‘I’m sorry if this dents your ego, but if there’s a way I don’t have to marry you I’ll take it,’ she returned angrily.
His eyes turned even more frosty and a chill ran down her spine as if it had been touched by an icy finger.
He glared at her one last time before looking out at the rainforest over her shoulder. ‘I was engaged once before,’ he said, his voice grim and his jaw tight. ‘Camilla was the daughter of a business associate. We met five years ago and within weeks it seemed like the perfect match. She was impeccable, poised, understood my need to focus on the company. Or...that’s what I thought at the time. For three years we courted, Camilla reluctant to move in with me until we were married. I had proposed, but I was holding out on the wedding—I wanted everything in place, everything perfect. Xander and I were selling off one of the subsidiary companies to focus on the research and development side of things.
‘Research and development was something I’d always wanted to do. My father had no head for science, nor finances, and under his tenure the company had gone to the brink. I wanted the company to get back on track, to work on building a foundation that was more than just about supply and demand of building materials. I wanted us to be leading the demand. There is so much that can still be done, different ways to make the materials. Cheaper ones that could be of benefit to the world as well as the environment, instead of mindlessly using what’s already there despite now knowing the impact and the harm.’
She heard the pride and ambition in his voice. The passion. In some ways she felt it was the truest thing she’d heard him say. Felt it call to her because it met a yearning within her that she’d never been able to fulfil. Not while looking out for Star and Summer. And when he returned to the story of what had happened in the past, the light went out of his eyes.
‘I’d been distracted by a big new contract and Xander had been distracted by something else. He’d grown withdrawn and uncharacteristically antagonistic. I was relieved when a trip to Hong Kong had been cancelled at the last minute so that I could see him and get to the bottom of what was going on. I wanted to make sure he was okay.’
Benoit huffed out a bitter laugh. ‘I went to his apartment...’ His words conjured memories he hadn’t allowed himself to examine for two years and in his mind he retraced the steps up towards his broth
er’s door. He watched himself retrieve the spare key to the apartment from his pocket, knowing that he should knock, perhaps even then sensing unconsciously that something was wrong.
As he’d walked down the hallway he’d known, he thought now. Because why else would he have pressed on, why else would he have rounded the corner to his brother’s bedroom, when any sane person would have turned back? He’d ignored the signs in the kitchen and dining room—the glasses, the empty bottles of red wine...
‘I found them. In bed.’
Even now bile rose to the back of his throat. The sight of Camilla in a red lacy body suit dressed for seduction churned his stomach. He remembered how she’d shifted, leaning back, and the moment that he’d locked eyes with Xander. The pain, guilt and anguish he’d seen there lost to the horror and outrage exhibited by Camilla.
‘Rather than owning any sense of shame, she became a harpy, screaming and accusing.’ For some reason all Benoit could call to mind was the flash of her bright red nails—the colour matching her lingerie—nails that had seemed more like talons that night. ‘She told me it was my fault. That I had taken too long to get married. That Xander was everything that I wasn’t.’
‘And your brother?’ he heard Skye ask, her voice filtering from the present into the past.
‘He didn’t say a thing. He didn’t have to. He knew. I knew.’
Knew that the trust had been broken. And they would never get it back. Even now Benoit hated that the anger was mixed with an agony he daren’t name, let alone acknowledge. And he would certainly not dig deep enough to investigate why it also made him feel a little less guilty.
Turning his back on the past, he looked at his future. Skye.
‘I’m truly sorry that happened to you. I can’t imagine what that kind of betrayal would be like,’ Skye said. ‘But is marriage really the right way to ensure the company stays with you?’
‘I didn’t tell you this for your sympathy,’ he bit out. ‘I told you to make you understand that there is no alternative. My hand has been forced by my family—something I believe you are familiar with—and I will not let you near the map unless you agree to be my wife. Now, it’s getting late and I, for one, am looking forward to sleeping in a bed tonight.’
Skye looked around as if she’d only just noticed that the sun had set, the stars had risen and the day had turned to night.
‘I don’t have an answer for you, but I won’t forget that you twisted my arm into this.’
‘Good. You shouldn’t. Don’t forget, never forget, the one thing that can be trusted in life is that when everything is on the line, selfishness will always win out.’
Skye woke to the sound of Benoit’s words on a loop in her mind, his accent and the softly spoken words at complete odds with the sentiment.
Selfishness will always win out.
And then she remembered his other words. I need a wife.
And I need the map, she thought.
She couldn’t see a way round it. Benoit was the only person who could give her access to Anaïs, who had to have the map. And they needed the map to find the jewels to sell the estate if they were to have any hope of raising the money for the treatment Mariam needed so badly. For just a moment she had considered telling him about Mariam. About the cancer that was ravaging her body and how the only treatment they could get was freely given to others but would cost them the earth.
Or her hand in marriage.
Selfishness will always win out.
She just couldn’t trust him not to use it against her. So no. She would never tell him about her mother.
She pulled back the covers of a bed so comfortable it had been like sleeping on a cloud. She went to stand in front of the window that formed the entire wall of the bedroom, just as it did below. The night before, the view had been a dark velvet cloak punctuated with silver sequins. Now the sight of the rainforest was magnificent, an endless stretch of green, making her feel like the only person on the planet.