The Highest Stakes of All

by Sara Craven

  Bluffing, Joanna thought, a wild hope building inside her. He’s been bluffing and Daddy’s known it all along.

  Hardly breathing, she watched their adversary turn his cards over. Saw the queen of diamonds go down, followed by the queen of clubs, to be joined next by the queen of spades.

  He’s got a full house too, she thought, her throat tightening in excitement and sheer relief as he put down his next card, the five of clubs. Queens and fives, which Dad’s kings will beat. So I’m safe.

  Only to see his long fingers place the last card on the table. A red card, depicting a woman holding a flower.

  Joanna looked at it and the world stopped. Four of a kind, she thought numbly. Oh, God, he has four of a kind.

  ‘The queen of hearts,’ Vassos Gordanis said softly. ‘So I win. Everything.’

  And smiled at her.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  IT WAS, she thought, like being enclosed in a glass case. A place where she could see what was happening but take no part in it, and where her voice could not be heard.

  Aware, but isolated. But still able to think. To reason.

  The queen of hearts …

  At first she told herself that it must be a joke. That no one could possibly win another human being for a bet, however large.

  Sooner or later, she thought painfully, this ghastly humiliation would come to an end, and she and her father would be allowed to leave, even if all they took with them was their freedom to do so. Because they were in worse trouble than they’d ever been in their lives, as Gaston Levaux’s tight-lipped presence only confirmed.

  We don’t just owe the hotel, she realised. There’s also Mrs Van Dyne, who may not be very happy when she finds out what a total mess we’re in.

  But I mustn’t think like that. When we’re out of here, we can work something out. Denys will bounce back somehow, as he always does. I’m sure of it. I’ll really ask Monsieur Levaux to find me a job in the kitchens or as a chambermaid. Something. Anything. And we’ll survive. We always have before.

  She forced herself to lift her chin, trying to appear unconcerned as she focussed once again on the events taking place in front of her. Trying, also, to ignore a cold, sick feeling in the pit of her stomach as she saw Vassos Gordanis reach for his cheque and quite deliberately tear it into small pieces, before placing the fragments in his ashtray and setting fire to them.

  As she observed him summon Gaston Levaux and issue low-voiced instructions which she could not hear, but which, some instinct warned, concerned Denys and herself.

  As she watched the other players get to their feet, shaking hands with their host and each other, but avoiding even a sideways glance at her or at her father, who remained motionless in his chair, his head buried in his hands.

  Behaving, she thought, in a way that suggests they’re too embarrassed to acknowledge our continuing presence in the room.

  And she began to realise, as fear stirred within her, that the outcome of the evening might not be as simple as she’d hoped, or tried to believe.

  As Chuck passed her, she impulsively caught at his sleeve. ‘Help me.’ Her voice was a thread. ‘Help me—please.’

  ‘Nothing doing, honey.’ He detached himself firmly from her clasp. ‘I’m a married man, and I know what my wife would say if I turned up with a cute little number like you.’ He paused. ‘Besides, if you can’t stand the heat, you should’ve stayed out of the kitchen.’

  But I didn’t choose to be in the kitchen, she thought as she watched him leave with the others and turned to her father, who was still sitting, slumped in defeat.

  Do something, she cried out to him in silent desperation. Say something. Stop all this now. Because you can’t let it happen to me. You can’t …

  She saw Gaston Levaux approach him, accompanied by one of the quiet men from the Gordanis entourage. Saw them help him to his feet, making him walk between them to the door. Away from her. Abandoning her to the mercy of this stranger on the other side of the table. Which could well be no mercy at all.

  And, somehow, she managed at this moment of crisis to find her voice at last.

  ‘Don’t go.’ It was almost a scream as she jumped to her feet, preparing to follow. ‘Don’t leave me. Please …’

  She saw Denys turn and look back at her, his face grey, his eyes hopeless in a way she’d never known before.

  He has to tell them, she thought wildly. He has to tell them the truth about me. Gaston Levaux isn’t a bad man. When he knows I’m Denys’s daughter, and not his niece or something worse, he’ll talk to this Vassos Gordanis. Make him see reason. Make him understand that he has to let me go.

  I’ll go after them—talk to Monsieur Levaux myself. Persuade him to help.

  She took two steps towards the door, only to be halted in her tracks by a bulky figure in front of her.

  ‘Your time with the man Vernon is over, thespinis.’ It was the stout man, his face unsmiling, who’d detained her. ‘You must forget him and understand that you belong now to Kyrios Gordanis.’

  ‘No.’ She tried to dodge past him, intent on reaching the outside corridor and finding her father, refusing to be parted from him, but he was immovable. ‘I don’t belong to him or anyone else—and I never will,’ she added, flinging the words at Vassos Gordanis, who was still lounging in his chair, his cheroot held in his long fingers.

  He looked back at her, his face impassive. ‘You speak as if the choice was ever yours to make,’ he retorted coldly. ‘Now, go quietly with Stavros. I have no wish to force you.’

  The threat of it was enough to quell her, temporarily at least.

  With a sob of pure fright, she allowed herself to be ushered away, conducted into an adjoining room, lavishly appointed with sofas, chairs and occasional tables. However, her escort led her across it without pause, and through another door into the bedroom beyond.

  ‘You will wait here,’ she was brusquely instructed. ‘And before he comes to you, Kyrios Gordanis requires that you go to his bathroom and wash the make-up from your face.’

  Joanna wrenched herself free. ‘Tell him I’ll do nothing of the kind,’ she said hoarsely. ‘And that he can go to hell.’

  He gave her a sour smile. ‘Tell him that yourself, thespinis—if you are brave enough. But I do not advise it. You are here to obey his wishes, not defy them. It will be better for you to remember that.’

  He turned and left, closing the door behind him.

  She sank to her knees on the thick carpet, hugging her arms round her trembling body.

  She’d never experienced this feeling before. Even during that terrible time in Australia she’d always known that her father would keep her safe. That nothing bad would happen to her.

  Only the fragile cornerstone of her security had been removed, and her entire world was tottering on the edge of disaster.

  As the minutes dragged past, she lifted her head slowly and looked around her, taking reluctant stock of her surroundings.

  It was a large room, elegantly furnished in the Empire style, and dominated by the widest bed she had ever seen. The coverlet was deep blue quilted silk and had been turned down on both sides, revealing white linen sheets and plump, frilled pillows.

  As she assimilated this, Joanna felt physically sick, realising all the chilling personal implications of what she saw. The dire consequences of that last reckless bet which had delivered her into the power of a man like Vassos Gordanis.

  As she recognised, too, that no one was going to put a hand on her shoulder and say Wake up. You’re having a bad dream.

  Her worst nightmare was about to become reality, and there was nothing she could do, and no one she could turn to.

  Because a man whose existence she hadn’t been aware of before today was going to walk into this room at any moment and claim the kind of intimacies she’d thought she would only share with someone she both knew and loved. Someone that in all probability she was going to marry.

  Now, instead of tenderness, she would be su
bjected to a man’s demands for raw passion. And nothing in her life so far had prepared her for this. On the contrary.

  She drew a quivering breath. She knew, of course, the basics of what would be expected of her. She was neither ignorant, nor completely stupid, having sat through the embarrassment of sex education classes. But her actual experience had never proceeded beyond a few tentative kisses.

  And there’d only been that one encounter that she’d found even remotely threatening, and even then Denys’s approach down the moonlit garden, his voice calling to her, had provided her with instant protection from kisses that had suddenly become too rough and hands that had tried, with clumsy determination, to grope at her shrinking body.

  And if those fairly trivial advances had repelled her, how could she possibly cope with the prospect of being possessed completely? Used by a man for his casual pleasure then discarded?

  She could feel a knot of misery tightening in her chest. She was more alone than she had ever been in her life and tears were not far away.

  But she would not allow herself to shed them, she thought, as she scrambled up from the floor.

  She was damned if she was going to behave like a victim, she told herself with stormy resolution. When Vassos Gordanis eventually decided to put in an appearance, she’d be on her feet and facing him with the contempt and disgust he deserved.

  Because, whatever happened with the other women who crossed his path, he would fail with her. He might have won her at cards, but that would be his only victory. He wouldn’t even have the satisfaction of hearing her plead. Instead, she would confront him with her total indifference.

  And when he realised he was wasting his time and let her go, she would approach Monsieur Levaux and ask him to ring her uncle and arrange for her father and herself to return to England.

  Where she would pretend that nothing had happened to her. That the outcome of the game had merely been another kind of bluff.

  Only it wasn’t, of course, she thought slowly. Looking back, she had the odd conviction that the entire evening had been planned to end exactly in that way. As if Vassos Gordanis knew her father’s weaknesses as a gambler and had deliberately exploited them.

  But that’s not possible, she told herself. Neither of us has ever set eyes on him before yesterday. I know that. My God, if we’d met before I’d have remembered—and made sure I avoided any second encounter.

  At the same time, she found her mind being drawn unwillingly back to the scruffy pirate who’d sent her that laughing salute from his deck some lifetime ago, trying to equate him with the hard-mouthed man who’d looked at her in cold triumph as he put down the winning card, but failing totally.

  If he was still the pirate, she thought, maybe I could talk to him. Because, however aggravating, he’d seemed—almost human.

  And halted, her mouth twisting in self-derision.

  Are you crazy? she asked herself. We’re not talking about some nicer twin brother here. Vassos Gordanis is one person, not two. And if he had an atom of decency or humanity about him you wouldn’t be in this situation.

  The room suddenly felt airless and she went over to the French windows, pulling the blue drapes aside and opening one of the glazed doors.

  The night was cooler now, she discovered as she leaned against the doorframe. She drew several deep breaths, trying to calm herself, but it wasn’t easy with Persephone there, right bang in front of her.

  She bit her lip. There seemed to be nowhere she could go to escape its owner, either mentally or physically, she thought bitterly.

  And although the story of the girl being carried off to Hell was only a legend, invented thousands of years ago, in Joanna’s own mind right now it was beginning to take on a kind of dreadful reality.

  Like Persephone of ancient days, she was being taken from everything and everyone she knew and loved, by a man of whom she knew nothing except that he had the money and power to do pretty much as he chose.

  I wanted my life to change, she thought, swallowing. Wanted to escape. But not like this. Never like this.

  Then, in the stillness, she heard the rattle of the door handle and knew that her temporary reprieve had come to an end. That she was no longer alone.

  Hands clenched into fists at her sides, she made herself turn slowly and look at him.

  He came forward slowly, tossing his dinner jacket and black tie across the dressing stool, and halted to regard her in turn, hands on hips, his gaze almost dispassionate.

  He said, ‘You were told to wash your face, but I see that you have not done so.’

  Joanna lifted her chin. ‘I don’t take orders from strangers.’

  ‘But we are not destined to remain strangers, you and I.’ He began without haste to unfasten the remaining buttons on his shirt. ‘As you very well know. Therefore you would be wise to obey me, and do as you have been told.’

  ‘Why should I?’ she challenged.

  ‘Because I require it,’ he said flatly. ‘I was told you were beautiful, but that is impossible to judge when you hide yourself beneath a layer of scented grease.’

  Told? she thought dazedly. Who told you—and why?

  ‘It is surprising, too,’ he added drily, ‘when your choice of clothing, by contrast, leaves so little to the imagination.’

  ‘You disapprove of the way I dress?’ she asked defiantly. ‘Under the circumstances, isn’t that a little hypocritical?’

  ‘I am talking of how you present yourself to others,’ he said. ‘What you wear for my eyes alone will be an entirely different matter. So go and wash.’ He paused. ‘Unless you wish me to do it for you.’

  She said swiftly, ‘That’s the last thing I want.’

  ‘Truly?’ he asked mockingly, sending his shirt to join his other clothes on the stool. ‘I thought—under the circumstances—you would have other far more serious objections to my plans for you.’

  Her resentment of his high-handedness was indeed the least of her worries, she thought, swallowing.

  At close quarters, stripped to the waist, he looked even more formidable, the dark hair on his chest tapering into a deep vee which disappeared into the waistband of his pants.

  Nor, she realised, dry-mouthed, had she overestimated the muscled strength of his shoulders and arms. It suddenly seemed far wiser, if she could make her legs obey her, to make the small placatory gesture of going to the bathroom to do as he asked.

  There was no facial cleanser among the toiletries on offer, just soap and water which did little to remove her eye make-up and left her looking like a bush baby.

  The mirror above the basin told her that he had followed her, and was leaning in the doorway, observing her efforts with cynically raised eyebrows.

  She drained the water and turned defensively to face him. He walked across to her and took her chin in his hand, the dark eyes examining her for an endless minute. She saw his brows lift as if he was surprised at something. And not pleased.

  But all he said was, ‘A slight improvement,’ then moved away from her, casually unzipping his pants and discarding them. He reached into the shower and turned it on, then, to her horror, stripped off the black briefs that were his only covering and stepped calmly into the cubicle, letting the flow of water cascade over his naked body.

  For a second Joanna was motionless, caught between shock and sheer embarrassment, then she gave a panic-stricken gasp and flew back into the bedroom, bent on flight, in case he should decide to summon her back to join him.

  But having reached the door she stopped. Because how far did she expect to get, when everyone in the suite beyond was in his pay?

  It seemed that the only means of escape left to her was by way of the window. And as this suite was on the hotel’s top floor, that would mean instant oblivion.

  She shivered as she went out on to the balcony to check that there was no climbing shrub or convenient drainpipe that might at least give her access to a lower floor. But there was nothing.

  A fate worse than dea
th, she thought, looking over the rail into the darkness beneath. Wasn’t that the famous—and totally ludicrous—cliché? Because flinging herself down into infinity would never be an option for her, however scared she might be.

  But I’m going to survive, she told herself. And choose another very different cliché. Where there’s life, there’s hope.

  I will get through this, she thought, no matter what he does. Because none of it will be happening to me, but to the stranger who wears sexy clothes and too much make-up. The girl I’ve always detested. And I’ll keep the real Joanna Vernon, the girl with hopes and dreams of an independent future, somewhere safe where Vassos Gordanis will never find her.

  But there was still bewilderment under the brave resolution. Because if all he required was the novelty of an unfamiliar female body for a few hours, he surely he didn’t have to go to these lengths to get what he wanted.

  Even without the lure of his millions, there were probably women in the world who might well be attracted by his particular brand of masculinity, even if she would never be one of them.

  How could he do that? she wondered, pressing her hands to her burning cheeks. How could he just—strip off in front of her as if she didn’t matter—as if she wasn’t even there?

  Was that really the way a man would behave with a girl he planned to seduce?

  Or was it another deliberate insult? A succinct demonstration of how lowly a place she occupied in his scheme of things.

  If so, why had he gone to all that trouble and risked all that money in order to acquire her? Because he certainly hadn’t been carried away by some passionate and irresistible desire.

  When he’d touched her for the first time just now his fingers had been firm rather than caressing.

  In fact, I’m not convinced that he really fancies me at all, she told herself. In which case, why—why am I here?

  I was told you were beautiful …

  Was that really enough to attract the attention of a man who could afford to buy anything and cause him to track her down?

  If so, he must be seriously disappointed now that he had seen her. Perhaps he was already regretting that he’d wasted his time on such unpromising material, and her approaching ordeal would not be prolonged.