Billionaire’S Bride For Revenge: Billionaire’s Bride for Revenge. Susan Stephens

I am saying I do not wish for my wife to work for her ex-lover. It is not an unreasonable request.’

      Something shone in her eyes that he didn’t recognise, a shimmer in the midst of her loathing that disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. ‘It’s a request now? That’s funny because the word insist made it sound remarkably like a demand.’

      ‘This will be my only interference.’

      Her foot tapped on the carpet but her tone remained calm. ‘So I can get a job working in Japan and you won’t complain?’

      ‘You can work wherever you like.’ As long as it was far from the Spaniard who had captured her long before he’d set eyes on her...

      ‘Just not for Javier.’

      ‘Just not for Javier.’

      She sucked in a long draw of breath before inclining her head. ‘I will hand my notice in but I will work my notice period. You can add that to the contract and reiterate you are never to interfere with my career.’

      ‘How long is your notice period?’

      ‘Two months. That will allow me to do the opening night of the new theatre. I’m on all the advertising literature for it. I can’t pull out. It’s the biggest show of my life. I’ve worked too hard to throw it away.’

      ‘D’accord.’ He took in his own breath. Two months was nothing. He could handle her working for Javier for that period.

      He reminded himself that until that morning he had expected her to insist on returning to Madrid.

      ‘You share my bed when we are under the same roof and hand your notice in to Compania de Ballet de Casillas. I buy you a property to live in while you work your notice and guarantee never to interfere with your career again. I believe that is everything unless there was something else you wished to discuss.’

      Colour rose up her cheeks, her lips tightening before she gave a sharp nod. ‘Just one thing I think it is best to make clear. I may be agreeing to share a bed with you but that does not mean you take ownership of my body. It belongs to me.’

      ‘I think the kiss we shared earlier proves the lie in that, ma douce,’ he said silkily.

      The chemistry between them was real, in the air they both inhaled, a living thing swirling like a cloud, shrouding them.

      ‘Think what you like.’ She dropped her gaze. ‘I will not be your possession.’

      ‘I am not Javier. I do not expect you to be. But I do expect a wedding night. After that, you can turn your back to me as often as you wish. I do not forget the clause in the contract allowing Javier to take a mistress without question or explanation and, seeing as you have not requested that clause to be removed, it stands for me too. And as you know, I am a man who likes to have all options on the table.’

      Her nostrils flared as she jutted her chin back out again, a sign he was starting to recognise meant she was straining to keep her composure.

      Let her try and keep it. Come their wedding night he would shatter that composure and discover for himself if her veins ran hot or cold.

       CHAPTER EIGHT

      ‘YOU BOUGHT EVERYTHING you need?’ Benjamin asked as his helicopter lifted into the air to fly them back to Provence after what had proven to be an extremely long day. ‘It doesn’t look like much.’

      They had sorted out the paperwork for their wedding first thing then flown to Paris. Having work to do, he’d arranged for his PA’s assistant who spoke English to take Freya shopping.

      He had been so consumed in recent months with his feud with the Casillas brothers that he’d neglected his business. He’d hardly stepped through the headquarters of Guillem Foods in weeks and knew from bitter experience how dangerous it could be to take his eye off the ball. Now that the first part of his revenge had been extracted he needed to concentrate on his business for a while before making his next move. Luis would have to wait.

      Yet even though he’d needed his brain to engage with Guillem Foods, he’d had to fight to keep his attention on the job because his mind kept wandering back to the woman who would be his wife in three days’ time.

      What was it about Freya that consumed his thoughts so much? She’d lodged herself in his mind from that first look, a fascination that had refused to shift that, now she was under his roof, was turning into an obsession.

      Things would be better once he’d bedded her. The thrill of the chase and the unknown would be over and she would become mere flesh and bone.

      He stared at her now, convinced she was the perfect wife for him. When the desire currently consuming him withered to nothing she would not care. Her own desire for him, unwanted as it was to her, wouldn’t last either. Her heart was too cold for lust to turn into anything more. The marriage agreement she had willingly signed giving herself to two separate men proved that.

      Freya was a gold-digger in its purest form. A gold-digger who at some point in the future would give him a child...

      A sudden picture came into his head of Freya dancing, a miniature Freya at her feet copying her moves; the child they would have together, the child that would make the chateau he had bought for his mother to end her days in a home.

      It was a picture he had never imagined with anyone in all his thirty-five years and the strength of it set blood pumping into his head and perspiration breaking out over his skin.

      So powerful was his reaction to the image that it took a few moments to realise she was answering his question.

      ‘Sophie’s packing my stuff up for me. I’ve arranged for the courier to collect it later when he gets my passport.

      ‘Will you not need it for your new apartment in Madrid?’ How he hated to think of her returning there but a deal was a deal. The contract had been signed over breakfast.

      He’d already instructed an employee to hunt for a suitable home in Madrid for her. The main stipulation was that it be located as far from the district Javier called home as possible.

      ‘I’ll decide what to take with me when I go back,’ she said. ‘It’ll be mostly my training stuff I take.’

      ‘Would it not be easier to have separate wardrobes for each home?’ He spent the majority of the year in his chateau but had apartments in Paris and London and houses in Australia, Argentina and Chile. Each had its own complete wardrobe, allowing him to travel lightly and spontaneously when the need or mood arose.