And then they did move. ‘I’m here legitimately. I was given a ticket.’
‘I’m not here to question your legitimacy.’ He took Maria’s vacated seat and rolled his shoulders.
Chloe pushed her chair back, away from him. ‘Then why are you here? I assume you’ve been looking for me.’
‘I saw you from my seat.’
‘I saw you too. You looked very cosy. Have you abandoned your date?’
‘I don’t have a date,’ he said, confused.
She raised her brow and pursed her lips.
Then he understood who she meant and gave a hollow laugh. ‘The women who sat with us are members of the royal family. We invited them to share our box out of courtesy. There is nothing in it.’
‘I wouldn’t care if there was.’
But he recognised the look he’d seen fleetingly on her face from the times he had mentioned Marietta, before she had realised Marietta was nearly ninety years old. It was the first time he recognised that look as jealousy.
That jealousy allowed him to breathe a little more easily.
‘How have you been?’ he asked.
‘I’ve been having a great time in London, thank you.’
‘London?’
‘Yes. I’ve been there since I left the Caribbean and I’m flying back there in the morning. Now, did you seek me out to make small talk or was there a purpose to it?’
‘Have mercy on me, bonita. I know I don’t deserve it but allow me the small talk. What I have to say is hard for me. I need to build up to it.’
She looked at her watch.
Was he imagining it or did it look loose on her wrist?
Had she lost weight?
‘My cab is collecting me in thirty minutes. I will need ten minutes to get to the front, which gives you twenty minutes to say what you need to say.’
‘I can give you a lift to wherever you want to go.’ Hopefully home with him.
Unmoved, she looked again at her watch and said pointedly, ‘Twenty minutes.’
He nodded and took a deep breath. ‘Okay. Did you get the reference?’
‘Yes. Thank you for arranging that. I assume you authorised it?’
‘I did. And now I would like you to rip it up and return to Madrid.’
‘You want me to come back and work for you?’
‘No, I want you to come back and be my wife.’
There was a moment of silence before a grin broke out on her face. It didn’t meet her eyes and there was no humour in it. ‘You really are a comedian.’
He cursed under his breath. ‘I am not being funny, bonita. I want you to marry me.’
‘And I am not being funny either, but if you call me bonita one more time I will pour the contents of the bottle over your head.’ The fake smile dropping, she got to her feet. ‘Excuse me but I don’t have time for any more of your games.’
He managed to take hold of her hand before she could snatch it away.
‘Please, sit down. I’m not playing games. I know I am doing this all wrong but I have never told someone I love them before.’
Her eyes widened, a pulse ringing through them before she blinked all expression out of them.
Snatching her hand from his, she said, ‘I thought Javier was the cruel one.’
‘He is cruel,’ Luis agreed sombrely. ‘Our childhoods screwed with our heads. He has to live with seeing our father’s reflection every time he looks in the mirror.’
‘And how did it screw with yours?’
‘I have to live with seeing the reflection my father hated.’
She studied him in silence then carefully sat back down. ‘I have to live with seeing the reflection my father didn’t want every day,’ she said slowly.
He couldn’t tell if she was relaying this as a fact or to empathise. Her usually melodious tones were flatter than he had ever heard them.
‘I know you do. How you have turned into such a vivacious and loving woman is inspiring. You could be bitter with the world but you’re not. People like you.’
‘People like you too,’ she pointed out.
‘They like my money. They like the parties I host and the presents I give. I’ve had to buy my friendships.’
Something flickered in her eyes. ‘That’s not true. You’ve always been a fun person to be around.’
‘I like to have fun,’ he conceded. ‘But I am talking of real friendship. You and Benjamin are the only people other than my brother that I have been able to let my guard down with.’
‘Because you have known us all your life?’
‘With Benjamin, yes. We grew up together. He knew me before the nightmare, but you were just a child then and remained a child in my eyes until you came to Madrid and I suddenly saw the beautiful, vibrant woman you had become. I looked at you with brand-new eyes and I fell in love, and I never even knew it. I ended our date filled with emotions I can’t explain because I have never felt them before, and then everything blew up with your brother and you, rightly, didn’t want to know me any more. Through all the litigation we were going through, you were always there in my mind. I couldn’t stop thinking about you. When you called me to say you had broken down in the mountains... Dios, I have never driven so fast in my life. To learn it had been a trick to get me away from the gala...ah, bonita, I was furious—please don’t pour the wine over me—but my revenge was never focused where it should have been, on your brother, but on you.’
He paused for breath and gave a shake of his head. ‘Javier says I lost my mind insisting that you married me and now I can see that he was right. Of course, back then I didn’t see it—in truth, it’s only becoming clear to me now as I say it to you.’
‘Truth?’ she said with only the slightest hint of cynicism. ‘You’re saying you kidnapped me and blackmailed me because you love me? Do you have any idea how screwed up that sounds?’
He ran a hand through his hair. ‘Don’t you know by now that I am a screw-up?’
‘Then explain this. If you did all that because you love me, why did you end it so cruelly?’
‘I was scared,’ he replied simply. ‘What I felt for you was like nothing I had ever felt for anyone. It scared the hell out of me. And I was scared that you were falling in love with me, scared that if you fell much harder you would see me too clearly.’
‘I did see you clearly,’ she said slowly. ‘I always did. Even when I hated you I understood you. I understood you more when I learned about your relationship with your father. In many ways we are kindred spirits, two children longing for love from a parent who refused to give it. I fell in love with you when I was seventeen years old. I dreamed of marrying you...and then I grew up and learned the truth of my conception and had to come to terms with my father...’ She took her own deep breath. ‘But you know all this. I confided it in you. I had never told a soul. No one knew. It was too raw and too personal but I entrusted it with you.’
‘You were in love with me all that time?’ he asked in dazed disbelief.
‘All that time.’ Her smile was sad. ‘You were there for all of us when we most needed you. You made my mother smile on the days she was so ill and so low from her treatment that she could hardly lift her head. You brought joy to all our lives and then on the day we buried her, when I so desperately needed someone to hold onto, you were there to hold me up and give me the strength to keep going. Of course I fell in love with you. Over the years I thought my love for you had...not died but been put aside with all my other childish things. And then I saw you again in Madrid and all my old feelings for you erupted.
‘When Benjamin told me about the contract it broke my heart. I couldn’t understand how you could be there for us during the worst time of our lives and at the same time conspire against us. Of course, I know differently now and as soon as I accepted that I had been wrong, my love for you... Luis,
it never died. It’s always been with me.’
He sighed. He couldn’t hide it from her, not now that he knew the truth. ‘Javier did know.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘When he didn’t warn your brother about the change in the profit terms... It was a deliberate act. He didn’t forget.’
‘I know that.’
Unsure if he understood her correctly, he clarified, ‘You know? How?’
She shrugged. ‘Benjamin was adamant he mentioned the terms of profit on the night it was signed and that nothing was said to the contrary. That’s why he felt so betrayed and why I felt so betrayed. If it wasn’t said to you it must have been Javier.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘You are not your brother. And he’s paid for his deception. I’m sorry you were dragged into it.’
‘Don’t be. I kept my mouth shut for seven years and ignored the nagging voice that told me Javier’s actions had been deliberate.’
‘I can’t say I wouldn’t have done the same if I had been in your shoes. What you two have lived through together...’ Her sigh was heavy as she got to her feet and looked at her watch. ‘He’s your brother. Your loyalty is to him. I understand that. I always have.’
As she headed to the door, he suddenly realised what she was doing and stood, kicking his chair back so forcefully it fell onto its side.
‘Where are you going?’
‘To my cab. I’m already running late for it.’
‘You’re leaving?’
She closed her eyes and nodded.
‘But...’ He groped for words, unable to comprehend this turn of events, not after the heartfelt exchange they’d just had that had alternately ripped his soul from him and cleansed it.
‘I told you I would be getting a cab, Luis,’ she said softly. ‘I’m sorry. I can’t marry you.’
She could not be serious. Please, God, do not let her be serious. ‘You just told me that you love me.’
‘I do love you but it’s not enough. Don’t you understand?’
‘No,’ he answered flatly, walking over to her, trying his hardest to quell the rising panic in his chest. Putting his hand on the nape of her neck, he brought his forehead to hers. ‘I love you, you love me, what else is there to understand? You are my heart. Do you understand that? I have spent the past six weeks feeling as if something inside me has died and it was only when I saw you in the audience tonight that I realised what was wrong with me. You were what’s wrong. I love you, more than anything or anyone.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she repeated, blinking frantically. She slipped out of his hold and wrapped her finger around the door handle. ‘Please don’t come any closer. I’m sorry. You hurt me too much. I’ve been in agony without you and have only just patched myself back together. I can’t go through that again. I love you but I don’t trust that you won’t break my heart again. Forgive me.’
Ready to argue some more, to fight, to make every promise that would make her see sense, Luis caught the look in her eyes and closed his mouth.
What little fight was left in him vanished.
The pain he saw reflecting back at him was too acute to argue with.
He could gift-wrap his heart for her and she wouldn’t believe it.
Their eyes stayed locked together, a thousand emotions passing between them before she gave a small nod of her head, raised her shoulders and walked out of the room.
Slumping against the door, Luis listened to the click-clack of her shoes fade away to nothing.
And then he fell to the floor and buried his face in his hands, every wretched part of him feeling as if it were being pulled through every circle of Dante’s hell.
* * *
Chloe walked as fast as she dared on heels she was unpractised in walking in.
She tried to text the cab driver to let her know she was on her way but her fingers were all over the place.
All she had to do was get to the front entrance, get in her cab and get to her hotel. Three simple things easily achieved, or they would be if her feet and fingers would work properly.
In the morning she would fly back to London and complete the application form for the New York ballet company.
That was all she allowed herself to focus on. She would not think of the man she had just left behind.
An usher, who was shrugging a coat on, saw her approach and stepped in front of her. ‘Is everything all right, miss?’
‘Everything’s fine. Why do you ask?’
The usher looked embarrassed. ‘You’re crying.’
‘I am?’ Putting a hand to her face, Chloe was horrified to find it wet with tears.
‘Can I get you something? A coffee? Something stronger?’
‘No, no, I need to get to my cab.’ As she spoke her phone buzzed. It was the cab driver telling her she had five minutes to get to her or she would have to leave for her next job.
Panic now setting in, Chloe put a hand on the usher for support and leaned down to pull her heels off.
Shoes in one hand, phone clutched in the other, she set off at a run.
Had she thought the theatre’s corridors wide when she’d arrived earlier? Now they seemed to have shrunk, the sides pressing closer and closer to her.
She picked up speed as she spotted the staircase, and kept close to the side as she ran down steps that seemed to go on and on, winding and winding, the exit so near and yet so far.
As soon as she reached the bottom she sprinted, running as fast as she had ever run in her life, the people she streamed past nothing but blurs.
Everything was a blur.
But still she ran until the warm night air hit her face and she was outside.
The cab driver, the same woman who had dropped her off hours before, tooted.
Doubling over as the first signs of a stitch set in, Chloe hobbled to the car, gasping for air.
Hand on the passenger door, she went to open it but then found her fingers still refusing to work.
The driver wound the window down and said something to her. It was nothing but noise to Chloe’s ears, that distant sound of interference like a car radio going through a tunnel.
She spun around and stared up at the magnificent theatre, the name ‘Compania de Ballet de Casillas’ proudly embossed in gold leaf around the silhouette of a dancer in motion above the entrance door.
The Casillas Ballet Company. Named after the beloved mother of two boys whose life had been so cruelly taken at the hands of their father, her own husband.
A ballet company bought to keep her memory alive, a state-of-the-art theatre, dance school and facilities created from nothing to showcase the best that ballet had to offer, all to honour the memory of the woman they had loved.
Luis had loved his mother. Twenty-two years after her death and still he loved her. Javier had loved her too. For the first time in months she allowed a wave of tenderness into her heart for a man who had also lost so much, a man who’d clamped down on his feelings so tightly and effectively that he could deliberately cheat his oldest friend.
Luis hadn’t clamped down on his feelings. Luis had opened his heart and embraced them—for her.
He had laid his heart on the line for the first time since his mother had died and Chloe, out of rabid fear, had turned it down.
She had dreamed of the day he declared his love for her then learned that dreams never came true.
But what if they did?
Luis loved her.
That was a truth.
He had seen all the good and bad in her just as she had seen the best and worst in him and still he loved her.
If she ran away now...
She would never have this chance again.
This was her time, their time, if only she had the courage to accept that sometimes dreams did come true, even for people lik
e her and Luis whose own fathers could not bring themselves to love them.
Working automatically, she dug her hand into her clutch bag and pulled out the cash she had ready for the cab and thrust it into the driver’s hand, unable to speak, able to apologise only with her eyes.
On legs that felt drugged, she walked back up the stairs and into the theatre foyer. The tears pouring down her face were so thick she struggled to see. She sensed the concerned faces surrounding her but blocked them all out.
Oh, Luis, where are you?
He couldn’t still be in the costume room. Could he?
‘Chloe?’
She spun round to the sound of the voice she knew so well and loved so much, and there he was, only feet away.
She didn’t need her vision to see the haggard state of him.
How had she not seen it before?
‘What’s wrong?’ Concern laced his every syllable. ‘Have you been hurt?’
She shook her head, trying desperately to stop the tears that were falling like a waterfall, trying desperately to speak through a throat that had choked.
Her limbs took control of matters for her, legs propelling her to him, arms throwing themselves around him and holding him tightly, so tightly, burying herself to him.
Only his innate strength stopped them buckling under the weight of her ambush and after a moment where he fought to keep them steady and upright, his strong arms wrapped around her as tightly as she clung to him and his face buried into her hair, his warm breath seeping through to her skin.
‘Oh, Luis,’ she sobbed, ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I love you so much it hurts. I’m sorry for hurting you and for...’
But two large hands gently cupped her face to tilt her head back. The dark hazel eyes she loved so much were gazing down at her with a tenderness dreams were made of.
‘My love,’ he breathed. ‘Please, say no more. It is I who am sorry.’
She shook her head, fresh tears spilling free. ‘I love you.’
‘And I love you, with all my heart. I swear, I will never hurt you again. You are my life, Chloe, please believe that.’
‘I do. Because it is the same for me. I don’t want to live without you.’
Marriage Made in Blackmail Page 16
