“And who should I say you are?” he asked in a crisp, no nonsense tone. He had decided I had no right to be there.
I shouldn’t have, but I couldn’t help it, I decided to mess with them. They deserved it for judging me based purely on my appearance. “His fiancée,” I said smugly.
The female receptionist snorted with disbelief at what she considered a preposterous idea. I looked down to hide my smile.
“Ma’am,” her male colleague said sternly. “What’s your name, please?”
“Freya.”
He waited for a last name, but when I didn’t provide any, he went on with barely controlled irritation. “Well …uh, Miss Freya, to see Mr. Ivankov, you’ll need an appointment.”
“Well, I just told you that I’m engaged to him. Do I still need an appointment to see my fiancé?”
The girl spoke up, her tone sneering. “With all due respect ma’am, if you are engaged to him why don’t you just… call him?”
Someone else, obviously far more important, appeared beside me, and Daniel gave Melanie a look as if to say can you handle this on your own. She nodded and as he moved on to serve the newcomer, she turned to me with hard eyes.
But I was done playing games with Maxim’s snooty staff. With a sigh, I pulled my phone out of my pocket, and was about to dial his number when he emerged from the bank of elevators. He was with a group of sharply-suited, swarthy men. He was easily head and shoulders taller than all of them except one, a man I vaguely recognized. Maxim’s face remained stoic as he listened to one of them speaking.
My plan was to wait until they moved away from him, but they all began to walk towards the revolving doors. Surely the asshole didn’t intend to stand me up.
“Maxim!” I yelled.
My voice rang through the lobby, echoing and magnifying when it hit all the hard surfaces in that vast space. People stopped their civilized murmurings and looked around in surprise. Their gazes settled on an unkempt tramp in a wheelchair.
I felt no shame.
But to my surprise, there was no embarrassment or shame in Maxim’s face either as his eyes found mine. He didn’t care that I was in his workplace looking like something the cat dragged in and screaming his name like a lunatic. His face was expressionless, but his eyes never left mine as he approached me. The expression in them made me suddenly feel small, defenseless, and unsure of myself. Ironically, I even felt an almost crippling urge to stand.
My heart warmed at the fact that I hadn’t been thrown out or worse, ignored. Instead he was coming towards me and for the first time, I needed his covering and protection, craved it almost- against the mocking eyes of the world.
He stopped before me.
“You were about to leave,” I explained.
“You could have called me,” he said.
I looked away, my breath quickening at the smoldering gaze of his icy-blue eyes. It chilled me and set me ablaze all at the same time.
“I’ll go wait somewhere,” I said and started to turn around but he grabbed the handles of my chair and started to push me towards his associates.
“Tom, would you please round up on my behalf,” he said as we got closer. Then he addressed the group as a whole. “Great meeting again. Thanks guys.”
We were still the focus of attention when Maxim began to push me through the security checkpoint of the building. The uniformed guards instantly granted us access and he pushed me into his empire. I couldn’t resist turning to search out the receptionists’ faces.
Melanie’s mouth was dropped open in shock and Daniel was staring at us in disbelief with his hands on his hips. I knew it was childish to gloat, but I couldn’t help myself from smiling triumphantly and giving them a little wave. Both were incredibly quick to respond with their own little waves to the boss’s new fiancée. That should teach them not to be so shallow and condescending again.
As we headed towards the elevators though I began to wonder at my odd behavior. I wasn’t one to seek attention, but it seemed as if I almost relished going out of my way to make Maxim uncomfortable. If what I felt for him was just pure hate then why was I so preoccupied with getting a reaction out of him?
We stopped by his private elevator and as he leaned over me to press the button for the car’s arrival, I took the opportunity to watch him through the reflection on the highly polished doors.
I had always thought that a man in a well-cut suit had the same effect on a woman that a woman in a bikini had on a man. In an exquisite charcoal suit, pale gray tie, and white shirt Maxim was impeccable in a way that made me shift uncomfortably with sexual awareness.
What was even more disconcerting was the fact that I obviously had no such effect on him.
In fact, the jerk didn’t even bother looking at me while we waited for the elevator car to arrive. Instead, he pulled out his phone from his pocket and began to go through what I assumed were messages. When the elevator dinged its arrival, he pushed me in and we were on our way up to the topmost floor. When the doors swished open again, we were in a large waiting room. He pushed me right past his secretary, a short, scraggly haired man that bore an uncanny resemblance to Daniel Radcliffe, gave the impression his boss wheeling in a disheveled woman towards him was an ordinary everyday occurrence. He smiled politely at me as he stood and went ahead to open the double doors to what must be Maxim’s office.
Chapter Seventeen
Freya
“What do you want to eat?” Maxim asked as we got through the wide doors.
I was stunned by Maxim’s office. It was one seamless glass cube, and almost made me feel as though I was suspended in the sky, the landscape of the entire city almost seemed like an unreal painting that he had no doubt spent a fortune to have access to.
“Whoa, this is awesome. You must feel like God up here,” I said in awe.
When I didn’t hear a response, I turned to see him watching me as he stood behind his desk, all regal and powerful, his phone in hand.
“There are loads of high-rises in the city. Go rent the top floor of one of them,” he suggested.
“I’m a struggling jewelry designer. I can barely afford a sublet in the Bronx.”
“You’re richer than you think,” he said softly.
“My dad’s money is not mine and I refuse to get blood on my hands so I can have an office in the sky.”
It was water off a duck’s back. “What do you want to eat?” he repeated.
“Let me see … what’s the most expensive lunch that money can buy?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“Well, that’s what I want.”
We gazed at each other and for a moment I wondered if he would someday just get fed up with me and put a bullet in my head. Then he pressed the intercom to his phone and I heard his secretary’s voice come through. “Gary, come in,”
A few minutes later, he walked in, a fixed smile on his face. “Yes, Sir.”
“Tell him what you want,” Maxim said and took his seat. He picked up a folder before him and began to flip through the documents inside.
“What’s the most expensive lunch money can buy in this city?” I asked him.
“Ah, uh... I guess I have to look that up.”