hadn’t even bothered to comment on her appearance. She’d made such an effort for him, desperately wanting him to be proud to have her on his arm, but he’d looked her up and down and left the room.
A slap on the face would have been kinder.
‘You look lost.’
The man who’d approached her, who could only be described as a silver fox, smiled.
She smiled back at the friendly face that matched the unmistakable English voice. ‘Not lost. Just soaking up the atmosphere.’
‘Javier abandoned you, has he?’ he said, his words and tone implying he and Javier were acquaintances.
They wouldn’t be friends. Javier did not have friends.
‘He’s talking with Dante.’
‘Were you not invited to join them?’
She pulled a face. ‘It’s about business, something I know nothing about.’
‘Ah, yes, you’re a ballerina. I remember watching you perform in The Sleeping Beauty.’
‘Did you?’ she asked dubiously. She had been a part of the corps de ballet and utterly inconspicuous in her costume.
He suddenly looked sheepish. ‘My wife—she’s Spanish—dragged me along to it. I only know you were in it because she told me on the drive over here. Dante told everyone that Javier would be bringing his new wife. You’re the star attraction, you know.’
‘Am I?’
‘But of course. He’s been hiding you away for months. We all wanted to see you for ourselves and make sure that it wasn’t a vicious rumour that he’d snared another young English ballerina as his bride—’ He cut himself off and winced. ‘My apologies. That was callous of me.’
‘No, it’s fine.’ She adopted nonchalance. There was no point in making a fuss over what everyone was thinking. Javier’s engagement to Freya had been announced with huge fanfare. His marriage to Sophie had not even had an official press release. ‘I’m the second-choice young English ballerina bride.’
‘Maybe second choice but I would hazard a guess that you’re not second best.’ His eyes dipped to her belly. ‘Because I can see the other rumour is true too...unless this is where you tell me you’re not pregnant but had an extra helping of cheesecake.’
Sophie burst into laughter. ‘Yes, I’m pregnant and the great thing about it is I can have as much cheesecake as I like.’
‘You won’t find any at this party if Dante’s girlfriend organised the catering.’ He guffawed. ‘Let’s see if we can find some food that isn’t just fit for rabbits. We might find my wife somewhere too. I think she’s abandoned me.’
Glad of the friendly company, Sophie was about to follow him when she spotted Dante in a corner, chatting with a group of people.
If his meeting with Javier was done with...
She craned her neck, then craned some more.
Where was Javier?
* * *
Javier steamed down the dark streets, his hands rammed in his trouser pockets, dodging the evening revellers spilling onto the pavements from the bars and clubs.
His blood raced with rage. Pure, undiluted, unfiltered rage.
He had finished his meeting with Dante with his brain burning to learn Luis had married.
The faint hope he’d unknowingly held onto that his brother would come to his senses and end things with Chloe had been stamped out.
He had married her.
Prepared to grab Sophie and insist they leave immediately, he had been confronted with her talking to a handsome man he vaguely recognised.
Not just talking to him either, he thought grimly, remembering the laughter that had shone on her face.
She’d been enjoying the man’s company so much that she’d been oblivious to her husband standing only ten feet away watching them.
In that moment he’d had a choice.
Either he could go to them, lift the man flirting so shamelessly with his wife into the air and hurl him out of a window or he could leave.
He’d left without looking back.
His phone vibrated in his pocket, the third time it had rung.
He pulled it out and, not looking at it, turned it off.
Right then he did not want to see or speak to anyone.
He did not trust himself.
Right then the urge to inflict the pain coursing through his veins on someone else was too strong to risk, that much self-awareness he did have.
He walked for miles, detouring through pavements he hadn’t trod on since he was a teenager and his and Luis’s only means of transport had been their legs.
Thirteen years old they’d been when Madrid had suddenly become their home. To escape the grandparents who’d been little more than strangers to them, they had explored the new streets they lived on, a tight unit, protecting each other as they had always done.
In every corner lay a memory.
Eventually he could put it off no longer.
He slowed his pace as he walked the long driveway to his home and climbed the marble steps.
Before he could open the door, it swung open.
Standing there, her face white with fury, was Sophie.
SOPHIE DIDN’T KNOW whether to throw her arms around Javier in her relief or push him down the steps.
She’d searched everywhere in that huge apartment for him, refusing to believe he would have left without her.
She’d only confronted the truth when she’d gone outside to look and Michael, his driver, who’d been waiting for them, had gently told her Javier had chosen to walk home.
That had been three hours ago.
The realisation that he’d abandoned her with a roomful of strangers had knocked all the wind out of her.
She’d been too shocked to be angry.
Then the time had passed while she’d waited for him to come home and the anger had built.
That anger had been giving way to concern when she had spotted him in the CCTV camera feed she’d sat herself in front of.
Now she
