Page 35 of The Tycoon's Diamond Demand

Jens pushed into her, just a little. ‘You feel amazing.’ He lifted his hand and combed his fingers through the strands of her wet hair.

He surged into her, filling her up, as deep as he could go. ‘So, so good,’ he muttered.

He felt better, wonderful...amazing. She gasped when he lunged up and into her, hitting a spot she didn’t know existed, one that sent tremors through her body.

She needed to hold off, just for a few seconds. Just long enough to lean back and wait for him to look at her, for those dark eyes to burn into hers. She touched his jaw with the tips of her fingers and brushed her thumb over his sexy bottom lip. ‘Jens?’

‘Mmm?’

‘Let go. Do it...now.’

And, with a roar that was as primordial as their surroundings, Jens did as she ordered.

When she was sure Jens was asleep, Maja slipped out of bed and reached for his white shirt and slipped it over her head. It fell to mid-thigh and the sleeves dangled past her wrists. Turning the cuffs back, she tiptoed out of the bedroom, navigated the furniture in the sitting room and walked onto the secluded patio. On the swinging bench seat, she pulled her heels onto the cushion and wrapped her arms around her bent legs, her eyes on the mountains and the fjord.

She wished she could sit here and soak up the view in the magical light of a Norwegian summer night, but she needed to think, to work through the events of the past few days. Tomorrow they’d be leaving for Bergen and their truce, or whatever these past two days had been, would be over.

She had no idea what would happen when they returned to the Bentzen estate...would Jens cancel the wedding and agree to let her go? Would he still insist on them marrying? Had anything they’d said or done lately made any impression on him?

Jens was so impassive, utterly unreadable, and extracting any information from him was like trying to pull blood from a stone. He took being the strong and silent type to ridiculous lengths. She was still surprised he’d told her about his mum, given her that much information. Did he realise that she now knew his biggest secret? That she could use the information about his mum to blackmail her way out of being blackmailed?

She could demand that he cancel the wedding, and if he didn’t, she could tell the tabloids Flora was his mum. But that would require proof and she had none. And, besides, there was no way she’d do that to Jens.

Maja sighed. Despite his few words on the subject, she’d heard the pain in his voice, and knew his mum’s desertion was a deep and unhealed wound.

Up until today she’d never understood how their clandestine relationship had impacted him. Being a secret would’ve burned him every day, in every way, and would’ve deepened the emotional cuts inflicted by his mother.

If she’d had the smallest inkling of what his mother did, if she’d known about her refusal to acknowledge him, if she’d even suspected he had deep-seated issues about being thought of as a secret, she would’ve found another way, done things differently.

Maja clenched her fists and raised them to her temples. What would she have done differently? What other options had been available to her? Would she have had the courage to go up against her father? To put Jens, and his aunt, in financial danger? Would she have stayed, taken the chance? She had to be completely honest, she owed that to herself...probably not.

Because a part of her had been relieved to get that ultimatum from Håkon, a small slice of her soul had been looking for a reason to leave Jens and her father had handed it to her.

She’d loved Jens but she’d hated feeling like the lesser partner in their relationship. She’d adored him but had found herself frequently echoing his opinions, or going along with what he’d wanted, because she hadn’t wanted to fight to be heard. She’d been besotted with him but had often felt overwhelmed by the force of his personality. She hadn’t wanted to admit it, but he was an A-type personality, dynamic and strong-willed, so like her father.

Toomuch like her father.

But she was older now, stronger, and she wasn’t the pushover she was when she was younger. She wasn’t someone who just accepted what happened to her any more, she made her own luck, charted her own course. But she wasn’t without her own arrogance; she’d thought she could sleep with Jens this time around and keep it surface-based... How wrong she was. From their first kiss she’d felt herself falling, sliding back into affection, maybe even love. Whatever she was feeling, she was in too deep. Her feelings for Jens—despite his stupid blackmail attempt—went far deeper than they should.

She could, maybe, possibly, be on the precipice of falling in love with him again.

But her feelings were her responsibility. She couldn’t force Jens to feel more than he did. He loved her body, relished the sex, but that didn’t mean he felt more for her than lust and desire. And that was...well, not okay, but she was old enough to know she couldn’t force him to love her. Besides, there were still too many misunderstandings between them.

The one thing they could be was honest.

Jens’s need for revenge was based on erroneous information. He only had part of the story of what had happened twelve years ago. She needed to tell him why she’d really left, shed light on her final days in Norway. If he knew the pressure she’d been under from Håkon, and if he knew her father had threatened to destroy Jens if they’d continued to see each other, maybe he would understand why she’d run. She’d been young, insecure, scared...he’d take that into account, surely.

Jens wouldn’t keep blaming her for Håkon’s actions after she left him. He wasn’t an irrational man. If they could have an honest, open conversation they could sort this out, work through it. But twisting a steel rod was easier than getting Jens to talk.

But they were out of options and talking was something they needed to do before they found themselves in another situation, a marriage that would result in pain and misery.

The helicopter took off from the helipad at the Hotel Daniel-Jean and Jens looked back at Maja sitting behind the pilot. She wore a halter-neck navy-blue-and-white polka-dot dress, her bare shoulders more tanned than before. She’d pulled her hair into a ponytail and oversized sunglasses covered half her face. She looked fantastic, but then she always did.

He’d woken up this morning, found her side of the bed empty and went looking for her. He’d found her on the bench seat, her eyes on the mountain, deep in thought.

He’d recognised her expression, she’d been working something through, and he’d quietly retraced his steps, giving her space. In the shower he’d decided that, after an intense two days, backing away, creating some space, was an intelligent thing to do. And, if he had to judge by her muted response to his attempts at conversation over breakfast, she needed breathing space as much as he did.

Their ‘time out’ was done and he now had to plot a way forward and reassess their situation.

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