LITMIR.BIZ

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have much to talk about. It is better we talk in privacy and comfort.’

      ‘And I prefer to discuss things now, before I get back on that plane and tell the pilot to take me back to Madrid.’ To get to the plane, though, meant getting past him. A lifetime of dance had given her an agility and strength most other women didn’t possess but she didn’t kid herself that she had the strength to match this man, who had to be a foot taller than her own five foot five and twice her breadth.

      She caught a glimmer of pity in those dangerous green eyes that made her blood chill to the same temperature as her spine.

      Her fingers found the pepper spray.

      She might not have the strength to match him but she would bet her life she was quicker than him.

      She pulled the weapon out and aimed it at him, simultaneously stepping out of the heels that would hinder any escape. ‘I am going back to Madrid and you can’t stop me.’

      Then, not giving him a chance to respond in any shape or form, Freya took off, racing barefoot over the runway and then over the dry grass to the safety that was the concrete building with its welcoming lights. Not once did she look over her shoulder, her focus solely on the door that would open and lead her to...

      A locked door.

      She tugged at it, she pushed it, she pulled it. It didn’t budge.

      ‘This airfield belongs to me.’ Benjamin’s voice carried through the still night air that was broken only by the running engine of his jet. ‘No one here will help you.’

      She turned her head to look back at him, surprised to find herself more angry than fearful.

      Surely this was a situation where terror rather than fury should be the primary emotion?

      He had lied to her and deliberately taken her to the wrong country.

      No one did that unless they had bad intentions.

      She should be terrified.

      Benjamin hadn’t moved. He stood by the car watching her impassively. For the first time she realised the car had a driver in it.

      And for the first time she realised his jet’s engines were still running for a reason. Not only that but it was moving...

      Open-mouthed, fighting back despair, Freya watched it increase in speed down the runway.

      A moment later it was in the air.

      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

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