‘I’m a dancer,’ Freya said obstinately. ‘My feet are tough.’

‘Tough enough to risk infection? Tough enough to risk your career?’

‘Being held hostage is a risk to my career.’

‘Stop being so melodramatic. You are not a hostage.’ He took a sterile cloth and dipped it in the water, squeezing it first before carefully rubbing it against the sole of her foot.

‘If I’m not allowed to leave that makes me a hostage. If I’m being held for ransom that makes me a hostage.’

‘Hardly. All I require is twenty-four hours of your time. One day.’ He rubbed an antiseptic wipe to the tiny wounds at the sole of her foot, then carefully placed it down on its heel.

‘And what happens then? What if Javier says no and refuses to pay?’

‘You have doubts?’ He lifted her other foot onto his lap. ‘Are you afraid his love for you is not worth such a large amount of money?’

She didn’t answer.

Raising his gaze from her feet to her face, he noted the strain of her clenched jaw.

‘You are the most exciting dancer to have emerged in Europe since his mother died. You have the potential to be the best and Javier is not a man who settles for second best in anything. You are not publicity hungry. You will give him beautiful babies. You tick every box he has made in his list of wants for a wife. Why would he let you go?’ As he spoke he cleaned her foot, taking great care in case there were any thorns hidden in the hard soles not visible to the naked eye.

Freya’s assessment of her feet being tough was correct, the soles hard and calloused, the big toe on her right foot blackened by bruising.

His heart made a strange tugging motion to imagine the agonies she must go through dancing night after night on toes that must be in perpetual pain. These were feet that had been abused by its owner in a never-ending quest for dance perfection. And what perfection it was...

Benjamin had been dragged across the world in his younger years by his mother, who had been Clara Casillas’s personal seamstress as well as her closest friend. His childhood home had been a virtual shrine to the ballet but he’d been oblivious to it all, his interest in ballet less than zero. He’d thought himself immune to any of the supposed beauty the dance had to offer. That had been until he’d watched a clip of Freya dancing as Sleeping Beauty on the Internet the other week.

There had been something in the way she moved when she danced that had made his throat tighten and the hairs on his arms lift. He’d watched only a minute of that clip before turning it off. He’d tried to rid his mind of the images that seemed to have etched themselves in his brain ever since.

Freya belonged to his enemy. He had no business imagining her.

And yet...

As hard as he had tried, he had been completely unable to stop his mind drifting to her or stop the poker-like stabs of jealousy to imagine her in Javier’s arms that had engulfed him since he’d first set eyes on her.

‘Javier knows I am a man of my word,’ he continued, looking beyond the battered soles of her feet to the smooth, almost delicate ankles and calves that were undeniably feminine. A strange itch started in his fingers to stroke the skin to feel if it was as smooth to his touch as to his eye. ‘He knows if I say I will marry you then I will marry you.’

‘You’ve rigged everything to fall your way but unless you have something even more nefarious up your sleeve you can’t marry me without my permission.’ Steel laced her calm voice. ‘Besides, you said I only have to stay with you for one day—you’ve given me your word too. You are lying to one of us. Which is it?’

‘I have not lied to either of you. Have you not wondered why I had your phone tampered with?’

Clarity rang from her eyes. ‘To stop me warning him. You don’t want me in a position to scupper your plans by telling him the truth.’

He smiled. She was an astute woman. ‘Javier will know by now that we left the gala together. I do not doubt he will hear we left hand in hand. He will know you left willingly with me and will be wondering how deep your involvement goes. If he trusts and loves you he will know you are my pawn and will pay me my money to get you back. If he doesn’t trust or love you enough he will refuse to pay and cut you adrift. If he cuts you adrift the ball rolls into your court, ma douce. The moment Javier reaches his decision, whatever that decision may be, you will be free to leave my chateau without hindrance. If you choose to leave I will fly you back to Madrid even if your choice is to plead your case with him and throw yourself at his mercy. If, however, you decide to stick with a certainty then you can marry me. I am willing to marry you on the same terms you were going to marry him—I assume there was a pre-nuptial agreement. I am prepared to honour it. Or you can decide to have nothing to do with either of us and get on with your life.’

Benjamin put the towel down by the now cold bowl of water and got to his feet. ‘Whatever happens, I cannot lose. Javier will pay for what he has done one way or another.’

While he’d been speaking, Freya’s silent fury had grown. He’d seen it vibrate through her clenched fists and shuddering chest, the colour slashing her cheeks deepening.

Finally she spoke, her words strangled. ‘How can you be so cruel?’

‘A man reaps what he sows.’

‘No, I meant how can you be so cruel to me? What have I done to merit this? You don’t even know me.’

‘You chose to betroth yourself to a man without a conscience. I notice you have accepted at face value that Javier and Luis stole from me. You know the kind of man he is yet still you chose to marry him. What kind of woman does that make you?’

The colour on her face turned an even deeper shade of red, her stare filled with such loathing it was as if she’d stored and condensed all the hatred in the world to fire at him through eyes that had become obsidian.

She rose from her seat with a grace that took his breath away. ‘You don’t know anything about me and you never will. You’re the most despicable excuse for a human being I have ever met. I hope Javier calls your bluff and calls the police. I hope he gets a SWAT team sent in to rescue me.’

He reached out to brush a thumb against her cheekbone. It was the lightest of touches but enough for a thrill to race through him at the silky fineness of her skin.

He sensed the same thrill race through her too, the tiniest of jolts before the eyes that had been firing at him widened and her frame became so still she could be carved from marble.

‘If he were to involve the police the news would leak out and his deception would become public knowledge,’ he murmured, fighting the impulse to run his hand over her hair and pull the tight bun out, imagining the effect of that glorious hair spilling over her shoulders like a waterfall. ‘But the police would not do anything even if he did go to them because I have not broken any law, just as Javier has not technically broken any law.’

‘You kidnapped me.’

‘How? You got into my jet and my car of your own free will.’

‘Only because you lied to me.’

‘That was regrettable but necessary. If lying is a crime then the onus would be on you to prove it.’

‘You paid someone to disconnect my phone.’

‘Again, the onus would be on you to prove it.’

Her throat moved before her voice dropped so low he had to strain to hear. ‘How do you sleep at night?’

‘Very well, thank you, because my conscience is clear.’ Finally he moved his hand away and took a step back from her lest the urge to taste those tempting lips overcame him. ‘I will get a member of staff to show you to your quarters. Sleep well, ma douce. I have a feeling tomorrow is going to be a long day for both of us.’

Then he half bowed and walked away.

CHAPTER FIVE

FREYA PACED HER bedroom feeling much like a caged tiger prowling for escape. The only difference between her and the tiger was she hadn’t been locked in. She could walk out right now and never look back. Except it was now the early hours of the morning and her feet would rightly kill her if she tried to escape again. Third time lucky, perhaps? A third attempt to escape into the black canopy of Benjamin’s thick forest? She might even emerge on the other side alive.

She slumped onto the bed with a loud sigh and propped her chin on her hands. Her feet stung, the corset of her dress dug into her ribs and she was suddenly weary from her lack of food. The pretty pyjamas on her pillow looked increasingly tempting.

A young maid had shown her to her quarters. She hadn’t spoken any English but had been perfectly able to convey that the pyjamas were for Freya and that the clothes hanging in the adjoining dressing room were for her too. There were even three pairs of shoes to choose from, all of them worse than ballet slippers for an escape in the forest.

All the clothes were Freya’s exact size, right down to the underwear. She guessed Benjamin’s sister had passed on her measurements.

The planning he must have undertaken to get her there made her shiver.

He was remorseless. Relentless. He left nothing to chance, going as far as installing a camera outside her bedroom door. She’d seen the flashing red light and known exactly what it was there for. A warning that should she attempt to leave her quarters she would be seen in an instant. If she found a landline phone she would never get the chance to use it.

Without laying a finger on her he’d penned her in his home more effectively than a collie rounding up sheep.

But he had touched her.

The shivers turned into tingles that spread up her spine and low in her abdomen as she remembered how it had felt to have his large, warm hands holding her feet so securely, different tingles flushing over her cheek where he had brushed his thumb against it.

She had never met a more unrepentantly cruel person in her life and being part of the ballet world that was saying something.

But he had cleaned and tended to her feet with a gentleness that had taken her breath away. She had expected him to recoil at them—anyone who wasn’t a dancer would—but instead she’d detected a glimmer of sympathy. Bruised, aching feet were a fact of her life. Smile through the pain, use it to drive you on to perfection.

She had to give him his due—in that one respect Benjamin had been the perfect gentleman. If she’d allowed any of her straight male colleagues to clean her feet she could only imagine the bawdiness of their comments. The opportunity for a quick grope would have been almost impossible for them to resist. The ballet world was a passionate hotbed, the intimacy of dancing so closely together setting off hormones that most didn’t want to deny let alone bother to fight. Freya wasn’t immune to it. The passion lived in her blood as it did in everyone else’s; the difference was when the music stopped the passion within her stopped too. She had never danced with a man and wanted the romance to continue when the orchestra finished playing. She had never felt a man’s touch and experienced a yearning within her for him to touch her some more.

Benjamin had held and touched her feet and she had had to root her bottom to the chair so as not to betray her own body’s betrayal of wanting those long fingers to stop tending and start caressing. She had had to fight her own senses to block out the thickening of her blood at his touch, had fought to keep the detachment she had spent a lifetime developing.

She squeezed her eyes shut, her brain-burn deepening at how she reacted so physically to the man who threatened to ruin everything.

She was caught in a feud between two men—three if she counted Luis—but it wasn’t Freya who had the potential for the greatest suffering as a consequence of it, it was her mother. Her mother was the only reason she had agreed to Javier’s emotionless proposal.

You know the kind of man he is yet still you chose to marry him. What kind of woman does that make you...?

It made her a desperate one.

Dance was all she knew, all she was, her life, her soul, her comfort. She had achieved so much from her humble beginnings but there was still so much to strive for, both for herself and for her parents who had made so many sacrifices to get her where she was today. Imagining the pride on their faces if she were to get top billing at the Royal Opera House or the Bolshoi or the Metropolitan gave her all the boost she needed on the days when her feet and calves seared with such pain that she forgot why she loved what she did so much.

Javier’s proposal had given her hope. He would give her all the space she needed to be the very best. Marriage to him meant that if she did make it as far as she dreamed in her career then she would have the means to fly her parents all over the world to watch her perform. Much more importantly, her mother would have the means to be alive and well enough to watch her perform, not be crippled in pain with the morphine barely making a dent in the agony her body was putting her through.

But she did know the kind of man Javier was and that was why she had no faith he would pay Benjamin the money he owed. She didn’t doubt he and Luis owed Benjamin money, although how they could have got one over the French billionaire she could not begin to guess, and right then she didn’t have the strength to care.

Her forthcoming marriage was nothing more than a marriage of convenience. Javier’s feelings for her ran no deeper than hers did for him.

If he didn’t pay Benjamin then it meant their marriage was off. It meant no more money to pay for her mother’s miracle drugs.

If he didn’t pay it meant she would have to trust the word of the man who’d stolen her and hope he’d been telling the truth that he would marry her on the same terms.

Because if Javier didn’t pay she would have to marry Benjamin. If she didn’t her mother would be dead by Christmas.

* * *

Benjamin was on his second cup of coffee when a shadow filled the doorway of the breakfast room. He’d drained the cup before Freya finally stepped inside, back straight, chin jutted outwards, dressed in three-quarter-length white jeans and a dusky pink shirt, her glorious hair scraped back in another tight bun.

The simplicity of her clothing, all selected by his sister, did not detract in the least from her graceful bearing, and Benjamin found himself straightening and his heart accelerating as she glided towards him.

She allowed Christabel, who had followed her in, to usher her into the seat opposite his own and made the simple act of sitting down look like an art form.

‘Coffee?’ his housekeeper asked as she fussed over her.

‘Just orange juice, thank you,’ she answered quietly.

Only when they were alone did Freya look at him.

He’d thought he’d become accustomed to the dense blackness of her eyes but right then the weight of her stare seemed to pierce through him. He shifted in his seat, unsettled but momentarily trapped in a gaze that seemed to have the ability to reach inside him and touch his soul...

He blinked the unexpected and wholly ridiculous thought away and flashed his teeth at her. ‘Did you get any sleep?’

She smiled tightly but made no verbal response.

‘You look tired.’

She shrugged and reached for her juice.

‘Have some coffee. It will help you wake up.’

‘I rarely drink caffeine.’

‘More for me then.’ He poured himself another cup as the maid brought Freya’s breakfast tray in and placed it in front of her.

His houseguest gazed at the bowls before her in surprise then smiled at the maid. It was a smile that made her eyes shine and for a moment Benjamin wished he were the one on the receiving end of it.

‘Please thank the chef for me,’ she said. ‘This is perfect. She must have gone to a great deal of trouble.’

As the maid didn’t speak English, Benjamin translated.

The moment they were alone again, Freya said, ‘Has Javier been in touch?’

‘Not yet.’ He’d turned his phone’s settings so only Javier, Luis and Chloe could reach him. He didn’t want any other distractions.

She closed her eyes and took a long breath. He could see her centring herself in that incredible way he had never seen anyone else do, as if she were swallowing all her emotions down and locking them away. If he hadn’t seen those bursts of anger-fuelled adrenaline when she had run away at his airfield and then when she had sent his supper flying before fleeing into the night, he could believe this woman never lost her composure.

And yet for all her stillness there was something about her that made her more vivid than any other woman he had ever met, a glow that drew the eye like a breathing, walking, talking sculpture.

What kind of a lover she would be? Did she burn under the sheets or keep that cloak of composure?

Had her exotic, intoxicating presence turned his old friend’s heart as well as his loins? Had he lost himself in her...?

Benjamin shoved the thought away and swallowed back the rancid taste forming in his mouth.

He should be hoping Javier had lost himself in her arms as that would make it more likely for him to pay to get her back. He should not feel nauseous at the thought of them together.

That sick feeling only became more violent to think of Freya losing herself in Javier’s arms.

How deeply did her feelings for Javier run?

If they had any depth then why did her eyes pulse whenever she looked at him?

He inhaled deeply, trying to clear his mind. He needed to concentrate on the forthcoming hours until Javier made his move. Only then could he decide what his own move would be.

In that spirit, he looked pointedly at the varying bowls of food his chef had prepared for her. He’d sent Christabel to check on his unwilling houseguest earlier and see what, if anything, she required for breakfast. He did not deny his relief to learn she’d abandoned her short hunger strike.

‘What are you having?’ he asked. ‘It looks like animal feed.’

‘Granola. Your chef has kindly made it fresh for me.’

‘Granola?’

‘Rolled oats.’

‘Animal feed.’

She pulled a face at him and placed a heaped spoonful of berries on her animal feed, following them with a spoonful of almonds. Then she spooned some natural yogurt onto it and stirred it all together. As she raised the spoon to her mouth she paused. ‘Do you have to watch?’

The colour staining her cheeks intrigued him. ‘It bothers you?’

‘You staring at me? Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘Because...’ Freya put the spoon back in the bowl. She could hardly believe how self-conscious she felt sitting before him like this. She spent hours every day with her every move scrutinised by choreographers, fellow dancers, audiences and had long ago learned to tune out the weight of their stares.

Yet sitting here with Benjamin’s swirling green eyes fixed upon her she was aware of her body in ways she had never been before, could feel the blood pumping through her, heating with each cycle.

It wasn’t merely herself and the components of her own body that she was freshly aware of, it was Benjamin too, this Lucifer in disguise. The vibrating hairs on her nape and arms strained towards him as if seeking his scent and the heat of his skin, her senses more alert than they had ever been before.

‘It just does,’ she said tightly. ‘Why don’t you get yourself something to eat and leave me in peace?’

‘I rarely eat in the morning,’ he informed her.

‘Cheese late at night then no breakfast...all the ingredients for health problems when you reach middle age.’

A glimmer came into his eyes. ‘I can assure you I am in peak physical health.’

She could see that for herself though she would never admit it to him and felt a pang of envy at a life where you could eat any morsel you liked without scrutiny and without having to weigh up its nutritional value or energy-boosting properties.

Oh, to have the freedom to eat whatever you liked—or not—whenever you liked...

Benjamin’s phone suddenly buzzed loudly.

She met his narrowed green eyes the moment before he reached for it.

‘It’s an email from Javier,’ he said matter-of-factly.

Her stomach dropped. ‘Already?’

He nodded. ‘He has sent a copy to your email too.’

‘What does it say?’

He studied it for a long time before sliding the phone to her.

The email contained no text. Javier had sent an attachment of two adjoining photos.

She blinked a number of times before the pictures she was staring at came into focus and their significance made itself clear.

They had been taken by one of the photographers at the gala who had spotted something intriguing about them leaving together and decided to capture it. The first shot caught the moment when they had paused in the hotel lobby for Benjamin to briefly explain the situation, the other had them walking out of the hotel hand in hand.

It was the first picture she found herself unable to look away from and, she knew in the pit of her stomach, it was the reason Javier had sent the pictures to her too.

Benjamin’s face had been mostly obscured but her own features were there for all to see, and all could see her black eyes staring intently into his and her body tilting towards him. They looked like a pair of lovers caught in the midst of a most intimate conversation.

The blood whooshed up and into her brain.

That look in her eyes as she’d stared at him...

Had she really looked at Benjamin like that?

She covered her mouth, horrified.

She couldn’t even bring herself to say anything when Benjamin’s large hand stretched across the table to take his phone back from her.

Freya was so shamed and mortified at the expression captured on her face she feared her vocal cords had been stunned into silence for ever.

Nothing was said between them until another loud buzzing cut through the silence, a continuous buzz signalling a phone call.

Benjamin put it on speakerphone.

His eyes rested on Freya as the gravelly Spanish tones of Javier Casillas filled the room.

‘You will not receive a cent from me, you son-of-a-bitch. Keep her. She’s all yours.’

Then the line went dead.

This time the silence between them was loud enough for Freya to hear the beats of her thundering heart.

The room began to spin around her, the high ceiling lowering, the wide walls narrowing.

She was going to be sick.

She might very well have been sick had the most outrageous sound she’d ever heard not brought her sharply back to herself and the room back into focus.

Benjamin, his eyes not once dropping their hold on hers, was laughing.

‘How can you think this is funny?’ she asked with a croak, dredging the words from the back of her throat. ‘You’ve lost.’

And she had lost too. Javier had emailed the pictures to her too as a message. Their engagement was over.

‘Lost?’ Benjamin’s face creased with mirth. He threw his head back, his laughter coming in great booms that echoed around her ears. ‘No, ma douce, I have not lost. I told you last night, I cannot lose.’

It was a struggle to breathe. ‘He’s not going to pay the money.’

‘There was only an evens chance that he would. There were only two end scenarios: Javier would pay or he would not. This result is not my preferred one but I can take satisfaction that he will be burning with humiliation at the photographs of us so it is not a loss by any means.’

‘Not a loss for you, maybe, but what about me? He’s never going to take me back. You know that, right? These pictures make it look like I was encouraging you...that I was a part of it.’

Oh, God, that look in her eyes as she’d stared into his...

There was not an ounce of penitence to be found in his glittering eyes. ‘You don’t have to lose anything, ma douce. Your career is safe. You are one of the most exciting dancers in the world. If Javier is foolish enough to sack you then I guarantee another company will snatch you up.’

Billionaireâ€™S Bride For Revenge: Billionaireâ€™s Bride for Revenge

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