One hand still imprisoning mine, he used his other hand to cup my chin and make me look up.
His smile was breathtaking, and it made my ni**les harden even more. “Of course you are,” he whispered.
He had already released me by the time I managed to get all my wits back. Constantijin was opening the door, his tone business-like and perfectly at odds with the sensual heat in his gaze. “Till later, Ms. Everleigh.”
When the door closed behind me and a voice on the PA system announced the name of the first interviewee, I practically ran to the restroom so I could call Alyx privately.
“You won’t believe what just happened,” I half-shrieked when she answered.
Alyx answered promptly, “You were fired,” and made some weird guzzling sound afterwards. She was thirty floors down, bribed into waiting for me with a drink-all-you-can treat at Starbucks. Daria – our other best friend and who completed our decades-old-threesome – would have been with her, too, if she wasn’t currently sailing the Mediterranean on her honeymoon with her Greek tycoon.
I glared at my iPhone, wishing I had just FaceTimed Alyx so she would see exactly what I thought of her verbal show of support.
“Very funny.” Not waiting for her to answer back since Alyx was unbeatable when it came to smartass comebacks, I said right after, “Constantijin Kastein is flirting with me.”
I waited for her reaction with a madly beating heart. Alyx was a journalist and she knew everything about anyone who mattered. One look at Constantijin and you knew he absolutely mattered, more so than a billion people’s lives probably.
Alyx didn’t disappoint, and when she actually stopped slurping down her frappe to exclaim, ‘Whoa’, the pace of my heartbeat shot up dramatically.
“Constantijin Kastein – the VP of your company? The guy BBC dubbed as the King of European Media and Netherland’s #1 playboy? The one Hello magazine had on its cover last month and a spread of his twenty-three properties all over the world and his forty-something collection of sports cars and classics? That Constantijin you mean?”
Of all the things she said, just one thing stood uppermost in my mind. He was the #1 playboy in his whole country? No wonder my ni**les were still hard as pebbles. How many women did he have to bed to get that kind of title? The thought of that beautiful body next to another woman’s created a twinge of pain in my heart, but I told myself it was out of disgust. I was looking for true love, not sex. I had to remember that.
“Yes,” I finally said glumly. “That’s the one.”
“Why do you sound sad?” Alyx demanded. “Isn’t that a good thing? It would mean that he’s dy***ite in bed!”
I couldn’t help giggling, but only because Alyx talked as if she had oodles of experience when I knew she was as much a virgin as I was. “Like you’d know.”
“I watch p**n . You don’t.”
“I’m blushing for you,” I said, and it was true.
“Look, Yanna. You know I don’t believe in your true love nonsense. If Constantijin Kastein wants you, I say go for it. You can’t ask for a more perfect guy to deflower you---”
“Alyx!” I couldn’t believe what she was saying.
“I’m just being honest,” she said defensively.
“You’re, like, not helping, you know?”
“You’re, like, totally turned on, aren’t you?”
Just this moment, I wished she wasn’t such a true friend. That way, she wouldn’t have found it so easy to see through me.
“Yanna Everleigh for interview.”
I jumped at the words, stunned that even the restroom also had speakers connected with the building’s PA system. I glanced at my watch, my eyes widening when I realized that only ten minutes had passed. Wasn’t I supposed to be the last one interviewed? They were all interviewed then?
“I got to go,” I told Alyx, near to hyperventilating at the thought of going face to face with Constantijin again. God, I was so hopelessly entranced with him.
“Don’t forget to use a condom,” Alyx managed to sneak in just before I ended the call. I glared at my iPhone the second time even as our call ended. Condom? Yeah, right.
Standing in front of the glass doors, I had to take another deep breath before knocking. My heartbeat was still thumping so loudly it completely drowned out the sound of my knock. I turned the knob with shaky fingers and went in, murmuring, “Mr. Kastein?”
As the door closed shut behind me, I saw Constantijin standing in the middle of the room, his back to me. He seemed to be gazing at the magnificent view outside the 180-degree windows spanning half of the room. When he turned around, I couldn’t help but swallow.
He didn’t have to say a word for me to know what he wanted.
The blazingly hungry look in his silvery gray eyes was more than enough.
“Call me by my name,” he invited huskily.
I hastily averted my gaze before he could command me into doing anything he wanted with his eyes alone. “I don’t think that’s appropriate, Mr. Kastein.” I wanted to sound prim and standoffish, but I couldn’t fool myself into ignoring the breathless quality of my voice. I sounded just as hungry and frustrated as he seemed.
Shit.
When the silence lengthened, I found myself glancing at him. He was smiling, a dangerously sexy smile that had my hand unconsciously creeping upward to my chest. It was a futile effort to calm my erratic heartbeat.
“Yanna?”
“Y-yes?”
“I didn’t interview the others.”
That stumped me. “W-what?”
“I knew right away who I should hire or not. But you…” He frowned. “I really do need to interview you.”
He did? Why did he?
“I will objectively evaluate your answers and I make no promises about your chances for getting the job.”
I nodded, still not looking at him.
“But after that…” He paused.
When the silence stretched, I was unable to resist the temptation.
My knees buckled at the promise in his eyes. But it was gone in a flash, replaced by an impassive mask falling over his face as he spoke. “Sit down and we’ll start the interview.”
When I practically collapsed on the seat he had courteously pulled out for me, I had to pretend I didn’t hear him laugh out right. He took the seat next to me again, pushing his seat closer to mine, closer and closer until our knees touched once more.
I glared at him.