The blood whooshed up and into her brain.
That look in her eyes as she’d stared at him...
Had she really looked at Benjamin like that?
She covered her mouth, horrified.
She couldn’t even bring herself to say anything when Benjamin’s large hand stretched across the table to take his phone back from her.
Freya was so shamed and mortified at the expression captured on her face she feared her vocal cords had been stunned into silence for ever.
Nothing was said between them until another loud buzzing cut through the silence, a continuous buzz signalling a phone call.
Benjamin put it on speakerphone.
His eyes rested on Freya as the gravelly Spanish tones of Javier Casillas filled the room.
‘You will not receive a cent from me, you son-of-a-bitch. Keep her. She’s all yours.’
Then the line went dead.
This time the silence between them was loud enough for Freya to hear the beats of her thundering heart.
The room began to spin around her, the high ceiling lowering, the wide walls narrowing.
She was going to be sick.
She might very well have been sick had the most outrageous sound she’d ever heard not brought her sharply back to herself and the room back into focus.
Benjamin, his eyes not once dropping their hold on hers, was laughing.
‘How can you think this is funny?’ she asked with a croak, dredging the words from the back of her throat. ‘You’ve lost.’
And she had lost too. Javier had emailed the pictures to her too as a message. Their engagement was over.
‘Lost?’ Benjamin’s face creased with mirth. He threw his head back, his laughter coming in great booms that echoed around her ears. ‘No, ma douce, I have not lost. I told you last night, I cannot lose.’
It was a struggle to breathe. ‘He’s not going to pay the money.’
‘There was only an evens chance that he would. There were only two end scenarios: Javier would pay or he would not. This result is not my preferred one but I can take satisfaction that he will be burning with humiliation at the photographs of us so it is not a loss by any means.’
‘Not a loss for you, maybe, but what about me? He’s never going to take me back. You know that, right? These pictures make it look like I was encouraging you...that I was a part of it.’
Oh, God, that look in her eyes as she’d stared into his...
There was not an ounce of penitence to be found in his glittering eyes. ‘You don’t have to lose anything, ma douce. Your career is safe. You are one of the most exciting dancers in the world. If Javier is foolish enough to sack you then I guarantee another company will snatch you up.’
‘You think I care only about my career?’ she demanded.
His laugh was merciless. ‘My sister says you are the most driven dancer she has ever met, but if it is the loss of your fiancé that grieves you then I suggest you have a rethink. If he had feelings for you he would have fought for you. If he’d believed in your love he would have fought for you. You should be thanking me. I am saving you from a lifetime of misery.’
‘I can assure you, you are not. I told you last night that you don’t know anything about me.’
‘If he means that much to you, now is your chance to go to him and plead your case,’ he said sardonically. ‘He has made his choice, which means you are now free to make yours. Say the word and I will arrange transportation to take you back to Madrid. You can be back there by lunch.’
Rising from her chair, Freya leaned forward to eyeball him. She had never known she could feel such hate for someone. Her heart was beating so frantically against her ribcage she had to fight to get the words out. ‘Believe me, my preferred outcome would be to leave this awful excuse for a home and never have to see your hateful face again. Quite frankly, if I were stuck on a desert island with the choice between you and a rat for company, the rodent would win every time.’
Something flickered on his darkly handsome face, the smug satisfaction vanishing.
A charge passed between them, so tangible she felt it pierce into her chest and thump into her erratic heart.
He gazed at her with eyes that swirled and pulsed before his lips curved into a knowing smile and he too leaned forward. ‘The way you were looking at me in that photograph proves the lie in that.’
‘I DON’T KNOW what you’re talking about.’ Freya hated that her burning cheeks contradicted her.
Benjamin rose slowly from his seat and walked around the table to her, that feline grace she had seen before taking a dangerous hue, the panther stalking towards its prey.
She twisted around so her thighs pressed into the hard wood, her usually nimble feet becoming like sludge.
And then he was standing in front of her, that strong neck her lips kept longing to press into right there in her eye line, standing close enough for his fresh spicy scent to seep into her senses.
‘I think you know exactly what I’m talking about, ma douce.’ He placed a hand on the arch of her neck and dropped his voice to a murmur. The feel of his fingers on her skin burned through her, the heat from his breath catching the loose strands of her hair and carrying through it to her scalp and down into her bloodstream. ‘The camera never lies. Javier saw the desire you feel for me. I have seen it too and I have felt it, when I carried you back into my home and the moonlight shone on us both. You say you hate me but still you long for my kiss.’
Freya found herself too scared to move. Too scared to breathe. Terrified to make the slightest twist in her body lest her lips inch themselves forward to brush against the warm neck so close to her mouth and the rest of her body, aching at the remembrance of being held so securely in his arms, press itself wantonly against him.
Focus, Freya. The next few minutes will determine you and your mother’s whole futures.
He moved a little closer so his breath danced over the top of her ear, electrifying parts inside her she hadn’t known were there. ‘There is an attraction between us that has been there since we first saw each other in Javier’s garden.’
She gave a tiny shake of her head to deny his words but he dragged his hand from her neck and placed a finger on her lips, standing back a little so he could stare straight into her eyes.
‘Now you no longer belong to him, we are free to act on it.’ Benjamin brushed the finger from her lips to rest lightly on her cheek. She truly had the softest skin he had ever touched, more velvet than flesh.
He’d always known it would be fifty-fifty whether Javier would pay up, which was why he had gone to the lengths he had to make sure that whatever the outcome, he would still win.
He hadn’t expected the destruction of Javier and Freya’s relationship to feel like a victory that would taste as sweet as if Javier had paid in full.
Never again would he be haunted by thoughts of Freya enjoying herself in his enemy’s bed because she had been correct that Javier would never take her back. She could plead with him but Benjamin knew Javier too well. His Spanish foe’s reputation and pride were the fuel he needed to get through the day. In one stroke Benjamin had battered them both and soon he would set his sights on Luis too.
Benjamin was well aware the actions he’d taken made him as bad as the men he sought to destroy but he didn’t care. Why should he? Who