She remained silent as she kept pace beside him, silent all the way down the stairs and through the foyer. Only when they reached the exit door did she turn to him and say, ‘What time will your driver collect me in the morning?’
‘Arrange that with him.’ He stepped out into the warm night air and strode to his waiting driver.
‘Take Miss Johnson to her hotel,’ he said, then, without a word of goodbye or a second glance at her, set off for his home.
He could feel Sophie’s gaze upon him but kept his sight fixed ahead, increasing his pace.
As he power-walked the three miles to his home, the memories he’d spent two months suppressing came back to him with crystal clarity.
He’d woken that fateful day to the news Freya and Benjamin had married and a barrage of hate mail. Someone had leaked his personal email address online and keyboard warriors had had an excellent time aiming their poisoned ire at him. So angry had he been that he’d dismissed his household staff for the day.
His rage was best kept private. It was safer that way. For everyone.
And then his intercom had rung and he’d looked through the monitor to see Sophie standing there, a thick folder in her arms, which, she had claimed over the intercom, contained private documents of his.
He’d recognised her immediately. Freya’s dance colleague and flatmate. The wallflower who had never met his eye on the few occasions he’d been in her presence. If anyone had inside information on Freya and Benjamin’s treachery that he could use to his advantage it would be her.
It had been a baking summer’s day. She’d been dressed in a thin pale grey shirt dress, her long light blonde hair tied in a loose plait. When she’d removed enormous sunglasses to speak to him and fixed huge pale blue eyes on him, he’d seen compassion shining from them.
Not once in his adult life had he stared anyone in the eye and not seen a glimmer of fear shine back at him. Grown men, titans of industry and power brokers would shake his hand with a nervous laugh; glamorous, self-confident women would give him the come-to-bed eyes with excitement-laced fear.
This young English woman, a petite ballerina with the appearance of a waif, had turned up at his home and displayed not an ounce of fright.
The rage that had been bubbling so furiously inside him had suddenly reduced.
She had given him the sweetest, most sympathetic smile he’d ever been on the receiving end of. ‘How are you holding up?’ she’d asked softly.
In the week since Benjamin had stolen Freya from him, Sophie was the first person to have asked him that. The most he’d received from his twin had been a stoical slap to the shoulder.
He’d invited her in, made her a coffee, led her to the dining room, sat beside her at the huge table with the documents between them and quizzed her.
When she’d professed her innocence in the matter of Freya and Benjamin, he’d been surprised to find he believed her.
This belief had disconcerted him.
She had disconcerted him with those non-judgemental eyes and her subtle yet obvious compassion.
He’d found himself trying to get a rise out of her, asking if she’d read the documents, making it sound like an accusation.
She’d been unfazed and unabashed. She’d nodded and said, ‘Yes, I read through them with Freya. I won’t be sharing them with anyone, so don’t worry.’
‘You won’t share the details with the media?’ he’d asked cynically.
‘If I wanted to share anything with them I would have done so by now. They’ve been camped outside my apartment block all week.’
Something had crept into his veins at that, something he’d never felt before.
That this petite young thing should be harassed with no one there to protect her had set the anger boiling again.
Of course, he knew her waif-like frame belied a physical strength all ballerinas had but that didn’t change what his eyes saw when he looked at her.
Dios, he’d been unable to tear his eyes from her. He had never seen such naturally pink rosebud lips before...
A new kind of tension had sparked to life.
Sophie’s eyes had kept flickering to him, then darting away, pretty colour flushing across her pretty cheeks.
She really was incredibly pretty. How had he not noticed it before...?
He’d found himself leaning closer to her, catching a whiff of a light, floral perfume that had delighted his senses.
‘Speaking with the media would boost your profile,’ he’d pointed out.
A burst of antipathy had glittered in her eyes. ‘I don’t care. I’m not going to add to the frenzy and make things worse for you.’
Again, he’d found himself believing her but also curious...
Worse for him?
She didn’t even know him.
Professional dancers spent their lives fighting to get to the top and when you were as driven as that any advantage for name recognition would be snatched upon. His own mother had been shameless in her quest for media attention.
Sophie had ducked her head and refused to answer questions even when it would have seen her face plastered over the tabloids as a bit player in the biggest scandal Spain—indeed, most of Europe—had had for years.
What was her agenda? Everyone had one, so what was hers? Why go out of her way for him?
He’d leaned even closer and dropped his voice to a murmur. ‘Why are you here?’
The colour already staining her cheeks had darkened, the pale blue eyes darkening with it. It had been the most beguiling sight.
She had cleared her throat, the pink rosebud lips opening and closing as if she were trying to get out words that did not want to be revealed.
It was sheer impulse that had led him to kiss those lips.
What happened next had been utter madness.
Javier increased his pace and inhaled the Madrid autumn night air deeply to counteract the blood thickening all over again at the vivid memories.
She had kissed him back.
And then he had hauled her out of her chair and into his arms.
For a few brief moments all his torment and anger had been dispelled and forgotten.
Sophie’s kisses had been the sweetest he had ever tasted and instantly addictive.
Desire like nothing he had ever experienced had pulsed through him. Heady, hungry and utterly consuming.
He tried to throw the memories off him now, not wanting to remember any more, disgusted with himself for the manner in which he’d used her hot, willing body.
That was his only saving grace, he thought grimly.
Sophie had been utterly willing.
There had been nothing one-sided about it.
In that moment, the madness had lived in both of them.
He’d spread her flat on his dining table, drinking in her hot, sweet kisses as he’d plunged into her that first time. He’d felt the resistance of her body and known in an instant what it had meant.
Her eyes had widened.
He would have pulled out there and then if she hadn’t then smiled at him, put her hands to his face and kissed him so deeply that he had lost all sense of himself.
But as