“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
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.
“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.