Different was probably the thing he’d least wanted to hear. People that said different meant better. And had she really been that unhappy with him. Freddie hadn’t been idle that last year. No, he’d kept up with the press about them and they’d said life in England had been good for the Champion and his mistress. They’d played a wonderful angle on it, Anatoly fighting the good fight in the West, talking about how the government wasn’t Russia, how that was his land and that was why he hadn’t betrayed everything he stood for. Picture perfect little life with his opponents girlfriend. “Right.” He said sharply, “Different. That’s nice.” He was doing it again, reacting to her with bitterness and coldness that she probably didn’t deserve.
Though she had left him.
“I don’t know what I’m looking for Florence. I guess I wanted to know what he meant to you. Why you could so easily run to him. Fine you weren’t technically with me at the time but seriously, how many years and it takes you a day to move on. Did you know that was how it was gonna go? That inn in Merano, did you know then that if you got up the courage to leave me that he’d be there, ready and willing. I mean you couldn’t have waited till after the match? Leave me with a chance of actually winning. You had to go and take my title with you?”
He’d never said anything like this to her before. Never let the level of hurt be seen because he hadn’t only lost Florence in Merano. “Maybe we had issues, maybe they were unfixable but you’d never told me them before. You never gave me an ultimatum or told me if I didn’t change you’d leave. You just left. So what was I supposed to do after that? What do you do when the woman you love walks out and leaves you? Do you know how hard it got after that? If it hadn’t been for Global I’d have had nothing cause no one else wanted to know, when you stop being the guy on top they stop caring. It was the hardest time of my life Florence and it was because of you.”
If nothing else Freddie Trumper knew how to play the guilt card. It had worked so many times in the past and she’d be back with him, apologising for being so cruel. And this time he even meant the hurt he was showing to her. She’d walked out and she’d broken his heart. It had taken him a long time to even work up the courage to go to Bangkok but he’d wanted to try and win her back, and he’d wanted to make the Russian’s life a living hell. He’d heard about the possibility of the woman, his wife, getting out. So it had been the perfect opportunity. And when he heard there were kids involved, well frankly it just made Freddie hate the bastard more.
When her hand met his arm Freddie almost pulled away. But he looked over to her as she spoke about Molokov and the kids not getting out. But he was sick of sob stories painting Sergievsky as the hero. He was no hero. He was weak. “I hate them yeah, and Molokov. I hated every second of having to even acknowledge his existence in Bangkok. But it doesn’t make your boyfriend a good guy. He was married with kids. You tell me how running off to England for a year with his mistress, and yeah mistress is all you could ever be to him. You tell me how that helped his wife or kids. In fact given what the commies are like it probably made it worse for them. They probably had to deal with worse because their father had defected to the West? Did you ever think of that? Or were you just happy with your little life in England.” His words were probably again colder than they had to be but he wanted Florence to think. He needed her to think. He moved his arm finally until he could grasp her hand his thumb running softly along hers.
"I'm not trying to be cruel. I'm not trying to hurt you. But you have to know how that felt for me back then. I loved you. Pretty sure I still do."