Caged (How Not To Be Seduced by Billionaires: Book 3)

Copyright © 2013 by BlueRibbonBooks.com

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

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 hurt.

            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.

But even though we were poles apart, he didn’t have the right to treat me like this – like I had to kiss his feet before he’d pay attention to me.

Taking a deep breath, I said, “If you don’t listen to me, then I might as well go back to Drake and be his!” The words were a high-risk bet. I knew my cards, and they all said that what I used to think was an obsessive sexual desire for him had deepened into love. Sometimes, the body just knew what the heart couldn’t even feel yet.

But I didn’t know what Constantijin’s cards hid – well, at least not exactly. I knew he was just as obsessed with me sexually. I knew he got jealous over me easily. And I knew he was still mad at me for going home with another man when he told me not to.

Surely all those gave me reason to hope that eventually there could be
more.

At my words, something flickered in his eyes, and then it was gone so quickly I almost thought I imagined it. But I knew I hadn’t, and my chest tightened.

Nik – my best friend’s husband – had been right. Once, when Daria hadn’t yet come into his life, Nik could have been Constantijin’s twin – wealthy, gorgeous, and arrogant. He hadn’t needed love, and he hadn’t believed in it. But Daria had changed him, had made him see how love changed what could first appear set in stone.

Nik told me that even the world’s hottest-looking billionaires had their weaknesses - the kind that made them more human. Daria had been his, and If Nik was right,
I
was Constantijin’s weakness.

Constantijin said with icy hauteur, “If you want to go to him---”

            “I don’t,” I interrupted in a small voice, now immensely sorry that I said those words at all.

             His body tensed even more. “I don’t want to play any fucking games---”

            The hurt in my chest spread. Constantijin’s face was still a cold blank slate, but in his eyes I still saw pain that he couldn’t hide. He really did believe I had chosen Drake over him, and that now I was toying with him. It still shocked me he could think like that of me. I never even had a boyfriend before he came to my life, never ever thought I could lose sleep at the memory of the taste of a man’s kisses and the feel of his touch.

            He had changed me, claimed me, and ruined me for all the other men in the world. He was irreplaceable. How could he
not
know that? And how could I have not seen that Constantijin also had his doubts the way I did?

            My voice cracked as I spoke. “Constantijin, I’m not playing any games.”

            He didn’t answer.

            The silence was intolerable, and I was beginning to appreciate why it had constantly driven Constantijin crazy whenever I used to answer his questions with silence. It just plain sucked.

            “I thought it was the best thing to do,” I whispered. “Please try to look it from my side. If I had stayed with you that night, people would have started talking about us. And that time – I couldn’t handle it. I couldn’t take the risk. I didn’t want anyone to know because a part of me was still scared. I wanted to protect myself – in case you left me, no one would know.”

            Yet Constantijin still didn’t soften, not even a bit.

            “Constantijin,
please.
You know---”

            “Didn’t you ever pause to think that I had the same fucking fears, too?” The coldness was gone, but the bitterness that replaced it wasn’t any better. “
You
were the first woman who mattered to me. Didn’t I fucking tell you that? Didn’t you know---”

            “I
panicked.
I’m sorry, I just panicked.” Surely he should know that about me by now? Panic was my freaking middle name, and I had a tendency to experience it every time I encountered something I didn’t understand. Like guys, sex, and love – in any order.

            He spat something in Dutch, which sounded painful enough to hurt.

            Tears stung my eyes. “I wouldn’t have left if I had known you’d feel so strongly about it.” My voice shook as I continued, “Constantijin, you screwed
me
up
twice
. Now, I screwed up – but not as worse as your screw-ups. Are you
not
going to forg---” I couldn’t say anything anymore, not with Constantijin’s lips on me.

            The tears fell freely even as I weaved my arms around his neck, bringing my body as close to his as I could. The relief of being back in his arms was almost painful, and I couldn’t stop myself from shaking.