Chapter Sixteen
Nostalgia struck the billionaire as he carefully led a blindfolded Ilse onto the polo field. A silvery path snaked on the grass, streaking from the same moon that had witnessed his fall from grace. Looking around him, he could only remember flashes of emotions and visions—-
The way his hands shook as he clasped the woman’s hips...
The sound of his pants mingling with the sultry laugh of his first lover...
The shuddering exhilaration that had run through his body the moment he realized he had lost his virginity, his distended cock impaling a tight, wet pussy for the first time...
“Are we there yet?”
Not quite, the billionaire thought grimly, but he wasn’t thinking literally. Everything around him should be familiar, and it was, barely. So many damn years, this moment of his life had tormented him, defined him.
He had thought that he would only have to come here, and he would know exactly where it happened, would know that one spot which had changed his life for good. He had thought the moment he came, his memories would crucify him.
And perhaps they still could, if only he remembered enough.
“Jaak?”
Ilse’s uncertain voice broke through his thoughts, and he slowly lowered his hands. He watched her blink as she turned around to take her surroundings in. When she glanced back at him, the bemusement in her brown eyes had only deepened. “I don’t understand.”
A crooked smile formed on his lips. “I thought you wouldn’t.”
Ilse crossed her arms over her chest. “I still don’t understand.”
“Willem made you think he’s told you everything, but he didn’t.”
Oh. Ilse’s gaze swept her surroundings once more, this time more slowly and thoroughly, but the significance of the place was still lost on her. “Could you give me a clue at least?”
“My last visit here was when I was ten years old.” The billionaire’s tone was casual, but there was something about the way he looked at her that made Ilse frown.
Ten, she thought to herself musingly. He was ten. What could be so special about a boy’s tenth year? He would still have been in middle school, but so what? Ten...ten...
And that was when she realized that it wasn’t about ten-year-old boys in general.
“Oh, Jaak.” It was about his tenth year.
That year when Willem had almost died in their father’s hands—-
“Congratulations for figuring it out.” The billionaire’s lazy drawl was at odds with the tension that had possessed his body the moment she spoke.
“Was this,” she whispered, “where you were when it happened?”
His laugh was humorless, and his voice, when he replied, filled with self-contempt. “You make it sound so damn innocuous, but we both know I failed a lot of people that time.”
“Jaak—-”
“I wasn’t here playing polo when my father started acting like Willem was his personal punching bag.” The billionaire’s tone hardened with each word. “I was here losing my virginity.”
“I see.” Ilse’s tone came out unusually lame, but she couldn’t help it. She was sincerely at a loss, unable to comprehend how boys that young could actually have sex. And that it would actually happen here—-
She looked around her. “Where, umm, exactly—-”
He cut her off, saying shortly, “I’d say we’re in the vicinity.”
“Right.” Vicinity, Ilse thought blankly. They were in the vicinity. And since they were right in the center of the sports club’s polo field, didn’t being in the vicinity mean the ten-year-old Jaak had lost his virginity...here?
She looked around again, and afterwards, all she could do was glance back at the billionaire, saying, “Really?” He really had sex here...at ten?
“She was my riding tutor.”
“REALLY?”
“Ah, Ilse.” A slight laugh accompanied his words, but the sound didn’t ring completely true. “Shouldn’t we be focusing on the fact that I was too busy fucking while my father was beating Willem up?”
Oh, Jaak. A part of her was shocked at how sentimental she had become ever since the billionaire had come to her life, but a part of her just felt that it was entirely natural. If he was hurt, she was hurt, too, and she would do everything possible to make him feel better.
“I feel for Willem, Jaak. I really do, but...” Her shoulders moved in a helpless shrug. “He has Sere now, and they’re at a good place—-”
“As they deserve to be,” Jaak said quietly. “They’re good people.”
Unlike him, Ilse mentally finished. The billionaire might not have spoken the words out loud, but she heard them loud and clear, and it hurt because he was hurting more and more.
“You’re good, too, Jaak.” And no longer able to help it, she shakily reached up to cup his face. “And I know this is going to sound disloyal, but I have to take your family’s side on this one.”
“Ilse—-”
But she didn’t let him finish speaking. “We all think you’re a good person, Jaak.” His entire face became rigid, and she had to swallow past the lump that had formed in her throat at the sight of it. “You can’t keep blaming yourself for that night. You need to forgive yourself—-”
“You’re not seeing it objectively—-”
“If anyone’s being blind and subjective here,” Ilse interrupted shakily, “then that can’t be anyone else but you.
It’s been two decades, Jaak, and you’re still looking at that night like you’re still ten.
” Her hands dropped from his face as his face whitened, but even knowing that she might have already said too much, she just couldn’t stop.
Even if it meant she would risk losing him all over again because she had spoken the truth, she would rather have that than not try her best to heal him.
“You cut yourself off from your family to punish yourself for an imaginary sin, and you worked blood, sweat, and tears to make your own fortune, just so you wouldn’t have to spend any of the money that you had inherited because you were your parents’ son.
“When Willem had to leave for Greece to go after Sere, you quietly took the reins so the board wouldn’t mind his absence.
When Ayah lost her baby, you helped Nic pick up the pieces.
When Anneke’s marriage broke down, you were the first one to fly to her side.
And when Fleur was too afraid to tell anyone about her depression, you were there—-”
“Stop.” The billionaire didn’t know whether he should laugh or kiss her hard. When Ilse opened her mouth as if to argue, he shook his head, muttering, “For the love of God, stop.” A hoarse laugh escaped him, and this time the sound was beautiful.
And so Ilse did stop because she could also feel it.
This time, he had stopped hurting.
And that was all she ever wanted.
“You make me sound like a saint.”
His smile was self-deprecating and heartbreakingly sexy at the same time, and it was like an arrow to the heart, leaving her reeling, and even as she heard herself answer vaguely, “I w-wouldn’t go that far,” she only had one thought in mind.
It was time.
Her fingers reached for the straps of her gown.
It was time.
The billionaire stiffened when he saw Ilse pushing the straps down her shoulders. “What are you doing?”
“You t-truly don’t know?” Hearing the quiver in her own voice made Ilse’s face redden, but even so, she didn’t let it stop her—-
“No.” The billionaire’s jaw hardened as Ilse took hold of the sweetheart neckline of her gown. “I don’t.”
Ilse started pushing her gown down.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
Her brown eyes met his as the bodice finally fell to her waist, and the billionaire sucked his breath in as her naked breasts spilled free.
“You know what I’m doing,” she whispered.
Her voice implored and seduced him at the same time, and it was irresistible.
“I want to erase the past for good, Jaak.” Her hands went back to her gown, and her gloriously full breasts jiggled and swayed in a mesmerizing fashion as she started pushing the rest of the fabric down her legs.
“I want to replace it with nicer memories.” Ilse stepped out of the pool of silk around her feet, and the billionaire had never seen something more arousing than Ilse standing in nothing but a pair of lace thongs and stilettos.
“Our memories, Jaak.” Her voice ached, and his body ached with her, his fully erect and painfully throbbing cock wanting to tear out of his pants.
“God, Ilse.” Was she fucking real? And was she really about to be fucking his?
“Love me,” Ilse whispered.
Two words.
Two damn words.
Two goddamn words, and she owned him, body and soul, the words stealing into his heart like a thief in the dark.
Even as a part of him questioned everything – was it right, should he wait, what would happen if she regretted it afterwards – the billionaire also knew all questions were futile.
“You know I already do, babe.” He yanked her to him, no longer capable of ignoring his overpowering desire for her. “God help you if this isn’t what you want—-”
Ilse answered by pressing her naked body fully to his, and the billionaire’s control snapped.
He kissed her hard even as he tore his clothes off, and he groaned anew as she kissed him back with a hungry fervor that more than matched his.
When he had gotten rid of all his clothes, his cock instinctively rubbed against her folds, and she moaned against his lips.
The sound made him want to crush her against him, but he managed to keep his hands gentle as he slowly drew her down.
He laid her on the soft bed of his clothes and parted her thighs gently before kneeling between them.
Their eyes clashed as he reached for her, and Ilse’s body shuddered when his fingers grazed the thin layer of lace that covered her moist pussy.
Without taking his gaze off her, he ripped the scrap of lace from her body, and a whimper escaped Ilse.
His gaze went to her core, and his need sharpened to a feverish peak at the way her folds glistened with her desire. “You look so damn beautiful here, babe.”
The guttural note of the billionaire’s voice was more than enough to make her tremble anew, and when she felt his fingers slowly stroke down her folds, Ilse’s eyes squeezed shut, her body arching under his caress.