LITMIR.BIZ

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clothes on she didn’t show it.

      But then, recalling all the years spent touring with Clara Casillas, he had never met a body-shy ballerina before. He’d seen more naked women in the first ten years of his life than if he’d been raised in a brothel. It was a fact of their life. Freya was a woman who spent her life with her body under a microscope, different hands touching it for different reasons, whether to lift, to shape or to dress.

      Desire coiled through his loins to imagine what it would feel like to lift this woman into his arms as a lover...

      He would bet she had poise and grace even when she slept and felt a thickening in his loins to know it wouldn’t be long before he discovered that for himself.

      And, as his imagination suddenly went rampant with heady thoughts of this beautiful, supple woman in his bed, those long, lithe legs wrapped around him, those black eyes currently staring at him without any expression coming alive with desire, the strangest thing of all occurred. Freya blushed.

      She must have felt the heat crawling over her face for her features tightened before she jumped gracefully to her feet, going from kneeling to standing in the time it took a mortal to blink.

      ‘If you’ll excuse me, I’ll put some clothes on,’ she said stiffly.

      The lump in his throat prevented him from doing more than stepping aside to let her pass through the door to her bedroom.

      Breathing deeply, he took a seat on the armchair while he waited for her to return, keeping his thoughts and imagination far away from sex, trying to quell the ache burning in his loins.

      They had business to take care of.

      Feeling more together in himself when she came back into the living room, he said, ‘What were you doing?’

      She’d put her three-quarter-length white jeans back on and covered her chest with an off-the-shoulder navy top. Her battered feet were bare. She sat on the leather sofa nestled next to his and twisted her body round to face him. ‘Yoga. That pose was the Kapotasana.’

      ‘It sounds as painful as it looks.’

      The glimmer of a smile twitched on her lips. ‘It’s invigorating and, under the circumstances, necessary.’

      ‘Why?’

      ‘I need to keep fit. I’m used to dancing and working out for a minimum of seven hours a day. I need to keep my fitness levels maintained, I need to stretch and practise regularly or it will be extra hard when I return to the studio. This is all I have available to me...unless you have a secret dance studio tucked away somewhere with a barre?’

      ‘I am afraid not but you are welcome to use my gym and swimming pools and sauna. There’s tennis courts too.’

      She pulled her lips in together. ‘I have to be careful using a gym and swimming. It’s what they do to my muscles—they bulk them in all the wrong places. I’ve never played tennis before and wouldn’t want to risk taking it up without advice.’

      He looked around again at the space she had created for herself in this room and knew without having to ask that this was not suitable for her to practise dancing in.

      ‘Still, I’m sure you’re not here to discuss my fitness regime,’ she said, changing the subject and straightening her back before nodding at the file in his hand. ‘Is that the contract?’

      He’d almost forgotten what he had come here for.

      Pulling his mind back to attention, he took the sheets of paper out of the folder. ‘I’ve booked our wedding for Thursday.’

      She was silent for beat. ‘Thursday?’

       ‘Oui.’

      ‘I was supposed to marry Javier on Saturday.’

      ‘At this short notice there are no slots available for Saturday.’

      ‘Couldn’t you have bribed or blackmailed someone?’

      ‘I pulled enough strings to bypass the notice period. If it’s a Saturday wedding you long for we can always wait a few weeks.’ He stared hard at her as he said this. Having now read the terms of the contract he understood why she was keen to marry on the same day she would have married Javier. On the day of their wedding he would transfer two hundred thousand euros into her account, the first recurring monthly payment of that sum. According to the contract, Javier had already paid her two lump sums of one hundred thousand euros.

      ‘No,’ she declined so hurriedly he could see the euro signs ringing in her eyes. ‘Thursday is fine.’

      He gave a tight smile. ‘I thought so. I will take you to the town hall tomorrow to meet the mayor and fill out some forms but the arrangements are all in hand. Is your passport in your apartment?’

      She nodded. ‘I’ve spoken to my flatmate. She’s got it safe.’

      ‘I will send a courier to collect it.’

      ‘I’ll go and get it. I need to collect the rest of my stuff.’

      ‘Your possessions can be couriered over with the passport.’

      ‘I want to get them myself.’

      The thought of her being in the same city as Javier set his teeth on edge. ‘Impossible. There is too much to arrange here.’

      ‘I need my clothes.’

      ‘I have appointments in Paris after our meeting with the mayor tomorrow. You can fly there with me and buy whatever you need.’

      ‘With what? Fresh air? I can’t buy an entire new wardrobe with one hundred and fifty euros, which is all I have in my account.’

      His lips curved in distaste. ‘You have spent all the money Javier has already given to you?’

      ‘Yes. I had...’

      ‘I have no cares for what you spend your money on. I will give you a credit card. Buy whatever you need with it. Consider it an early wedding present. While you are there you can buy a wedding dress.’

      ‘Something black to match your heart?’ she suggested with a touch of bitterness.

      ‘You are hardly in a position to talk of my heart when you were party to a contract like this one.’

      There was the slightest flinch. ‘Javier and I drew up a marriage agreement that suited us both.’

      ‘It does not suit me.’

      ‘You said you would honour it.’

      ‘And I will. I have only changed one item.’

      ‘I’m not signing unless it’s the original with only Javier’s name substituted for yours.’

      ‘You will if you still want the fortune and all the assets that come with it.’

      ‘What have you changed?’

      ‘Look for yourself.’ He handed the file to her. ‘The change is highlighted in red.’

      She took it from him with a scowl.

      ‘May I remind you,’ he said as she flicked through the papers, ‘that it is your choice to marry me. I am not forcing your hand.’

      She didn’t look up from the papers. ‘There was no other choice for me.’

      ‘The lure of all that money too strong to give up?’ he mocked.

      But she didn’t answer, suddenly looking up at him with wide eyes, colour blasting over her cheeks. ‘Of all the things you could have changed, you changed that?’

      ‘I am not signing away a chunk of my fortune and my freedom to spend only one night a week in a bed with my wife.’ He’d read that part of the long, detailed pre-nuptial agreement with his mouth open, shaking his head with disbelief as he’d wondered what kind of a woman would sign such a document.

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