LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER ONE

      BENJAMIN GUILLEM CAST his eye over the heads of the people scattered around the landscaped garden of the Tuscan-style villa in the heart of Madrid, an easy feat considering he was a head taller than most. The only guest there without a plus-one, he was also the only guest in attendance with no intention of celebrating Javier Casillas’s engagement.

      He snatched a flute of champagne from a passing waitress and drank it in one swallow. The bubbles felt like jagged barbs down his throat, magnifying the hot, knotted feeling that twisted inside him.

      Javier and Luis had betrayed him. The Casillas brothers had taken advantage of their lifelong friendship and ripped him off. All the documentary evidence pointed to that inescapable conclusion.

      He hoped the evidence was wrong. He hoped his instincts were wrong. They had to be. The alternative was too sickening to contemplate.

      He would not leave this party until he knew the truth.

      Benjamin took another champagne and stepped over to the elaborate fountain for a better view. He spotted Luis at the far end of the garden surrounded by his usual entourage of sycophants. Javier, Luis’s non-identical twin brother and host of the party, was proving far more elusive.

      Javier would be hating every minute of this party. He was the most antisocial person Benjamin knew. He’d always been that way, even before their father killed their mother over two decades ago.

      Thoughts of the Casillas brothers swiftly evaporated when a dark-haired woman walked out of the summer room, capturing his attention with one graceful step onto the flourishing green lawn. She raised her face to the sky and closed her eyes, holding the pose as if trying to catch the sun’s rays on her skin. There was an elegance about her, a poise, a way of holding herself that immediately made him think she was a dancer.

      There were a lot of dancers there. Javier’s new fiancée was the Principal Dancer at the ballet company the brothers had bought in their mother’s memory. Benjamin wondered if the fiancée knew or cared that she was only a trophy to him.

      Benjamin had never cared for the ballet or the people who inhabited its world. This dancer though...

      The sun caught the red undertones of her hair, which hung in a thick, wavy mass over glimmering pale shoulders. Her features were interesting rather than classically pretty, a strong, determined jaw softened by a wide, generous mouth...

      Her eyes suddenly found his, as if she sensed his gaze upon her, two black orbs ringing at him.

      A slight frown appeared on her brow as she stared, an unanswerable question in it, a frown that then lessened as her generous mouth curved hesitantly.

      His knotted stomach made a most peculiar twisting motion.

      No, not classically pretty but striking. Mesmerising.

      He couldn’t look away.

      And she couldn’t seem to tear her gaze from him either, a moment in time existing only for them, two eye-locked strangers.

      And then a shadow appeared behind her and she blinked, the sun-bound spell woven around them dissolving as quickly as it had formed.

      The shadow was Javier emerging from the sunroom to join his own party.

      He spotted Benjamin and nodded a greeting while his right hand settled proprietorially on the dancer’s waist.

      It came to him in an instant that this woman, the slowly forming smile on her face now frozen, was Javier’s fiancée.

      By the time Javier had steered the dancer to stand before him by the fountain, Benjamin had swallowed the bite of disappointment, shaken off the last of that strange spell and straightened his spine.

      He wasn’t here to party or for romance. He was here for business.

      ‘Benjamin, it’s good to see you,’ Javier said. ‘I don’t think you’ve met my fiancée, Freya, have you?’

      ‘No.’ He looked straight at her. A hint of colour slashed her high cheekbones. ‘A pleasure to meet you.’

      Under different circumstances it would have been a pleasure but now the spell had broken all that remained was a faint distaste that she should have stared so beguilingly at him when engaged to another man.

      But that was all the introduction Javier deemed necessary between his oldest friend and new fiancée, saying, ‘Have you seen Luis yet?’

      ‘Not yet but I am hoping to rectify that now.’ Then, dismissing the striking vision from his consideration, Benjamin added evenly, ‘We need to talk. You, me and Luis. In private.’

      There was a momentary silence as Javier stared at him, eyes narrowing before he nodded slowly and caught the attention of a passing waiter. ‘Find my brother and tell him to meet me and Senor Guillem in my study.’ Dropping his hold on his fiancée’s waist, he turned and strode back into the summer room without another word.

       Two months later...

       Smile, Freya, it’s a party and all for a worthy cause.

       Smile for the cameras. Smile for your fiancé, still not here but expecting you to turn on the charm even in his absence.

       Smile for the gathered strangers, pretend you know them intimately, let them brush their cheek against yours as you greet each other with the fake air kisses that make your stomach curdle.

       Smile, there’s another camera. Smile as you nurse your glass of champagne.

      Smile at the waiting staff circling the great ballroom with silver trays of delicious-smelling canapés but do not—not—be so gauche as to eat one.

       Just. Smile.

      And she did. Freya smiled so much her face ached, and then she smiled some more.

      Being promoted to Principal Dancer at Compania de Ballet de Casillas came with responsibilities that involved more than pure dance. Freya was now the official face of the ballet company and at this, its most exciting time. The new state-of-the-art theatre the Casillas brothers were building for the company opened in a couple of months and it was her face on all the billboards and advertisements for it. She was the lead in the opening production.

      Her, Freya Clements, an East London girl from a family so poor that winters were often a choice between heating and food, a Principal Dancer. It was a dream. She was living her dream. Marriage to Javier Casillas, joint owner of the ballet company, would be the...she almost thought icing on the cake but realised it was the wrong metaphor. Or was it the wrong simile? She couldn’t remember, had always struggled to differentiate between them. Either way, she couldn’t think of an appropriate metaphor or simile to describe her feelings about marrying Javier.

      Javier was rich. Very, very rich. No one knew how much he and his twin Luis were worth but it was rare for their names to be mentioned in the press without the prefix billionaire. He was also handsome. He had chosen her to be, as he had put it, his life

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