But he did look twice at Freya.
Freya was her oldest and closest friend, the reason for Sophie being in Madrid dancing for the company that had made Freya a star. Freya was beautiful. Freya was a dancer with the world at her pointe shoes, a dancer who stole the heart of everyone who watched her perform.
Sophie had never shared her feelings for Javier with Freya. It had been too personal and unlikely to share with anyone.
Javier’s marriage proposal and Freya’s acceptance of it had devastated her.
For months she had sat on her despondency, determined to support her oldest friend even if she did have grave misgivings about their forthcoming loveless marriage that had nothing to do with her own breaking heart. She even gamely agreed to be their bridesmaid.
Then, the week before they were due to exchange their vows, Freya had run off with Benjamin Guillem, leaving Javier for dust. A media frenzy had ensued.
Sophie had been trying to do a good deed when she’d gone to Javier’s home. She’d been packing Freya’s stuff for her from the flat they shared and had come across a copy of Freya and Javier’s prenuptial agreement and a file of other pertinent legal documents. Freya didn’t want them, so, not knowing what else to do, Sophie had decided the best thing would be to let Javier decide. She was pretty sure he wouldn’t want the documents to reach the public domain.
The day after Freya and Benjamin married, Sophie had braced herself and set off for Javier’s home.
His house was a secluded villa that more resembled a palace than a home. She’d had to speak into a camera before the electric gates had slowly opened and admitted her into his domain.
She remembered walking the long driveway, sick to her stomach with pain for him. He might not have loved Freya but he must be shattered that she had left him for his oldest friend and in such a public fashion too.
The whole world knew about it and had put the blame squarely on Javier’s shoulders without knowing even a basic fact—even she didn’t know a fact about it, Freya’s only communication being the one asking her to pack her belongings together—and was seeming to revel in portraying him as a monster in disguise. Sophie’s heart had twisted to hear the vile rumours about him.
Expecting a member of his household staff to open the front door for her, she had been surprised to find it opened by Javier himself.
What followed had been even more unexpected.
That was when she’d understood his ruthless reputation had been based on truth.
If he’d even given her a single thought since, he would have known she’d left his ballet company, left Madrid and returned to England. In the vain hope he would seek her out she had left her forwarding address on the company files. He could have found her without any effort if he had wanted to.
He hadn’t even noticed her absence from the stage that night.
She’d used those two months of silence to come to terms with the reality of her situation and get herself in an emotional place where she could face Javier again.
She would seek him out again tomorrow; seek him every single day until he was willing to have the conversation they so desperately needed to have.
Only when she was certain she could get back to her feet without her legs crumpling did she stand up, inhaling deeply.
Concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other, Sophie headed back the way she had come. The theatre’s wide corridors were almost deserted now.
When she reached the top of the ornate red-carpeted stairs that led down into the foyer, her heart skipped to see Javier striding up to her, his long legs taking the steps two at a time.
She held tightly onto the gold railing and stared at the emotionless, menacing face fixed on her.
When he reached the top, he inclined his head for her to follow him, leading her to a secluded section of the corridor.
He stopped walking and gazed down at her, breathing heavily through his nose.
‘Why now?’ He ran a hand through his hair. ‘Why did you choose tonight of all nights to tell me? Why not approach me in private?’
She kept her gaze steady on him. ‘Because after the way you treated me, I didn’t trust you would agree to see or speak to me.’
He had gone from blazing passion to ice-cold in the whisper of a second.
He had escorted her out of his home.
His face twisted. ‘You are carrying my child?’
How she kept her composure to answer him without bursting into tears she would never know. ‘Yes. We’re going to have a baby.’
CHAPTER TWO
HOT DARKNESS FILLED Javier’s head, swimming like a blood-red fog through him.
He’d known the moment Sophie had come into focus why she was there but his already overwhelmed brain had fought to deny it.
He was going to be a father.
But the mother wasn’t the perfect woman he had sought to bear his children but this waif-like creature who had ignited something in him that should never have been allowed to breathe.
He wanted children. He and his treacherous brother had adopted their mother’s surname the moment they could legally dump their father’s and he wanted to carry that name on to the next generation.
He’d waited his entire adult life for the perfect woman to come along and bear him those children.
Freya had been that woman. Beautiful, coldly perfect Freya, who would have given him beautiful, perfect children and who had not elicited the smallest glimmer of desire in him and shown no desire for him either. Perfection in all ways.
Javier knew the danger of passion. His orphaned state was living proof of those dangers.
The dangerous blood that had swirled in his father lived in his own veins too. It pumped hot and strong inside him, a living thing he was reminded of every time he looked in a mirror.
He should never have allowed Sophie, this warm-blooded, sensitive creature, to come anywhere within his orbit.
She sighed and pulled a business card from the small black bag she carried. She held it out to him with those tiny fingers that had caused such mayhem to his skin when she had touched him.
‘This is the hotel I’m staying at,’ she said quietly. ‘Take the time to process what’s happening and then come and find me when you’re ready to talk.’
‘What is there to talk about?’ he asked roughly, not taking the card, not willing to risk touching her in any way.
He knew what he had to do. There was no point in wasting air discussing what was a foregone conclusion.
He’d walked away from her with his head reeling and the weight of the world crashing down on him. He’d intended to work all the stress out and bring himself to a point where he could trust himself to have this difficult conversation without exploding.
He’d got as far as his car when the implications had really hit him and he’d known that to leave her there would make him as big a monster as the world believed him to be.
‘We’re having a baby, Javier. I would say there’s a lot to talk about.’
‘Not for me there isn’t. If you’re carrying my child then there’s only one thing that needs to be decided on and that’s the date of our wedding.’
She blinked. ‘You are willing to marry me?’
‘My child will bear my name and if you want any kind of financial support from me then you will agree to it.’
Sophie was naïve. Damn her, she’d been a virgin, a fact she had neglected to mention when they’d been ripping each other’s clothes off.
If she had any illusions about him or their future relationship let her have them dispelled now. If she didn’t already know what kind of a man he was—and his failure to seek her out in any form these past few months must have given her some clue—then let her know now.
She would never know it but he was doing her a kindness.
To his surpr
ise, a small smile curved her pretty lips. ‘You don’t have to threaten me. I want us to marry.’
That took him aback. ‘You do?’
Her throat moved as she nodded.
He laughed, a guttural sound that grated to his own ears. For all her naivety and surface sweetness, Sophie was already making the financial calculations of how being his wife would significantly improve her bank account.
But there was no returning laugh from Sophie. Her eyes did not flicker or leave his face. ‘Our child is innocent. It did not choose to be conceived. It deserves to know and be wanted by both its parents.’
He made no attempt to hide his cynicism. ‘If that is true then why wait so long to tell me? You must have known for weeks.’
He was no pregnancy expert but he had studied biology at school and knew the ways a woman’s body worked.
‘I knew within a week,’ she said steadily. ‘I could feel changes happening inside me. I took the test the day after my period was due, so I have known for certain for six weeks. Technically I’m ten weeks pregnant as the due date is taken from the date of my last period. I waited before telling you because I needed my head to be in the right place before I faced you again.’
‘Did you have to research the best ways to leverage cash from the situation?’ he mocked brutally. He had never met a woman who didn’t have cash signs ringing in her eyes.
Having more money than he could spend in a thousand lifetimes was good for many things but leverage was its greatest gift. He’d used his wealth to buy Freya and she, the coldly perfect prima ballerina that she was, had been happy to be purchased. It was what had made her so ideal for him. ‘Is that why you have set your path on marriage to me?’
But, again, there was no flicker in Sophie’s pale blue eyes. ‘I want nothing but what is best for our child.’
From the corner of his eye he saw two security guards approach. They would be making a sweep of the theatre before locking up for the night; the aftershow party taking place in a basement conference room.
If there was one thing Javier despised it was people knowing his business. His family had been fodder for the world’s consumption since before his birth.
He might still be trying to process that he was going to be a father but already he knew that he would do whatever it took to protect his child.
Rubbing his jaw, he took a deep breath. ‘Whatever you say your motives are, our unborn child is the only thing that matters.’
‘Yes,’ she interjected softly.
‘It is late. This is something that needs to be discussed when we have fresh minds. I have had an incredibly difficult day.’ She couldn’t begin to understand how difficult it had been. ‘My driver will take you to your hotel. Get some sleep. You look tired.’
That made her eyes flicker.
‘I’ll have you brought to me in the morning,’ he continued, now walking back to the stairs. He kept his eyes focussed straight ahead of him, no longer wishing to look at the woman who had just detonated a bomb into his already turbulent life.
The bomb was of his own making, he accepted grimly. He was the damn fool who had failed to use a condom for the first and only time in his life.
He was the fool who’d invited her into his home.
Their baby was the consequence of that foolhardiness and, as Sophie had already pointed out, an innocent in all of this.
She remained silent as she kept pace beside him, silent all the way down the stairs and through the foyer. Only when they reached the exit door did she turn to him and say, ‘What time will your driver collect me in the morning?’
‘Arrange that with him.’ He stepped out into the warm night air and strode to his waiting driver.
‘Take Miss Johnson to her hotel,’ he said, then, without a word of goodbye or a second glance at her, set off for his home.
He could feel Sophie’s gaze upon him but kept his sight fixed ahead, increasing his pace.
As he power-walked the three miles to his home, the memories he’d spent two months suppressing came back to him with crystal clarity.
He’d woken that fateful day to the news Freya and Benjamin had married and a barrage of hate mail. Someone had leaked his personal email address online and keyboard warriors had had an excellent time aiming their poisoned ire at him. So angry had he been that he’d dismissed his household staff for the day.
His rage was best kept private. It was safer that way. For everyone.
And then his intercom had rung and he’d looked through the monitor to see Sophie standing there, a thick folder in her arms, which, she had claimed over the intercom, contained private documents of his.
He’d recognised her immediately. Freya’s dance colleague and flatmate. The wallflower who had never met his eye on the few occasions he’d been in her presence. If anyone had inside information on Freya and Benjamin’s treachery that he could use to his advantage it would be her.
It had been a baking summer’s day. She’d been dressed in a thin pale grey shirt dress, her long light blonde hair tied in a loose plait. When she’d removed enormous sunglasses to speak to him and fixed huge pale blue eyes on him, he’d seen compassion shining from them.
Not once in his adult life had he stared anyone in the eye and not seen a glimmer of fear shine back at him. Grown men, titans of industry and power brokers would shake his hand with a nervous laugh; glamorous, self-confident women would give him the come-to-bed eyes with excitement-laced fear.
This young English woman, a petite ballerina with the appearance of a waif, had turned up at his home and displayed not an ounce of fright.
The rage that had been bubbling so furiously inside him had suddenly reduced.
She had given him the sweetest, most sympathetic smile he’d ever been on the receiving end of. ‘How are you holding up?’ she’d asked softly.
In the week since Benjamin had stolen Freya from him, Sophie was the first person to have asked him that. The most he’d received from his twin had been a stoical slap to the shoulder.
He’d invited her in, made her a coffee, led her to the dining room, sat beside her at the huge table with the documents between them and quizzed her.
When she’d professed her innocence in the matter of Freya and Benjamin, he’d been surprised to find he believed her.
This belief had disconcerted him.
She had disconcerted him with those non-judgemental eyes and her subtle yet obvious compassion.
He’d found himself trying to get a rise out of her, asking if she’d read the documents, making it sound like an accusation.
She’d been unfazed and unabashed. She’d nodded and said, ‘Yes, I read through them with Freya. I won’t be sharing them with anyone, so don’t worry.’
‘You won’t share the details with the media?’ he’d asked cynically.
‘If I wanted to share anything with them I would have done so by now. They’ve been camped outside my apartment block all week.’
Something had crept into his veins at that, something he’d never felt before.
That this petite young thing should be harassed with no one there to protect her had set the anger boiling again.
Of course, he knew her waif-like frame belied a physical strength all ballerinas had but that didn’t change what his eyes saw when he looked at her.
Dios, he’d been unable to tear his eyes from her. He had never seen such naturally pink rosebud lips before...
A new kind of tension had sparked to life.
Sophie’s eyes had kept flickering to him, then darting away, pretty colour flushing across her pretty cheeks.
She really was incredibly pretty. How had he not noticed it before...?
He’d found himself leaning closer to her, catching a whiff of a light, floral perfume that had delighted his senses.
‘Speaking with the media would boost
your profile,’ he’d pointed out.
A burst of antipathy had glittered in her eyes. ‘I don’t care. I’m not going to add to the frenzy and make things worse for you.’
Again, he’d found himself believing her but also curious...
Worse for him?
She didn’t even know him.
Professional dancers spent their lives fighting to get to the top and when you were as driven as that any advantage for name recognition would be snatched upon. His own mother had been shameless in her quest for media attention.
Sophie had ducked her head and refused to answer questions even when it would have seen her face plastered over the tabloids as a bit player in the biggest scandal Spain—indeed, most of Europe—had had for years.
What was her agenda? Everyone had one, so what was hers? Why go out of her way for him?
He’d leaned even closer and dropped his voice to a murmur. ‘Why are you here?’
The colour already staining her cheeks had darkened, the pale blue eyes darkening with it. It had been the most beguiling sight.
She had cleared her throat, the pink rosebud lips opening and closing as if she were trying to get out words that did not want to be revealed.
It was sheer impulse that had led him to kiss those lips.
What happened next had been utter madness.
Javier increased his pace and inhaled the Madrid autumn night air deeply to counteract the blood thickening all over again at the vivid memories.
She had kissed him back.
And then he had hauled her out of her chair and into his arms.
For a few brief moments all his torment and anger had been dispelled and forgotten.
Sophie’s kisses had been the sweetest he had ever tasted and instantly addictive.
Desire like nothing he had ever experienced had pulsed through him. Heady, hungry and utterly consuming.
He tried to throw the memories off him now, not wanting to remember any more, disgusted with himself for the manner in which he’d used her hot, willing body.
Billionaire's Baby of Redemption Page 2
