With This Ring

If, or more like when, our relationship ended there was no doubt it would haunt me for a very long time, maybe even forever.

I stood on the tips of my toes to kiss him, and my heart felt as if it was close to bursting with emotion. The kiss was soft and sweet until he deepened it.

My legs left the ground as his hands went around my ass to lift me up against him. I giggled when he turned around to place my back against the wall. I was thankful for the billowing dress I was wearing because it made it easy for me to wrap my legs around his waist.

“Do you know I’ve always loved your hair?” he asked. “It was the first thing I noticed about you.”

I began to grind my sex against his hardness.

“The first thing I noticed about you was how beautiful but cold your eyes were,” I told him. “They don’t seem cold anymore, though.”

“That’s because I’m looking at you,” he said.

I felt my heart stop. For the longest time, we just looked at each other and it seemed as if we were in a world of our own. A beautiful world where there was only him and me. Then I realized we had company. I whirled my head around and found Britney was staring at us, completely astounded.

“Uh… I-I’m sorry,” she stuttered. “I was told the bathroom is this way.”

Maxim put me down gently.

“It is,” I smiled at her. “Come on, I was just about to go too.”

Maxim to my surprise, placed a kiss to my cheek, and left me staring dazed after him as he took his leave.

Britney approached me carefully, as though she didn’t recognize me and then we went into the bathroom together.

We used the stalls then washed our hands under the faucets. I looked at Britney in the mirror and she looked at me curiously. “I thought you said it was purely sexual.”

“It is,” I said.

She looked at me incredulously. “You didn’t see the way he was looking at you? I know you don’t have much experience, but let me tell you that man is completely and utterly enamored with you, Freya.”

Chapter Seventy-Three

Maxim

“I’m going to Spain in the morning. Meeting with my father. I’ll be back Sunday evening. Will you have time for me?”

Her reply was almost instant.

I will indeed.

I couldn’t help the smile that spread across my face. Having Freya in my life had done something to me I never thought would happen. I felt lighter in her arms, more excited about things around me, more hopeful. It only served to affirm my earlier prediction that if we had married things would have been good between us.

I put the phone away, and that was when I noticed the old Holden Calias Sedan. It had been parked at a corner close to the bar. What had drawn my attention to it was a girl using their window as a mirror, but she jumped and moved away after a few seconds when she must have suddenly noticed the passengers sitting quietly inside it.

A man got out and started walking quickly up to me. Immediately Viktor placed himself in front of me, but I knew from the man’s expression he was not there to hurt me. He was a messenger.

“It’s all right,” I said to Viktor.

As he moved the man thrust an envelope into my hand and walked away without saying anything. I tore it open and there were pictures of Freya. Working at the bar, walking on the street, at her window with a towel around her head, arriving at my home wearing a pizza delivery man cap. There were hundreds of pictures and there was no part of her life that had not been captured.

I could feel my hands start to shake with fury. My phone rang and I picked it up and said nothing.

“Right this minute your girl is wearing a rather fetching navy-blue dressing gown, drinking tea, and working furiously at her desk. She has big, ambitious plans for her design company, poor thing doesn’t know there is a sniper in an apartment across from her. One word from me and her brains will be splattered all over her designs. All her young dreams will be gone. It would be a pity because as you know, it’s not her I want.”

“What do you want?”

“I thought you’d never ask. I want you to tell your team to stand down. Then I want you to drive to the carpark of your building. My men will meet you there. If you would be good enough to go with them it will make things much easier.”

Roman had just pulled up to the curb. He got out of the driver’s seat and hurried over to pull the passenger door open, but I stopped him and held out my hand for the keys.