Billionaire's Bride for Revenge (Billionaire?s Bride for Revenge)

by Michelle Smart

An edge crept into her voice. ‘But who approached who?’

  ‘I called him.’

  ‘Did you call him with the intention of pimping me out?’

  Anger, already simmering in his guts, cut through him. He controlled it. Just. ‘Having a conversation to get my wife a better deal with a better company is hardly pimping.’

  She leaned forward ever so slightly. ‘And who are you to say what is a better deal for me? Or which is the better company?’

  ‘You are a dancer whose star is in the ascendancy. This move will help you reach the pinnacle that much more quickly.’

  ‘And how will it look when people find out I only got the job thanks to my husband being part of the old boys’ network with the director?’

  ‘I don’t know that term but I can guess what it means, and no one is going to think that because it is not true.’

  ‘Did you not listen to a single word I just said? Everything I have achieved has been on my own merits and I have worked my toes into stumps to get where I am, without any help. What makes you think I need help with my career now? And who the hell do you think you are, interfering like this?’

  ‘Interfering?’ He was taken aback at her venom. ‘I am your husband. It is my job to look out for you.’

  ‘It is not. My career is entirely separate to our marriage and you have overstepped the mark hugely.’

  How he kept his temper he would never know. ‘I am sorry you feel I have overstepped your invisible mark but I am sick of living in a separate country to my wife. I am your husband. You married me and took my name. I have an apartment in Paris. Take the job and we can live there when you are working and have a proper marriage.’

  There. His cards were on the table.

  He stared hard at her waiting for her to respond.

  ‘It’s not an invisible mark. It’s in the contract we both signed. No interference in my career.’ Her voice contained the slightest of tremors.

  ‘If you want us to stick to the contract then answer this—if I were to take advantage of the clause that said I could take a mistress, how would it make you feel?’

  Her face turned the colour of chalk. Her throat moved numerous times before she whispered, ‘I wouldn’t try to stop you.’

  ‘I didn’t ask if you would try to stop me. I asked how it would make you feel.’

  ‘I would accept it.’

  ‘Accept it?’ he sneered.

  ‘I signed up for a marriage that allows us both to live an independent life and I don’t want to change any of it. If I move to Paris it will be because that’s what’s right for my career.’ She took a long sip of champagne and blew out a long puff of air before saying, ‘I do appreciate you thinking of me. I will speak to the director of Orchestre National de Paris but I’m not going to make any promises. My career comes first, you already know that.’

  Wishing he hadn’t chosen to drive, Benjamin jerked a nod.

  Why had he thought the outcome of this conversation would be any different?

  His own parents had both put him second to their needs. Why should he think his wife would be any different?

  * * *

  The drive back to his chateau was a far more muted affair than the drive to the restaurant, hardly a word exchanged between them.

  Twenty minutes after they’d left, right on cue, Freya had fallen asleep. A minute after that, her head fell onto his shoulder and stayed there for the final eight miles.

  Benjamin had put the roof back up before setting off and, without the wind to drive it away, her sultry scent filled the enclosed space cocooning them. It was a scent that slowly worked its way into his senses and pushed out the anger that had gripped him at her uncompromising attitude.

  As he brought the Buick to a stop, her face made a movement and then she opened her eyes.

  She didn’t look surprised to find her head resting on his shoulder.

  ‘I fell asleep again,’ she whispered, making no attempt to move away from him.

  ‘You did.’

  Her black eyes stayed on his, darkening and swirling. And then she did move, shifting slightly to bring her face closer to his and to brush her lips against his...

  Much later, naked and replete in her arms, Benjamin reflected that if fantastic sex was the most he got out of this marriage then he would be a luckier man than most.

  If Freya wanted to stick to the exact letter of that damned contract, then so be it. From now on he would stick to the damned thing too.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEEN

  FREYA WANTED TO scream until all the fear and frustration that held her in its grip was ripped from her.

  She settled on crawling into a ball in the corner of the living room and rocking.

  She’d thought she’d cracked the role of Vicky.

  That afternoon she had walked into the practice room to overhear a seething Mikael shouting at the choreographer that he would not ‘partner someone who cares so little for the dance’.

  ‘We can’t replace her,’ the choreographer had replied with the exasperation of someone who had already had that conversation. ‘Her face is everywhere. The opening night is a sell-out because of her.’

  ‘She is a terrible dancer.’

  ‘Usually she is the best...’

  And then they had noticed her standing at the door, aghast at what she had just heard.

  ‘Freya...’ the choreographer had begun, but Mikael had cut him off to barge past her saying loudly for anyone passing to hear, ‘You find your dancing feet or you find a new partner. I will not be associated with this crap.’

  She couldn’t even blame him. She would feel the same if she were lumbered with a partner who had lost all co-ordination and couldn’t remember the simplest moves in their dances.

  In her studio at the chateau she was foot-perfect.

  She did know the dances. She knew the whole choreography for the whole production. She just could not translate what was in her head to her feet.

  So frightened had she become about it that she’d paid a private doctor to test her for the cruel disease slowly killing her mother.

  The fast-tracked results had come back negative.

  Whatever was wrong with her was psychological not physiological.

  The problem was in her head.

  Impulse had her leaping to her feet and flying to her phone.

  She would call Benjamin,

  Since she had virtually ruined their evening out together by reminding him of the terms of their contract, his daily calls when she was in Madrid had reduced to nothing.

  She hadn’t meant to anger him but he was breaking the terms of their contract, interfering when he had no business to.

  That interference had terrified her but not half as much as his reasons for it had.

  He knew she couldn’t give him a marriage of true spouses. He’d never wanted a true marriage either. This was a marriage he had backed her into a corner to wed herself to and now he was trying to change all the rules. She had given him her name. She had given him her body when she had never thought she would give that to anyone. Hadn’t he taken enough already?

  Why did he have to push things when the career she kept such tight control of was already spinning away from her faster than she could pirouette? And to threaten to take a mistress...?

  She would not think about that.

  But he had called her the other morning as she’d been locking her apartment door to go to work, checking if she would be available to accompany him to a business dinner on her next days off.

  She’d found the mere sound of his beautiful voice soothing and that morning’s practice had been the best of the whole week.

  ‘Is something the matter?’ he asked without preamble when he answered.

  ‘No,’ she denied automatically. ‘What makes you ask?’

  ‘You have never called me before.’

  ‘Oh. I just wanted...’ To hear your voice. ‘To check what I should wear to your business dinner.’

  ‘I would n
ever presume to tell you what to wear, ma douce. Come dressed as Carabosse if you want.’

  She disconnected the call with ice in her veins.

  Carabosse was the wicked fairy godmother in The Sleeping Beauty.

  * * *

  The faint sound of music seeped through the ceiling and into Benjamin’s office.

  It was a sound that wrenched at him, the sound of his wife under his roof but hidden away from him.

  On the nights they were together she made love to him with abandon but the days they were apart she treated him with indifference. She never called him or messaged him or made any effort to keep in touch. Her one call to him had been for advice on an outfit. As if he knew anything about women’s fashion.

  He knew his reaction had been harsh but when he’d seen her name flash up on his phone for the first time in almost seven weeks of marriage, he’d been gripped by fear for her.

  Why else would she call unless there was something wrong?

  His wife wanted him for two things. Money for her family and sex for herself. As a husband he was surplus to requirements, a fact he was finding harder to deal with as time passed rather than easier.

  Come the morning she would be up and showered by six, ready to return to her life in Madrid, the life she refused to include him in.

  It should not smart. This was what he’d signed up for. Two separate lives.

  But it did.

  There was a tap on his office door.

  Immediately he straightened in his chair and pressed a key on his computer to spring the unused screen back to life.

  ‘Entrez.’

  To his surprise, it was his wife who stepped inside.

  ‘Do you have a minute?’ she asked quietly.

  She was wearing the black practice dress she’d worn when he had made love to her in her studio for the first time. Hair had sprung free from the loose bun she had pulled it back into, her whole appearance more dishevelled than he had ever seen her be.

  The usual stab of lust filled his loins to know that beneath her dress she was completely naked...

  He gritted his teeth and turned his attention to his computer screen. ‘One moment.’

  He used the time to compose himself.

  Freya had never graced his office with her presence before.

  ‘What can I do for you?’ he asked after making her wait a little longer than was strictly necessary.

  She had taken the opportunity to perch herself on his leather sofa, leaning forward with her elbows on her thighs and her hands clasped together.

  ‘I want to ask you a favour.’

  ‘Then ask.’

  The black eyes held his before her shoulders dropped and she said, ‘I know this is a big ask but will you come to the opening performance on Saturday?’

  ‘I would rather swim with sharks than set foot in a theatre owned by those two bastards.’

  ‘I know you would. I’m not asking this lightly but I could really do with the support.’

  He made sure to keep his tone amiable. ‘Show me where in the contract it says I have to support you in any way that isn’t financial and I will abide by it.’

  ‘I didn’t have to go to your business dinner last week.’

  ‘That is hardly the same thing.’

  ‘Please. Benjamin, this is the biggest night of my life.’

  ‘If it is support you require, Javier will be there. I am sure he will be glad to lend his support to you.’

  ‘I would rather swim with sharks than have his support,’ she said with a shaky laugh, her words clearly intended as a joke to defuse the tension filling the office.

  It had the opposite effect.

  ‘And how would I know that?’ he asked silkily.

  Her brow furrowed. ‘Know what?’

  He drummed his fingers on his desk. ‘That you wouldn’t want his support. I know nothing of your life outside this chateau. I know nothing of what you do in Madrid. You keep me excluded from it.’

  ‘There’s nothing to tell. I go to work, I come home. That’s it. That’s my life in Madrid.’

  ‘I only have your word for that.’

  The furrow turned into grooves. ‘What are you implying?’

  ‘You’re a clever woman. You can work it out.’

  Comprehension glinted in her eyes. ‘You’re being ridiculous. Do I cross-examine you about your life when we’re apart?’

  ‘I spent weeks hoping you would and now I find I do not care that you don’t. You are happy to take my money and share my bed but God forbid I want to spend time with you outside our contracted hours or deviate from that contract in any form whatsoever. I had few expectations of what our marriage would be like and the reality is beyond the lowest of them. You are uncompromising and selfish.’

  Her mouth dropped open, angry colour staining her face and neck. ‘You have the nerve to call me selfish when you stole me from another man out of revenge?’

  ‘That man and his brother stole over two hundred million euros from me.’ The reins of his temper he’d been clinging to finally snapped and he got to his feet, put his hands on his desk and glowered at her. ‘You know exactly what they did and now you want me to spend a night under the same roof as them?’

  Her entire frame shook, her fingers grasping the material of her dress as if she would rip it to pieces. ‘No, I want you to support me. I want you to put your selfish, vindictive nature to one side for one night and be there for me.’

  ‘Why do you want my support?’ he sneered. ‘You don’t even want my company. When you’re here on your days off you hide yourself away in that damned studio for hours on end.’

  ‘I’m spending hours in there because right now it’s the only place I can dance in and remember what I’m supposed to be doing!’ Her voice had risen in pitch and she dropped her hold on her dress to clutch at the bundle of hair on the back of her head. ‘My dance has gone to pot. My partner hates me, the choreographer is about to have a nervous breakdown and for some reason this chateau is the only place I find my body doing what it’s supposed to do. I’m not hiding away from you up there. I’m trying to turn off the noise in my head. I’m terrified that on Saturday night I’m going to step onto the stage and find my feet turned to lead. I’m fighting for my career and you’re calling me selfish when all I’m asking is for you to put your vendetta to one side for one night and be there for me. You owe me, Benjamin.’

  ‘I do not owe you anything. How long has your dance been suffering?’

  ‘Since I went back to Madrid.’

  He stared at her, his heart hardening to stone. ‘That’s over six weeks. You didn’t bother to share any of your worries with me before so why should I care now?’

  The coil that had been stretching and stretching the longer this awful conversation had gone on finally snapped and with it the last of Freya’s dignity.

  Jumping to her feet, she yanked the ruffle holding her bun in place and threw it onto the floor.

  ‘You should care because this is all your fault!’ she shouted. ‘You’ve done this to me. You!’

  ‘How am I responsible for your failure to remember your moves?’

  ‘Because you are! You wanted to know why I was a virgin? Well, this is why! It was the last thing of myself that I could keep for myself, the only thing that wasn’t public property. I saw how passion and sex worked, the jealousy and the bitterness, how some dancers threw away their careers because they became blinded and I was scared to open myself up to that. I’ve worked too hard and my family have made too many sacrifices for me to allow emotions into my life that would distract me from my dance but I had no idea how bad it could be. You’ve got in my head and I can’t get you out and it’s affecting everything! I can only remember the moves properly when I’m here in the chateau with you. If I’m going to have any chance of getting through the performance on Saturday I need...’

  ‘Ask someone else,’ he cut in coldly.

  ‘There is no one else!’ Fat tears sprang out of her
eyes. ‘I’m scared, Benjamin. I know you think I’m uncompromising but I don’t know how to be any other way. It’s the only way I’ve been able to survive this life. I’m not good at asking for help but I’m asking you because...’

  Freya took a deep breath and finally spoke the truth of what lived in her heart, a truth that no amount of denial or putting her fingers in her ears to drown out the noise could deny any longer. ‘I need you, Benjamin. I need you. Just you. Even if Mum and Dad and Sophie could all be there I would still need you. So please, I am begging you, for one night, please, put your vendetta aside and be there for me.’

  The tightness of his jaw softened, the tight white line he’d pulled his lips into loosening.

  And then Freya looked into his eyes and found nothing but enmity.

  ‘Non.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘Non. I will not be used as an emotional crutch. If it is physical support to retain the dance moves you require I suggest you speak to your choreographer about getting help. If it is emotional support you need then you will have the entire audience on your side and willing you to do well, but I will not be there and I will not be a part of it.’

  He spoke as if discussing how to repair a broken car.

  The tears that had leaked out of her eyes dried up as comprehension struck home.

  Just as she had finally accepted her feelings for him had gone way beyond her control came the stark truth. She had only ever been a tool for him to hurt Javier with.

  He didn’t care about her.

  Her heart splintering into a thousand pieces, fury suddenly cut through the agony and she was filled with the need to hurt him back, to see those stony features flinch and make him feel a fraction of her pain; pain that he’d caused.

  Right then she hated him more than she’d thought it was possible to hate a living being.

  ‘How many times have you asked me if I would have preferred to have married Javier? I can tell you the answer now. I wish I had married him. At least I knew he was a cold emotionless bastard from the off.’

  But he didn’t flinch. There was not a flicker of emotion to be seen in the icy eyes staring back at her.

  He lowered himself back into his seat and folded his arms across his chest.