Page 1 of The Tycoon's Diamond Demand

PROLOGUE

NODAMNWAY. Jens Nilsen stared at the email’s subject line on his screen, and the black letters on the white page danced in front of his eyes. Håkon Hagen...dead? The day before he was due to hear that Jens’s hostile takeover of his company was a done deal.

What?

How?

Jens scanned the email from his in-house lawyer, trying to make sense of the devastating news. Håkon had been rushed to hospital with a suspected heart attack. He was dead on arrival. Jens didn’t wonder how his lawyer acquired the confidential information so quickly but knew it was accurate. He paid the man a king’s ransom to know everything about his oldest enemy and he expected nothing less than up-to-date information.

In his home office in Bergen, Jens leaned back in his office chair and placed his feet on the edge of his desk, his eyes on the screen but his focus elsewhere. He’d put in years of work, twelve to be precise, and billions of dollars, to acquire Hagen International with the sole purpose of watching Håkon squirm when he told him he now owned the company that had been in Hagen hands for generations. How dared he take the easy way out by dying, and denying Jens his revenge?

The bastard.

Twelve years...twelve yearswasted. Jens’s feet hit the floor and he stood up, pacing the area in front of his Peder Moos desk. When he’d first met Håkon, he’d been a young fishing captain, overseeing his aunt’s three-vessel trawler fleet, juggling fish quotas and the wild Arctic seas. He’d had a job he loved, a girl he was mad about, a good life...ambitious but not burning with it.

Then Håkon’s daughter had left him.

He would’ve put Maja jilting him and the break-up video she sent him behind him, or tried to, but Håkon had made that impossible to do. Maja’s father’s decision to punish him for having the temerity to have an affair with his daughter/princess had ignited their more-than-a-decade-old feud.

Håkon added hardship to heartbreak, and his campaign of harassment had fired up not only Jens’s anger but his ambition, and he’d waded into the fight. And he hadn’t stopped swinging until he had as much power, financially, politically and economically, had as much money—he was a billionaire several times over—and as much influence as Håkon Hagen. All he’d needed, the jewel in his crown of revenge, was to watch Håkon’s face when he informed him he’d acquired his company too.

But that wasn’t going to happen now. And that was wholly unacceptable.

If Jens could exchange his empire based on shipping, gas and commercial fishing, his billions, just to see Håkon’s reaction to knowing Jens owned Hagen International, he would. If he could drag him back from the dead to have that final confrontation, he wouldn’t hesitate. Everything he’d done for years had been building up to that moment. He’d wanted to see the blood drain from Håkon’s face, to know he held his future in his hands—just as Håkon had once held his.

What was he supposed to do now? Revenge was the fuel that fired him, vengeance was all that mattered. Hagen International was just a company, it had no feelings and didn’t care who owned or controlled it. The only link left to the company, to the famous Norwegian family, was Maja...

Maja.The girl who’d stomped on his heart and bolted from Bergen, just a few hours before they were due to say ‘I do’. The person he once would’ve moved mountains and parted seas for. She’d promised she’d be at the courthouse, had been prepared, she’d assured him, to endure her father’s wrath to be with him. For the first time in his life, he’d felt wholly loved and valued, excited about his future, ready to trust, ready to love. Stupidly believing he wouldn’t, this time, be abandoned.

What had he been thinking trusting her, anyone, with his heart and his dreams in the first place? From a young age he knew that if people could screw you over, they would.

And the need for revenge didn’t die with death, it didn’t fade away because Håkon was beyond his reach. He’d come this far, and he wouldn’t be denied. Maja was out there, somewhere, and a still handy target for retribution.

Håkon might’ve waged the war, but she’d been the catalyst.

And, with Håkon gone, she was now a viable alternative target. Theonlytarget. Jens stopped pacing and squinted at the Hans Fredrik Gude landscape he’d purchased at auction last year. He’d outbid Håkon for the oil painting, and the auctioneers had achieved a record price for the artist in the process.

Håkon was gone, but Maja was...somewhere.

Jens leaned across his desk, picked up his phone and punched in a number. When his lawyer answered he issued a terse instruction. ‘Find Maja Hagen. I don’t know where she is, or what she’s doing, but I want her found.Today.’

CHAPTER ONE

MAJAHAGEN’SFIRSTmajor exhibition, and her first visit back to Norway in twelve years was going quite well...if she ignored the irritating issue of her father dying.

It was so typical of her father to cast a shadow over her first professional accomplishment. And if her thoughts were harsh, then that was because Håkon Hagen had been a harsh man. He was—had been—controlling, dominating and more than a little narcissistic. She’d even go as far as to say he’d been tyrannical, with a deep-seated need to keep all his soldiers, especially her, in a regimented, never-out-of-step line.

Was she sorry he was dead? She wished she could say she was, but she’d lost her father a long time ago. If she’d ever really had one. She’d had a man who provided her with a house to live in, fancy clothes and toys, and his instantly recognisable name. Love, affection and unconditional support, everything she’d needed the most, hadn’t been part of Håkon’s emotional landscape.

Maybe if she’d been his much-longed-for son, she might’ve experienced some affection from him. But she was just a reminder of her long-dead mum’s inability to give him the male child to carry on the Hagen name. After her mum’s death, and for the majority of her childhood, she lived with a cold, hard man who thought her presence in his life was a hassle.

Now he was dead, and she felt...nothing.

She’d seen, online, the photographs of her stepmother—Håkon had married his long-term mistress after Maja left Norway—outside the church yesterday, ready for his funeral. The funeral service had been strictly invitation only but, despite Håkon Hagen having few close friends—dictators and despots rarely did—many people had come to say goodbye to one of Europe’s most influential businessmen. Despite his lawyer having her contact details in case of emergency, and him having informed her of her dad’s death, she hadn’t received an invitation to attend the service.

They’d had no contact for over a decade; she’d said everything she’d needed to say to her father twelve years ago and was happy to avoid the press hanging around outside the church and the cemetery. Håkon, pompous and patronising, always polarising, had made headlines one last time.

Right now, she should concentrate on her opening night. She wanted to hear the comments of the carefully curated guests, clock their reactions, and get their honest, unfiltered opinions because M J Slater never gave interviews or attended opening nights. It was just another quirk of the elusive, reclusive photographer.

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