His Last Gamble

by Maxine Barry

  Well, so be it.

  He was going to have to have her now. Have to find out where this was all taking him. Because he was sure she had some sort of scheme in mind. And since scheming obviously didn’t come naturally to her, he was intrigued to find out what was behind it all. And if a taunting little voice whispered at the back of his mind that he was well and truly snared, he ruthlessly pushed it aside. After all, he could handle a novice like this with one hand tied behind his back. Right?

  Charmaine felt the words she’d been about to speak dry up in her throat. As if sensing her sudden panic, the butterfly flew away.

  Why was he looking at her like that?

  ‘Payne,’ she croaked nervously.

  ‘Yes?’ he said harshly.

  ‘Is something wrong?’

  Payne smiled crookedly. ‘Wrong? What could possibly be wrong?’ And so saying, he reached forward and pulled her finger into his mouth.

  She gasped as he sucked lustily on her digit, turning her breasts into twin peaks of desire and making her snatch her hand away as if she was being burnt.

  * * *

  The sun was beginning to set as they roared into the turning to Six Men’s Bay, where a small private marina was fenced off.

  The bobbing yachts, furled sails gleaming white against the sea, their paint work turning orange with the glow of the setting sun, moved up and down with the gentle swell of the sea.

  ‘What are we doing here?’ she asked, as he turned off the ignition and drew off his sunglasses.

  ‘Dinner,’ he said simply.

  ‘Oh,’ she said quietly. She was hardly dressed for dinner, but she wasn’t about to point that out. Ever since that incredible moment in the tea shop, she’d been aware that something had changed between them.

  She wasn’t sure what it was, but it made her even more nervous.

  Oh, he’d been the perfect host ever since, showing off the island of which he was justly proud, and making sure she saw all the sights. But he seemed almost reserved. Wary. Watchful even.

  Now she climbed out of the car and looked around nervously. She couldn’t see a club house.

  Using one of the keys on his key ring, he unlocked the padlock securing the door in the chain-link fence, and she walked out onto the jetty. Through the gaps in the planks she could see the swirling motion of the sea beneath her.

  ‘This way,’ he led her almost to the end, then turned, lightly climbing on board a large, sleek, ultra-modern yacht.

  ‘I thought . . .’ she began nervously, then bit her lip. What had she thought?

  ‘Don’t worry, I’m a good cook,’ he called down. ‘The crew always keep the fridge and pantry well stocked. I usually take her out at least once a week, but we’ll dine in harbour tonight. It’s the crew’s night off.’

  Charmaine looked up the gangplank at him, still hesitant.

  ‘She belongs to you?’ she asked finally, looking towards the prow and the name plate, where she read it out loud. ‘Queen of Diamonds.’ She laughed softly. Who else could it possibly belong to?

  ‘Come on up,’ he said softly and disappeared inside. A moment later, lights softly gleamed from the interior.

  She took a deep, deep breath and slowly made her way up the gang plank.

  She’d never been on a yacht before in her life.

  She stepped into a stateroom that, even to her untutored eyes, was the second word in luxury. Her feet sank down into thick, thick carpet in a gentle shade of mint green, whilst the palest of apricot covered walls panelled in pale oak. Deep dark brown leather sofas littered what looked like an acre of space; smoky glass and chrome tables held magazines, books, and a frightening-looking hi-fi system.

  Through an alcove she heard the sound of pots and pans, and slowly walked around. She was sure one of the oil paintings fastened onto the wall was by a famous French impressionist. An antiques drinks cabinet displayed an exquisite decanter and cut glass tumbler set, as well as alcohol of every description. She sank down onto one of the sofas, only to get up and nervously prowl around again a moment later.

  What was she doing here?

  Doubtless the ‘Queen of Diamonds’ had a master bedroom somewhere down below. Probably complete with a mirrored ceiling and black satin sheets!

  OK, perhaps not, she admitted to herself a moment later. Not when she had evidence of such exquisite taste all around her.

  But it would definitely have a bed. A big bed.

  And a man like Payne Lacey would almost certainly expect to be using that bed later on. And not alone, either.

  He’d expect some return for all the time he’d lavished on her today, after all. Why, even now, he was neglecting his precious casino in order to wine and dine her. What happened when it came time to pay the piper?

  ‘Pan fried sea-bass with a tossed salad all right?’ he asked from just behind her, making her jump like a startled cat and shoot around.

  ‘Oh, er, yes. Yes. Fine,’ she stammered.

  He returned to the kitchen, or galley, she supposed it should be called, and a moment later heard the sizzling of fish.

  Nervously she pulled open some French doors and found herself out on deck, with the glorious panorama of a sunset over the ocean spread out in front of her in all its glory.

  She should be happy.

  She was exactly where she wanted to be. Her plan to snare and break Payne Lacey seemed well on track. She was young, about to dine with a rich and handsome suitor on his fabulous yacht, and she had all the delights of the Caribbean right there at her fingertips. So why did she feel so . . . . . . miserable?

  Because, she realised a moment later, it was all a sham. The man cooking her dinner was not her lover, but a man she despised. She was not here in pursuit of love, but for cold, meagre revenge.

  Her life, suddenly, felt like nothing but a forgery, and her immediate future held nothing in store but a pile of comfortless ashes.

  And it was then that it hit her, with all the force of a hammer blow. She was in love with Payne Lacey!

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Charmaine clung weakly to the deck rail. In love? Now where had that preposterous notion come from? Of course she wasn’t in love. Not with Payne Lacey, the man who wooed, threw over, and nearly killed her sister. She couldn’t possibly be in love with him, of all men.

  She shook her head, fighting off a giddying sense of panic. She was just . . . overwhelmed. Yes, that was all. After all, that was understandable, she told herself fervently.

  As a child she’d always been shy, and in the shadow of her famous family and her beloved sister. So she’d sought refuge in her one talent, and through sheer hard work and diligence, had succeeded in the world of fashion design. But although her career had always been as bright and shinning as anyone could have wished for, her social life had been nonexistent. She had, literally, no experience of men. Even her closest male friend was gay.

  So when a man like Payne Lacey suddenly began to court her, of course she was bowled over. She wouldn’t be human otherwise. He was rich, sexy, handsome, exciting. All the things that were supposed to turn a girl’s head.

  But not her heart! There was nothing about the man that touched her heart—there couldn’t be. He was callous, uncaring, and probably didn’t even believe that such a thing as love actually existed. In his world, women were for wooing and bedding then dumping, ready for the next one.

  She thought of his nephew and his defence of some unknown friend’s wife and sighed. OK, so the man wasn’t a total monster. No human being was. But that didn’t mean she’d lost her heart to him. It didn’t!

  She watched the sun go down, the stars come out, and the dark exotic night darken around her. From the shore, the perfume of night-blooming flowers scented the sea breeze.

  Perhaps she was just in love with this place, and with this moment in time. But not with the man. She couldn’t be in love with the man. She wouldn’t let herself be. It was just too . . . unthinkable.

  ‘Dinner’s ready,’
he said softly, cutting across her agonised thoughts and making her whirl around with a small gasp. She had no idea how she looked in that moment, all barelegged and defensive, eyes widened in alarm and lips softly parted.

  For a second, his eyes seemed to glow as soft as a wisp of wood smoke. But surely that was an optical illusion she told herself unsteadily. There was nothing soft in this man’s make-up!

  And then he stepped aside, and she forced herself forward, back into the yacht’s interior. She must act naturally. It was time she stopped being such a rabbit, she admonished herself, and show some backbone.

  He led her silently to the galley—which had its own dining room off to one side. As a centrepiece it had a small, round dark oak table and matching chairs. Pure white candles, held in intricate silver candlesticks were placed either side of two perfectly laid out table settings. A silver ice bucket contained an opened bottle of wine.

  He pulled out the chair nearest to her, and she sank down gratefully, her heart fluttering in her breast.

  The flicker of the candle glow cast her face into light and shadow, and rendered her silvery gold hair almost magical. When he reached out to pour the wine, his hand was not quite steady. He brought a huge wooden salad bowl to the table, then deftly slipped two perfectly fried pieces of fish onto the plates.

  It looked and smelt wonderful, but Charmaine doubted her ability to force down a single bite.

  ‘Is everything all right?’ Payne said, sitting opposite her and opening out his napkin. The natural guttering of the candles were doing wonderful things to his dark gold hair and deeply bronzed skin, and she was almost sure she could feel the male strength oozing out of him with his every movement. She supposed working so hard in the gardens every day kept him super fit.

  She wondered what it would feel like to slip her hand under his shirt and explore the washboard hardness of his abdomen and the flat, silken muscles in his chest and biceps. What must it be like to touch a man that way?

  She reached for her glass of wine and took a shaky sip. ‘Of course, everything’s fine. Just perfect,’ she said, with a smile that felt as false as her words.

  And suddenly, and for the first time, it occurred her to what a mean thing she was planning to do. Lucy had got her heart broken by this man, and in spite of her denials to the contrary, she knew that her sister’s ‘accident’ with her sleeping pills had been the result of despair, caused by this man’s heartlessness. But now that she’d actually met and had seen for herself his careless attitude to life, the insane risks he took, and the way his gambler’s, playboy mind seemed to work, she would have bet her last penny that at least it hadn’t been deliberate.

  Lucy would have been fair game in his eyes—an up and coming actress, here for a holiday and perhaps a romance. It would never have even crossed his mind that she wouldn’t know the rules. That she might actually fall in love. He would probably be amazed if she were to blurt out right now that her sister had been almost mortally wounded by his treatment of her.

  So he was reprehensible, yes. But he was not deliberately cruel.

  But she would have no such defence to put forward, should her own plan succeed, she realised miserably. She would have come here expressly to hurt and wound, humiliate and belittle. She’d have done it with her eyes wide open.

  And as she stared at him across that candlelit table, she knew she couldn’t do it.

  Not now.

  Payne too reached for his wine and sipped, but his eyes were shuttered and revealed nothing. Behind them, though, his mind was racing.

  What was going on? She looked as if she’d just seen a ghost, or had lost her best friend, or had some other life-changing calamity befall her. What could he possibly have done or said in the last few hours or minutes to make her look like that?

  ‘I’m really not very hungry, I’m afraid,’ Charmaine said, picking up her fork, but only to listlessly part her fish and push the tender flakes around her plate.

  ‘Not dieting I hope,’ he said softly. ‘You don’t need to lose weight.’

  Charmaine smiled. ‘No, you needn’t worry. Besides, Jonniee doesn’t employ ultra thin models.’ She had always been horrified by the prospect of even unintentionally endorsing anorexia nervosa by going along with the trend for almost skeletal models, a policy in which Jo-Jo was in total accord. They both designed clothes for healthy women of all sizes.

  Payne nodded. ‘I’m pleased to hear it. You obviously run a good company,’ he said, with deliberate emphasis on the word ‘you.’

  Charmaine nodded, and took another sip, apparently unaware of the implications in what he’d just said. Payne watched her closely, then saw her suddenly stiffen.

  Charmaine looked at him with wide blue eyes, which had darkened in alarm. ‘What do you mean? I don’t run the company. Jo-Jo does.’

  So she was still lying to him. Though it saddened and puzzled him, it somehow didn’t surprise him. Payne leaned slowly back in his chair and swirled the wine in his glass. ‘Don’t you think it’s time that that particular lie be allowed to die a graceful death, Charmaine?’ he asked softly. ‘I know you and Jo-Jo are full business partners, and that, creatively, you are the driving force behind one of the biggest and best Fashion Houses in the world. Tell me, are you ashamed of your designs? Or your partner? Or the company?’

  ‘No, of course not! I love clothes, and stand by all my creations!’ she said hotly. ‘And Jo-Jo’s marvellous at all sorts of things—promotions, getting orders from the big-name stores, doing the publicity and everything.’

  She abruptly subsided as she realised, a little late, that she’d risen to the bait far too quickly. ‘Anyway, how did you know?’ she asked after a moment of tense silence.

  Payne shrugged. ‘Does it matter?’

  Charmaine wasn’t so sure. It depended on what else he knew. Did he know who her family was—who Lucy was! And if he did know, or regularly made it his business to know these sorts of things, how long would it be until he found out about Lucy’s overdose? And guess that she had come out here hot foot on some vendetta?

  It would be ironic if, just when she’d come to her senses and realised that she couldn’t go through with her revenge, he found out about it and sent her packing.

  The thought of never seeing him again was so painful it actually made her wince.

  ‘So why all the secrecy?’ Payne prodded softly, determined to get to the bottom of the mystery, and unwilling to let her off the hook now he had her on the run.

  ‘It’s no big deal. I just don’t have that in-your-face personality that a Fashion House needs to promote it,’ Charmaine said, and gave what she hoped was an uncaring shrug. And wondered if it was a good thing that she was becoming an expert liar.

  ‘Unlike Jo-Jo,’ Payne acknowledged with a grin. ‘All right, I can see how your business partner earns his fifty percent, but what’s wrong with your own contributions being acknowledged? Jo-Jo can still be the larger-than-life front man, whilst others are still made aware of your own input.’

  ‘I don’t like the limelight, I never have. That’s for the rest of the family,’ she said, then could have bitten off her tongue.

  ‘Oh? They sound famous,’ Payne said. So it was confirmed. He wondered who they could be. ‘Entertainers of some kind are they?’

  Charmaine went pale. ‘Only father,’ she lied, trying to gather her scattered wits. ‘He’s rather a name. On the stage. I don’t want to talk about him,’ she said, making it sound as if there was some big family rift. In reality, of course, nothing could be further from the truth. Her father, Lucy and herself, were actually very close.

  ‘Look, it’s getting late, I really must go,’ she said, putting down her napkin with a shaking hand. Any moment now he was bound to think of Lucy, the nearly famous actress with a famous father. And then the game would be up.

  But when she looked at him, he showed no signs of guessing her secrets. Instead, he looked bitterly disappointed.

  And suddenly she knew wh
y.

  It was because she’d said she’d wanted to go, and he realised he would not have a bedmate for the night after all. She almost wanted to laugh—except she felt like crying more.

  ‘I have a shoot tomorrow,’ she said, then wondered why she was trying to let him down lightly. Next she’d be anxiously trying to reassure him that he was a very sexy man, and of course she wanted him, any woman would.

  But why should she, she thought defiantly. He was big enough and mean enough to take care of himself. And if he wasn’t used to rejection—well, the change would do him good!

  ‘But not until the afternoon,’ he said, then raised an eyebrow as she looked at him askance. ‘Jo-Jo told me the photographers would be all morning setting things up.’

  Charmaine bit her lip. ‘Even so, we models have to get our beauty sleep. Nobody wants a girl to show up with dark rings under her eyes.’

  She glanced longingly at the door. Why wasn’t he taking the hint? Would she really have to go out in search of a taxi? The marina had been far off the beaten track, and a mile or so from the nearest town. Still, she could walk it, if she had to, no problem. She took far longer walks in the countryside back home.

  ‘Yes, why are you suddenly modelling for your own Fashion House, Charmaine?’ he asked softly, and watched as all the colour drained from her face. ‘I mean, a moment ago you were telling me you were the shy one in the family, but now—voila. You’re reborn as a Jonniee model. You couldn’t get to stand in more limelight than that if you tried.’

  Charmaine gazed him hopelessly. Why hadn’t she seen that coming?

  ‘I . . . I. . . er . . . I. . .’ she swallowed and gulped, but no glib lie came to save her this time.

  And slowly, Payne rose to his feet and came around the table. She pushed her chair back, glancing around wildly, the urge to flee send her pulsing rate rocketing.

  ‘Let me guess,’ he said softly, reaching for her and lifting her chin up tenderly with two fingers. He looked down searchingly into her lovely face, reading fear, pain and bewilderment in her eyes. ‘You finally realised that life was passing you by, and knew you had do something about it. That’s it, isn’t it?’ he said softly.