LITMIR.BIZ

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room twice. ‘Have you invited anyone else without consulting me?’

      ‘I didn’t realise I needed permission to invite my parents to our wedding.’

      ‘Consultation is not the same as permission.’

      ‘I quite agree, which is why I think it’s outrageous you’ve decided we should have no guests at all without any consultation with me.’

      She did not drop her stare. Respect worked both ways and he needed to learn that.

      A pulse throbbed in his temple.

      Javier, she realised, was so tightly wound that to pull him any tighter would make him snap.

      It didn’t scare her. Javier needed to snap. It could not be healthy keeping everything bottled inside him all the time.

      ‘I am very close to my parents,’ she told him in a gentler tone when he made no effort to respond. ‘It would break their hearts if I married without them.’

      His lips pulled together before he finally inclined his head.

      ‘Bueno, your parents can come.’

      She bit back the words of thanks she wanted to say. Gratitude on this would make her look weaker than he already thought her to be.

      The sooner Javier came to regard her as his equal, the better.

      She had a feeling that with the exception of his brother, he rarely saw anyone as equal to him. Freya had gained his respect, she thought with a pang that felt suspiciously like jealousy, but then Freya was the female version of Javier; single-minded and driven.

      If Sophie could cut through Freya’s walls then she could at least chip away at Javier’s.

      By the time their child was born she would have chipped away at enough of it that he could be the loving father their child needed and deserved.

      Taking her cutlery back in her hand, she cut a bite of the delicious pork fillet and added some of the red pepper and chorizo sauce.

      Eighteen months in Madrid had given Sophie a great appreciation of its culture but its food had been something she’d limited herself with, her ballet diet too strict for her to dare eat out much. It had been safer to prepare all her own tried and tested meals and ignore the tantalising aromas that had greeted her whenever she’d stepped onto Madrid’s bustling streets. She had missed out on so much but what surprised her was how little she had missed dancing since she’d quit.

      She’d been so ashamed of what she’d done with Javier that she had left the company the next day. By the time she’d taken the pregnancy test she’d known she would never dance professionally again. Without the drive of constant performances and tours to keep her in top condition and with the tiredness that had drained her in the early weeks of pregnancy, her exercise regime had gone from seven intense hours a day minimum to hardly anything. And she didn’t miss it at all. She found it liberating in a way she’d never anticipated. She could eat the wonderful salt-baked new potatoes that made her taste buds tingle in delight without an ounce of guilt.

      The magical food Javier’s chef had created deserved to be appreciated much more than Javier currently was appreciating it, his attention again back on his phone.

      ‘Is Luis coming to the wedding?’ she asked before popping the fork into her mouth.

      Start as she meant to go on, she reminded herself. This was their wedding. She’d been happy to leave the arrangements in Javier’s hands but she would not exchange her vows blind to everything.

      He didn’t look up. ‘No.’

      ‘Is he too busy?’

      His shoulders rose and his nostrils flared before he answered. ‘Luis and I are finished, as brothers and business partners, and if you would stop asking me inane questions I could respond to this email my lawyer has sent me about it.’

      The Casillas brothers were finished? Had she really heard that correctly?

      The tightness of his features proved she had not misheard.

      ‘What’s happened?’ she asked quietly. She would not allow his bad temper to push her into silence. Sophie had dealt with temperamental dancers and choreographers her entire life and had long ago stopped being silenced by anger.

      Anger always went hand in hand with pain, something she had learned at the age of nine when her paternal grandmother had died. It was the only time her father had ever lashed out. A normal Sunday dinner in the weeks after the funeral became a memory of a plate full of food smashing into the wall, her father offended by the lack of seasoning, ranting, face red and furious, shouting obscenities Sophie had never heard before. Her mother had watched in silence, then had gone to him and taken him in her arms.

      The howl of pain her father had given as he’d collapsed into her mother’s arms was a sound Sophie would remember for the rest of her life.

      Javier’s sharp eyes suddenly found hers again ‘Luis’s engagement to Chloe Guillem was announced a week ago. Is that explanation enough?’

      ‘Benjamin’s sister?’ Not just Benjamin’s sister but a costume maker employed by Compania de Ballet de Casillas.

      He nodded and took a drink of his water.

      ‘Didn’t you say she’d been involved in Benjamin stealing Freya away from you?’ She was sure he had, right before they had made love on this table. He had made her coffee and asked her the questions she’d guessed had been playing on his mind for a week. She’d been sad for him that she couldn’t answer them but, in truth, she’d been as surprised as he’d been by what Freya had done.

      Freya didn’t love Javier but she’d been desperate for the money marrying him would have given her, which she had planned to spend on an expensive experimental treatment for her mother, who had a rare neurological disease. The treatment wouldn’t have saved her life but there was a chance it would extend and improve the quality of it.

      ‘Chloe conspired with her brother to make Luis and myself late for the gala, which enabled Benjamin to pounce and steal Freya away to his chateau in France.’

      ‘And Luis is now engaged to her? How does that work?’

      His eyes glittered with menace. ‘My brother’s loyalty has transferred to the Guillems. I’m surprised you haven’t read about it. The press have loved reporting that latest twist in the saga.’

      ‘I’ve been avoiding the news since I went home to England,’ she admitted. ‘That doorstepping left a very unpleasant taste in my mouth.’

      Javier stared at her, suddenly remembering the strange protective feeling that had raced through him when she’d spoken of the press harassment. And with it came the memory of how his eyes had been unable to do anything but drink her in.

      He could keep his eyes fixed to his phone as much as he liked but every nerve ending in his body was aware of the woman seated opposite him and every muscle remembered with painful intensity the sensation of being burrowed deep inside her.

      ‘Luis is a traitor,’ he answered flatly, speaking aloud the fury coiling like a viper inside him for the first time.

      It was not the press Sophie needed protecting from, it was him.

      Sophie needed to know who she was marrying.

      ‘I have protected him since childhood and carried him through the business and he repays me by defending and choosing to marry the woman who conspired with her brother to destroy us. He is dead to me and I would thank you not to mention his name in my presence again.’

      Her eyes widened, whether at his tone or his words he did not know or care.

      When it came to his brother, there would be no compromise.

      Luis could rot in hell.

       CHAPTER

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