Page 36 of The Tycoon's Diamond Demand

The flight to Bergen would take about an hour, so he had sixty minutes to decide which way to jump. Needing quiet, he pulled off his headset, making it impossible for the pilot or Maja to talk to him.

The question was simple...should they go back to how they were before, or did they need to find a new path forward? He’d told himself he wouldn’t sleep with Maja, but that resolution went out the window when she asked him to take her to bed. He should’ve said no, but he was a man, not a monk, and no woman had ever turned him on quicker than Maja did.

But...damn. Making love to her was not just about a clash of body parts, a means to a blissful end. He couldn’t forget he’d handed her his heart and she’d stomped on it. He was in danger of repeating old, very stupid mistakes.

He had a choice to back down, let her go or to continue with his plans for revenge. Could he cancel the wedding and watch her walk away and carry on with his life? Wouldn’t that be an admission—silent or otherwise—that what she, and Håkon, did was okay? That leaving him with blithe, vague explanation via a breezy video was acceptable behaviour? His pride and self-respect wouldn’t let that happen.

The second option was to cancel the wedding, ask her to stick around, to see whether they could have a relationship. What an absurd idea!

After she’d left, he’d stopped believing in relationships and emotional bonds, and he no longer required anyone’s validation except his own. He was utterly self-sufficient, and he liked being that way. A second chance with Maja meant upending everything he believed in.

The easiest, most sensible and the safest option was to stick to his plan. The wedding invitations had been dispatched and their union was being touted as the wedding of the season. Cancelling it now would cause an uproar and media scrutiny would be intense. No, it was better for the wedding to go ahead...

But would he...could he still jilt her?

Jens looked down, barely noticing the lakes and fjords and the small villages far below them. Hehadto jilt her because, despite sleeping with her, he still favoured taking action over indulging in unproductive sentiment. He felt more comfortable with revenge than reconciliation.

As the pilot put more distance between them and Ålesund, as he flew him away from the romance of the fjords and the mountains, Jens’s heart hardened. They’d shared two days, and they’d had great sex. She was still the reason Håkon had put a target on his back, and she was the one who had snapped his heart in two.

Nothing, really, had changed. Or that was what he was choosing to believe.

CHAPTER TEN

‘I’LLSEEYOUin my office in fifteen minutes.’

Maja took the overnight bag Jens held out to her, caught off guard by his curt, cold tone. Before she could answer, he walked across the hall and disappeared into his home office, shutting the door behind him.

That one sentence was all he’d said to her since leaving Ålesund. They were back at the Bentzen Estate and Jens had reverted to being the impossible, remote, slightly supercilious man she’d met in the gallery a few weeks back.

Marvellous.

Maja looked down at the two overnight bags she held and frowned. Firstly, she wasn’t Jens’s butler, so she had no idea why he expected her to carry his bag to his room. And secondly, she wasn’t quite sure where she was supposed to sleep now. In the guest room she’d occupied before she’d left for Ålesund, or in Jens’s master suite? And if she was welcome in his private space, did she want to share it with him?

Maja placed his bag by his office door and carried her bag up the stairs. In the guest bedroom, she unpacked her clothes and freshened up. Through the open windows she heard the sound of a car on the driveway below. She pulled back the curtain and looked down onto the driveway, frowning when she saw Hilda’s Mercedes. Why was the wedding planner here? Had Jens called her? What was going on?

Maja left the bedroom and walked down the stairs. Jens was pulling the tall front door open.

‘What’s going on?’ she asked him.

Jens didn’t even bother to look at her, but greeted Hilda and ushered her into his study, brusquely ordering Maja to join them.

He gestured Hilda to a chair and walked around to sit in his expensive ergonomic chair behind his expansive desk. ‘Forgive me for not offering you coffee, Hilda, but I’m way behind schedule.’

Hilda pulled her tablet out of her bag and nodded. She pulled the e-pen from its holder, poised to take notes. ‘Please, go ahead, I’m listening.’

Jens tapped his index finger on the closed lid of his laptop. ‘The wedding will be at the Hotel Daniel-Jean, two weeks on Saturday. I will pay the deposit as soon as we are done here.’

Hilda smiled, her budgie-like head nodding. ‘Perfect. I think that will work—’

‘What other information do you need?’ Jens cut her off. He was back to being the cold, impersonal, bolshy billionaire and Maja didn’t like this version of him. And before they went any further, before they made any more decisions, she needed to talk to him, to tell him why she’d left, and what role her father had played in their break-up.

Until he had all the facts, they couldn’t make any more life-changing decisions. And getting married was a damn big deal.

‘Jens, can I talk to you?’

His navy eyes connected with hers for a fraction of a second before he transferred his attention back to Hilda. ‘Maja will take you into the smaller of the two sitting rooms and she will spend as much time as she needs to make the process of organising the wedding as easy as possible.’

Maja’s eyes widened in shock.What?Why was he acting as if she were a wind-up doll? ‘Hold on a second—’

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