The opportunity for a quick grope would have been almost impossible for them to resist. The ballet world was a passionate hotbed, the intimacy of dancing so closely together setting off hormones that most didn’t want to deny let alone bother to fight. Freya wasn’t immune to it. The passion lived in her blood as it did in everyone else’s; the difference was when the music stopped the passion within her stopped too. She had never danced with a man and wanted the romance to continue when the orchestra finished playing. She had never felt a man’s touch and experienced a yearning within her for him to touch her some more.
Benjamin had held and touched her feet and she had had to root her bottom to the chair so as not to betray her own body’s betrayal of wanting those long fingers to stop tending and start caressing. She had had to fight her own senses to block out the thickening of her blood at his touch, had fought to keep the detachment she had spent a lifetime developing.
She squeezed her eyes shut, her brain-burn deepening at how she reacted so physically to the man who threatened to ruin everything.
She was caught in a feud between two men—three if she counted Luis—but it wasn’t Freya who had the potential for the greatest suffering as a consequence of it, it was her mother. Her mother was the only reason she had agreed to Javier’s emotionless proposal.
You know the kind of man he is yet still you chose to marry him. What kind of woman does that make you...?
It made her a desperate one.
Dance was all she knew, all she was, her life, her soul, her comfort. She had achieved so much from her humble beginnings but there was still so much to strive for, both for herself and for her parents who had made so many sacrifices to get her where she was today. Imagining the pride on their faces if she were to get top billing at the Royal Opera House or the Bolshoi or the Metropolitan gave her all the boost she needed on the days when her feet and calves seared with such pain that she forgot why she loved what she did so much.
Javier’s proposal had given her hope. He would give her all the space she needed to be the very best. Marriage to him meant that if she did make it as far as she dreamed in her career then she would have the means to fly her parents all over the world to watch her perform. Much more importantly, her mother would have the means to be alive and well enough to watch her perform, not be crippled in pain with the morphine barely making a dent in the agony her body was putting her through.
But she did know the kind of man Javier was and that was why she had no faith he would pay Benjamin the money he owed. She didn’t doubt he and Luis owed Benjamin money, although how they could have got one over the French billionaire she could not begin to guess, and right then she didn’t have the strength to care.
Her forthcoming marriage was nothing more than a marriage of convenience. Javier’s feelings for her ran no deeper than hers did for him.
If he didn’t pay Benjamin then it meant their marriage was off. It meant no more money to pay for her mother’s miracle drugs.
If he didn’t pay it meant she would have to trust the word of the man who’d stolen her and hope he’d been telling the truth that he would marry her on the same terms.
Because if Javier didn’t pay she would have to marry Benjamin. If she didn’t her mother would be dead by Christmas.
* * *
Benjamin was on his second cup of coffee when a shadow filled the doorway of the breakfast room. He’d drained the cup before Freya finally stepped inside, back straight, chin jutted outwards, dressed in three-quarter-length white jeans and a dusky pink shirt, her glorious hair scraped back in another tight bun.
The simplicity of her clothing, all selected by his sister, did not detract in the least from her graceful bearing, and Benjamin found himself straightening and his heart accelerating as she glided towards him.
She allowed Christabel, who had followed her in, to usher her into the seat opposite his own and made the simple act of sitting down look like an art form.
‘Coffee?’ his housekeeper asked as she fussed over her.
‘Just orange juice, thank you,’ she answered quietly.
Only when they were alone did Freya look at him.
He’d thought he’d become accustomed to the dense blackness of her eyes but right then the weight of her stare seemed to pierce through him. He shifted in his seat, unsettled but momentarily trapped in a gaze that seemed to have the ability to reach inside him and touch his soul...
He blinked the unexpected and wholly ridiculous thought away and flashed his teeth at her. ‘Did you get any sleep?’
She smiled tightly but made no verbal response.
‘You look tired.’
She shrugged and reached for her juice.
‘Have some coffee. It will help you wake up.’
‘I rarely drink caffeine.’
‘More for me then.’ He poured himself another cup as the maid brought Freya’s breakfast tray in and placed it in front of her.
His houseguest gazed at the bowls before her in surprise then smiled at the maid. It was a smile that made her eyes shine and for a moment Benjamin wished he were the one on the receiving end of it.
‘Please thank the chef for me,’ she said. ‘This is perfect. She must have gone to a great deal of trouble.’
As the maid didn’t speak English, Benjamin translated.
The moment they were alone again, Freya said, ‘Has Javier been in touch?’
‘Not yet.’ He’d turned his phone’s settings so only Javier, Luis and Chloe could reach him. He didn’t want any other distractions.
She closed her eyes and took a long breath. He could see her centring herself in that incredible way he had never seen anyone else do, as if she were swallowing all her emotions down and locking them away. If he hadn’t seen those bursts of anger-fuelled adrenaline when she had run away at his airfield and then when she had sent his supper flying before fleeing into the night, he could believe this woman never lost her composure.
And yet for all her stillness there was something about her that made her more vivid than any other woman he had ever met, a glow that drew the eye like a breathing, walking, talking sculpture.
What kind of a lover she would be? Did she burn under the sheets or keep that cloak of composure?
Had her exotic, intoxicating presence turned his old friend’s heart as well as his loins? Had he lost himself in her...?
Benjamin shoved the thought away and swallowed back the rancid taste forming in his mouth.
He should be hoping Javier had lost himself in her arms as that would make it more likely for him to pay to get her back. He should not feel nauseous at the thought of them together.
That sick feeling only became more violent to think of Freya losing herself in Javier’s arms.
How deeply did her feelings for Javier run?
If they had any depth then why did her eyes pulse whenever
