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 fromChristina 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 SETTLEDin, 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.
Even when there wasn’t a night he went to bed alone—-
Even with all the women chasing him—-
It just wasn’t goddamn enough.
Everything reminded him of Ilse Muir, and he had no goddamn reason why.
He tried to drown his memories in a black sea of hatred, tried to make himself remember Ilse like an exquisitely crafted doll: beautiful and cold-hearted, someone who seemed to have made it her life’s goal toneverlaugh at any of his jokes.
That was what he wanted –needed– to remember.
But his mind was a slick bastard, and as soon as he fell into an exhausted sleep, his dreams would force him to see the truth, to feel the pain, and most of all, those haunted goddamn dreams forced him to acknowledge his unspeakable fears—-
And that was that he would never find anyone else like Ilse Muir.
THE HUMAN HEART ALWAYShad the power to mend on its own, but it was a fact often buried in a whirlwind of depression,lost and forgotten in the deafening, overwhelming sound of denial.
But it could mend.
And it did mend for Ilse, on a day seemingly no different from the unmemorable blank dates on the calendar. She had started to walk into the living room when she saw her brother talking to himself.
