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?’
CHAPTER THREE
FREYA STARED INTO the green eyes that only a few hours before she had been afraid to stare too deeply at because of the strange heat gazing into them produced. Now, her only desire was to swing her small bag into his face. She’d put the pepper spray back into it and her fingers itched to take it back out and spray the entire contents at him.
‘When will I be going home?’ she demanded to know.
A single brow rose on his immobile face. ‘That will be determined shortly. Come with me.’
‘Come where?’
‘Somewhere we can talk in comfort.’
He walked off before she could argue. She scowled at his retreating figure but when he went through the huge double doors and disappeared, she quickly got her own legs moving. This ch
ateau...
She had never seen the likes of it before other than on a television screen.
Walking past sculptures and exquisite paintings, she entered another room where the ceiling was at least three times the height of a normal room, with a frescoed ceiling and opulent furniture and more exquisite works of art. She caught sight of Benjamin going through a door to the left and hurried after him. It would be too easy to get lost in this chateau, a thought amplified when she followed him through a third enormous living area, catching sight of a library—a proper, humongous, filled with probably tens of thousands of books library—on the way.
Eventually she caught up with him in yet another living area. It was hard to determine if this living area was indoors or outdoors. What should have been an external wall was missing, the ceiling held up by ornate marble pillars, opening the space to the spectacular view outside.
Her throat caught as she looked out, half in delight at the beauty of it all and half in anguish.
The chateau was high in the hills, surrounded by forests and fields that swept down before them. Far in the distance were the twinkling lights she had seen on the plane. Civilisation. Miles and miles away.
‘Are you going to sit?’
She took a long breath before looking at Benjamin.
He’d sat himself on a huge L-shaped soft white sofa with a square glass coffee table in front of him.
Staring at her unsmilingly, he removed his silver tie then undid the top two buttons of his shirt.
The wrinkled old man who’d greeted them on arrival appeared as if from nowhere with two tall drinks. He placed them on the coffee table and indicated one of them to her. Then he left as unobtrusively as he had come.
Benjamin mussed his hair with a grimace then took his glass and had a long drink from it. ‘What do you know about my history with the Casillas brothers?’
Surprised at his question, she eyed him warily before answering. ‘I know you’re old family friends.’
His jaw clenched as he nodded slowly. ‘Our mothers were extremely close. They had us only three months apart. We were playmates from the cradle and it’s a bond we have shared for thirty-five years. I was raised to think of Javier and Luis as cousins and I did. We have been there for each other our entire lives. You understand?’
‘I guess.’ She shrugged. ‘Is there a point to this story?’
His eyes narrowed. ‘The point to this story is the key to it.’
‘You’re talking in riddles again.’
‘Not riddles if you would bother to listen to what I am saying to you.’
She caught the faint scent of juniper. Although only a moderate drinker—very moderate—Freya loved the refreshing coolness of a gin and tonic. Usually she limited herself to only the one. But usually she hadn’t been practically abducted. And she’d fallen asleep before she could finish the one on his jet.
And she really needed something to calm the ripples crashing in her stomach.
Giving in, she picked it up then sat on the opposite side of the sofa to him, at the furthest point she could find, using all the training that had been drilled into her from the age of three to hold her core and enable herself to be still.
Never would she betray how greatly this man unnerved her but beneath her outward stillness her pulses soared, her heart completely unable to find its usual rhythm. She wished she could put it down to fear and it unnerved her more than anything to know the only fear she was currently experiencing was of her own terrifying erratic feelings for this man rather than the situation he’d thrown her into.
She took a small sip then forced herself to look at him. ‘Okay, so you grew up like cousins.’
Before he could answer the butler reappeared with a tray of food.
The tray was placed on the table and she saw a wooden board with more varieties of cheese than she’d known existed, fresh baguettes, a bowl of fruit and a smaller bowl of nuts.
‘Merci, Pierre,’ Benjamin said with a quick smile.
Pierre nodded and, just as before, disappeared.
Benjamin held a plate out to her.
‘No, thank you,’ she said stiffly. She would choke if she had to eat her captor’s food.
He shrugged and cut himself a wedge of camembert.
‘It’s not good to eat cheese so late,’ she said caustically.
He raised a brow, took a liberal amount of butter and spread it on the opened baguette. ‘You must be hungry. I took you from the gala before the food was served. You do not have to eat the cheeses.’
‘I don’t have to eat anything.’ She truly didn’t think she could swallow anything solid, doubted her stomach would unclench enough for food until she was far from this beautiful prison.
Staring back out over the thick trees and hills casting such ominous shadows around the chateau, she resigned herself to staying under his roof for the night. As soon as the sun rose she would find something to put on her feet and leave. Sooner or later she would find civilisation and help.
He took a large bite of his baguette and chewed slowly. His impenetrable green eyes didn’t move from her face.
‘If you will not eat then let us continue. I was telling you about my relationship with Javier and Luis.’
Freya pushed her fears and schemes aside and concentrated. Maybe Benjamin really had gone to all this trouble to bring her here only to talk. Maybe, come the morning, his driver would take her to the airport without any fuss.
And maybe pigs could fly.
If Benjamin wanted nothing more than to talk he would have conducted this chat in Madrid.
Either way, she needed to pay attention and listen hard.
‘Like cousins,’ she clarified. ‘A modern-day tale like The Three Musketeers, always there for each other.’
‘Exactemente. Do you know the Tour Mont Blanc building in Paris?’ He took a bite of creamy cheese.
‘The skyscraper?’ she asked uncertainly. World news was not her forte. Actually, any form of news that wasn’t related to the arts passed her by. She had no interest in any of it. She only knew of Tour Mont Blanc because Sophie had been fascinated with it, saying more than once that she would love to live in one of its exclusive apartments and dine in one of its many restaurants run by Michelin-starred chefs and shop in the exclusive shopping arcade.
He swallowed as he nodded. ‘You know Javier and Luis built it?’
‘Yes, I knew it was theirs.’
‘Did you know I invested in it?’
‘No.’
‘They came to me seven years ago when they were buying the land. They had a cash-flow problem and asked me to go in with them on the project as a sleeping partner. I invested twenty per cent of the asking price. When I made that first investment I was told total profits would be around half a billion euros.’
She blinked. Half a billion?
‘It took four years for the building work to start—there was a lot of bureaucracy to get through—and a further three years to complete it. Have you been there?’
‘No.’
‘It is a magnificent building and a credit to the Casillas brothers’ vision. Eighty per cent of the apartments were sold off-plan and we had eleven multinational companies signed up to move into the business part before the roof had been put on.’
‘So it’s a moneymaking factory then,’ she said flatly. ‘I take it there’s a reason you’re boring me with all this?’
The piercing look he gave her sent fresh shivers racing up her spine.
‘We all knew the initial profit projections were conservative but none of us knew quite how conservative. Total profit so far is closer to one and a half billion euros.’
Freya didn’t even know how many zeros one and a half billion was. And that was their profit? Her bank account barely touched three figures.
‘Congratulations,’ she said in the same flat tone. It was a lot of money—more than she could ever comprehend—but it was nothing to do with her and she couldn’t see why he thought it relevan
t to discuss it with her. She assumed he was showing off and letting her know that his wealth rivalled Javier’s.
As if this chateau didn’t do a good enough job flaunting his wealth!
Did he think she would be impressed?
Money was nothing to brag about. Having an enormous bank account didn’t make you a better person than anyone else or mean you were granted automatic reverence by lesser mortals.
Freya had been raised by parents who were permanently on the breadline. They were the kindest, most loving parents a child could wish for and if she could live her childhood again she wouldn’t swap them for anyone. Money was no substitute for love.
It was only now, as that awful disease decimated her mother’s body, that she wished they’d had the means to build a nest egg for themselves. She wouldn’t have felt compelled to marry Javier if they had.
But they had never had the means. They had worked their fingers to the bone to allow their only child to follow her dreams.
‘I invested twenty per cent of the land fee,’ Benjamin continued, ignoring her sarcasm. ‘I have since invested around twenty per cent of the building costs. How much profit would you think that entitles me to?’
‘How would I know?’ she said stiffly. ‘I’m not an accountant.’
‘Take a guess.’
‘Twenty per cent?’
‘Oui. Twenty per cent. Twenty per cent investment for a twenty per cent profit. Twenty per cent of one and a half billion equals three hundred million, do you agree?’
‘I’m not an accountant,’ she repeated, looking away from him, her lips tightening mutinously.
‘You do not need to be an accountant to agree that three hundred million euros is a lot of money.’
Her slim shoulders rose but other than a flash of colour on her high cheekbones, the mutinous expression on her face didn’t change.
‘I have received all of my investment back but only seventy-five million euros of the profit. The equivalent of five per cent.’
Her eyes found his stare again. ‘Am I supposed to feel sorry for you?’
‘You are not expected to feel anything.’ Benjamin stifled his growing anger at her cold indifference. He hadn’t expected anything less from the woman engaged to the coldest man in Europe. ‘I am laying out the facts of the situation. Javier and Luis have ripped me off. They owe me two hundred and twenty-five million euros.’
Billionaire's Bride for Revenge (Billionaire?s Bride for Revenge) Page 3