With This Ring

The moments passed by and then… he got up.

Immediately, I hid my face away from his as I pulled the covers around my naked body. I heard him start to put on his clothes, and rose to my feet to pick mine up from the floor.

He was ready before me, and when he rounded the bed on his way out I forced myself to meet his gaze.

“I had a great time,” he said.

“Sure, me too,” I replied.

It looked like he was about to say something else, but then he shook his head and went on his way. I watched him leave and disappear into the foyer and felt my eyes mist with tears.

Was that the last I would ever see him, I wondered. If it was, then my heart would be thoroughly and irrevocably shattered. If I thought sleeping with him was going to free me, I was dead wrong.

Oh God, I was falling in love with him.

Chapter Fifty-Four

Maxim

I hadn’t been able to get out of that room fast enough. I knew she had broken something inside me. I wasn’t the same man I was before we had sex.

I arrived at home, dazed and disturbed and the last person I wanted to see was Levan. He was waiting for me in my living room and I couldn’t help the frown that dug into my forehead at the sight of him lounging on my sofa and working on his laptop.

He put his laptop down. “Bianca and I are going to hold on with our move to South Africa,” he said. “Until everything blows over with Freya’s family.”

My frown became deeper. “There is no need. My security team is working tirelessly on it.”

“Good, then it should be resolved very soon. Until it is I’m not going anywhere.”

I headed over to the alcohol cabinet by the corner and poured myself a generous measure of whisky. I downed a significant portion in one swallow, and his eyebrows shot up in surprise.

“Is everything okay?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I replied. “Now if you have nothing else to discuss, I’ll see you tomorrow or something.”

“What happened?”

He started to walk towards me, but I was not ready to speak to him or to anyone for that matter. All I needed was to be alone, to try to pick up the pieces of myself that she had blasted to smithereens.

“What’s going on, Maxim?” he repeated.

And I fucking lost it. “Fucking leave!” I roared, my arms flailing like a mad man.

Everything stilled, especially him. He noted the look in my eyes, but before he could see too much, I turned away from him.

A few seconds later, the door shut behind him. I sank into the sofa.

I wanted to call her, to tell her she had been the very best fuck of my life, and I didn’t know how I could go on from here onwards because I was craving her like a drug, but I knew she didn’t feel the way I did. After we had finished back in the hotel, how I had wanted to hold her in my arms even for a second. To bask in the pure magic of what we had just shared with each other. But she became as stiff as a corpse.

I knew then she regretted what she had done.

My intuition had been right. I had been correct to avoid her in the first place. She always scared me shitless and yet I waded in there. I basically hung myself out to dry.

I wondered how the fuck I was going to recover. Now that I knew how she tasted I would never be able to forget it.

I rose to my feet restlessly.

The answer was work. It was always work. I needed to work. That was the only thing that could save me.

Chapter Fifty-Five

Freya

I slept badly and after making myself a mug of coffee went into the room Britney and I used as an office. I looked at the mess of papers and magazines across Britney’s desk. Behind it was a gigantic cork board, filled with hundreds of jewelry cut outs for photography concept inspiration. My gaze wandered around the small space which seemed so empty without her, and wondered if she would ever come back.

Putting aside my feeling of sadness, I went to my desk and tried to focus on designing a layered necklace with the unique Burgundy Tourmaline stones I acquired from a dealer a very long time ago. Then I knew they were beautiful, but I did not have a design for them.

But these rare burgundy ones spoke to me now at this moment of darkness in my life. I had an idea for them. I inspected the stones and began to draw quickly on my notepad. For a while there was nothing in my mind but the design and the strokes I was making on the paper. Then I dropped the pencil and leaned back on the chair.