With This Ring

“What time?” he asked in Russian finally. I’ll be there.” Then he put his phone away and refocused his attention on me. “This must have all come as a shock to you. I’ll give you a few days to mull over it so that—”

“There’s nothing to mull over,” I interrupted. Passing by him I marched over to the door and pulled it open. It sent Britney flying into the room almost landing on her face.

“Oh,” she said lamely from the middle of the room. Her face was bright red.

I frowned at her and she immediately hurried away. I turned back to Maxim.

“I am not marrying you, Maxim, and that’s my final response.”

“I’ll be at Tribeca Piers on Friday afternoon at exactly noon. We will conclude this arrangement then.”

Chapter Seven

Freya

“Have you decided what you’re going to do?” Britney asked, as she came into our tiny kitchen where I was cooking dinner for us.

“Nope.” I left the tomato sauce I’d been stirring and headed over to the bottom shelf of the cupboard to get a packet of pasta. The whole time I was aware of Britney’s worried eyes following me across the room. She had been trying her best to pry my situation out of me, but I was actually too upset to even speak about it. The last person I ever wanted to speak about, or even think about was Maxim Ivankov.

“Um …,” she said cautiously, “after you left I received a call from the top buyer at Delaneys. He said, fingers crossed if all goes well then he’ll be able to have us in their branch on Madison Avenue.”

“That’s great news,” I said, but I felt nothing. So I said it again, and this time I put more emotion into it. “That is great news.”

“Yeah, he seemed pretty hot about it,” Britney said, but her voice reflected no real happiness, which made me feel bad because this was our big dream and I was trampling all over it. But I couldn’t help it. How could I be happy about being in Delaneys when my whole life was being turned upside down?

“I need to call my dad, could you please help me watch the water so it doesn’t boil over?”

“Sure,” she said, moving towards the pot.

I went into my room, shut the door, sank to the floor, and thought of how I could make my stance clear to my father. A call would do nothing. He would simply refuse to discuss the matter. I decided to send him a message. It would make it clear that I was willing to fight till the end.

I drafted the letter. It was a long one. I swore to him that I would denounce him as my father if he forced me into a union that I wanted no part of, but after I was done, a solitary tear ran down my face. I knew there was absolutely no point in sending it. I had more chance of changing the mind of a brick wall than my father. Any hope I had of changing my situation did not lie with my father. I had to work on Maxim. There had to be some way for me to convince him that this was a terrible idea not just for me, but for him as well.

I was sure he did not want to be saddled with me. A couple of times when we had ended up at the same parties he was with drop dead gorgeous models. Both those women clung to his every word like he was God. He would never be happy with an independent spirited woman like me. I would never cling to him like that even if my life depended on it. In fact, I believe we would end up killing each other. Maybe that is the way I should go about this. Convince him how bad a marriage with me would be.

A quiet knock came on my door. “Coming,” I said, wiping away the solitary tear. I went back out and saw that she had already placed both of our meals on the coffee table. She had also lit a candle and opened the bottle of champagne we had been saving for the day that a big store agreed to carry our products. Squaring my shoulder, I went and took a seat on the carpet next to her.

“I made it spicy,” she said.

That little consideration made me smile. “You plan to spend the night on the toilet seat?”

“Oh no, I took mine out before I doused yours in chili and pepper,” she said pouring champagne into coffee mugs. If my father could see what she was doing… champagne in coffee mugs.

I smiled and we toasted to our first success. I tried my best to push aside my anxiety enough to eat something. Perhaps things would become clearer to me when I did. We ate quietly, with Britney sneaking looks at me until I couldn’t take it anymore.