It occurred to her that she was lucky she felt nothing for Javier. If her heart beat as rapidly for him as it did for this Frenchman she would have thought twice about accepting his proposal. She knew Javier would have thought twice about proposing if she’d displayed any sort of feelings for him too.
The Frenchman showed no sign of filling her in on their meeting either, raising a shoulder in what she assumed to be an apology.
‘I’m sorry if you’re looking for Javier but I’m afraid he hasn’t arrived yet,’ she said when the silence that fell between them stretched like charged elastic. She had to remind herself that people were watching her. ‘I don’t think Luis is here yet either.’
Benjamin studied her closely, looking for signs that Freya knew about the enmity between him and the Casillas brothers but there were no vibes of suspicion. He hadn’t expected Javier to take her into his confidence. Javier did not do confidences.
But there were vibes emanating from her, as if her skin were alive with an electricity that sparked onto him, an intensity in her dark eyes he had to stop himself from being pulled into.
He had a job to do and could not afford the distraction of her striking sultriness to delay him at a moment when time was of the essence. He’d planned everything down to the minute.
Tonight, her dark hair had been pulled back into a tight bun circled with tiny round diamonds, her lithe figure draped in a sleeveless deep red crushed velvet dress that flared at the hip to fall mid-calf. Her pale bare shoulders glimmered under the ballroom lights just as they had done under the hot Madrid sun and there was an itch in the pads of his fingers to touch that silky looking skin.
He leaned in a little closer so only she could hear the words that would next spill from his tongue. The motion sent a little whirl of a sultry yet delicate fragrance darting into his senses. He resisted the urge to breathe it in greedily.
‘I already know Javier isn’t here. Forgive me, Mademoiselle Clements, but I have news that is only for your ears.’
A groove appeared in her forehead, the black eyes widening.
He turned his head pointedly to the huge swing doors that led out of the ballroom and held his elbow out. ‘May I?’
Her throat moved before she nodded, then slipped her hand through the crook of his arm.
Benjamin guided her through the guests socialising magnificently as they waited for their hosts, the Casillas brothers, to arrive and for the fundraising gala to begin in earnest. They would have a long wait. The wheels he’d set in motion should, if all went as planned, delay them both for another hour each. He felt numerous eyes fall upon them and bit back a smile.
When Javier did finally get there, he would learn his fiancée had disappeared with his newly sworn enemy.
He had never wanted it to come to this but Javier and Luis had forced his hand. He’d warned them. After their last acrimonious meeting, he had given them a deadline and warned them failure to pay what was owed would lead to consequences.
Freya was collateral damage in the ugly mess they had created, the deceitful, treacherous bastards.
When they were in the hotel’s lobby, Benjamin stopped beside a marble pillar to say, ‘I am sorry for the subterfuge but Javier has encountered a problem. He does not wish to alarm the other guests but has asked me to bring you to him.’
‘Is he hurt?’ She had a husky voice that perfectly matched the sultriness of her appearance.
‘No, it is not that. He is well. I only know that he has asked me to take you to him.’
He saw the hesitation in her eyes but gave her no chance to act on it, taking the hand still held in the crook of his arm and lacing his fingers through hers.
‘Come,’ he said, then began moving again, this time towards the exit doors.
Her much shorter, graceful legs kept pace easily.
A sharp pang of guilt punched his gut at her misplaced trust, a pang he dismissed.
This was Javier’s fiancée.
Benjamin’s sister, Chloe, worked as a seamstress at the ballet company and knew Freya. She had described her as nice if a little aloof. Intelligent. Too intelligent not to know exactly the kind of man she had chosen to marry.
Money and power in the world you inhabited were mighty aphrodisiacs, he thought scathingly.
What he found harder to dismiss were the evocative tingles seeping into his bloodstream from the feel of her hand in his and the movement of her lithe body sweeping along beside him.
His driver was waiting for them as arranged at the front of the hotel.
Benjamin waited until she was sitting in the car before following her in, staring straight into the security camera above the hotel’s door as he did so.
‘Do you really not know what kind of trouble Javier is in?’ she asked with steady composure as the driver pulled away from the hotel.
‘Mademoiselle Clements, I am merely your courier for this trip. All will be revealed when we reach our destination.’
‘Where is he?’
‘In Florence.’
‘Still?’
‘I understand there was some delay.’ An understanding brought about by his own sabotage. Benjamin had paid an aviation official to conduct a spot-check of Javier’s private plane with the promise of an extra ten thousand euros if he could delay him by two hours. He’d also paid a contact who worked for a mobile phone network to jam Freya’s phone.
As they drove into the remote airfield less than ten minutes later she suddenly straightened. ‘I haven’t got my passport on me.’
‘You don’t need it.’
Benjamin’s own private plane was ready to board, his crew in place, all ready to get the craft into the air the moment he and Freya were strapped in.
He ignored another wave of guilt as she climbed the metal steps onto his jet, as trusting as a spring lamb.
Within half an hour of leaving the hotel they were airborne.
He inhaled properly for what felt the first time in half an hour.
His plan had worked effortlessly.
Sitting on the reclining leather seat facing her, Benjamin watched Freya. Her features were calm, the only indication anything was worrying her the slight tapping of her fingers on her lap. He would put her out of her misery soon enough.
‘Drink?’ he asked.
Her eyes found his and held them for the longest time before blinking. ‘Do you have tea?’
‘I think something stronger.’
‘Do I need something stronger?’
Not yet she didn’t.
‘No, but a drink will help you relax, ma douce.’
Her throat moved, the generous lips pulling together. Then she loosened her tight shoulders and nodded.
Benjamin summoned a member of his cabin crew. ‘Get Mademoiselle Clements a drink, whatever she wants. I will have a glass of port.’
Soon their drinks had been served and Freya sipped at her gin and tonic. Her forehead was pressed to the window, her gaze fixed on the dark night sky. She covered her mouth and stifled a yawn.
‘You are tired?’ he asked politely.
A quick, soft shake of her head that turned into a nod that morphed into another yawn. When she met his gaze there was sheepish amusement in her eyes. ‘Flying makes me sleepy. I’m the same in cars. Are you sure Javier is okay?’
‘Very sure. Your seat reclines into a bed. Sleep if you need to.’
‘I’ll be fine, thank you.’ Another yawn. Another sip of her drink.
He observed her fight to keep her eyes open, the lids becoming heavier followed by a round of rapid blinking, then heavying again.
A few minutes later her eyes stayed closed, her chest rising and falling in a gentle rhythm.
He leaned forward and carefully removed the glass from her slackening fingers.
Her eyes opened and stared straight into his.
A shot of something plunged into his heart and twisted.
Her lips curved in the tiniest of smiles before her eyes fluttered back shut.
<
br /> Benjamin closed his eyes and took a long breath.
There was something about this woman he reacted to in a way he could not comprehend. It unnerved him.
Through all the legal battles he’d been going through these past two months and as the full extent of the Casillas brothers’ treachery had become sickeningly clearer, Freya’s face had kept hovering into his thoughts.
He stared at it now, watching her sleep through the dimmed cabin lights, absorbing the features that had played in his mind like a picture implanted into his brain.
It was fortuitous that she should sleep. It would make the difficult conversation they must have easier if they weren’t thirty-five thousand feet in the air.
Let her have a little longer of oblivion before she learned she had been effectively kidnapped.
CHAPTER TWO
A BUSTLE OF movement in the cabin woke Freya from her light slumber to find Benjamin’s gaze still on her.
A warm flush crept through her veins.
For the first time since infancy, full sleep hadn’t taken her into its clutches.
He gave a tight smile. ‘I was about to wake you. We will be landing shortly.’
‘Sorry.’ She smothered a yawn and stretched her legs, flexing her feet before noticing her shoes had slipped off. ‘Travel has always had a sedative effect on me.’
It had been the case since she’d been a baby and her parents had taken turns walking her in the pram to get her to sleep. Once she had outgrown the pram the walks had continued with Freya in a buggy, sleeping happily along the same daily walk, which had taken them past a local ballet school. She had always woken up then. Her first concrete memory was pointing at the little girls in their pink tutus and squealing, ‘Freya dance too!’
Those early walks had given birth to two things: her love of dance and her unfailing ability to fall asleep in any mode of transport.
Planes, trains, cars, prams, they were all the same; within ten minutes of being in one she would be asleep regardless of any excitement for the destination.
That she had managed almost half an hour before the first signs of sleep grabbed her on Benjamin’s jet had more to do with him and the terrifying way her heart beat when she was in his presence than it had about any fears she might have for her fiancé.
She’d had to keep her gaze fixed out of the window to stop herself from staring at him as her eyes so longed to do. When her brain had started to shut down into sleep it was images of this man flickering behind her eyes that had stopped her brain switching off completely.
Her fingers still tingled from being held in his hand, her heart still to find a normal rhythm.
Rationally, she knew there couldn’t be anything too seriously wrong with Javier. Benjamin had told her Javier was unhurt and that there was nothing for her to worry about...
But there was a tension in the Frenchman now that hadn’t been there before.
A prickle of unease crawled up her spine and she looked back out of the window.
When she’d last looked out of the window they had been high above the clouds. Now the earth beckoned closer, dark shadows forming shapes that made her think of mountains and thick forests, beyond them twinkling lights, towns and cities bustling with late-evening life.
None of it looked familiar.
The unease deepened the closer to earth they flew and she kept her eyes peeled, searching for a familiar landmark, anything to counteract the tightening of her stomach and the coldness crawling over her skin.
She hardly noticed the smoothness of the landing, too busy straining through the darkness to find something familiar in the airfield they had landed in.
As she whispered words of thanks to the cabin crew and climbed down the metal stairs to the concrete ground, she inhaled deeply. Then she inhaled again.
She had been in Florence as part of her ballet company’s European tour only the week before. Florence did not smell like this. Florence did not smell of lavender.
Benjamin had reached the ground before her and stood at a waiting sleek black car, the back passenger door open.
‘Where are we?’ she asked hesitantly, not at all liking the train of her thoughts.
‘Provence.’
It took a beat for that to sink in. ‘Provence as in France?’
‘Oui.’
‘Did I misunderstand something? I thought you said Javier was still in Florence.’ Freya knew she hadn’t misheard him but told herself her ears were unused to Benjamin’s thick accent and therefore she must have misunderstood him.
Slowly, he shook his head. ‘You heard correctly.’
Through the panicking spread of her blood she forced herself to think, to keep calm and breathe.
She had only met Benjamin once before but knew he was Javier and Luis’s oldest friend. Their mothers had been best friends. They had grown up thinking themselves as family. She knew all this because of a costume fitting she’d had before Compania de Ballet de Casillas had gone on its most recent tour, the one that had taken her to the beautiful city of Florence. A new seamstress had been tasked with measuring Freya, a young, dazzlingly beautiful woman called Chloe Guillem. When Freya had casually asked if she were any relation to Benjamin, she’d learned Chloe was his sister. She should have been glad of the opportunity to speak to someone who knew Javier and taken the opportunity to learn more about her fiancé. It shamed her that she’d had to restrain herself from only asking about Chloe’s brother.
‘Where is he, then?’
Benjamin looked at his watch before meeting her eye again. The lights shining from his jet, which still had the engine running, made the green darker, made them flicker with a danger that clutched in her chest.
‘I think he must now be in Madrid. Very soon he is going to learn you have disappeared with me. He might have already.’
‘What are you talking about?’ she whispered.
‘I regret to tell you, ma douce, that I have brought you here under false pretences. Javier did not ask me to bring you to him.’
She laughed. It was a reflex sound brought about by the absurdity of what he’d just said. ‘Is this a joke the pair of you have dreamt up together?’
But Javier didn’t joke. She had seen no sign whatsoever that her fiancé possessed any kind of sense of humour.
Benjamin’s unsmiling features showed he wasn’t jesting either. The dark shadows being cast over those same features sent fresh chills racing up her spine.
The chills increased as, pulling her phone out of her bag, she saw it still wasn’t working.
There was the slightest flicker in his eyes that made her say, ‘Have you got something to do with my phone not working?’
‘It will be reconnected tomorrow,’ he said steadily. He took a step towards her. ‘Get in the car, ma douce. I will explain everything.’
Her heart pounding painfully, she took a step back, taking in the darkness surrounding them. High trees edged the perimeter of the huge field they had landed in, the only sound the jet’s engine. The vibrant civilisation she’d glimpsed from the window could be anywhere or nowhere.
To the left of the runway sat a small concrete building, its lights on.
When Freya had exited the plane she had seen a couple of figures in high-visibility jackets walking away from them. She had to assume they’d gone into that building. She thought it safe to assume that building contained, at the very least, a working telephone.
‘I’m not going anywhere else with you until you tell me what is going on,’ she said in the steadiest voice she could manage while sliding her hand back into her small shoulder bag. She put her non-functioning phone back into it and groped for the can of pepper spray.
He must have seen her fear for he raised his hands, palms facing her. ‘I am taking you to my home. You have my assurance that you will come to no harm.’
‘No. I want to know what’s going on now. Here. No more riddles.’
‘We have much to talk about. It is better we talk in privacy
and comfort.’
‘And I prefer to discuss things now, before I get back on that plane and tell the pilot to take me back to Madrid.’ To get to the plane, though, meant getting past him. A lifetime of dance had given her an agility and strength most other women didn’t possess but she didn’t kid herself that she had the strength to match this man, who had to be a foot taller than her own five foot five and twice her breadth.
She caught a glimmer of pity in those dangerous green eyes that made her blood chill to the same temperature as her spine.
Her fingers found the pepper spray.
She might not have the strength to match him but she would bet her life she was quicker than him.
She pulled the weapon out and aimed it at him, simultaneously stepping out of the heels that would hinder any escape. ‘I am going back to Madrid and you can’t stop me.’
Then, not giving him a chance to respond in any shape or form, Freya took off, racing barefoot over the runway and then over the dry grass to the safety that was the concrete building with its welcoming lights. Not once did she look over her shoulder, her focus solely on the door that would open and lead her to...
A locked door.
She tugged at it, she pushed it, she pulled it. It didn’t budge.
‘This airfield belongs to me.’ Benjamin’s voice carried through the still night air that was broken only by the running engine of his jet. ‘No one here will help you.’
She turned her head to look back at him, surprised to find herself more angry than fearful.
Surely this was a situation where terror rather than fury should be the primary emotion?
He had lied to her and deliberately taken her to the wrong country.
No one did that unless they had bad intentions.
She should be terrified.
Benjamin hadn’t moved. He stood by the car watching her impassively. For the first time she realised the car had a driver in it.
And for the first time she realised his jet’s engines were still running for a reason. Not only that but it was moving...
Open-mouthed, fighting back despair, Freya watched it increase in speed down the runway.
A moment later it was in the air.
Billionaire's Bride for Revenge (Billionaire?s Bride for Revenge) Page 2
