelled even more at the sound of his last name on her lips. He had never been called “Mr. Aehrenthal” so earnestly, without any attempt on seduction, and yet somehow it sounded sexy as hell.
Saffi March’s light, lilting voice was so angelic and sweet it made Staffan imagine tossing her Alice in Wonderland skirt up and showing her how it felt to be tumbled. By him.
He moved on his seat, his pants feeling unbelievably tight. That did it. To hell if it was going to make him appear like a fucking pervert. He would definitely jack off tonight while looking at Saffi’s unbelievably enticing photo.
“Is there something wrong?”
Staffan started to assure her that there wasn’t any problem when a warning beep sounded, reminding him that his phone’s battery was about to die on him any second.
Frustration seared him. “My phone’s about to die.” He paused, expecting her to protest, to do what all the girls he had previously called did just to make him stay on the phone longer. But she didn’t. That confused him, which he didn’t like at all, making Staffan speak more sharply than usual as he asked, “Do you want to say anything else before I hang up?”
Saffi’s silent response meant more than any words could say, her hurt traveling through the phone line that whipped him with guilt.
Shit. Now he knew why the girl wasn’t saying anything. It was because she didn’t believe him, and it was like karma biting him in the ass. It had been his standard response to cut his call short with the other girls. Yet now that Staffan didn’t want the call to end, it had to, and she didn’t believe him.
Fuck karma.
“Saffi.” Saying the name out loud made him pause. It seemed as if his world had been altered with it, and the change was eternally binding. It was like fucking serendipity, literally---the kind that his cock sensed. “I’m---”
Saffi did not want to hear false apologies from Staffan, the thought of it not sitting well with her for some strange reason. Humiliation colored her cheeks, making her privately thankful that she was only having an ordinary call with Staffan instead of one that involved cameras and videos.
Mentally squaring her shoulders, she decided to take his words by face value anyway---because that was what a true fangirl would do: accept that famous personalities were humans, too, and they had off days like ordinary humans had.
She interrupted him quickly, “I, umm, do have something to say.”
Staffan told himself not to expect too much. Even though Saffi March had so far proven different from all his pre-conceived notions of women who were after his fame, fortune, and fucking, in the end she would still be like the rest. She would still have an agenda, would want him to---
“Please be happy, Mr. Aehrenthal.”
Staffan stiffened.
Saffi said with nervous determination, “I love how you dance. I love how you sing. I love your lyrics, and I just think…it would be such a waste if it’s true that you’ve been…”
Staffan’s heart started to beat fast. Then he told himself that she wouldn’t say it. Of course she wouldn’t because at the end of the day, she was his fucking fan, she worshipped the fucking ground he walked on, and she would never risk antagonizing him even if---
Saffi closed her eyes. “I just hope you’d realize how much you mean to your fans, Mr. Aehrenthal,” she whispered. “I just hope you’d stop…doing the…stuff you’ve been doing recently because we really don’t want to lose you. You have so much to give.”
He should have been incensed. She was a fucking nobody, and he
was Sweden’s #1 somebody, the #1 on Billboard charts, and in everything else.
He should have been creeped out. Was she a fucking stalker or what? How the fuck did she know that he had been drinking every night and taking the craziest risks that his insurance company had terminated its contract with him?
He should slam the phone down, but he didn’t.
And he wasn’t mad.
Staffan wasn’t even creeped out, not when the earnestness in her angelic voice made him remember the old days, back when he used to be in her shoes once, and he, too, had been one of the first to know what was happening with the singers he had idolized. In fact, it was because he had been such a great fan of another rock legend that he had found his mentor – and eventually his calling.
His iPhone made one last final beep.
Staffan said quietly, “Thanks.”
But it was too late.
Chapter One
Saffi March, Facebook Status: Single
Three Months Later
“Ooooh. Are you checking her Facebook again?” Yanna suddenly appeared at his back, leaning past him to sneak a look at his laptop.
Staffan managed to snatch his Macbook away from her, slamming it shut to prevent her from taking a closer look.
“Spoilsport!” Yanna exclaimed indignantly just as a tall, golden-haired man in the balcony walked back into the hotel room. He was gorgeous and impeccably dressed, his coldly beautiful face softened by the smile that touched his lips when he saw Yanna.
Staffan scowled at the other man. “Control your girlfriend, will you?”
Constantijin Kastein settled into one of the armchairs. “Were you?” His question was directed at his friend, but all he had eyes for was the woman he loved, sending her a lazy smile while his gaze promised her something wicked.
Yanna blushed, but already she was walking towards Constantijin, her body drawn to him like a magnet.
“Was I what?” Staffan had to say the question twice before Constantijin finally heard him, leaving him exasperated and amused with the lovesick way the pair acted when they were together.
Constantijin drawled, “Were you checking on her Facebook again?”
Faint color stained Staffan’s high-boned cheeks. “Fuck you.”
His friend only grinned in response, taking Staffan’s baleful look as an affirmative. But Constantijin was quickly distracted, with Yanna finally reaching his side. When she made an attempt to sit on the armrest, he shook his head and pulled her onto his lap instead.
“Constantijin!” Even though they had been dating for almost a year now, she still wasn’t used to her Dutch billionaire’s extremely public displays of affection.
Staffan smirked. “Don’t mind me.”
Yanna glared in response. When she tried to get up, Constantijin pulled her back and murmured, “Stay, schat.” She sank back onto him after that, never able to resist his tender commands.
Something in Staffan twisted at the tenderness in his friend’s voice. He didn’t like hearing it, didn’t like to remember that once he had been like that with a woman, too. But unlike Yanna, that woman had ended throwing him under the bus and running Staffan over as many times as she could get away with it.
He said abruptly, “I want to go over the list of raffle draw winners for the tickets one last time.” When the operational head of his fan club filed for sick leave, Yanna had volunteered to step in, thus becoming in charge of all promotions meant to increase funding for the club.
Yanna gasped, scrambling off Constantijin’s lap as she exclaimed, “I forgot the list! I think it’s in the car. Constantijin had it with him but I don’t remember him taking it out.”
Knowing that Staffan’s words were only an alibi to get Yanna out of the room, Constantijin shot him a dark look before offering, “Let me get it, Yanna.”
But Yanna had already fished out the car key from his pocket. “No, it’s okay. Let me get it while you stay here and catch up with Staffan.” She sent him a teasing smile. “I know you miss your friends.”
Constantijin scowled. “I do not.”
“Yes,” Yanna sang over her shoulder as she skipped to the doorway, “you totally do!”
This constant teasing had at first bothered Staffan. In the years he had been going out with Chloe, they had only ever teased each other about sex. His history with Chloe had made him think that the other couple was unlikely to stay together for long.
Constantijin was an overtly sexual man, his appetite for women known by the entire world, while Yanna had obviously led a sheltered life. But after spending more time with the two, Staffan had realized that somehow the love-hate chemistry between the pair worked, and it did so in a way that he and Chloe had never experienced, no matter how intensely passionate things had always been between them.
The moment the door closed behind Yanna, Constantijin said, “Next time use another alibi. I don’t want Yanna tired for no reason---”
“She’s only going to tell your head of security to get stuff from your car,” he said exasperatedly. “How hard can that be?”
Constantijin shook his head. “Wait until that girl on Facebook has her hooks in you and you’ll know---”
“Just tell me if it’s done,” he growled, hating how the two made it appear as if he was stalking Saffi March. And he wasn’t. He just…liked checking out what she was doing online because she was too amusing for words. And unique.
She was unlike any girl he had known. Through his near-constant digging online, Staffan had learned that Saffi was taking up some kind of deep-as-hell post-graduate degree that had to do something with fish.
A smile almost cracked on his lips as he remembered how she would post gushing thoughts about her paper on subjects like Ocean Law and Advanced Ichthyology. And between those posts, he remembered her comments on every fucking photo of him that made it to the social networking site.
God he’s so…YUMMY.lol, she had commented on a photo taken of Staffan wearing nothing but a skimpy pair of black swimming shorts while he had been vacationing in Hawaii. The comment had aroused him – he very much liked the idea of Saffi thinking his body was “yummy” - but it also completely bemused Staffan how someone so obviously smart and proper like Saffi was also a diehard fangirl of his.
Constantijin’s chuckle made him snap defensively, “What?”
His friend looked at him pointedly. “Apparently, there’s no need to wait. You haven’t even seen her in person and she already has you wrapped around her finger. That’s so sweet.”
“Shut up.” He pulled on his collar, feeling like the air-conditioning in his room had stopped working. “Just tell me if you sent the tickets or not!”
Constantijin laughed. “It’s done. Stop worrying.”
Staffan’s chest eased, and only then did he realize that he had been partially holding his breath. He had cared that much about the outcome, and the knowledge didn’t sit well with him at all. “You’re sure?”
“I got her signature on the acknowledgment receipt. She got the ticket.”
“But do you know if she’ll use it?”
Constantijin’s smirk mirrored his own, making Staffan realize how fucking arrogant he could look when he was the one doing it. Irritatingly arrogant, he thought as Constantijin continued to smirk.
“Well?” Staffan demanded.
“That’s what FB stalking is for.” Constantijin’s bark of laughter echoed throughout the suite when Staffan answered him with a one-fingered response.
His friend gestured towards his laptop. “Just fucking do it while Yanna’s not here to tease you.”
“Go to hell.” But Staffan was already opening his laptop and indulging in his secret hobby for the past three months. By using the Facebook account of his fan club, he was instantly connected to Saffi’s. And her page was very illuminating.
Staffan’s eyes widened when he read the topmost conversation thread at her wall.
Seeing his expression, Constantijin swiftly crossed the room, sta
nding behind his friend to read what was on the screen.
“Goddammit, Kastein. When did you turn into a fucking gossip?” He tried to close his laptop again, but Constantijin quickly swiped his laptop out of the table.
Helene: So you’re all set to go to LA?
Saffi: Yep! I’ve got the concert and plane tickets already. *Sigh* What can I say? He loves me so much that he can’t bear to go on stage without me watching from the front row.
Helene: ROFL
Saffi: No, really. He totally texted me that. He even said he’s going to die if he doesn’t see me!
Helene: Yeah, sure, sure. Enjoy the concert! So happy for you!
Saffi: lol I will. Thanks, Helene! Will post pics as soon as I can.
When Yanna came back, Constantijin was still in the throes of laughter and completely impervious to Staffan’s scowls. Yanna frowned. “What did I miss?”
“Kastein,” he growled in warning.
But his friend was suddenly selectively deaf. He said very seriously, “Let’s just say I found out from an extremely reliable source that our good friend here will apparently die---”
As Yanna gasped, Staffan gritted out, “Shut the fuck up.”
Constantijin laughed harder.
~~~
“L.A.” Saffi’s mother, Pearl, sounded shell shocked as she repeated the name of her youngest child and only daughter’s destination. “And without the bodyguards?”
Saffi answered firmly, “Yes, Mom. Without any of the bodyguards.”
A part of the five-way-call that Saffi had initiated, Senator Samuel March – who also happened to be Saffi’s dad – answered darkly, “It’s too dangerous.”
“No, it’s not. I bought first class. I’m checked in at a five-star hotel, and I’ve had the hotel hire my own driver and car while I’m here. You guys always tell me first class is enough to---”
“But L.A.”
In spite of her resolve to stand firm, Saffi found herself smiling at the note of real distress in her mother’s voice. There were several coughs from the other ends of the line, and she guessed that her other siblings, Steel and Silver, were doing their best not to laugh out loud.