Jaak and Ilse: A Dutch Billionaire Love Story Read online

  Jaak and Ilse

  Marian Tee

  Contents

  Copyright

  About Jaak and Ilse

  About the Book

  Also by Marian Tee

  Jaak And Ilse

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Epilogue

  Also by Marian Tee

  Jaak and Ilse

  By Marian Tee

  Copyright 2016 by Streak Digital Publishing

  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.

  About Jaak and Ilse

  Be ready to laugh, cry, and fall in love once you start reading this steamy, feel-good, and poignantly sweet romance from Marian Tee. No cliffhangers!

  He’s her first lover, she’s his first and only friend. Love isn’t ever supposed to be part of the equation until an accident changes everything.

  When 32-year-old billionaire Jaak de Konigh first sets his sight on Ilse Muir, he knows he has to have her, and he’s always gotten what he’s wanted. But the stunningly beautiful Dutch proves him wrong by walking out on his offer to make her his mistress.

  23-year-old Ilse Muir only has room for one man in his life, and that’s her brother. She lives for him and no one else, and for him she’s willing to sacrifice everything. She has absolutely no time for pleasure and certainly not dating but there’s just something about the billionaire that’s wickedly different. He has her hot and bothered, and he annoys her like no other. But most of all, he makes her smile…when she thought she had long forgotten how it was to smile.

  All his life Jaak has been fielding off women, but with Ilse it’s become the opposite. She has him jumping through hoops, and it’s as frustrating as it’s exhilarating. Where women used to treat him a trophy, Ilse amuses and exasperates the billionaire by hiding from him and hiding him like a dirty secret. Before he knows it, Ilse has become the reason he wakes up to every day…when it used to be that the billionaire hasn’t allowed himself to live for anyone else.

  Love wasn’t ever supposed to be the equation. It was only supposed to be about sex.

  But when she starts asking too many questions, and he starts making her heart beat---

  Everything changes.

  Boy meets girl, boy and girl fall in love, boy and girl live happily ever after.

  That’s how it’s supposed to be, but Jaak and Ilse both know they’re too damaged to make it work the way others do. If they both want to be with each other---

  He can’t ever say he loves her…and she can’t ever say she needs him.

  About the Book

  ABOUT THE BOOK

  My goodness, Ilse thought disbelievingly.

  He was quite, quite taller than she expected him to be, and even if she had been in her killer heels right now, Ilse knew the top of her head still wouldn’t reach his shoulders. He was also exceedingly pretty – the way only movie stars should have a right to. He grew his hair just a little bit longer than what was usual, and the ebony-black waves looked so invitingly soft she had the strangest urge to feel it for herself. His eyes were a vivid shade of blue, his cheekbones aristocratic in its prominence. The rest of him was just as impressive, the magnificent breadth of his shoulders accentuated by his exquisitely hand-sewn suit.

  But what really took her breath away was how wicked he felt.

  He had BAD BOY written all over him, and Ilse frowned. He was, in a nutshell, the very opposite of her, and the urge to flee returned with a vengeance.

  In the four years Ilse had been working as a tour guide, she had become a good judge of character. One look at this gentleman – if he could even be called that – and she knew he was trouble.

  She crossed her arms over her chest, saying disapprovingly in Dutch, “You are bad news, mijnheer.” She was normally more tactful than this, but she had a feeling there was no need to be so with this man. He just didn’t feel like the type of man to cost Ilse her job if she rejected him.

  “How can you say that,” he drawled out mildly, “when you don’t even know me?”

  But he was also the type of man who wouldn’t so easily give up once he found himself a toy he wished to acquire and play with until he lost interest.

  Well, that toy would not be her.

  Also by Marian Tee

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  Standalone Novels

  Captivated: 4-in-1 Friends Romance Boxed Set – Enjoy four standalone romances between passionate, domineering billionaires and the women who were their friends first before becoming their lovers.

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  His Fair Lady – Prince Julian knows the blind fortune teller Cass is everything he wants in a woman, but she can never be his bride.

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  For Angelo (Standalone)

  BEASTS Series (All Standalone Books)

  My Russian Beast (Sergei & Fredericka)

  Heart Racer – Billionaire Biker Romance Series: Christopoulos University (According to Reading Order)

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  Drawn (Standalone)

  Russian Stepbrother Romance Trilogy

  When I Moan

  When I Hurt

  When I Love

  Play With Me (Standalone)

  This Round I’m Yours (Standalone)

  Visit Marian Tee’s website for her other titles.

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  Jaak And Ilse

  By Marian Tee

  Prologue

  Eleven years ago

  St. Valentine, Contini

  “Mind if I join you?” At his younger brother’s nod, Willem de Konigh stepped out to join Jaak on the balcony. Behind them, the rest of the chateau was still blanketed in the quiet of sleep, their three younger siblings unknowingly missing out on the chance to say goodbye to Jaak.

  “Are you here to change my mind?” Jaak’s tone was light and humorous.

  “You know me better than that,” was his older brother’s mild reply.

  Jaak laughed. Standing almost as tall as his brother, he possessed the same blue eyes that the de Konighs were famous for. But unlike Willem’s blond good looks that made women all over Europe think of him as a real-life Prince Charming, Jaak’s ebony black hair and trademark smirk lent the younger de Konigh a devilishly wicked aura. If these were the olden days, he would have no doubt been mistaken for a rakish pirate, a man guaranteed to steal the virginity of any lady in his presence.

  The grandfather clock inside the chateau chimed out a heavy tune, and both brothers instinctively stiffened at the unwanted reminder of the time. Even though a decade had already passed since they had escaped their father’s brutality, there were still things they were struggling – and failing – to forget.

  It was two o’clock in the morning, and not so long ago, this was the hour of the night that insanity, cultivated by years of alcoholism and emotional instability, would take over their father.

  Willem’s beatings would start, an almost-nightly ritual that left him bloodied and broken.

  And Jaak had not known.

  He had not known because he, unlike Willem, had been the apple of his father’s eye, the only one among his children that Edgar de Konigh had deigned to notice.

  Or maybe he had not known because he hadn’t wanted to, Jaak thought bitterly. Maybe even then, he had been a weak and spineless idiot who had idolized his father---

  The same father that had turned his eldest son into a punching bag because he didn’t have the guts to beat his wife for cheating---

  “I am aware it’s pointless to say this, but as I like being thorough---”

  “You’ll say it anyway,” Jaak finished.

  “Correct.” Willem inclined his head in agreement.

  “Then consider the words said,” Jaak murmured evenly, “and disregarded – courteously, mind you.”

  A brief grin cracked Willem’s mask. “Bullshit.”

  Jaak rolled his eyes. “If the press could only hear you now.”

  Willem’s gaze turned towards their surroundings. It was another beautiful December day in the north of Contini, the kingdom that their paternal grandmother had ruled since she was eighteen years old. Snow completely covered the roofs and roads, but the wintry landscape was enlivened by splashes of color coming from hardy perennials lining the sidewalks. Yellow mahonia and winter jasmine grew next the occasional blooms of snapdragons, violas, and cyclamen, with its petals boasting an ombre display from deep red to pale pink to white.

  The ten-bedroom chateau that stood behind them was just as eye-catching, with its ornamental brick façade and pillared entrance.

  “We have had a good life, haven’t we?” Willem asked reflectively. His kind of people represented the tiniest fraction in the world that literally had more money than they could ever spend in various lifetimes. Their wealth was boundless, but more miraculously than that, Willem had also been blessed with brothers and sisters he would die to protect – and who would do the same for him. The same could even be said for the Queen of Contini, their grandmother, and the large brood of cousins they had grown up with.

  They might have not lucked out on the parental department, but considering all the other blessings they had received---

  Willem saw no cause for complaint.

  At the end of the day, they had more than most other people could ever dream of having, and it was for this sole reason why Willem didn’t even think of praying to God to make his younger brother stay.

  Jaak glanced at his older brother, asking mockingly, “Are you about to become emotional?” He feigned a light shudder, saying, “Because that would be horrendous.”

  Willem only gazed at him, blue eyes remaining unreadable, and his hard face unyielding. It was clear that he wasn’t willing to make this easy for his younger brother.

  “You knew this would happen sooner or later.” Jaak shoved his fists into his pockets in an effort to curb the frustration inside of him. “I stayed for as long as I could, and I swear to God I did try to put everything behind me---” His tone became uncontrollably savage. “But I can’t. Our family means everything to me---”

  “Then stay,” Willem said simply.

  Jaak rejected the suggestion with a sharp shake of his head. “Not until I feel I deserve it.” Disapproval flashed in his older brother’s eyes, but Jaak didn’t let it stop him. “I need to pay for my sins,” he grated out, “but if you won’t make me pay them---”

  “I don’t make you pay for anything,” Willem exploded in an undertone, “because there is nothing to pay for.” Shorn of his legendary cool, Willem continued in a furiously biting tone, “It was not your fault you didn’t know what was happening. How many times do I have to say that before you believe me?”

  “You can say it a thousand times, and I still won’t believe you.” Jaak’s voice was grim. “I should have known---”

  “You were only ten---”

  “And you were eleven, just one fucking year older,” Jaak snarled back. “Eleven, and you nearly lost your life to protect all of us! I was one fucking year younger, and where was I when he was beating you? I was busy fucking and losing my virginity to some girl whose name I don’t even remember---”

  “Goddammit, Jaak.” Willem had the strongest urge to punch his younger brother in the face, just to see if it would shake Jaak up and make him realize that he hadn’t ever been the one to blame for their past. “If you really want to make it up to me,” he said tautly, “if you want to make it up to this family – then stay.”

  Jaak’s lips tightened.

  “Don’t turn your back on us. Don’t distance yourself from us. Punishing yourself with a meaningless existence won’t make our past disappear. It will only make our present much more difficult to bear, and if you do that, then isn’t that letting our father win?” When his younger brother still didn’t say anything, Willem made one fi
nal attempt to get Jaak to stay. “We need you here---”

  Jaak cut his brother off with a humorless laugh. “Who’s lying now? You’re Willem de Konigh. Europe’s infamous smooth-talking bastard, poised to take over the EU in a decade’s time. The world won’t even notice that I’m gone---”

  “But we will,” Willem said quietly.

  Jaak breathed hard. “I appreciate the lengths you’re going to make me stay---” He picked his jacket off the back of the lounge chair. “But I’ve made up my mind, and nothing will change it.”

  The two brothers faced each other.

  In Jaak’s eyes, Willem saw the need to carve his own path, and in that moment, he realized that he had to put his controlling nature aside if he didn’t want his relationship with Jaak completely destroyed.

  When Willem finally offered his hand, Jaak didn’t hesitate to shake it, knowing that his brother had tacitly agreed to stay out of his way while he did whatever he had to do to figure his shit out.

  “See you whenever,” Jaak murmured.

  Willem smiled. “See you in two months,” he corrected casually. “You need to be here for Anneke’s birthday.”

  Jaak raised a brow. “Is that an order?”

  “If it is what’s required to get you back home, yes. You can even take that as an official command from the Royal House of Contini if you wish.”