Page 11 of The Tycoon's Diamond Demand

She was bone-white now and Jens watched as she swayed, her eyes brilliant in her marble-like face. She cared less about her past as Maja Hagen than she did about being outed as M J Slater. She wanted to protect her artistic identity and her work. Interesting.

‘If you say that, about my art, I’ll never sell another image again.’

He would never do that to an artist, any artist—even Maja—but she didn’t need to know that. He couldn’t tell her she was the best photographer he’d seen in a while, and that, on seeing her work, he’d felt the hair on the back of his neck lift. Before he’d even known who she was, he’d known she was a once-in-a-generation talent.

But she didn’t need to know that. She just needed to agree to what he wanted, and what he wanted was for her to become his bride. And because he knew she’d do anything she could to protect her name and her reputation, he knew his ‘yes’ wasn’t far off.

She held up a hand, and he noticed her trembling fingers. ‘So, I either marry you or lose my career and my reputation?’ she shouted, her words dancing on the wind. She put her hand to her head to hold back her messy hair and bit down hard on her bottom lip. When she released her grip, he saw teeth marks on her lower lip. Desire speared through him and he fought the urge to rush over to her and kiss those marks away.

He wanted to take her in his arms, to turn the anger in her eyes to desire, to feel her sink against him, her slim body pushing into his. The heat they’d generate would cause the paint on the walls to blister, would make the water in the pool boil.

No.Sex wasn’t important, payback was. Heneededto do this. He needed to close the circle and move on.

‘Don’t do this, Jens.Please.’

‘I want to announce our engagement in the next week or so. I’ll leave it to my PR department to release the news when it’s guaranteed to make the most impact. We’ll marry, in a glitzy, huge ceremony in six to eight weeks,’ he told her. ‘Which you are going to organise because I have more important things to do.’

‘And how long do I have to stay married to you, or is this a life sentence?’ Maja demanded, her voice shaky.

He hadn’t thought that far ahead, mostly because he knew they wouldn’t be getting legally hitched, as he intended to walk out on her before she got to the altar. He thought fast. ‘A year,’ he stated. That sounded...reasonable, he supposed.

He saw the capitulation in her eyes, in the way her shoulders slumped. Instead of feeling triumphant, he felt a little sick, and cold. Inside and out. Where was the hit of adrenalin, the rush of success? The satisfaction? He shrugged off his questions and told himself that it would come, that he’d experience satisfaction when he jilted her at the altar.

‘Glitzy weddings are not organised in six weeks, Nilsen. They take years of planning.’ He lifted his eyebrows, wondering why she was arguing a minor point when they had other, bigger issues at stake.

‘I just spent billions acquiring Hagen International, Maja,’ he told her. ‘Do you really think I couldn’t get someone to plan a lavish wedding in that time if I threw money at it?’

Maja closed her eyes and clenched her fists. He’d put her in an untenable position. But she wasn’t going to back down. Maja was a fighter and that was what he’d loved about her. ‘I won’t do it, Jens.’

‘Youwilldo it, Maja. You don’t want the world to know who you are and if you walk out of here without agreeing to do this, I will tell them.’ He paused before continuing, letting his threats sink in.

‘Take the rest of the weekend to come to terms with the idea, to wrap your head around marrying me,’ he added, suddenly, and strangely, tired. ‘I won’t announce our engagement until Monday at the earliest.’ He gestured to the still-full glass she held. ‘Can I get you something else to drink?’

The glass whizzed past his head, and he heard it crash on the pool deck below. It was a good thing her aim hadn’t improved in the intervening years. He hoped none of the glass shards had landed in the pool itself, they’d be a problem to find in the crystal-clear water. He wiped a splatter of whisky from his cheek and sighed. That whisky was too good to waste, and the glasses had been a matched set of twelve, rare and eye-wateringly expensive.

New blotches appeared on her neck and chest, and her cheekbones turned scarlet. ‘You threaten me, blackmail me, demand that I marry you and then calmly ask me what else I’d like to drink? Whatelse? Why don’t you ask me to sleep with you while you are at it?’

Well, that would be a phenomenal bonus. But...no. He was arrogant but not an idiot. He knew that, despite need and lust rolling through him, tightening the fabric of his trousers and heating his blood, despite never wanting a woman more than he wanted Maja, he couldn’t let that happen.

He knew that if he slept with her, if he held her close, stroked her amazing skin and tasted her again, he’d be lost. In her, and in the sexual heat they’d always managed to generate. In having her, his need for her would grow, and that would complicate things unnecessarily when the time came to walk away from her. He needed to be able to stay dispassionate, and emotion-free. He needed to be able to leave, and sleeping with her would make that difficult, if not impossible.

But, damn, he wanted her. Seeing her standing in front of him, close enough to smell her heated skin, he burned for her.

He caught Maja’s smirk and knew she was waiting for him to lose his cool and his control. He wasn’t the impetuous, hot-headed boy she’d known, the one who’d been stupidly, indescribably in love with her. The man who would’ve done anything and everything for her. He’d craved her back then, convinced that every moment they were alone and he wasn’t inside her was a lost opportunity...

He’d put all his dreams for the family he’d never had, for the acknowledgement he’d never felt, the love he’d never known, onto her and had thought she was the answer to all his prayers. Now she was the means to exact his revenge.

That was where her usefulness started and ended.

If he wanted sex, physical relief, he could easily arrange dinner and a few hours in bed with one of a handful of female friends who understood that sex didn’t come with strings. Besides, sex wasn’t what he wanted from Maja. No, that was a lie, he still wanted her, as much as he ever did. He wanted to wrap her hair around his fist as he nibbled his way down her throat, to her nipple, down her stomach, lower...

But sex would only complicate what was already a convoluted situation. If he took one wrong turn, one misstep, he’d lose himself in her and that wasn’t something he wanted, or was prepared, to do.

He forced himself to lift a lazy eyebrow. ‘I’m not interested in sleeping with you, Maja.’

Internally, Jens braced himself, waiting for the out-of-the-blue lightning bolt to nail him for that massive lie. When nothing happened, he sent a disbelieving look at the clear sky and shook his head. Maja, and her presence, were turning him from a logical, clear-thinking and practical man into an idiot.

And that was before he touched her. If they connected physically, there was no doubt she’d melt his brain. And his scruples.

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