Page 42 of Charmingly Obsessed
I know Mykola Frez owns his own private jet.
Like everyone else in the Frez Enterprises “family” office does. It’s practically required reading.
Once, years ago, Mykola flew to New Zealand for a hiking trip and, in a moment of uncharacteristic carelessness, forgot his favorite, ridiculously expensive, hand-knitted cashmere scarf at the resort in Thailand, where he’d stopped over for a night.
The scarf, a monstrosity of oatmeal-colored wool that probably cost more than my annual rent, ended up being flown halfway across the goddamn ocean by a smaller, chartered private jet.
It turned out that just the fuel for a long-haul Gulfstream round trip to retrieve said scarf would have cost over a hundred thousand dollars.
Even Mykola Frez decided that that particular expenditure was “a tad excessive” – even for his most beloved, irreplaceable cashmere scarf.
The word “excessive” lingered in the hushed, reverent corridors of the Frez Enterprises office for days after that.
That’s when we all realized, with a collective, dawning sense of awe and disbelief, that even multi-billionaires, apparently, find some things too costly.
Mykola introduces me to the two pilots – Captain handsome and Co-captain even more handsome – like we’re all about to embark on a fun, extended family vacation together.
Apparently, that’s how it should be. The Frez way.
So, I try. I offer a polite, slightly strained smile and murmur a vague, hopefully appropriate greeting.
Inside the jet, which is less a private plane and more a flying five-star hotel suite, he shows me everything.
Explaining each luxurious, custom-designed detail with a boyish, almost infectious enthusiasm.
Turns out, he actually likes planes. Flying.
The mechanics of it all. Meanwhile, I’m just mentally checking, for the tenth time, whether I remembered to pack all my necessary documents.
Passport. Visa. Marriage certificate (still can’t believe that’s real). The Royce dossier.
Then, just to be absolutely, positively sure, I lay them all out neatly on the polished mahogany table in the main cabin area, for easy access.
Mykola had mentioned, rather casually, that someone – from immigration, or customs, or perhaps his own ever-vigilant security team – could come right here, into the cabin, to check our papers, since we hadn’t gone through any kind of formal security check or passport control at the private airfield.
But no one comes.
I stare, stunned, at the closed cabin door. What about my documents? My meticulously organized, cross-referenced, color-coded documents?
“They decided you don’t look like a terrorist, sunshine,” Frez says, his lips brushing against my hair as he leans over my shoulder, ostensibly showing me how to connect my new, encrypted, Frez-Enterprises-issued phone to the plane’s private, high-speed satellite internet. His hand lingers on my waist.
“They rarely check my passengers,” he explains, a faint frown creasing his brow as he straightens up.
“I told them you’re my wife. It’s usually me asking them to check someone.
Discreetly, of course. When… well, sometimes, new, unexpected people show up in my orbit.
I move them here or there, from one continent to another, without necessarily running them through the official security gauntlet right away.
And sometimes,” his voice hardens almost imperceptibly, “those people… they think they can learn something about me. Gather intel. Exploit a perceived weakness.” He exhales, a short, sharp, frustrated sound.
“That happens a lot. Especially before big deals. Like Royce.”
Mykola gets up then, heading towards the small, ridiculously well-equipped galley kitchen at the front of the cabin, to make my favourite tea with lemon.
I stare out the oversized, oval window, feeling like the pale, endless, featureless abyss beyond the thick, reinforced glass isn’t just the sky at thirty thousand feet. It’s something inside me, too. A vast, echoing emptiness.
I haven’t done anything wrong. Not really.
But I was one of those people once. One of those “new, unexpected people” in his orbit.
Because I didn’t come to work as a humble, aspiring designer in his private family office three years ago.
I came to gather intelligence.
On the brilliant, enigmatic, ruthless billionaire Mykola Frez. For Kozar. For Malasenco. For them.
And I failed. Spectacularly. On the very first goddamn day.
Because I fell in love with him.
Instantly. Irrevocably. Hopelessly.