from seven intense hours a day minimum to hardly anything. And she didn’t miss it at all. She found it liberating in a way she’d never anticipated. She could eat the wonderful salt-baked new potatoes that made her taste buds tingle in delight without an ounce of guilt.
The magical food Javier’s chef had created deserved to be appreciated much more than Javier currently was appreciating it, his attention again back on his phone.
‘Is Luis coming to the wedding?’ she asked before popping the fork into her mouth.
Start as she meant to go on, she reminded herself. This was their wedding. She’d been happy to leave the arrangements in Javier’s hands but she would not exchange her vows blind to everything.
He didn’t look up. ‘No.’
‘Is he too busy?’
His shoulders rose and his nostrils flared before he answered. ‘Luis and I are finished, as brothers and business partners, and if you would stop asking me inane questions I could respond to this email my lawyer has sent me about it.’
The Casillas brothers were finished? Had she really heard that correctly?
The tightness of his features proved she had not misheard.
‘What’s happened?’ she asked quietly. She would not allow his bad temper to push her into silence. Sophie had dealt with temperamental dancers and choreographers her entire life and had long ago stopped being silenced by anger.
Anger always went hand in hand with pain, something she had learned at the age of nine when her paternal grandmother had died. It was the only time her father had ever lashed out. A normal Sunday dinner in the weeks after the funeral became a memory of a plate full of food smashing into the wall, her father offended by the lack of seasoning, ranting, face red and furious, shouting obscenities Sophie had never heard before. Her mother had watched in silence, then had gone to him and taken him in her arms.
The howl of pain her father had given as he’d collapsed into her mother’s arms was a sound Sophie would remember for the rest of her life.
Javier’s sharp eyes suddenly found hers again ‘Luis’s engagement to Chloe Guillem was announced a week ago. Is that explanation enough?’
‘Benjamin’s sister?’ Not just Benjamin’s sister but a costume maker employed by Compania de Ballet de Casillas.
He nodded and took a drink of his water.
‘Didn’t you say she’d been involved in Benjamin stealing Freya away from you?’ She was sure he had, right before they had made love on this table. He had made her coffee and asked her the questions she’d guessed had been playing on his mind for a week. She’d been sad for him that she couldn’t answer them but, in truth, she’d been as surprised as he’d been by what Freya had done.
Freya didn’t love Javier but she’d been desperate for the money marrying him would have given her, which she had planned to spend on an expensive experimental treatment for her mother, who had a rare neurological disease. The treatment wouldn’t have saved her life but there was a chance it would extend and improve the quality of it.
‘Chloe conspired with her brother to make Luis and myself late for the gala, which enabled Benjamin to pounce and steal Freya away to his chateau in France.’
‘And Luis is now engaged to her? How does that work?’
His eyes glittered with menace. ‘My brother’s loyalty has transferred to the Guillems. I’m surprised you haven’t read about it. The press have loved reporting that latest twist in the saga.’
‘I’ve been avoiding the news since I went home to England,’ she admitted. ‘That doorstepping left a very unpleasant taste in my mouth.’
Javier stared at her, suddenly remembering the strange protective feeling that had raced through him when she’d spoken of the press harassment. And with it came the memory of how his eyes had been unable to do anything but drink her in.
He could keep his eyes fixed to his phone as much as he liked but every nerve ending in his body was aware of the woman seated opposite him and every muscle remembered with painful intensity the sensation of being burrowed deep inside her.
‘Luis is a traitor,’ he answered flatly, speaking aloud the fury coiling like a viper inside him for the first time.
It was not the press Sophie needed protecting from, it was him.
Sophie needed to know who she was marrying.
‘I have protected him since childhood and carried him through the business and he repays me by defending and choosing to marry the woman who conspired with her brother to destroy us. He is dead to me and I would thank you not to mention his name in my presence again.’
Her eyes widened, whether at his tone or his words he did not know or care.
When it came to his brother, there would be no compromise.
Luis could rot in hell.
SOPHIE LAY IN Javier’s huge bed fighting to keep her eyes open. She must have lain there for an hour waiting for him, thrills of different shades racing through her: terror, excitement, nausea, until eventually they all melded into one that tasted of disappointment.
When she had climbed into the bed, she had thought he would soon follow. They’d finished their first meal together with him telling her to go up and make use of the bathroom before he joined her. She’d thought he was being considerate and giving her a little privacy. She didn’t need to tell him she’d never brushed her teeth around a man before or taken a shower near one. He would know.
She sighed.
It was only her first day there. She had to remember that. Javier had huge adjustments to make, fundamental ones that, she suspected, went far deeper than her own.
Building a bond would not happen overnight. It would take time. He was not a man who trusted easily and he was having to cope with a heck of a lot; the humiliation of Freya leaving him for Benjamin, Sophie being pregnant with his child, marrying her and now the destruction of his relationship with his twin.
She wished she had known about that. It would have made her think twice about asking about Luis.
She sighed again, the sigh turning into a wide yawn. Her eyes were getting really heavy. Much longer and she’d be asleep.
Pregnancy had brought about many changes in her: weight gain, the sudden appearance of breasts, the softening of muscles that had always been hard, but the tiredness had been the biggest challenge. Usually she had bagfuls of energy. In the early weeks she’d found herself nodding off so frequently she’d done an Internet search asking if narcolepsy was a pregnancy side effect. The tiredness had got better in recent weeks but she wasn’t back to her normal energy levels yet. She’d had a full and busy day, physically and emotionally, and now her body craved nothing but sleep.
Five more minutes.
She would try to stay awake for five more minutes...
*
