then he was there, a step behind the old man, waiting his turn to speak to her.
She didn’t look directly at him as she laughed politely at a joke the old man said. She hoped it was a joke. She could barely hear her own words let alone his. Blood pounded hot and hard in her head, a burning where Benjamin’s gaze rested on her.
He was well mannered enough to wait for a natural pause in the conversation before stepping forward. ‘Mademoiselle Clements?’
To her horror she found her vocal cords frozen again and could only nod her acknowledgement at the simple question.
‘We met at your engagement party. I am Benjamin Guillem, an old friend of your fiancé.’
He had the thickest, richest French accent she had ever heard. It felt like set honey to her senses.
Unlike the other guests she’d met that evening he made no effort to pull her into an embrace, just stared at her with the eyes she’d found so unnervingly beautiful at her engagement party. Olive skinned, he had messy thick black hair and thick black eyebrows, a rough scar above the top lip of his firm mouth and a sloping nose. He reminded her of a film noir star, his dark handsome features carrying a disturbingly dangerous air. Where the other guests wore traditional tuxedos, Benjamin wore a black suit and black shirt with a skinny silver tie. If he were to produce a black fedora it wouldn’t look out of place.
The only spot of colour on him were his eyes. Those devastating eyes. A clear, vivid green, they pierced through the skin. They were eyes that didn’t miss a thing.
‘I remember,’ she said in as light a tone as she could muster, fighting through the thumping beats of her heart. ‘You stole him away from me.’ She’d been thankful for it. Javier had put his hand to her waist. His touch, a touch any other woman would no doubt delight in, had left her cold.
She prayed fervently that by the time they exchanged their vows in exactly seven days her feelings for her fiancé would have thawed enough for her to be receptive to his touch. Javier had yet to make a physical move on her but she knew that would change soon.
They both knew what they were getting into, she reminded herself for the hundredth time. Theirs would be a loveless marriage, the only kind of marriage either of them could accept. She would continue to dance and enjoy her flourishing career for as long as she wanted and then, when she felt the time was right, give him babies.
She would be Javier’s trophy, she accepted that too, but was hopeful that once they got to know each other properly, friendship would blossom.
And even if friendship didn’t blossom, marriage to Javier would be worth it. Anything had to be better than the pain of watching helplessly while her mother withered away. Marrying Javier gave her the chance to extend her mother’s life and ensure it was a life worth living.
Benjamin inclined his head, those eyes never losing their hold on hers. ‘Unfortunate but necessary. We had business that could not wait.’
‘Javier said the same.’ That was all he’d said when she had tentatively probed him on it when he’d returned to her an hour later. The tone in his voice had implicitly told her to ask no more.
Her fiancé was a book that wasn’t merely closed but thickly bound too, impossible to open never mind read.
His disappearance with his brother and friend had only piqued her interest because of the friend. This friend. Benjamin. She’d had to hold herself back from peppering Javier with questions about him, something she’d found disturbing in itself.
It occurred to her that she was lucky she felt nothing for Javier. If her heart beat as rapidly for him as it did for this Frenchman she would have thought twice about accepting his proposal. She knew Javier would have thought twice about proposing if she’d displayed any sort of feelings for him too.
The Frenchman showed no sign of filling her in on their meeting either, raising a shoulder in what she assumed to be an apology.
‘I’m sorry if you’re looking for Javier but I’m afraid he hasn’t arrived yet,’ she said when the silence that fell between them stretched like charged elastic. She had to remind herself that people were watching her. ‘I don’t think Luis is here yet either.’
Benjamin studied her closely, looking for signs that Freya knew about the enmity between him and the Casillas brothers but there were no vibes of suspicion. He hadn’t expected Javier to take her into his confidence. Javier did not do confidences.
But there were vibes emanating from her, as if her skin were alive with an electricity that sparked onto him, an intensity in her dark eyes he had to stop himself from being pulled into.
He had a job to do and could not afford the distraction of her striking sultriness to delay him at a moment when time was of the essence. He’d planned everything down to the minute.
Tonight, her dark hair had been pulled back into a tight bun circled with tiny round diamonds, her lithe figure draped in a sleeveless deep red crushed velvet dress that flared at the hip to fall mid-calf. Her pale bare shoulders glimmered under the ballroom lights just as they had done under the hot Madrid sun and there was an itch in the pads of his fingers to touch that silky looking skin.
He leaned in a little closer so only she could hear the words that would next spill from his tongue. The motion sent a little whirl of a sultry yet delicate fragrance darting into his senses. He resisted the urge to breathe it in greedily.
‘I already know Javier isn’t here. Forgive me, Mademoiselle Clements, but I have news that is only for your ears.’
A groove appeared in her forehead, the black eyes widening.
He turned his head pointedly to the huge swing doors that led out of the ballroom and held his elbow out. ‘May I?’
Her throat moved before she nodded, then slipped her hand through the crook of his arm.
Benjamin guided her through the guests socialising magnificently as they waited for their hosts, the Casillas brothers, to arrive and for the fundraising gala to begin in earnest. They would have a long wait. The wheels he’d set in motion should, if all went as planned, delay them both for another hour each. He felt numerous eyes fall upon them and bit back a smile.
When Javier did finally get there, he would learn his fiancée had disappeared with his newly sworn enemy.
He had never wanted it to come to this but Javier and Luis had forced his hand. He’d warned them. After their last acrimonious meeting, he had given them a deadline and warned them failure to pay what was owed would lead to consequences.
Freya was collateral damage in the ugly mess they had created, the deceitful, treacherous bastards.
When they were in the hotel’s lobby, Benjamin stopped beside a marble pillar to say, ‘I am sorry for the subterfuge but Javier has encountered a problem. He does not wish to alarm the other guests but has asked me to bring you to him.’
‘Is he hurt?’ She had a husky voice that perfectly matched the sultriness of her appearance.
‘No, it is not that. He is well. I only know that he has asked me to take you to him.’
He saw the hesitation in her eyes but gave her no chance to act on it, taking the hand still held in the crook of his arm and lacing his fingers through hers.
‘Come,’ he said, then began moving again, this time towards the exit doors.
Her much shorter, graceful legs kept pace easily.
A sharp pang of guilt punched his gut at her misplaced trust, a pang he dismissed.
This was Javier’s fiancée.
Benjamin’s sister, Chloe, worked as a seamstress at the ballet company and knew Freya. She had described her as nice if a little aloof. Intelligent. Too intelligent not to know exactly the kind of man she had chosen to marry.
Money and power in the world you inhabited were