As she whispered words of thanks to the cabin crew and climbed down the metal stairs to the concrete ground, she inhaled deeply. Then she inhaled again.
She had been in Florence as part of her ballet company’s European tour only the week before. Florence did not smell like this. Florence did not smell of lavender.
Benjamin had reached the ground before her and stood at a waiting sleek black car, the back passenger door open.
‘Where are we?’ she asked hesitantly, not at all liking the train of her thoughts.
‘Provence.’
It took a beat for that to sink in. ‘Provence as in France?’
‘Oui.’
‘Did I misunderstand something? I thought you said Javier was still in Florence.’ Freya knew she hadn’t misheard him but told herself her ears were unused to Benjamin’s thick accent and therefore she must have misunderstood him.
Slowly, he shook his head. ‘You heard correctly.’
Through the panicking spread of her blood she forced herself to think, to keep calm and breathe.
She had only met Benjamin once before but knew he was Javier and Luis’s oldest friend. Their mothers had been best friends. They had grown up thinking themselves as family. She knew all this because of a costume fitting she’d had before Compania de Ballet de Casillas had gone on its most recent tour, the one that had taken her to the beautiful city of Florence. A new seamstress had been tasked with measuring Freya, a young, dazzlingly beautiful woman called Chloe Guillem. When Freya had casually asked if she were any relation to Benjamin, she’d learned Chloe was his sister. She should have been glad of the opportunity to speak to someone who knew Javier and taken the opportunity to learn more about her fiancé. It shamed her that she’d had to restrain herself from only asking about Chloe’s brother.
‘Where is he, then?’
Benjamin looked at his watch before meeting her eye again. The lights shining from his jet, which still had the engine running, made the green darker, made them flicker with a danger that clutched in her chest.
‘I think he must now be in Madrid. Very soon he is going to learn you have disappeared with me. He might have already.’
‘What are you talking about?’ she whispered.
‘I regret to tell you, ma douce, that I have brought you here under false pretences. Javier did not ask me to bring you to him.’
She laughed. It was a reflex sound brought about by the absurdity of what he’d just said. ‘Is this a joke the pair of you have dreamt up together?’
But Javier didn’t joke. She had seen no sign whatsoever that her fiancé possessed any kind of sense of humour.
Benjamin’s unsmiling features showed he wasn’t jesting either. The dark shadows being cast over those same features sent fresh chills racing up her spine.
The chills increased as, pulling her phone out of her bag, she saw it still wasn’t working.
There was the slightest flicker in his eyes that made her say, ‘Have you got something to do with my phone not working?’
‘It will be reconnected tomorrow,’ he said steadily. He took a step towards her. ‘Get in the car, ma douce. I will explain everything.’
Her heart pounding painfully, she took a step back, taking in the darkness surrounding them. High trees edged the perimeter of the huge field they had landed in, the only sound the jet’s engine. The vibrant civilisation she’d glimpsed from the window could be anywhere or nowhere.
To the left of the runway sat a small concrete building, its lights on.
When Freya had exited the plane she had seen a couple of figures in high-visibility jackets walking away from them. She had to assume they’d gone into that building. She thought it safe to assume that building contained, at the very least, a working telephone.
‘I’m not going anywhere else with you until you tell me what is going on,’ she said in the steadiest voice she could manage while sliding her hand back into her small shoulder bag. She put her non-functioning phone back into it and groped for the can of pepper spray.
He must have seen her fear for he raised his hands, palms facing her. ‘I am taking you to my home. You have my assurance that you will come to no harm.’
‘No. I want to know what’s going on now. Here. No more riddles.’
‘We have much to talk about. It is better we talk in privacy and comfort.’
‘And I prefer to discuss things now, before I get back on that plane and tell the pilot to take me back to Madrid.’ To get to the plane, though, meant getting past him. A lifetime of dance had given her an agility and strength most other women didn’t possess but she didn’t kid herself that she had the strength to match this man, who had to be a foot taller than her own five foot five and twice her breadth.
She caught a glimmer of pity in those dangerous green eyes that made her blood chill to the same temperature as her spine.
Her fingers found the pepper spray.
She might not have the strength to match him but she would bet her life she was quicker than him.
She pulled the weapon out and aimed it at him, simultaneously stepping out of the heels that would hinder any escape. ‘I am going back to Madrid and you can’t stop me.’
Then, not giving him a chance to respond in any shape or form, Freya took off, racing barefoot over the runway and then over the dry grass to the safety that was the concrete building with its welcoming lights. Not once did she look over her shoulder, her focus solely on the door that would open and lead her to...
A locked door.
She tugged at it, she pushed it, she pulled it. It didn’t budge.
‘This airfield belongs to me.’ Benjamin’s voice carried through the still night air that was broken only by the running engine of his jet. ‘No one here will help you.’
She turned her head to look back at him, surprised to find herself more angry than fearful.
Surely this was a situation where terror rather than fury should be the primary emotion?
He had lied to her and deliberately taken her to the wrong country.
No one did that unless they had bad intentions.
She should be terrified.
Benjamin hadn’t moved. He stood by the car watching her impassively. For the first time she realised the car had a driver in it.
And for the first time she realised his jet’s engines were still running for a reason. Not only that but it was moving...
Open-mouthed, fighting back despair, Freya watched it increase in speed down the runway.
A moment later it was in the air.
It soared into the night sky, the roar of its engines decreasing the further it flew until it was nothing but a fleeing star.
And then there was silence.
‘Come with me.’ This time there was no other sound but Benjamin’s voice. ‘You will not be touched or harmed in any way. I give you my word.’
‘Why should I believe you?’ she called back.
He gave what she could only describe as a Gallic shrug. ‘When you get to know me, you will learn I am a man of my word.’
She shivered at words that sounded more like a threat than a promise and looked around the airfield for a route that could be her pathway to freedom. As far as she could tell they were in the middle of nowhere.
She could