Page 39 of The Tycoon's Diamond Demand

He couldn’t, not yet. If he did, he would make this situation worse. And it was horrible enough already.

He turned to look at her straight on, and inwardly winced. She’d never been able, fully, to hide what she felt for him. All her emotions passed through her eyes. Under the layers of confusion, he saw affection, desire and the need to understand, and be understood. The need for connection. It was obvious that she wanted more from him, far more than he could give. He saw her hope that they could get through this, her desire for a reset, or a completely new start. Jens didn’t know if she loved him, but he recognised the emotion jumping in and out of her eyes and across her face. She was in too deep...

Was he?

Maybe. But it didn’t matter whether he was or not, he couldn’t go there. Too much emotion caused complications, rewired the brain, and turned simple situations into chaos. She’d just stripped away the foundation for his revenge and he didn’t know how to process the fact that she hadn’t abandoned him all those years ago. He hated this churning feeling, his lurching stomach, the hitch in his breath. Feeling foolish and feeble, and insecure. He felt as he had when he was a child and that was wholly unacceptable. He hadn’t worked every hour of the day for twelve years, built up a massive empire, commanded respect, to allow Maja, and his past, to destroy his sense of self-worth.

When faced with a fight, he didn’t buckle or bend, he came out swinging. He never went down, and if and when he did, it wouldn’t be without a fight.

He knew how to handle anger...so he embraced it, let it fuel him. His spine straightened and he lifted his chin and narrowed his eyes. If she wanted a conversation, she would get it. But he knew she wouldn’t like it.

Game, he decided, on.

Maja had genuinely thought that having the truth of their break-up out there would allow them to move on, allow Jens to disregard his need for revenge. Her explanation had initially rocked him, but then his emotional shutters had dropped and she was on the outside trying to find a way in. He looked hard, emotionless, expressionless.

And why did she sense he was about to drop another conversational hand grenade? Something still didn’t make sense between them, and she knew whatever it was was going to rock her world.

She didn’t want to hear it, she wanted to go forward, blissfully ignorant.

‘Can we just draw a line under everything, Jens?’ she asked, sounding a little desperate. ‘Can’t we just give each other a blanket forgiveness for everything we did in the past?’

Jens’s eyes slammed into hers and she knew he wouldn’t allow her to duck out now. Whatever he needed to confess clearly burned inside him. He couldn’twaitto tell her. She narrowed her eyes.Why?

‘I never explained my reasoning for wanting to marry you, Maja.’

She frowned. ‘You wanted revenge by making me fulfil my promise to marry you.’

Jens didn’t drop his hard blue eyes from hers. ‘You’re half right. I also wanted to marry you so that I could leave you at the altar, just like you left me.’

His words dropped but it took Maja a minute to make sense of them. No! Nobody would go to such lengths, put themselves to so much trouble and expense, to get payback. Would they?

‘You are not being serious, right?’ She felt dizzy and spacy, as if her world were spinning far too fast.

Jens placed his hands flat against the surface of his desk. ‘I blackmailed you into marriage so that I could leave you at the altar. I believed,believe, in an eye-for-an-eye type of revenge.’

But their circumstances were very different this time around. Twelve years ago nobody had known their plans to marry, and their break-up had been completely private. This time around, Jens had hired a wedding planner to throw a huge wedding in front of five hundred high-profile guests and planned on leaving her standing at the altar, alone. She would’ve been the laughing stock of Norway, of Europe, the lead headline in every publication around the world. Maja Hagen dumped by billionaire.

She’d known his intentions were, at best, suspect, but to take her on this ride simply to embarrass her publicly? Why would he do that? What would he gain from hurting her that way?

Revenge—against her, against her father—was more important than her feelings. That was the simple answer.

Her father would’ve done the same, he’d been a master of finding the punishment, or humiliation, to fit the crime. Jens had followed his example.

All her old doubts came roaring back, as hard and hot as before. She’d wanted a reset, to try and have a grown-up relationship with Jens, but how could she trust him? How could she give everything of herself to him, knowing he had the same ruthless streak her father possessed running inside him? What if she—or their kids, if they had any together—some time in the future, made the wrong move, upset him in some way, and he reverted to this vengeful petty behaviour? How could she go forward knowing that, with Jens, she felt as if she stood on shifting sands? That his love for her would depend on whether she pleased him or not?

She could never take that chance, not again. She’d lost her father because she’d silently questioned his every action and had never been sure of his motives. Håkon had never respected her needs or safeguarded her emotional well-being. He’d never put her first.

Maja gripped the back of her chair and dropped her head, the memories of her father flooding her system. The school reports she brought home that were never opened, the father-daughter dances he never attended, him leaving her alone, night after night in their huge mansion, with only the TV or her laptop to keep her company.

From the age of ten she’d raised herself, believing herself to be a disappointment, unwanted and unneeded. Håkon had betrayed her over and over again... Jens would probably do the same. Even if she got over him wanting to marry her for revenge, how could she put her heart in the hands of a man who was so like her father? Would she ever feel truly safe with him? Or would she have to be helpful and perfect, constantly walking on eggshells to receive Jens’s attention and love?

‘What else is on your mind, Maja?’

She hated that he could read her so well. Should she tell him that she saw her father in him, that they were, occasionally and in certain situations, two peas in a pod? He wouldn’t welcome being compared to her dad.

And if it hurt him, if it stung...well, then maybe he’d also feel as if he’d been slammed into an electric fence. She wanted to hurt him too.

She hesitated. ‘They say that girls either fall in love with men who are exactly like their fathers, or they are the complete opposite. You and Håkon are so very much alike.’

---