Billionaire's Bride For Revenge

‘Oui. Twenty per cent. Twenty per cent investment for a twenty per cent profit. Twenty per cent of one and a half billion equals three hundred million, do you agree?’

‘I’m not an accountant,’ she repeated, looking away from him, her lips tightening mutinously.

‘You do not need to be an accountant to agree that three hundred million euros is a lot of money.’

Her slim shoulders rose but other than a flash of colour on her high cheekbones, the mutinous expression on her face didn’t change.

‘I have received all of my investment back but only seventy-five million euros of the profit. The equivalent of five per cent.’

Her eyes found his stare again. ‘Am I supposed to feel sorry for you?’

‘You are not expected to feel anything.’ Benjamin stifled his growing anger at her cold indifference. He hadn’t expected anything less from the woman engaged to the coldest man in Europe. ‘I am laying out the facts of the situation. Javier and Luis have ripped me off. They owe me two hundred and twenty-five million euros.’

He had earmarked that money for a charity that helped traumatised children.

The irony of why he had chosen that charity would be funny if the situation were not so damn serious. The memories of Javier and Luis’s traumatisation at the death of their mother at the hands of their father had haunted him for years.

Benjamin had almost bankrupted himself investing in the Tour Mont Blanc project. He’d spent seven years clawing his way back, going higher than he had ever climbed before, investing and expanding his fine food business across the globe until he had reached the point where he didn’t owe a cent to anyone. All his assets, his business and subsidiaries were his alone and could never be taken from him. Now he could do some good with the great wealth he had built for himself and Javier and Luis had stolen his first significant act from him, just as they had stolen his money, his trust and all the memories he’d held dear.

‘Take it up with your lawyers.’

‘I have.’ Benjamin remembered the green colour Andre had turned when he’d had to tell his most lucrative client that the Casillas brothers were correct in their assertion that he was only owed five per cent of the profits.

It had been there in black and white on the contract he’d signed seven years ago, hidden in the small print. It could have been written in the largest font available and he doubted he would have noticed it back then. He had signed the contract without getting his lawyer to read it first. That was his own fault, he accepted that. It was the only contract he’d ever signed without poring over every word first. The brothers had been given until midnight to come up with the full asking price or the land would have been sold to another interested party and they would have lost the substantial deposit they’d already paid at that point.

They had come to him for help on the same day Benjamin’s mother had been told there was nothing more the medical team could do to stave off the cancer ravaging her body. Although not a shock—she had not responded well to any of the treatment she’d been given—it had been the single biggest blow in his life.

Benjamin had signed with only a cursory glance at the document and transferred the money there and then. If it had been anyone else he would have refused to even contemplate the investment but it had been Javier and Luis asking. Men he regarded as kin. Men his mother had regarded as kin. Men he’d trusted unconditionally. At the time he hadn’t cared that it would eat into his own cash-flow and that the chateau he’d intended to buy outright for his mother to pass the last of her days in would need him to take a hefty mortgage. It was that knock-on effect that had almost bankrupted him.

‘From a legal point of view there is nothing more I can do about it.’ The words felt like needles in his throat.

He’d refused to accept Andre’s judgement and had fast-tracked the matter to a courtroom. The judge had reluctantly agreed with Andre.

Benjamin’s rage at the situation had been enflamed when Javier and Luis successfully applied for an injunction on the reporting of the court case. They didn’t want the business world to know their word was worthless or the levels to which they would stoop in the name of profit.

‘Have you brought me here to tell me this thinking I will speak to Javier on your behalf?’ she asked, her disbelief obvious despite the composed way she held herself.

He laughed mirthlessly and took a paring knife off the tray. He doubted very much that Javier cared for Freya’s opinion. She was his beautiful prima ballerina trophy not his partner. Benjamin’s hope was that her value as a trophy was greater than two hundred and twenty-five million euros.

Cutting into the peel of a fat, ripe orange, he said, ‘I am afraid the situation has gone far past the point where it can be resolved by words alone.’

‘Then what do you want from me? Why am I here?’

‘Every action has a consequence. Javier and Luis have stolen from me and I am out of legal options.’ He cut the last of the peel off the orange and dropped it into a bowl. ‘In reality, the money is not important...’

She let out a delicate, disbelieving cough.

He cut into the flesh of his peeled orange. ‘I am a very wealthy man, ma douce...’

‘Well done.’

‘And if it was just the money I would write it off,’ he continued as if she hadn’t interrupted him, cutting the orange into segments. ‘But this is about much more than money, more than you could understand. I am not willing to let it go or let them get away with it. You are my last bargaining chip.’

‘Me?’ For the first time since she had entered his home, her composure made an almost imperceptible slip. ‘But I had nothing to do with it. I was still in ballet school when you signed that contract.’

‘Oui. You.’ He looked at his watch and smiled. ‘In three minutes it will be midnight. In three minutes Javier will receive a message giving him exactly twenty-four hours to pay the money owed.’

She swallowed. ‘Or...?’

‘If the Casillas brothers refuse to pay what they have taken from me then by the laws of natural justice I shall take from them, starting with you. If they do not pay then, ma douce, the message Javier will receive any moment tells him his engagement to you will be over and that you will marry me instead.’

CHAPTER FOUR (#uf6fee3b9-f9f1-5218-93ec-3e1ec1ca04e7)

THE BURN THAT had enflamed Freya’s brain earlier returned with a vengeance. She gazed into the resolute green eyes that gave nothing away and felt her stomach clench into a pinpoint.

Freya had no illusions about her lack of intellect. Ballet had been her all-consuming passion since she could walk. She couldn’t remember a time in her life when she hadn’t breathed dance and her education had suffered for it. She had one traditional educational qualification and that was in art.

But this didn’t mean she was stupid and she would have to be the dimmest person to walk the earth not to look into those green eyes and recognise that Benjamin was deadly serious.

This was revenge in its purest form and she was his weapon of choice to gain it.

She was his hostage.

Her kidnapper stared at her without an ounce of pity, waiting for her response to his bombshell.

She responded by using the 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.