“Hungry Horse is you?” Man, he was involved in so many endeavors. “I love Hungry Horse and order it whenever I see it on the menu. I always ask for it to be served in the bottle because I like looking at the label of the horse with his nose in the hay trough.” I smiled at him, hoping it might cheer him up a little.

“I’m honored you like my beer.” He picked up my hand again and kissed it once more before going back to staring morosely out the window. I just hated seeing him down. This Park Jin-ho fucker was a true menace and needed removing from the equation by his balls with a large metal hook. If he tried to do harm to any of the paintings at Donadea, I swear he was going to be testicle-free for the remainder of his days. Crazy fucking asshole. I wasn’t going to just let this go. My dad was a MetPol chief, for fuck’s sake. He had to know people who might be able to help with the investigation into what a North Korean national was doing stalking a senior cabinet minister of the British governm—

“The artist who created the label used Pontus as his model,” Ivan said with a bit more cheerfulness, interrupting my violent thoughts for the moment.

“I can picture the portrait sitting now. Pontus paying zero attention to the sketch artist while he gobbled away at the treats in his trough.” I tried to keep it light, but it was effort on my part.

“Pretty much,” he said with a smile before leaning over to give me a soft kiss, his beard stubble scratching against the place below my lips in the most delicious way. “I’ll take you there for dinner sometime if you like. There’s a restaurant attached to the brewery. And the chef is truly brilliant. It just opened a year ago and took off right from the start, so there’s that venture as well as the film production.”

“You’re a film producer too?” My God, what didn’t Ivan do?

“Yes, indeed. Funding mostly, but I got interested when Game of Thrones came here to film the show. Before Game of Thrones, Northern Ireland was not taken seriously as a screen industry hub in the UK. Now it’s taken seriously as a screen industry hub globally. It’s a burgeoning business and there were opportunities for people like me to get involved, so I did. Anything to help out the local economies where I live. I’d like to be here at Donadea more, so maybe that will become a reality for me now. Point is, I have many irons in the fire. I’ll be fine.”

“I’m certain you will, Ivan. You’re an industrious guy and obviously take great interest in all of your projects. All those businesses sound really interesting and like fun ways to spend your time without the headache of a government job, but you should be able to do what you want without some psycho stalking and tormenting you all the time. The defamation to your character alone has got to be worth a lawsuit or two—”