“What does he want from you?” I dared to ask.

“The short version is what I’m willing to talk about tonight. Maybe I’ll feel differently later, but for now all you need to know is Park has one thing on his mind and it’s to discredit me at all costs.”

“It’s okay, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. I—I understand it might be too personal or whatever—”

His lips slammed down on mine and shut me up again. His signature lordly move. Ivan kissed me a lot during his conversations with me. I thought it was truly adorable.

“Well, since you’re so understanding and kind, I’ll tell you he used a tragedy which occurred about six years ago to make it out I was responsible for the deaths of many people, one of them my estranged wife. Yes, I was married for a short time before our union ended quite badly. Divorce proceedings had started and then she died while on holiday with her lover. She was five-months pregnant with a child who was not mine, even though her death certificate lists me as the baby’s father since we were still legally married. There was a horrific road accident in Italy and seven people were killed. Park used his connections within his family to sell the sordid story to the press concocting a fiction putting me to blame for all those innocent deaths.”

I reached out to rub his arm, caressing softly, offering my support. It was all I could think of to do. “Why does Park hate you so much to do something like that to you?”

He clasped my hand rubbing his arm and held on to it. His thumb moved back and forth across the top of my hand in his own gentle caress. “It’s just what he does. Tries to take everything from me. He wants all of my happiness and everything good in my life to be taken from me because I was awarded the gold medal, he believed should’ve gone to him after he was disqualified for an equipment infraction. It happens in professional sports, but he went fucking nutter over the controversial call. After I inherited the Rothvale title and took my place in the House of Lords, he stepped up his stalking game considerably. It seems to get worse with each passing year.”

“Oh, Ivan, I’m so sorry. So, you think he sent the drone here to spy on you?”

“Unfortunately, yes. He’s done other similar things before. He even rented the townhouse next door to mine in London unbeknownst to me, so he could get video access of who came and went from there. I finally bought it last year when it came up for sale, which is how I discovered his involvement. It never ends. I’ve gotten death threats that make Ethan certifiably mental having to deal with my security. Thank God he owns a top line security company and knows what the hell he’s doing. We were holding our collective breaths throughout the entirety of the Olympics this summer, but nothing ever happened during the games. Probably only due to Ethan’s diligence in carrying out security duties. Park has paid an escort to come to my flat to film me on more than one occasion and then leaking those sex tapes to porn sites. There are video clips out there I’ve had to pay a fortune to get taken down.”