Eternally Seduced: A New Adult Romance Boxed Set

by Marian Tee

I smoothed nonexistent wrinkles on my gown, doing it to keep my hands from being restless. I was nervous because this was the first time we’d be out as a couple – and not feel like it. It was also the first time we’d meet his parents again after Marge decorated the apartment Constantijin had loaned out to me.

  We talked on the phone frequently, and every time we did I tried my very best to pretend I was fine – that her son and I were fine. But I wasn’t confident at all I could do the same face to face.

  The driver parked directly in front of the hotel’s red carpet entrance, where behind the velvet ropes a throng of reporters and cameramen waited. Constantijin stepped out first and turned towards me, his hand outstretched.

  I couldn’t make myself take it, not when I knew he didn’t really want to touch me at all outside our bedroom.

  But --- pride cometh before a fall and the moment I stepped out of the limousine, I tripped on the hem of my gown. I would have fallen flat on my face if Constantijin hadn’t managed to catch me. He barely managed to actually, almost missing catching me.

  I fell on him, Constantijin bent halfway backwards, his head squashed between my breasts.

  Camera bulbs flashed, followed by shouts and catcalls.

  We quickly pulled away, Constantijin coughing while I turned red in embarrassment. Then our eyes met and suddenly we were laughing.

  I was so relieved at how everything felt incredibly right between us I wanted to cry.

  “Ah, Yanna. Now I’m beginning to see the benefits of those breasts.”

  “Shut up,” I hissed, but he only laughed harder as I felt my cheeks flushing a deeper shade of red at his words.

  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 matt
er 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---”

  “If you do not leave your office in five seconds and have your lunch, I will assign you to take on a classic literature project with Arian.”

  “I’m going.” God, Charli was so devious. She just knew what my worst fears were. If that ever happened, I knew Arian would take every chance she could get to make it clear to me that her Ivy League diploma made her the better judge about literature.

  “Yadda, yadda, yadda,” I muttered to myself as I stepped out of the office.

  And then I heard it.

  Across the hall, near the doors leading to Constantijin’s offices, I heard his voice – and hers. Arian’s.

  They were just talking about…work. They had to be talking about work. What else would they even talk about? By the time I finished rationalizing the situation, I was standing around the corner of the hallway, and one step was all it would take for them to see me.

  Arian was giggling. "Mr. Kastein, you shouldn't say such things!”

  “Constantijin, please. You make me sound too old for you when you call me that.”

  Arian’s tone became husky. “Then Constantijin, you can’t say I’m beautiful. It’s not right when you have a girlfriend.”

  “Why is it wrong when I’m only stating a fact?”

  My heart lurched. It was like déjà vu, a nightmarish version of the exchange I had with Drake a few days ago.

  Constantijin wasn't saying anything wrong. In fact, he wasn't even saying anything I hadn't heard before. Constantijin was the type who dished out compliments all the time. He told his sixty-something housekeeper she was beautiful all the time. He complimented the shy receptionist at the lobby all the time, telling her she had great taste in clothes, that her hair was pretty.

  He was that kind of man, and none of it used to matter.

  Until now.

  This time, his words sounded different, and my chest slowly started to ache.

  "How are you and Yanna?"

  Damn her, goddamn her for asking!

  There was a moment for silence before Constantijin replied, a bit flatly, “We are okay.”

  Ha! Take that, Arian!

  Granted, it wasn’t the best thing to say about a relationship, but “okay” was still better than “not okay”.

  Constantijin continued, “We enjoy each other's company, that's all."

  "You mean you love each other," Arian teased.

  Damn her. Goddamn her. I so knew what she was after and it was my blood – my blood, which was, like, already flooding the entire floor in an invisible stream of heartbreak.

  I hurt so much I thought my heart couldn’t bleed any more, but Constantijin proved me wrong with just one word. “No.” And as if that didn’t hurt enough, he said lightly, “Yanna’s known since day one that it was never about that."

  I covered my mouth before they could hear me gasp.

  Constantijin’s voice took in a warm, seductive tone. “But who knows? Maybe someone like you could change my mind."

  Arian didn't get to answer that anymore because by then, I had gone around the corner. “What the fuck did you say?”

  Lesson #13

  Your billionaire will be very good at making you cry, in more ways than one.

  Arian was shocked. Then her eyes gleamed with smug malice, even though she did her best to hide it by letting out a fake moan of horror. Honestly, I couldn’t, like, care less about her.

  What really, really hurt was the lack of surprise on Constantijin’s face, as if he had wanted this all along.

  When neither of them answered, I shrieked again, “What the fuck did you just say to her, Constantijin?”

  His name seemed to be the magic word everyone was waiting for. Doors started opening at the same time, heads bobbing in and out as they tried to not so obviously watch the show.

  Arian shook her head in shame sympathy. “Oh, Yanna, you weren't supposed to--”

  Irritated by the mere sound of her voice, I took a deep breath, glanced at Arian, and gave her the finger. I heard choked laughter behind me. Arian started for me, but suddenly Drake was there, gripping her by the shoulders. He whispered something into her ear, and Arian whitened before stalking off.

  A chilly mask had slipped over Constantijin’s face. “That was uncalled for, Yanna.”

  In the act of giving Drake a grateful smile, I whirled back to Constantijin when I realized what he had just said. “Did you just, like, side with her?” Even though my voice was starting to hurt my own ears, I couldn’t stop shrieking. I just couldn’t.

  “This is not the place.” The look of contempt that accompanied his words hurt.

  I knew he was right. Of course I, like, fucking knew that. But let him tell that to my heart – my super bleeding-to-death-heart and, damn them, I wasn’t even exaggerating.

  It was a struggle not to cry as I spoke but I managed to keep the tears from falling. “Why did you even have to say t-tho
se words?”

  Constantijin thankfully didn’t try to pretend he had no idea what I was talking about. “It was a fucking joke. And yes, I admit it was a stupid one, but it was a joke.”

  "Jokes are half-meant," I cried out.

  Constantijin spat something out in Dutch before saying tiredly, “For pity’s sake, don't start on me with that.”

  And that was what did it, that final kick Alyx told me I was in the habit of waiting for before I could make myself…give up.

  He sounded tired.

  He made it sound I was, like, this fucking burden to him and I hadn't even known it. How sad was that? How humiliating? All this time, I had been wrong. I thought he didn’t want me to love him because it made him aware of how much he loved me back, of how much like his dad he could be if he let himself love me.

  But it wasn’t like that.

  He hadn’t said he loved me because he was exactly like his dad. He was too nice to kick me out, yet I had been too stupid to notice. I kept pushing him until – he felt trapped. By me.

  “I’m sorry,” I said dully.

  I walked past Constantijin, and I almost stumbled because the pain as I did.

  Drake called my name as I reached the doors. “Yanna---”

  Humiliation, complete and excruciating, flayed my entire being when I realized that he had probably heard and saw everything. Stupid Yanna, of course he would have. “Please, Drake," I whispered. "Don’t tell my parents about this.”

  “I won’t.”

  When he started to speak, I shook my head, knowing that he wanted to be my Mr. Fix It again. But it just wasn’t the right time. “I just need to be alone.”

  I walked out of the office, the building, the first step to walking out of the fucking mess I had created because I didn’t know when to cut my losses. I started to cry when I reached the bus station, and I cried harder when I got on the bus and realized I had absolutely no money on me. Turning to the guy waiting in line at my back, I sobbed out, “C-could I b-borrow some money? I p-promise to p-pay you---”

  He hastily gave me a twenty. “No need to pay me.”

  He looked scared of me. Maybe he thought I was crazy, and it made me cry harder for some reason. “T-thanks,” I sniffed as I shakily handed the bus driver my fare.