With This ring

by Le Carre, Georgia

  It was as if a switch flipped in my head. And I began to hate him with every fiber in my being… but now according to Levan, perhaps without reason.

  Was Levan right? Was… I wrong? Was there actually something more? Something I had missed? Then I remembered Anna’s white face. No, she was not lying. How could I even doubt her? It was Levan who did not know the truth. Angry with myself for being so easily convinced I turned and made my way back to my room. I found my phone and for a moment thought to wait for courtesy’s sake given the time of the night, but I decided against it. I needed him to know that I had absolutely no respect for him whatsoever.

  He didn’t pick up. I threw the phone on the bed in annoyance especially at the way my stupid heart was pounding and then moved to lay down. A few more minutes passed before I reached for my phone and tried again.

  He picked up on the third ring.

  “Yes,” he said brusquely.

  Ripples of awareness rushed through me at the hard, sure tone of his voice. “It’s Freya.”

  “I know.”

  My fingers clenched around my phone. Of course he would. He could never ever be taken unawares and always had way too many tricks up his sleeve. I wondered then why I was even bothering when he would probably at the end of the day just make me believe exactly what he wanted me to. “You know what, no need,” I said and ended the call. Bastard didn’t call back and after an hour I slipped into an uneasy sleep.

  * * *

  “Are you okay?” Britney asked.

  “Yeah why?”

  “Well, you’ve been staring at that brick wall outside the window for the last ten minutes.”

  I blinked and returned my gaze back to our company’s website that I was supposed to be updating. I didn’t see a thing but my mind was running, until I just had to speak.

  “Your dad wouldn’t marry you off to someone… someone abusive, would he?”

  She looked at me with an incredulous expression. “What are you talking about? Of course he wouldn’t?”

  “Hmm,” I said, and slinked back into my head.

  “What are you thinking of now?”

  “If my father were to think that Maxim was abusive towards me, perhaps he would call this ridiculous marriage thing off.”

  Britney, rightly, looked incredulous. I understood how she felt because I was entertaining thoughts that no sane person would or should, but I was getting desperate.

  “And how do you want to pull that off?” she asked sarcastically. “Provoke him into throwing you down a high-rise building?”

  “A flight of stairs might do the trick.”

  “Freya!” she cried, her expression horrified.

  “Fine!” I groaned and returned my gaze back to my computer.

  “Fine what exactly, Freya?”

  “Fine, I’ll stop trying to save myself from a lifetime of pain and bitterness.”

  She sighed. “Have you even spoken to Maxim?”

  I reacted defensively as the question hit too close to home. “Spoken to him about what?”

  “About what his brother mentioned the other day.”

  I scowled at her.

  “Hear me out, Freya. I know I don’t … I know I can’t fully grasp the gravity of what happened with your friend—”

  ‘No, you can’t,” I cut her off.

  She ignored the interruption and kept going. “I can’t, but perhaps it’s time to revisit it. Perhaps it’s time to ask Maxim what happened, you know, from his point of view.”

  “He would just lie and she can’t defend herself.”

  “Okay, so you want to be true to her memory, but what if there is something more… something Anna didn’t get?”

  I stared at her for the longest time without knowing what to say, but I did know how I felt. Suffocated, by everyone… by a possible scenario that they insisted I hear… but I wanted to keep believing in Anna. I had to. I couldn’t betray her. I was the only one she trusted. If her spirit was watching I wanted her to know I was faithful to her to the very end. A mere man couldn’t turn me against her.

  “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

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dkk9gvTmCXY

  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 tur
f. 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.

  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.”

  “Well that’s what I want, except if it’s a clam or oysters dish. In that case, then skip it and get me the next most expensive option.”

  “Yes, Miss Federov,” he responded. Well, well, he knew who I was. He turned his gaze to his boss. “The usual for you, Sir?”

  Maxim nodded and his secretary walked away. I rolled my chair towards his polished walnut desk, and stopped at a reasonable distance away. “So are we going to talk?”

  “You were the one who asked for this meeting,” he said, lifting those piercing eyes up to meet mine. “Have your say, I have another meeting in thirty minutes.”

  I rolled my eyes at his air of arrogance and got straight to the point. “Levan insinuated that what I have always believed about your role in Anna’s death is incorrect. Is that true?”

  “What do you know about my involvement?”

  “The same thing as the rest of Russia. You ‘handled’ her father, a good man, I might add, to prove yourself to your father.”

  “That is true,” he admitted.

  Something painful hit me right in the middle of my chest. I had come here with some secret hope in my heart. All traces of civility towards him immediately disappeared and once again we were like vipers, staring each other down.

  “So what then am I doing here?”

  “I don't know. What are you doing here?”

  I couldn’t believe him. Oh, how I hated him. I turned around with my chair and began to head towards his exit. Just then the door was pushed open and his secretary came in holding a notepad and a pen in his hands. For some reason, I stopped in my tracks.