Marriage Made In Blackmail. Michelle Smart

       About the Publisher

       CHAPTER ONE

      LUIS CASILLAS SNATCHED his ringing phone off the table and put it to his ear. ‘Sí?’

      ‘Luis?’

       ‘Sí.’

      ‘It’s Chloe.’

      That brought him up short. ‘Chloe... Chloe Guillem.’

      The woman who had spent the past two months treating him as if he were a carrier for a deadly plague?

      ‘Oui. I need your help. My car has broken down on a road on the Sierra de Guadarrama...’

      ‘What are you doing there?’

      ‘Driving. Was driving.’

      ‘Have you called for recovery?’

      ‘They can’t get to me for two hours. My phone is running out of battery. Please, can you come and rescue me? Please? I don’t feel safe.’

      Luis looked at his watch and swore under his breath. He was due at the gala he and his twin brother Javier were hosting in half an hour.

      ‘Is there no one else you can call?’ Chloe worked for his ballet company in Madrid. In the year the gregarious Frenchwoman had lived in his home city she had made plenty of friends.

      ‘You are the closest. Please, Luis, come and get me.’ Her voice dropped to a whisper. ‘I’m scared.’

      He took a long breath as he did some mental maths. This gala was incredibly important.

      Ten years ago Luis and his twin had bought the provincial ballet company their prima ballerina mother had spent her childhood training at. Their aim had been to elevate it into a world-renowned, formidable ballet company. First they had renamed it Compania de Ballet de Casillas, in their mother’s memory, then set about attracting the very best dancers and choreographers. Three years ago they had drawn up the plans to move the company out of the crumbling theatre it had called home for decades and into a purpose-built state-of-the art theatre with world-class training facilities and its own ballet school. Those plans had almost reached fruition.

      Now they wanted patrons for it, members of the elite to sponsor the ballet school and put it even more firmly on the world’s ballet map. Europe’s elite and dozens of its press were already gathering at the hotel. Luis had to be there.

      ‘Where exactly are you?’

      ‘You will come?’

      It was the hope in her voice that did for him. Chloe had the sweetest voice he had ever had the pleasure of listening to. It wasn’t girlishly sweet, more melodic, a voice that sang.

      He couldn’t leave her alone on the mountains.

      ‘Sí, I will come and get you, but I need to know where you are.’

      ‘I will send you the co-ordinates but then I will have to turn my phone off to save what is left of my battery.’

      ‘Keep it on,’ he ordered. ‘Have you got anything to hand you can use as a weapon if you need it?’

      ‘I’m not sure...’

      ‘Find something heavy or sharp. Be vigilant. Send me the co-ordinates now. I’m on my way.’

      ‘Merci, Luis. Merci beaucoup.’

      ‘I’ll be with you as soon as I can.’

      Hurrying to his underground garage, he selected the quickest of his fleet of cars, inputted Chloe’s co-ordinates into its satnav, then drove it up the ramp. The moment he was clear, he put his foot down, tearing down his long driveway, past the stretched Mercedes with his waiting driver in it.

      His clever console, which had calculated the quickest route for him, said he was an hour’s drive to her position from his home in the north of Madrid, if he kept to the speed limit.

      Provided traffic wasn’t too heavy this Saturday evening, Luis estimated he could make it in forty, possibly even thirty minutes.

      He always kept to the speed limit in built-up areas. The temptation to burn rubber was often irresistible but he always controlled the impulse until on the open road. Today, with thoughts of Chloe stranded in the mountains on his mind, he wove in and out of the traffic ignoring the blast of horns hailing furiously in his wake.

      Chloe Guillem. A funny, attention-seeking, pretty child who had grown into a witty, fun-loving, beautiful woman. Truly beautiful.

      It had taken him a long time to notice it.

      An old family friend, he hadn’t seen her for four or five years when she had called him out of the blue.

      ‘Bonjour, Luis,’ she had said in a sing-song tone that had immediately suggested familiarity. ‘It is Chloe Guillem, little sister of your oldest friend, calling to ask you to put friendship ahead of business and give me a job.’

      He had burst into laughter. After a short conversation where Chloe had explained that she’d completed her apprenticeship in the costume department of an English ballet company, spent the past two years working for a Parisian ballet company and was now seeking a fresh challenge, he’d given her the name and number of his Head of Costume. Recruitment, he’d explained, was nothing to do with him.

      ‘But you own the company,’ she had countered.

      ‘I own it with my brother. We are experts in the construction business. We know nothing of ballet or how to make the costumes our dancers wear. That’s what we employ people for.’

      ‘I have references that say I’m very good,’ she had cajoled.

      ‘That is good because we only hire the best.’

      ‘Will you put in a good word for me?’

      ‘No, but if you mention that your mother was Clara Casillas’s personal costume maker, I am sure that will work in your favour. Provided you are as good as your references say you are.’

      ‘I am!’

      ‘Then you will have no trouble convincing Maria to hire you,’ he had laughed.

      Luis had thought nothing more of the conversation until around six months later when he’d attended a directors meeting at the old theatre to discuss preparations for the company’s move. A galloping gazelle had bounded up to him out of nowhere with a beaming smile and thrown her arms around him.

      It had been Chloe, bright and joyous and, she had delightedly told him, loving her time in Madrid. Luis had been pleased to see this face from his past but he’d been too busy to take much notice of his old friend’s little sister.

      When Luis and Javier had pooled their meagre inheritance to form Casillas Ventures almost two decades ago, they had decided from the start that one of them would always be the ‘point man’ on each project. This would simplify matters for contractors and suppliers. Luis had taken the role of point man for the construction of the new theatre and facilities. In this venture he had been far more hands on than he would normally be but this was a special project. This was for their mother, a way for the world to see the Casillas name without automatically thinking of Clara Casillas’s tragic end at the hands of her husband.

      The closer it got to completion, the more hours he needed to put in, overseeing the construction and ensuring Compania de Ballet de Casillas was prepared for the wholesale move to its new premises.

      From that embrace on though, whenever Luis visited the old crumbling theatre he somehow always managed to see Chloe.

      She always acknowledged his presence, with either a quick wave if working on an intricate costume or a few words exchanged