Читать книгу Billionaire's Bride For Revenge - Мишель Смарт, Susan Stephens - Страница 12

CHAPTER TWO

A BUSTLE OF movement in the cabin woke Freya from her light slumber to find Benjamin’s gaze still on her.

A warm flush crept through her veins.

For the first time since infancy, full sleep hadn’t taken her into its clutches.

He gave a tight smile. ‘I was about to wake you. We will be landing shortly.’

‘Sorry.’ She smothered a yawn and stretched her legs, flexing her feet before noticing her shoes had slipped off. ‘Travel has always had a sedative effect on me.’

It had been the case since she’d been a baby and her parents had taken turns walking her in the pram to get her to sleep. Once she had outgrown the pram the walks had continued with Freya in a buggy, sleeping happily along the same daily walk, which had taken them past a local ballet school. She had always woken up then. Her first concrete memory was pointing at the little girls in their pink tutus and squealing, ‘Freya dance too!’

Those early walks had given birth to two things: her love of dance and her unfailing ability to fall asleep in any mode of transport.

Planes, trains, cars, prams, they were all the same; within ten minutes of being in one she would be asleep regardless of any excitement for the destination.

That she had managed almost half an hour before the first signs of sleep grabbed her on Benjamin’s jet had more to do with him and the terrifying way her heart beat when she was in his presence than it had about any fears she might have for her fiancé.

She’d had to keep her gaze fixed out of the window to stop herself from staring at him as her eyes so longed to do. When her brain had started to shut down into sleep it was images of this man flickering behind her eyes that had stopped her brain switching off completely.

Her fingers still tingled from being held in his hand, her heart still to find a normal rhythm.

Rationally, she knew there couldn’t be anything too seriously wrong with Javier. Benjamin had told her Javier was unhurt and that there was nothing for her to worry about...

But there was a tension in the Frenchman now that hadn’t been there before.

A prickle of unease crawled up her spine and she looked back out of the window.

When she’d last looked out of the window they had been high above the clouds. Now the earth beckoned closer, dark shadows forming shapes that made her think of mountains and thick forests, beyond them twinkling lights, towns and cities bustling with late-evening life.

None of it looked familiar.

The unease deepened the closer to earth they flew and she kept her eyes peeled, searching for a familiar landmark, anything to counteract the tightening of her stomach and the coldness crawling over her skin.

She hardly noticed the smoothness of the landing, too busy straining through the darkness to find something familiar in the airfield they had landed in.

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 run. She had a good chance of making it to the perimeter before his car could catch her and then she could disappear. But where would she disappear to? She had no idea how far she was from civilisation, no money, a phone that didn’t work...she didn’t even have her shoes on.

She either took her chances and ran off into the unknown or she went with Benjamin into another unknown.

The question was which unknown held the least danger.

Benjamin watched Freya rub her arms as she stared back at him, could see her weighing up her options.

Then her spine straightened and she stepped slowly towards him, holding the spray can outwards, aimed at him.

When she was two metres from him she stopped. ‘If you come within arm’s reach of me I will spray this in your face. If you make any sudden movements I will spray this in your face.’

He believed her. The fear he had glimpsed before she had run had gone. Now there was nothing on her face but cool, hard resolve.

If he’d believed she was a woman to fall into a crying heap at the first sign of trouble he would never have taken this path.

Everything he had learned about her backed his instinct that Freya had grit. Seeing it first-hand pleased him. It made what had to be done easier.

‘I have given you my word that you will come to no harm.’

‘You have already proven yourself a liar. Your word means nothing to me.’

He turned to the open car door. ‘Are you getting in or do I leave you here?’ He didn’t like that he’d had to lie and had swallowed back the bile his lies had produced. That bile was a mere fraction of the sourness that had churned in his guts since he’d accepted the extent of the Casillas brothers’ betrayal.

She glared at him and backed into the car.

By the time Benjamin had folded himself into the back next to her, she had twisted herself against the far door, still aiming the spray can at his face.

‘Don’t come any closer.’

‘If I wanted to hurt you I would have done so already.’

Her jaw clenched and her eyes narrowed in thought but she didn’t lower her arm or relax her hold on the can. He was quite certain that if she were to spray it at him it would temporarily blind him. It would probably be painful.

‘Do you always carry that thing with you?’ he asked after a few minutes of loaded silence had passed while his driver navigated the dark narrow roads that led to his chateau.

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

She smiled tightly. ‘In case some creep tries to abduct me.’

‘Have you ever used it?’

‘Not in anger but there’s a first time for everything.’

‘Then I shall do my best not to provoke you to use it on me.’

‘You can do that by telling your driver to take me to the nearest airport.’

‘And how will you leave France on a commercial flight without your passport?’

Her lips clamped together at this reminder, the loathing firing from her eyes hot enough to scorch.

The car slowed over a cattle grid, the rattling motion created in the car one Benjamin never grew tired of. It was the motion of being home.

After driving a mile through his thick forest, they went over another cattle grid then stopped for the electric gates to open.

For the first time since they’d got into the car, Freya took her eyes off his face, looking over his shoulder at the view from his window.

Her eyes widened before she blinked and looked back at him.

‘You can put the spray down,’ he informed her nonchalantly. ‘We have arrived.’

His elderly butler greeted them in the courtyard, opening Freya’s door and extending a hand to help her out.

Benjamin got out of his door in time to hear her politely say, ‘Please, can you help me? I’ve been kidnapped. Can you call the police?’

Pierre smiled regretfully. ‘Je ne parle pas anglais, mademoiselle.’

‘Kidnapped! Taken!’ She put her wrists together, clearly trying to convey handcuffs, then when Pierre looked blankly at her, she sighed and put a hand to her ear to mimic a telephone. ‘Telephone? Police? Help!’

While this delightful mime was going on, Benjamin’s driver slowly drove the car out of the courtyard.

‘Pierre doesn’t speak English, ma douce,’ Benjamin said. He’d inherited Pierre when he bought the chateau and hadn’t had the heart to pension him off just because he spoke no other language as all other butlers seemed to do in this day and age.

She glared at him with baleful eyes. ‘I’ll find someone who does.’

‘Good luck with that.’ Only one member of his household staff spoke more than passable English and Freya had just proven she couldn’t speak a word of his own language. ‘Come, let us go in and get settled before we talk. You must be hungry.’

‘I don’t want your food.’

Turning his back to her, he walked up the terracotta steps and into the main entrance of his chateau.

‘Christabel,’ he called, knowing his head housekeeper wouldn’t be far.

No sooner had he finished saying her name than she appeared.

‘Good evening, sir,’ she said in their native tongue with a smile. ‘Did you have a good trip?’

‘I did, thank you. Is everything well here?’

‘Everything is fine and we have prepared the quarters for your guest as instructed.’ Christabel’s eyes flickered over his shoulder as she said this, which he guessed meant Freya had followed him inside, her bare feet muffling the usual clacking sound that could be heard when people entered the great room.

He had a sudden vision of her black high heels discarded on the runway of his airfield, a sharp pang in his chest accompanying it, which he shrugged off.

He would replace them for her.

‘Thank you, Christabel. You can finish for the evening now.’ Turning to Pierre, who had also followed him in, he said, ‘We require a light supper, anything Chef chooses. Bring me a White Russian and Miss Clements a gin and Slimline tonic.’

When his two members of staff had bustled off, he finally looked at his new houseguest and switched back to English. ‘Do you want to talk now or would you like to freshen up first?’

She glared at him. ‘I don’t want to talk but, if you insist, let’s get it over with because I want to go home.’

He held the mutinous black orbs in his. ‘Is it not already obvious to you that you will not be going home tonight, ma douce?’