“Hmm,” I said, and slinked back into my head.
“What are you thinking of now?”
“If my father were to think that Maxim was abusive towards me, perhaps he would call this ridiculous marriage thing off.”
Britney, rightly, looked incredulous. I understood how she felt because I was entertaining thoughts that no sane person would or should, but I was getting desperate.
“And how do you want to pull that off?” she asked sarcastically. “Provoke him into throwing you down a high-rise building?”
“A flight of stairs might do the trick.”
“Freya!” she cried, her expression horrified.
“Fine!” I groaned and returned my gaze back to my computer.
“Fine what exactly, Freya?”
“Fine, I’ll stop trying to save myself from a lifetime of pain and bitterness.”
She sighed. “Have you even spoken to Maxim?”
I reacted defensively as the question hit too close to home. “Spoken to him about what?”
“About what his brother mentioned the other day.”
I scowled at her.
“Hear me out, Freya. I know I don’t … I know I can’t fully grasp the gravity of what happened with your friend—”
‘No, you can’t,” I cut her off.
She ignored the interruption and kept going. “I can’t, but perhaps it’s time to revisit it. Perhaps it’s time to ask Maxim what happened, you know, from his point of view.”
“He would just lie and she can’t defend herself.”
“Okay, so you want to be true to her memory, but what if there is something more… something Anna didn’t get?”
I stared at her for the longest time without knowing what to say, but I did know how I felt. Suffocated, by everyone… by a possible scenario that they insisted I hear… but I wanted to keep believing in Anna. I had to. I couldn’t betray her. I was the only one she trusted. If her spirit was watching I wanted her to know I was faithful to her to the very end. A mere man couldn’t turn me against her.
“I don't want to talk about this anymore.”
“Alright,” she said and turned back to her computer screen.
I, however, couldn’t take my mind off any of it. I rose from my desk with the pretense of going for a smoothie and the moment I got to the bottom floor of our building’s entrance, I pulled out my phone and called Maxim. He picked up on the second ring.
“Maxim.”
There it was again, that tingle of awareness and fury that always stole my breath. “I have some questions to ask you. When can we meet?”
“When is good for you?” His voice was smooth, suave.
“Tonight?”
“I’ll be in Belarus. I won’t be back till next week.”
I sighed. “Then when?”
“Lunch in an hour.”
I sighed heavily again. “Sure.”
“I’ll send a car ov—”
“No need,” I cut him off. “I’ll find my own way. Where?”
“My office,” he replied.
“Your office? Why?” I asked suspiciously.
“Because I’m busy. I can’t leave. We’ll talk while we eat.”
“Whatever,” I said and ended the call.
Chapter Fifteen
Maxim
“You’re going to Belarus for a week? Since when?” Tom, my old friend and lawyer asked, a deep frown on his forehead.
I returned the phone to my pocket and glanced at him as we rode the elevator together. I felt like I was burying myself slowly, and I didn’t understand why I was doing it. It was almost a compulsion. “Relax. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Good, because you owe me a game of poker tonight. I need a chance to win back the fifteen grand you stole from me last week.”
Our gazes met on the shiny surface of the elevator doors. “I didn’t steal it, I fucking won it from you.”
“You’re an asshole, you know,” he muttered.
“Someday, Tom, you’re going to lose your head for talking to me like that.”
He laughed. “That’ll be the day. Now, the real question is: who is important enough to make you tell porkies? In the ten years I've known you I’ve never once seen you tell a lie, not even in the face of death. You’re too much of a proud fucker for that, so who the hell was on the phone?”
The elevator dinged, then swished open as we arrived on the eighth floor for our conference meeting. Ignoring him, I stepped out of the confinement. I wanted desperately to loosen up my tie, which felt like it was suffocating me, but we were both heading to a meeting with some investors from Venezuela to discuss an oil drilling project. Every one of them was a badly disguised piranha in a suit. I didn’t plan on being on the menu.
As soon as the pleasantries were done with the meeting began.
But I couldn’t focus. I lied. Because I wanted to see her. No, that was a lie. I needed to see her again. And I was not prepared to wait until tonight. Ever since I saw her in the hospital, I had been plagued by thoughts of her: her untamed curls, the defiance in her gaze, the fire from her tongue. Everything about her burned me, in a bitter, sweet way… and I couldn’t fucking wait.
Hell, I wanted to taste her so bad, my cock ached.
Chapter Sixteen
Freya
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dkk9gvTmCXY
I rolled into Ivankov Industries in my wheelchair.
Of course, I didn’t need it. I hadn’t used it since the day I had left the hospital, but I needed to take a stand and clearly remind him that I’d gotten hurt because of him. To also clearly remind him how dangerous he was to me, and how much of a misfortune it was for me to marry him.
When I reached the exquisite reception of the sky-high (okay seventy-six floors) of glistening glass and chrome lobby I looked around me with reluctant awe. Yes, the Ivankovs were truly the most powerful Russian mob group in this country, and definitely the most extravagant. New York was their turf. My father ruled in Europe and the United Kingdom.
What particularly caught my attention was the at least thirty feet tall palm trees that were dotted around the lobby. It made me wonder how they had been able to get them into the building.
The receptionist, a beautiful, bored, blonde wearing a nametag that said Melanie, looked quite confused by my appearance at her station. She turned to glance at her male colleague.
“Can I help you?” her male colleague, wearing a nametag that said Daniel, asked, as he ran his condescending eyes down my wild unruly hair, my unmade face, my baggy t-shirt tucked into the loose pants that he assumed covered my crippled legs.
“I’m here to see Maxim.”
His eyebrows rose to incredible heights. “As in Mr. Maxim Ivankov?”
“Do you know of any other Maxim in this building?” I asked tartly.
They shared a look, probably wondering what on earth a rude, disheveled woman in a wheelchair could possibly want with their high and mighty boss.