CHAPTER TWELVE
THE FAMILIAR RATTLE of the cattle grid woke Freya from the sleep she had fallen into. Covering a yawn with her hand, she cast a quick glance at Benjamin beside her. His face was glued to his laptop as it had been since they’d got into the car from the heliport. The seductive looks and words were a thing of the past.
She felt as if she had lived a thousand lives in the past two days.
They had spent the day in London as he had promised. He’d organised everything. A stretched Mercedes had met them at the airport with Giles, Benjamin’s assistant who had been tasked with house-hunting for her, in attendance, and then driven them to all the shortlisted houses.
She had fallen in love with the second property, which ticked every box she’d wanted and more.
Best of all, it was unoccupied.
Benjamin had made an immediate cash offer and got the wheels put into motion for the quickest of quick sales. Her parents could move in that coming weekend. Benjamin was going to take care of everything for them.
He had then taken her to the tower block her parents lived in but had refused to come in with her.
‘This is a home you are providing for them,’ he had explained without looking at her. ‘It is better they hear it from you. I will only be a distraction.’
‘But they will want to meet you,’ she had said, surprising herself with her own argument. ‘They will want to thank you.’
His nose had wrinkled before he’d looked at the building she had called home for the first eleven years of her life. ‘There will be plenty of time for us to meet in the future. I have things to organise. Giles will see you in. Take all the time you need. There is no rush.’
She had then spent a wonderful couple of hours with her parents, finally having the confidence to tell them they were going to be able to move out of the flat that had become their prison into a house of their own, and that her new husband was in the process of getting a team together to help them make the move and would be providing them with an unlimited credit card to furnish their new home to their liking.
Javier had been prepared to buy them a home as part of the contract. He had known about their situation for two whole months.
Benjamin had known about it for less than a day and had already gone above and beyond his contractual obligations.
And yet there was a distance between them that had never been there before. He had hardly looked her in the eye all day. And it had been a long day, dinner eaten in silence on the return flight back to Provence.
‘It is late,’ he said as the car came to a stop in the courtyard. ‘I am going to call it a night.’
‘You’re going to bed?’ she asked, surprised at the stab of disappointment cutting through her stomach.
‘I have a few more calls to make and then I will sleep. I’ll see you in the morning. Bonne nuit.’
And that was that.
The man who had devoured her with his eyes, who had insisted they would sleep together every night they were under the same roof, would be sleeping in his own bed without her for the second night in a row.
Feeling nauseous although she had no idea why, Freya carried her heavy legs up the stairs.
It was late. Maybe she should get some sleep too.
But after taking a shower and brushing her teeth she knew sleep was a long way off. There was a knotted feeling in her stomach that time was only making worse.
All she could think was that Benjamin was bored of her after only one night together.
Or, worse, had her confession about her family background turned him off? Had seeing the place she had been raised tainted her somehow too? Did he see her differently now he knew her polish and poise had been taught and were not inherent in her?
And why did her heart hurt so much to think all this?
She shouldn’t care. She should be thankful his desire for her had been turned off. Wasn’t that the safety she craved where all her passion and emotions were expressed in her dance?
The knot in her stomach tightened, pulling at her chest, and she paced her room until she could take no more and, uncaring that it was the middle of the night, bolted out of her quarters.
Thoughts and questions crowding her head, her heart throbbing, she hurried up the stairs to her studio and threw her dressing gown on the floor. Not wanting to waste time putting on tights and a leotard, she pulled a black, calf-length floating exercise dress off the rail in the studio cupboard and shrugged it over her head.
The pointe shoes she had softened into reasonable comfort the day before were on the floor where she had left them and still had plenty of wear left. She put them on, tied the ribbons, then put the sound system on shuffle and settled herself by her barre.
Inhaling deeply through her nose, she then exhaled through her mouth and repeated ten times, determined to clear her mind while stretching her limbs and increasing her blood flow.
But as she made the familiar comforting movements, her eyes drifted around the studio.
Everything that had been done to create this had been with one focus in mind—her needs. The light she needed. The height she needed. The space she needed. Nothing had been missed, nothing stinted on.
The music she had been stretching to came to an end and seconds later the opening bars to the Habanera from Carmen came on in its stead.
Freya paused as the wonderful score, with its seductive Spanish vibe, filled the studio.
The Habanera was the part where the immoral, wicked Carmen danced with such allure that Don José, the soldier about to arrest her, instead fell for the temptress and bedded her.
It was a most sensual of dances and, though she had danced it many times, Freya had never wriggled her shoulders at the start and imagined a real, flesh and blood man watching her and desiring her for real.
Had Carmen desired Don José when she had danced for him? Freya had always assumed not, thought of the dance as a trap to hook him in—one that obviously backfired considering he killed her at the end for loving another man—but now, as Benjamin’s features shone brightly in front of her, the dance moves coming back to her, she wondered if in the heat of the moment Carmen had felt desire for the man she used for her own ends.
Maybe that was all it was for her and Benjamin too, a desire born through circumstance that now, in Benjamin’s case, was spent.
She wished with all her heart that it were spent in herself too but it had only grown. Benjamin had made love to her and only now, as she made a series of jetés across the perfect floor, did she acknowledge the truth to herself that every part of her body ached for him to touch her and make love to her again.
She wished he were there with her right now, that she could pirouette to him and see that hunger in his eyes again.
* * *
Benjamin could hear music.
At first he’d thought he was imagining it but there was an echoing, haunting sound ringing through the chateau’s thick walls, usually so still and silent in the dead of night.
He looked up at the ceiling.
Freya’s studio was directly above his own quarters.
He closed his eyes.
He hadn’t slept well the night before. Two bad nights’ sleep had left him exhausted.
Three large Scotches in quick succession meant he should have passed out the moment his head hit the pillow but he couldn’t even shut his eyes without forcing them.
He opened them again and stared at the ceiling. The heavy beat of his heart echoed in his ears and he put a hand to his bare chest in an attempt to temper it.
All he wanted was to go to her. All he wanted was to haul her into his arms and make love to her, again and again.
He’d spent the day with her avoiding her gaze, knowing that to look into those black depths would pull him back into a place he needed to keep away from.
His head was a whirl of diverging thoughts but the one that flashed loudest was that he should never have married her. If he had known about her mother and her parents
’ situation he would have paid her off when she’d suggested it rather than tie her into this.
Wouldn’t he...?
Yes, he would have paid her off, he told himself forcefully. Freya hadn’t pledged herself to Javier for her own greedy benefit as he had assumed. None of it had been for herself.
Why wasn’t she sleeping? Her conscience was clear. There was nothing to stop her sleeping as sweetly as he had always been able to do.
But she was awake and dancing above him.
Freya needed to dance in the same way he needed air. There was still so much to learn about her but on the very essence of who she was he had no doubts.
Dieu, he ached to see her, hold her, kiss her, touch her...
She was all he had wanted since he had seen her that first time with the sunlight pouring onto her skin.
Benjamin had pulled his trousers back on and reached his bedroom door before even realising he was out of his bed.
With long strides he climbed the stairs and opened the door to her studio.
She was at the far side by the window, moving like a graceful blur to the beats of the music.
There was only the merest glint of surprise when she caught his eye in the reflection of the walled mirror but no pause or hesitation in her movements.
She continued to dance, contorting her body and creating shapes out of her legs and arms that appeared completely natural and effortless. She’d left her hair loose and it flew around her, spinning in a perfect wheel when she spun on pointe, all the while her eyes seeming to never leave his.
And he could not tear his eyes from her.
He had never, in his entire life, been witness to anything so beautiful or seductive.
Freya didn’t dance, she was dance; she was the emotion of the music brought to life. She was incredible.
Closer and closer she came, every fluid motion bringing her nearer to him until she jumped with her left leg fully extended and her right leg bent at the knee, creating the illusion of flight.
She landed a foot before him and sank into a bow.
Slowly she raised herself back up to stare at him with a stillness that was as elegant and stunning as her movement.
She didn’t speak.
He didn’t speak.
They just gazed at each other.
It felt as if her eyes were piercing right into his soul.
And then she flew at him.
At least that was how it seemed in the moment, that she had taken flight to throw her arms around his neck and her supple legs around his waist, holding and supporting herself around him without any effort.
Benjamin gazed at the perfection of her face for one more moment before all the pent-up desire and emotions inside him burst free.
Wrapping his arms tightly around her back, he crushed his lips to hers and was met with her matching hunger. Like two starving waifs finally being given a meal, they kissed greedily and possessively, his hands splaying and digging into her back, her fingers digging into the nape of his neck, fusing every part of their bodies together they could.
His arousal, a simmering feature of his life he had learned to endure since he’d stolen her out of the hotel and her hand had first slipped into the crook of his arm, burned. Everything in him burned, from the lava in his veins to the swirling molten heat of his skin.
From the heat of Freya’s kisses and the tightness of her legs around him, he knew it was the same for her too.
This was a need too great and too explosive to do anything but quench. The sensual music only added to the mixture, creating the most potent chemical cocktail that, now ignited, had only one possible outcome.
With nowhere to lay her down, Benjamin carried her effortlessly to the nearest wall and slammed her against it.
Slipping a hand up the skirt of her dress, which had bunched up against the top of her toned thighs, he found her bottom deliciously bare, and pressed his palm to the damp heat of her pubis.
She gasped into his mouth and pressed against him, unhooking an arm from his neck to drop it down to his waist and the band of his trousers.
Until she dug her hand into the opening, he hadn’t realised he hadn’t buttoned himself up. Like her, he was naked beneath the only item of clothing he wore. She caressed him, biting into his bottom lip with her teeth before sweeping her tongue back into his mouth and kissing him harder than ever.
He grabbed her hand with his and, together, they pulled him free. With no further restrictions, all that was left was to adjust their forms against the wall until he was there, fully hard and fully ready, and thrusting up into her welcome tightness.
There was no savouring of the moment, not from either of them. The instant he was fully inside her, Freya’s hand grabbed his buttocks and she was urging him on with her body and with mumbled, indecipherable words.
Their lovemaking had a primal, almost feral quality to it, he thought dimly as he thrust into her. Her nails now dug into his skin as she matched him, thrust for thrust, stroke for stroke, until the hand still on his neck suddenly grabbed at his hair and she cried out, every part of her clenching around him in a spasm that seemed to go on for ever and pulled him even tighter inside her and then he, too, could hold on no more and he let go as the most powerful climax of his life ripped through him.
* * *
Freya stretched out her leg and immediately her foot connected with something solid and warm and very, very human. Benjamin’s leg.
Her languid limbs wakened properly as all that had gone on between them through the night came back to her like a glorious cinematic masterpiece in her head.
The ghost dream had come to life. She had danced to her lover. She had danced for her lover.
Her lover.
How else could she describe him after they had come together like two people possessed?
After the explosion that had rocked them in his studio, he had carried her down to his bedroom and made love to her all over again.
And she had made love to him too.
The song birds were already singing the dawn chorus when they finally sated their hunger.
Incredibly, the familiar ache in her loins fired up again. The hunger hadn’t been sated, merely put to sleep.
She could handle this, she thought as she snuggled closer to him. A huge arm hooked around her and in an instant she was wrapped back in the wonderful comfort of Benjamin’s strong body, his warm skin smelling of them and the heat they had created between these sheets.
This was no big deal. This was merely two compatible people who happened to be married unlocking their desire for each other.
It didn’t mean anything. It didn’t affect anything. The rest of their contract would stay the same.
Nothing else would change because of it.
It couldn’t. She wouldn’t let it.
She would not let these wonderful feelings erupt into anything more.
The risks were far too great.
* * *
‘No, no, no, jeté to the left! Freya, concentrate!’
‘I’m sorry.’ Freya stopped moving and put her hands on her hips, leaning forward and breathing in deeply. She was exhausted. The rehearsal had started off badly and gone downhill from there. And it was all her fault.
Mikael, the dancer she was supposed to be jeté-ing to before pirouetting into his arms, glared at her. The four members of the corps de ballet merely looked embarrassed.
The harassed choreographer sighed. ‘Let’s take a fifteen-minute break. Come back with heads screwed on.’
Freya went straight to her dressing room. She drank some water and ate a banana, then went back to the studio determined to get it right.
The rest of the rehearsal was even worse. She couldn’t even get the basic footwork right and these were moves she had been doing since she was a small child. It was as if her feet no longer connected to her brain and her arms were made of modelling clay.
She returned to her apartment knowing one more bad rehearsal could mean her u
nderstudy being given the role of Vicky.
This was a role she had coveted for so long and she was in danger of losing it. Every dancer had a bad day but this had been a bad week, following on from a week that had been only marginally better.
Her dancing was deteriorating and she could not for the life of her think why.
She had one more day to get through and then she had a day off. If she could get through the next day’s rehearsals she would then have time away to recharge and refocus her mind.
She checked her phone as she ran a bath and found a message from her father, his daily update.
She read it and closed her eyes with the first smile to cross her lips all week.
At least here was some good news. Her mother had wiggled all the fingers of her left hand and hummed along to a song on the radio.
Her mood managed to lighten even more before plunging when her phone rang in her hand and Benjamin’s name flashed on the screen.
‘Bonsoir, ma douce.’ The rich seductiveness of his tone sent tingles of sensation curling across her spine.
‘Hi.’
‘Is everything okay?’ he asked.
‘Yes. All good.’
She would not admit her body was forgetting the basic dance moves that had been ingrained in her before she’d learned her times tables. As far as Benjamin was concerned, everything was fine.
He hated her being back in Madrid. It was a simple, mostly unspoken truth between them and she knew it was a proprietorial thing for him. Benjamin hated his wife working for his enemy.
And she hated it too. Mercifully, she hadn’t seen anything of Javier or Luis since she had arrived back to work but she found herself constantly on alert for them, which she knew was stupid as Javier especially rarely bothered to grace them with his presence.
Mercifully too, the new building the company had moved into, adjacent to the new theatre that was undergoing its finishing touches, meant her fellow dancers had been too busy exploring and comparing to bother with her. Freya jilting Javier for Benjamin was already old news. There had been the odd snide comment, of course, but the kind she had inured herself against over a decade ago. It grieved her deeply that Sophie had unexpectedly quit the company and returned to England but what she hated the most, and which she also would never admit, was that her mind was almost completely occupied with Benjamin.
Billionaire's Bride for Revenge (Billionaire?s Bride for Revenge) Page 13
