LITMIR.BIZ

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only means she had at her disposal, her only weapon. Her body.

      Jumping up from the sofa, she swept an arm over the coffee table, scattering the crockery and glasses on it, but didn’t hang around to see the damage, already racing through the non-existent wall and out into the warm grounds. Benjamin’s surprised curse echoed behind her.

      Security lights came on, putting a spotlight on her but she didn’t care. She would outrun them. She dived into the thick, high shrubbery that she hoped surrounded the perimeter of the chateau and hoped gave adequate camouflage until she found the driveway they had travelled to reach the chateau and which she would follow until she found the road.

      She had run from Benjamin earlier. She had reluctantly gone back to him because she had thought he was the unknown that posed the least danger.

      She had made the wrong choice. Her heated responses to his physicality, the strange chemical responses that set off inside her every time she looked into his green eyes had stopped her recognising the very real danger she was in.

      How big was this chateau and its grounds? she wondered desperately as she cut her way through the trees and hedges, trusting her sense of direction that she was headed the right way.

      It seemed to take for ever before she peered through the shrubbery to find the courtyard Benjamin’s driver had dropped them off at. The night was dark but there were enough ground lights for her to see the electric gates they had driven through.

      Quickly she looked around it and saw the gate, a high wrought-iron contraption with spikes at the top that linked the high stone wall she would have to scale if she were to get away.

      Keeping to the shadows, Freya treaded her way to the wall, her heart sinking the closer she got.

      It was at least twice her height.

      She stepped cautiously from the high tree she’d hidden behind for a better look. The wall was old. It had plenty of grooves and nooks for her to use to lever herself up. If she kept to the shadows she’d be able to scale it away from the estate lights...but then she wouldn’t be able to see what was on the other side if she were in the dark.

      Determination filled her. If she didn’t climb this wall she would never escape.

      She took one deep inhalation for luck then darted forward.

      The moment she stepped off the thick, springy ground of the woods and onto the gravelled concrete, it seemed as if a thousand lights suddenly shone on her.

      Not prepared to waste a second, she raced to the wall, found her first finger holes and began to climb.

      She’d made it only two feet off the ground when she heard shouts. Aware of heavy footsteps nearing her, she sped up. The top of the wall was almost within reach when she stretched to grip a slightly protruding stone and, too late, realised it was loose.

      With a terrified scream, she lost her hold entirely and fell back, would have crashed to the ground and almost certainly landed flat on her back had a pair of strong arms not been there to catch her as assuredly as any of her dance partners would have done.

      Instinct had her throw her arms around Benjamin’s neck while he made one quick shift of position to hold her more securely.

      She squeezed her eyes shut and tried her hardest to open her airwaves.

      She couldn’t breathe. The shock of the fall and the unexpected landing had pushed all the air from her lungs. But her terrified heart was racing at triple time, tremors raging through her body.

      How had he reached her so quickly? He must have run at superhuman speed.

      ‘Do you have a death wish?’

      His angry words cut through the shock and she opened her eyes to find his face inches from her own, furious green eyes boring into hers.

      He was holding her as securely as a groom about to cross the threshold with his new bride but staring at her with all the tenderness of a lion about to bite into the neck of its prey.

      Then he muttered something unintelligible under his breath and set off back to the chateau.

      ‘You can put me down now,’ she said, then immediately wished she hadn’t spoken as now that she could breathe again she could smell again too. Her face was so close to Benjamin’s neck she could smell the muskiness of his skin under the spicy cologne.

      He shook his head grimly.

      She struggled against him. ‘I’m quite capable of walking.’

      His hold tightened. ‘And have you run away and put yourself in danger again?’

      ‘I won’t—’

      ‘What were you thinking?’ he demanded. His footsteps crunched over the gravel. ‘If I hadn’t been there to catch you...’

      ‘What did you expect?’ Her words came in short, ragged gasps. The feel of his muscular body pressed so tightly against her own made her wish he were made of steel on the outside as well as the inside. Damn him. If he were a robot or machine she could ignore that he was human and that her body was behaving in the opposite manner that it should to be held in his arms like this.

      Her lips should not tingle and try to crane closer to the strained tendons on his neck, not to bite but to kiss...

      ‘I expected you to listen, not run into the night. The forests around the chateau are miles deep. You can spend days—weeks—lost in them and not meet a soul.’

      ‘I don’t care. You can’t kidnap me and hold me to ransom and think I’m going to just accept it.’ She squeezed her eyes shut to block his neck from her sight.

      If only she could block the rest of him out too.

      God, she could hardly breathe for fear and fury and that awful, awful awareness of him.

      Pierre had the door open for them. As Benjamin carried Freya over the threshold, the butler saw her feet and winced.

      Benjamin sighed inwardly before depositing her onto the nearest armchair and instructing Pierre, who really should have long gone to bed, to bring him a bowl of warm water and a first-aid kit.

      ‘Telling him to bring handcuffs so you can chain me in your horrible house?’ his unwilling guest asked snidely.

      ‘That’s a tempting idea, but no.’ Tempting for a whole host of reasons he refused to allow himself to think of.

      Holding Freya in his arms like that had felt too damn good. The awareness he’d felt for her from that first look had become like an infection inside him.

      He must not forget who she was. Javier’s fiancée. His only possible means of getting his money back and giving Javier a taste of the betrayal he himself was feeling.

      Kneeling before her, he took her left foot in his hand. She made to kick out but his hold was too firm. ‘I am not going to hurt you.’

      ‘You said that before,’ she snapped.

      ‘The harm you have caused to your feet is self-inflicted. Keep still. I want to look for damage.’

      The full lips pulled in on themselves, her black eyes staring at him maleficently before she turned her face to the wall. He took it as tacit agreement for him to examine her feet. The foot in his hands was filthy from walking bare through all the trees and shrubbery but there was no damage he could see. He placed it down more gently than she deserved and picked up her right foot. It hadn’t fared so well. Tiny droplets of blood oozed out where she’d trodden on something sharp.

      Pierre came into the room with the equipment he’d requested, along with fresh towels.

      ‘Going to do a spot of waterboarding?’ she asked with a glare.

      He returned it with a glare of his own. ‘Stop giving me ideas. I’m going to clean your feet...’

      ‘I can clean my own feet...’

      ‘And

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