Total pages in book: 66
Estimated words: 63911 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 320(@200wpm)___ 256(@250wpm)___ 213(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63911 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 320(@200wpm)___ 256(@250wpm)___ 213(@300wpm)
She hadn’t looked more fragile either, and it killed him, knowing that he was the reason for it.
“Enough of this,” the billionaire said heavily.
“Exactly.”
His head shot up at the utter absence of emotion in her tone. “Ilse—-”
“Because I think we’ve had enough of each other.”
FUCK.
“Ilse—-”
“If there’s one thing this life of mine has taught me,” Ilse said softly, “then it’s that it’s too precious to waste on lies and pretensions.”
She looked at the billionaire and it hurt, thinking of all that could have been. She had thought he was different...but he was not.
“My job may require me to go out dressed in costume, mijnheer,” Ilse whispered, “but I’m not the one who has been living my entire life wearing a mask—-”
She stopped speaking, the pain suddenly overwhelming her.
Was there no one she could ever depend on?
The billionaire whitened at the despair in her eyes. “Ilse.”
It was the first time her name didn’t sound right on his lips, and she wondered dully if it ever did, wondered if she had just been fooling herself all along, making her see what she wanted to see.
The billionaire’s fists clenched. Ilse, he thought bleakly, had always looked so full of life. But now—-
The urge to drive his fist into the nearest wall became almost impossible to resist.
Inhaling deeply, Ilse struggled to keep her voice steady as she said, “I think it would be best if I don’t ever hear from you again, mijnheer.”
No. Fuck, no. The billionaire shook his head sharply. “Ilse, I know I made a mistake—-”
Her proud, hurt gaze lifted to his. “We both made a mistake. You failed to see me for who I am, and so did I. We are who we are, mijnheer...and we are not for each other.”
Chapter Eight
The last days of October faded into a blur of oblivion for Ilse. Perhaps if an actual relationship had existed, moving on would have been easier, and the memories kinder. But because Jaak de Konigh was neither her boyfriend nor lover, nothing but a man she had been fatally attracted to-—
It made her feel as if she didn’t even have the right to hurt.
Mornings hurt because there were no longer calls meant to wake her up, and sometimes she could only curl into a ball on her bed, hating how she remembered the way she would shiver under the shower, knowing that the billionaire was listening to her shower.
Afternoons were just as bad, the silence in the office driving her crazy. Gloria and her co-workers went out of their way to give her space, and Ilse didn’t have the heart to tell them they were just making it worse. She wanted things back to normal, but how did one do it when everyone else was mourning an imaginary loss with her?
All these, however, Ilse managed to bear with a fake smile, but it was when evening came that her defenses completely crumbled. Evenings just left her so broken her body physically ached because of it. Nights were when it was impossible to forget the times he would make Ilse catch her breath with the heated way he looked at her, nights were when all she could hear was the billionaire’s silky voice—-
He’d borrow a line from Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poems and recite it to her in Spanish. He’d seduce her with lines from Christina Rossetti’s Goblin Market, making the words feel a lot more sexual because he was whispering them in French. He’d make her laugh by leering at her and talking dirty in Japanese, and when he was in the mood to provoke her, he’d make her gasp in horror as he quoted Jane Austen to Ilse in German.
Jaak de Konigh!
Austen!
They weren’t ever supposed to coexist in the same sentence, and oh, how she would go on, lamenting his gall, but all it did was make the billionaire laugh and promise wickedly that he’d do it forever if it would always make her cry so.
Sweet and sexy nothings, all those words were, but none of them pricked her heart the way he could when he’d speak to her in alternating Dutch and English.
I missed you the entire time I was in the meeting, babe.
Don’t ever change, schatje. You’re perfect the way you are.
I want you, Ilse, more than I’ve wanted any woman.
Ilse squeezed her eyes shut.
Oh, those words were the worst because now she knew they were nothing but lies.
AS NOVEMBER SETTLED in, its dark, cold cape of shorter days and longer nights sweeping over the city, Jaak found himself besieged with a gnawing sense of emptiness that refused to leave him even in his sleep.
Work hard, party harder.
Even with the mantra serving as the blueprint of his current lifestyle, the emptiness still didn’t leave him. Even with every minute of his day taken over by meetings and conferences while a whirlwind of social obligations and hedonistic pursuits consumed his evenings, the strange pressure around his chest never eased, and there were times when he could barely breathe at how goddamn alone he felt.