project,’ he said heavily. ‘When a judge threw his case out of court, he refused to accept it. He stole Freya from me in revenge.’
‘Why did he refuse to accept it?’
‘He won’t accept responsibility for his own actions. He didn’t read the contract. If he had read it he would have seen his share of the profit had been changed from twenty per cent to five per cent. That was on the advice of our lawyer.’
She didn’t say anything for the longest time. ‘They say money is the root of all evil and it really is.’
‘They are wrong. Evil is the root of all evil.’ His father had been evil. He’d been charming when he’d wanted to be but his malevolence had never been far from the surface.
‘But you were friends with Benjamin since you were babies. All those years and all those memories thrown away for cash.’ She shrugged and gave a sad smile.
‘Sentimentality does not pay the bills,’ he told her roughly.
His and Luis’s friendship with Benjamin had been foisted on them by their mothers. The two women had deliberately conceived their children at the same time so they could raise them together. Benjamin’s mother had been Javier’s mother’s personal costume maker; mother and son accompanying them on all Clara’s tours around the world, the boys expected to get along and play together.
‘I get that,’ Sophie said with a sigh, ‘but...’
‘If you show weakness in life then people learn they can walk all over you.’
‘But he was your friend. Why didn’t he read the contract? Didn’t he know the terms had been changed?’
‘You would have to ask him that.’
‘I’m asking you. You’re the one who took the injunction out.’
‘We took it because he’d become emotional and unpredictable and would not listen to reason. He threatened to destroy us.’
He remembered clearly Benjamin’s shouted threats that had ricocheted like a bullet in the courtroom and the rage on his face.
Javier and Luis had filed the injunction immediately, both certain Benjamin’s threats would be acted on and that the consequences would be disastrous for them.
If the world believed the Casillas brothers could rip off their closest friend, who would ever trust them in business again?
Sophie winced and drew her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. ‘Where did all his anger come from? Please, don’t think I’m not listening, I’m just trying to understand. Freya had no fears about marrying you even though you have a fearsome reputation and I’m trying to understand why her opinion towards you has shifted so completely.’
‘Benjamin has poisoned her towards me.’ And if he and Luis hadn’t slapped the injunction to stop him talking about the soured business deal he would have poisoned the world against them too. Benjamin’s actions in stealing Freya had almost succeeded in doing that for him but they had ridden the storm of malicious press as a united force, right until Luis had turned his back on thirty-five years of brotherhood to be with Benjamin’s sister.
Chloe Guillem had stolen Luis’s loyalty in a way her brother had never been able to do.
The destruction of the friendship lay not at the feet of the Casillas brothers. They hadn’t put a gun to Benjamin’s forehead and made him sign. He’d had five hours to read the contract and get back to them if the terms were not to his liking and, sure, it had been argued in court, by Benjamin, that they had known he’d been preoccupied that day but, as Javier had counter-argued, that meant Benjamin should have given the contract to his lawyer to read for him. That was what lawyers were for.
‘Freya knows her own mind,’ Sophie stated with certainty. ‘She never listens to gossip.’
‘If you think so much of her opinion then why are you still here?’ he bit back.
‘She’s just being protective.’
‘Why? Does she not think you know your own mind?’
‘No, it’s just the nature of our friendship. We’ve looked out for each other since ballet school.’
Grabbing at the change of direction in a conversation that was making his brain burn and his skin feel as if it had needles poking in it, Javier sat up. ‘You two are an unlikely friendship.’
Freya was cold and driven; Sophie warm and open.
She tightened her hold around her knees. ‘I know, but the differences weren’t so pronounced when we were kids. She was amazingly talented, even back then, and it was obvious to everyone that she was a dancer who would set the world alight but when we first met she was incredibly shy and insecure. She comes across as cold but that’s because she had to be to get through school. She was really badly bullied, especially that first term.’
‘Were you a part of it?’
But he knew the answer to that before she shook her head in denial.
He doubted Sophie was capable of bullying a dormouse.
‘God no. I just felt sorry for her. She was this scared little thing, away from home for the first time, from a poor background when everyone else came from families with money. She was admitted on a full scholarship, which was incredibly rare—I mean, I only got in because my parents paid the fees.’
‘Your family has money?’ Her parents didn’t have the moneyed air about them that most rich people had.
‘Not as much as most of the other girls had but my parents would have lived in a shed if it meant me going to ballet school. Luckily it didn’t come to that,’ she added, rubbing her chin on her knee.
‘You weren’t scared, being away from home yourself?’
‘I’d already built a resilience. Freya had to build hers. She had the talent—my God, did she have the talent—but it was a tough time for her. The other girls hated her. It was jealousy, pure and simple.’
‘You were not jealous yourself?’
‘I was definitely envious but not jealous.’
‘Is there a difference?’ Javier remembered his mother once telling him sharply to stop being jealous of Luis and Benjamin’s friendship when she’d caught him sitting on his own, scowling as he’d watched them plot ways to put itching powder in the corps de ballet costumes.
She hadn’t understood that he was watching over Luis, ready to step in if things went too far.
Benjamin had brought Luis’s worst instincts out in him. They’d egged each other on in their troublemaking, leaving Javier to cover for their messes as best he could, terrified his father would hear and mete out punishment.
Their father had needed little excuse to punish Luis.
Had Javier been jealous of Luis and Benjamin’s friendship as his mother had accused?
No, he assured himself. He’d been looking
