Page 41 of The Tycoon's Diamond Demand

Was it any wonder, since he’d had so little practice? Because he’d been raised to be like his aunt, unemotional, he shied away from talking about his feelings. Maja was the only woman who’d managed to slide under his electric fence guarding his heart, then and now.

And yes, he was as much in love with her as he’d ever been. But, because he’d been consumed by revenge and the need to get even, to be acknowledged, to be seen to be the winner, he’d lost her before they’d even started. Jens felt a rush of emotion, of regret, and, instead of talking himself out of it, running from it, he squared his shoulders and faced his past.

Flora was Flora, uninterested in him, and he no longer cared. Maja, coerced by Håkon, had left her home, her country and broken ties with her father, all gutsy moves for a teenager and she’d done it to protect him. Maybe she could’ve chosen another route, acted differently, but she’d been eighteen, a kid.

It was also time for him to stop feuding, even if it was only in his own mind, with Håkon. The man was dead, for the love of God! He’d been pretty awful in life, hard and selfish, full of revenge and selfish to the core. Emotionally cold and uninterested. Inflexible, self-indulgent, controlling, spoiled, resentful, arrogant...

He fully understood why Maja thought he and Håkon were so alike. For all the reasons that Maja had said. Everything he’d hated about Håkon were the things he most disliked about himself. Jens wanted to look away, to move his thoughts on to something more pleasant, but he had to face himself. Everyone did at some point in their lives. He had a choice to make...

He could imitate Flora, be selfish and eschew relationships, and live his life in the semi-darkness of loneliness. Or he could fight for the light.

Most of that light was Maja. She brought joy and happiness into his life. He might have all the money he could need, enough for several lifetimes, have power and influence, and be praised and pandered to, but life without Maja meant nothing. And his obsession with revenge had cost him the only thing that had ever meant anything to him.

He needed another chance, a second chance, to be happy...to live and love and laugh. How could he convince her that he wanted her in his life, that she was all that was necessary for him to be happy?

He put his powers of critical thinking to amass his fortune, and to strike complicated deals. It was time to use those skills to get Maja to agree to marry him, to be his.

For as long as they both might live...

‘Jens?’

Jens jerked his head up, remembering where he was and who he was with. Flora.Right.He walked over to her and placed a brief kiss on her cheek. It was the first time he’d touched her in over thirty years. And it would be the last. It was a brief hello, and a final goodbye. ‘Congratulations on your award, Flora. Have a good life.’

Tension and discontentment drained from his system as he left his birth mother, and his past, in that stylish hotel room and walked towards his future.

Back in Edinburgh, after many sleepless nights, Maja stepped out onto the tiny balcony leading off her bedroom. Usually, her view of Edinburgh Castle always held her attention but lately her attention span was all over the place. She’d left the Bentzen estate after her confrontation with Jens and caught the next flight back home. She’d been back a week and was still trying to gather her shattered and battered heart together.

Maja rested her hip on the railing. While she loved Scotland, she couldn’t help but acknowledge that she adored Norway. The country had seeped back into her pores, invaded her soul. There was still so much of it she wanted to rediscover, more of its natural wonders to admire. She loved the cobalt blues of the fjords, the verdant greens of the valleys, the purple and white mountains, and skies so endlessly clear it hurt her eyes. But how could she go back to Bergen? How could she live in a city that would for ever be filled with memories of Jens?

Maja yawned and took another sip of her strong black coffee. She should get back to learning her new photo-editing software, but she was getting nowhere. As best she could, she pushed any thoughts of Jens away, but, since she often found tears running down her face, she knew she needed to deal with finding him, loving him, and losing him again. Some things couldn’t be avoided, and this was one of them.

But where to start? Maybe the answer was not to ‘start’ anywhere but to allow her thoughts free rein. Her thoughts tumbled over and over, and she watched them float by, concentrating on those that felt right, the ones that came through strongest.

That she was tired of secrets and sick of shadows was her first revelation. She had to come out from hiding behind her M J Slater pseudonym. She wouldn’t have got into this mess with Jens in the first place if she hadn’t been so hell-bent on protecting her pseudonym, if she hadn’t been so against the world linking her art with her being Håkon’s estranged daughter.

But shewashis daughter, shewasa Hagen. She couldn’t run away from it any more. And she didn’t want to. She might be Maja Hagen, but she was a separate entity from her father. If a couple of critics said she was trading off her last name, what did it matter? She had great reviews and a successful exhibition as M J Slater to counter those accusations. She knew the truth, she knew how hard she’d worked to get where she was. She always said she wanted her art to speak for itself and it did, it always would. It would speak no matter who signed her images. And she wanted to sign them as Maja Hagen...

Because Maja Hagen was the woman who’d left Norway, who’d made mistakes and struggled to find herself. What had started as a way to protect herself had become a limitation and she was done with limits. She’d used her art as a shield, and she hid behind it. And as long as she kept her identity a secret, she couldn’t fully engage with anyone. Not with lovers, friends, or clients. It was a barrier, a way to keep her safe.

Maja Hagen was done with being safe, so she sent a text message to Halston.

Can you prepare a press release explaining that M J Slater is Maja Hagen?

Halston immediately replied.

Seriously?

Yes. Keep it simple and send it through to me for approval when it’s done.

Now it was time to deal with her six-foot-something problem of loving Jensen Nilsen. What was she going to do about him? And even if he wanted a relationship with her—his silence said he didn’t—could she ever trust him? If they got together and they hit a bump in the road, would their relationship survive the crash? They had the ability to hurt each other, in every way possible. Could he love her the way she needed him to?

She didn’t think so. He’d planned to leave her at the altar, so caught up in his need for revenge that he was prepared to humiliate her on an industrial scale.

Jens had massive trust issues, ones she didn’t think would ever go away. His mum had never acknowledged him. Maja had promised to marry him but had run out on him instead. Håkon had tried to destroy him. Why would he trust anyone?

Maja loved him, she always would. But love without trust was a car without an engine, a river with no water. Without trust, there was no reason to continue.

Maja placed her coffee cup on the table, her diamond ring flashing blue fire in the sunlight. She held the stone with her index finger and thumb, admiring the deep blue colour. It reminded her of Jens’s eyes and the deep blue of the fjords. She’d have to give him the ring back. There was no way she could keep it. But that meant seeing him. She couldn’t let a third party handle the transfer of such an expensive ring.

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