Once upon a time she had been smitten with him.
She’d wanted to be sure his feelings for her were genuine and that he wasn’t looking at her only as a potential conquest. As hard as it was, she’d wanted to trust him. She’d wanted his respect.
At the end of their date when his nose had rubbed against hers and every ounce of her being had strained on an invisible leash to escape her brain and kiss him, she had almost given in. She’d spent their entire date imagining him naked, something she’d blamed on the erotic dream she’d had of him the night before but which she’d known, deep down, was her own hidden sexuality breaking free for this man who’d stolen into her teenage heart and now demanded to be heard.
What had she been thinking?
Luis had no respect.
He had made a mockery of her brother’s trust in him and by extension made a mockery of her and her dead mother. He was as bad, no, worse, than her pathetic father.
She knew his brother was equally culpable for ripping her brother off but Javier hadn’t been the one to embrace her tightly at her mother’s funeral and promise that one day the pain would get better. That had been Luis. Witty, sexy, fun-loving Luis, the only man who had ever captured her feminine attention. The only man in her twenty-five years she had ever dreamed of.
Whatever Benjamin had planned for him could not come soon enough.
The board on the wall with the constantly updated list of all departures and arrivals showed her own flight was now boarding.
Hurrying to her feet, Chloe made her way to the departure gate.
Now she knew what Luis Casillas was capable of she had to take his threat to hunt her down seriously.
Only when she looked out of the window of her first-class seat on the flight paid for by her brother and watched Madrid shrink from view did her lungs loosen enough to breathe easily.
Luis thought he’d be able to find her? Well, good luck to him. She would be the needle to his haystack.
* * *
The Grand Bahaman suburb of Lucaya was, Chloe could not stop thinking, a paradise. Her brother had set her up in a villa in an exclusive complex where all her needs and whims were taken care of and all she had to worry about was keeping her sun lotion topped up.
She had spent her first six days there doing nothing but lazing by the swimming pool and refreshing her social media feeds, her worries slowly evaporating under the blazing sun. As far as boltholes went, this was the best. It had exclusivity but also, should Luis carry out his threat to hunt her down, the comfort of safety in numbers.
She doubted he was sparing her a moment of his thoughts. The fallout in Madrid and the rest of Europe was growing in intensity. Chloe read all the news and gossip torn between glee and heartbreak.
It should never have come to this. Luis and Javier should have done the right thing and paid her brother the money they owed him, all two hundred and twenty-five million euros of it.
Seven years ago, on the day Chloe and her brother were told their mother’s cancer was terminal, Luis had called Benjamin for his help, dressing it up as an investment opportunity.
The Casillas brothers had paid a large deposit on some prime real-estate in Paris that they intended to build a skyscraper on that would eclipse all others. The owner of the land had suddenly demanded they pay the balance immediately or he would sell to another interested party. He’d given them until midnight. The Casillas brothers did not have the money. Benjamin did.
He gave them the cash, which amounted to twenty per cent of the total asking price. It was an eye-watering sum.
Tour Mont Blanc, as the skyscraper became known, took seven years to complete. Two months ago, Benjamin had received his copy of the final accounts. That was when he realised he’d been duped. The contract he’d signed, which he’d believed stated his profit share to be twenty per cent as had been verbally agreed between him and the Casillas brothers, had, unbeknown to him, been altered before he signed. He was entitled to only five per cent of the profit.
His oldest, closest friends had ripped him off. They’d taken advantage of him at his lowest point. They’d abused his trust.
When they’d refused to accept any wrongdoing Benjamin had taken them to court. Not only had he lost but the brothers had rubbed salt in the wound by hitting him with an injunction that forbade him from speaking out about any aspect of it.
Chloe would never have believed Luis could be so cold. Javier, absolutely, the man was colder than an ice sculpture, but Luis had always been warm.
Now the press was alive with speculation. Benjamin whisking Javier’s prima ballerina fiancée away from the Casillas brothers’ gala and marrying her days later had the rumour mill circling like an amphetamine-fed hamster on a wheel. An intrepid American journalist had discovered the existence of the injunction and now that injunction was backfiring. So far only the injunction itself was known about but a frenzy of speculation had broken out about the cause of it, none of it casting the Casillas brothers in a favourable light.
Let them be the ones to deal with it, Chloe thought defiantly, shoving her beach bag over her shoulder and slipping on her sparkly flip-flops. She was safe here in the Bahamas and her brother was safely cocooned with Freya in his chateau.
Leaving the tranquillity of the complex for only the third time since her arrival a week ago, she spent an enjoyable fifteen minutes strolling in the early-morning sun to Port Lucaya, very much looking forward to a day of island hopping on the complex owner’s yacht.
The invitation had been hand delivered by the manager the evening before, the man explaining it was an excursion the owner provided for favoured guests whenever she visited. A guest had been taken ill so the invitation was Chloe’s if she wanted it. Thinking she couldn’t come to much harm if it was a woman hosting the event—she’d read too many horror stories about young women and rich men on yachts to have been comfortable with it being run by a rich male stranger—she had been delighted to accept. She couldn’t spend a fortnight in the Bahamas hiding away.
Chloe liked to keep busy. She liked to be with people. Being alone with only her thoughts for company meant too much time to think. Better to let the past stay where it was by always looking forward and keeping her mind busy and her life full.
She found the port easily, the pristine yachts lined up in the small bay an excellent giveaway. Opposite it was the Port Lucaya Marketplace she’d heard so much about and which she had promised herself a visit to. Looking at the quaint colourful tourist trap bustling with life and exotic scents brought a big smile to her face. She would go there tomorrow.
Turning her attention back to the yachts, Chloe scanned them carefully, looking for the one named Marietta. Her excitement rose when she finally located it. At least four decks high, the Marietta was the biggest and most luxurious-looking of the lot. Not quite cruise-ship size, it looked big enough to accommodate dozens of guests with room to spare.
But where was everyone? The metal walkway for passengers to board had been lowered but she saw and heard none of the sounds and sights you would expect of a large party going off on an all-inclusive day trip.
As she hesitated over whether to step onto the walkway, a figure wearing what she assumed was captain attire appeared on deck.
‘Good morning,’ he said, approaching her with a welcoming smile. ‘Miss Guillem?’
She nodded.
‘I am Captain Andrew Brand. Let me show you in. I’ll give you the mandatory safety talk as we go.’
Chloe joined him on the gleaming yacht with a grin that only got wider as he showed off the magnificent vessel, pointing out the bar, swimming pool and hot tub on the next deck up, then taking her inside.
This yacht had everything, she thought in awe as she tried her hardest to pay attention to what she was being shown and told.
After showing her the Finnish sauna that had a window looking straight
out to sea, he took her to the top deck to what was appropriately named ‘the sky lounge’ and left her with a young woman with tightly curled hair who made her a cocktail of coconut blended with mango and rum and served it in the coconut shell with a straw. This stretched Chloe’s smile so wide her mouth must have reached her ears. She enjoyed it so much she readily accepted a second, then took a seat on one of the plentiful cappuccino-coloured leather seats encircling the lounge.
She gazed out of one of the many windows, imagining the spectacular view of the stars at night from this wonderful vantage point, and hoped she would be lucky enough to experience it for herself. The estimated finish time of the day’s excursion had been vague.
Which reminded her that she still seemed to be the only guest.
And where had the barwoman gone?
Unease crawling through her, Chloe opened her beach bag to search for her phone.
Just as her fingers closed on it, a tall figure stepped into the lounge.
Although the figure was only in the periphery of her vision, it was enough for her stomach to roil and ice to plunge into her veins.
Feeling very much like a teenager watching a horror movie and wishing she could cover her eyes to hide from the scary bit, she slowly turned her head.
And there he stood, filling the space around him like a dark, menacing shadow, a grim smile on his face.
Luis.
‘Hello, bonita. It is a pleasure to see you again.’
CHAPTER TWO
LUIS FELT IMMENSE satisfaction to read the horror in Chloe’s baby-blue eyes.
‘Nothing to say?’ he taunted. ‘I have travelled a long way to see you, bonita. I would have thought that deserved an enthusiastic welcome.’
Those wonderful pillowy lips he’d fantasised about kissing parted then snapped shut as she swallowed, shock clearly rendering her dumb.
‘You’re not normally this shy.’ He folded his arms across his chest and stroked his jaw. ‘Is it delight at seeing me that has struck you mute?’
Her wonderfully graceful throat moved, colour creeping over her cheeks. ‘What...? How...?’
‘Is that the best you can come up with?’ He shook his head with mock incredulity.
She blinked rapidly and blew in and out. ‘I’ve been set up.’
‘The sun hasn’t damaged your observation skills, I see.’
The baby-blue eyes stared straight into his. ‘You bastard.’
‘If we are moving straight to the name-calling, I have a select number of insults I can apply to you. Which shall I start with?’
‘Forget it.’ Hooking her large bag over her shoulder, she got to her feet. ‘Let’s not waste time. Say what you need to say. I have a holiday to enjoy.’
He gazed at the long legs now fully on display, only the top half of her supple thighs covered by the tight blue denim shorts she wore. Dios, for a She-Devil she had the most amazing body. Beauty, heavy breasts covered in a red T-shirt, a slim waist and a pert bottom...he defied any red-blooded heterosexual man out there not to fantasise about bedding her.
‘My apologies,’ he said sardonically. ‘I didn’t realise you were on a holiday. I thought you had run away.’
‘No, it’s definitely a holiday. Sun, sea, pina coladas and hot men.’ She smiled as she listed the latter, a jibe he knew perfectly well was intended to cut at him. ‘Getting far away from you was an added incentive but not the main consideration.’
‘Would your brother have paid for you to holiday in the Bahamas if you hadn’t agreed to do his dirty work?’ The booking for her flights and villa had been paid for personally by Benjamin.
‘Au contraire,’ she said, switching from English to her native French. Between them they spoke each other’s languages and English fluently. ‘I didn’t agree to do his dirty work. I insisted on it.’ The smile she now cast him was pure beatific. ‘Your gallantry at rescuing a damsel in distress does you credit. Knowing you were on those mountain roads searching for me is a thought I will cherish for ever.’
The rage that had simmered in his veins since he and Javier had pieced all the parts of the jigsaw together flashed through his skin.
Luis hadn’t expected contrition from her but her triumph was something else.
Chloe had sent him on a wild goose chase so he would be late for the gala. Her brother had conspired to ground Javier’s flight to Madrid so he too would be late for the gala. With both Casillas brothers out of the way and the world’s media present, Benjamin had pounced, stealing Javier’s fiancée away and taking her to his secure chateau in Provence. And then he had proceeded to blackmail them: Javier’s fiancée in exchange for the money he claimed they owed him. If the money wasn’t forthcoming he would marry her himself.
Luis could not remember the last time his brother had been so coldly furious. Javier had dug his heels in and refused to pay. For Javier it was a matter of principle. They had done nothing illegal and a court of law agreed with them. They didn’t owe Benjamin a cent.
For Luis, Benjamin’s actions were a declaration of war. All the guilt he’d felt and his plans to put things right between them had been discarded in an instant.
The press photographs of Freya leaving the gala hand in hand with Benjamin had captured a certain something between the pair of them that had made Luis wince for his brother. Whether Javier’s fiancée was an unwitting tool in the plot or a willing supplicant was irrelevant. Those pictures had shown his brother’s fiancée gazing into his enemy’s eyes with a look of rapture on her face. Javier would rather starve than take her back.
His brother had been right not to take her back. Their enemy had married Freya two days ago, barely five days after stealing her away. The fallout against the Casillas brothers had accelerated.
Chloe had willingly played her part in this. She would find herself playing a role to end it and whether that was willingly, he could not care less.
‘Cherish those memories, bonita,’ he said, hiding his anger with a beatific smile of his own. ‘You earned them. You have proven yourself to be a fabulous actress.’
She fluttered her long black eyelashes at him. ‘Were you worried about me? How touching.’
Remembering the burst of raw panic that had grabbed him to find her car missing from the place he had expected it to be... Worried, Luis concluded grimly, did not begin to cover it.
It was only because he had known her since she was in her mother’s stomach, he told himself. For the first three years of Chloe’s life he, Javier and Benjamin, all ten years older, had been her chief babysitters. None of them had been enthusiastic about the job, especially when she’d entered toddlerhood and turned into a pint-sized She-Devil.
More fool him for being so blown away by her adult beauty that he’d failed to see behind the fun-loving façade to the fully grown She-Devil beneath the milky skin.
‘I would not be human if I hadn’t been concerned,’ he said blithely.
‘I think it’s debatable whether you and your brother are human at all.’
He spread his arms out and winked. ‘Oh, I am very human, bonita, as I am more than happy for you to discover for yourself.’
A tinge of colour slashed her pretty rounded cheeks. She scowled at him and pulled her bag even closer into her side. ‘Are we done yet? Have you finished with your fun?’
‘Finished? Bonita, my fun with you has only just begun.’
Indeed, this was already much more fun than he had envisaged. Chloe’s belligerent discomfort and outrage were things of beauty, acting like salve to his rabid anger.
‘Yes, well, my fun is over. I’m going.’
‘Going where?’ he asked as she stomped to the door, giving him an extremely wide berth as she moved.
‘Back to my villa.’
‘How?’
It was the way he said that one word that made Chloe pause and h
er heart accelerate even faster and the sick feeling in her stomach swirl harder.
It didn’t matter that Luis had found her, she kept telling herself. It had been inevitable that their paths would cross again one day. At least it was done with and she could stop worrying about it.
‘Have you been so enraptured by my presence that you failed to notice we’re no longer at port?’ he mocked.
She turned her head to look out of the window to her left. Then she turned it to the right.
Then she spun round to face the front, curses flying through her head.
The captain had set the Marietta to sail and she hadn’t even noticed.
‘Get this thing turned around right now!’ she demanded, eying him squarely.
He rubbed his chin. ‘No, I don’t think I will.’
‘The captain will turn it round.’ She took three quick paces to the door and pressed the green button beside it.
‘That won’t work,’ he commented idly. ‘The crew have been instructed to leave us alone until further notice.’
‘Take me back to port right now or I’m calling the police.’
He strode to the bar and laughed. It had a cruel, mocking tinge to it. ‘Why ruin this wonderful reunion with talk of the police?’
She could have easily stamped her feet. ‘Because you’re holding me here against my will.’
He turned his back on her to study the rows of spirits, liqueurs and mixers lined up on the bar. ‘Drink?’
‘What?’
‘I need a drink. Do you want one?’
‘I want you to take me back to port. This game has gone on long enough.’
‘This is no game, bonita.’
‘Stop calling me that.’
He looked at her and winked. ‘I remember when it made you blush.’
‘That was before I knew what kind of a man you really are, you unscrupulous jerk. And stop winking at me. If this isn’t a game, stop acting like it is.’
‘If I am acting like it’s a game, you conniving witch, it’s to stop myself from grabbing you by the shoulders and shaking you until your teeth fall out.’ He flashed his perfectly white and perfectly straight teeth at her. ‘Or from taking the kiss you owe me.’
Marriage Made in Blackmail Page 2