If Luc was right, she could not marry Chris. She could not live this sort of life.
Joubeau Street lay at the back of the town. Lissa knew the place. She thought of Chris going there, spending time with some woman, and was forced to recognise that although the idea appalled her she was not jealous. She had felt a sharp stab of jealousy as she saw Luc smiling at Joanne Lucas, but she had only felt
horror and disbelief when she was told that Chris had a mistress.
The realisation that Chris had been lying to her, deceiving her, was what horrified her. It revealed an abyss between them. She did not know Chris; she never had. It was not merely that their whole relationship was false. The premise on which her life had been based was false, too. This whole island was riddled with corruption. Under the sleek gaudy beauty lay a poisoned root reaching down into darkness.
It was only as she walked back to the hotel that the realisation dawned on her.
How was she going to get away?
Chris was not going to let her leave the island; Lissa could be sure of that. He would keep her there by hook or by crook and he would make her marry him. He had disguised from her his nature for so long, but now she could see through the lazy goodhumoured charm to the avid cruelty beneath it.
Chris wanted her. Her blood ran cold at that idea. She remembered the hot metal of his eyes as he reached for her last night, the hoarse sensuality of his voice.
He had been waiting for two years and he wasn't going to be cheated of his prize now. If he had genuinely loved her she might have appealed to that love, but she saw now that it was physical hunger that governed Chris. He lusted for her. Her face burned, she felt sick. It was a vile word and she had never thought she would apply it to Chris, but it was the only one that covered the truth. Lust lay in his eyes, in his voice. She should have seen it before, but she hadn't. Watching him last night as she sang, shredding a red carnation jerkily between his fingers, she had been watching a man convulsed with lust, and she hadn't even known it until now. She had felt something ugly and frightening inside him, but she hadn't known what it was she felt until now.
Chris found the wide-eyed innocence she had always had deeply attractive, but for the worst of reasons. He ached for the day when he would destroy it. He had deliberately held her in it, waiting for his moment, and he would not forgo that pleasure now. He intended to have her.
When she went into the hotel she found Max and Uncle Joey talking to the desk clerk. She smiled cheerfully at them all, her eyes wide and bright. 'Hallo. Where's Chris? I bought a new bikini and I want to show it to him.'
Max gave her a sly sideways smile. 'Gone across the island to see someone,' he said, and Lissa shrugged, pouting.
As she reached her own room her face could relax from that sweet, childlike, artificial smile.
She was appalled by her own ability to lie, to pretend. She was sickened by the necessity, but she had to make them all think she was still the same. She had to maintain that little girl manner, smile as warmly, talk in the same light happy fashion.
Chris must not see, must not guess, the changes which had taken place in her. The moment he did he would move in to the kill.
Sitting down on her bed, she wondered why he had never made a serious attempt before. Looking back over the past two years she could sec that Chris had been' impatient for his final possession of her, but he had never gone beyond the line her own innocence had drawn between them.
Why?
Did he care more for her than mere lust? Or had he known that if once she saw through his charming mask she would run away? Had he been hoping that she would be too deeply in love with him to care any more? Had he been waiting because he sensed she was not yet physically awake?
Over the past couple of days she had felt the constant search of his eyes. He sensed a change in her, although he wasn't sure about it yet. If he once guessed that overnight she had become physically, mentally, emotionally, a woman, he would rush to claim her.
She looked into the mirror, face quite white now. She could not bear the idea of lying in Chris's arms any more.
She sheered away from any admission as to her reasons for such revulsion. It wasn't Chris who had pulled her across the line dividing child from woman, but Lissa refused to let herself dwell on that fact.
The rush of experience, feeling, was confusing her, but under it her mind was working with hard clarity. She had never known just how clearly she could think.
Her first reaction to Luc's unveiling of the sort of world she lived in had been one of distress and anxiety. She had felt a loyalty to Chris which the shock of the truth had battered but left intact. Today that loyalty had crumbled, and she wasn't sure why. She had been thinking all day and as her mind sifted through the various elements of the problem she had slowly come to realise that Chris and the island no longer meant anything to her.
She had always seen herself as Chris saw her. She had fluttered around him like a tropical butterfly whose wings he did not want to damage even though he longed to capture it and hold it between his hands.
Now she knew the image, the picture, had been false. She was not like that. Reality was far distant from the gaudy, fragile dream.
Her own reflection in the mirror showed her a slender girl with clear, hard green eyes and a firm mouth. Her years at the convent had given her a backbone oi' principle. Chris had never been able to dispel the influence of the nuns, however hard he mocked them. Other girls at the school had giggled over their moral teachings, but Lissa had been more open to it. She had accepted it without thinking and she knew it held good now.
The attitudes of the hotel,, the way of life Chris followed, would never have suited her. She had been protected from the full blast of them. Chris had protected her for his own reasons, but he had, all the same, protected her, sheltered her from the slow stain of his world.
She was going to have to walk away from him, from the island. She considered Luc's offer to take her with him and her skin grew taut. She did not need to guess what sort of price Luc would set on his help. He might not approve of Chris, but his own attitudes were hardly admirable. Luc wanted her too. Chris wasn't the only one whose eyes held heat and urgent desire when they looked at her.
Lissa put her hands over her eyes, shuddering. She had never felt the drag of Chris's physical nearness, but every time Luc Ferrier was anywhere near her, her body shivered with reaction.
She wasn't walking out of the frying pan into the fire.
She would have to make her own way somehow. But how? She had little money, Chris had always been very generous to her, but his generosity took the shape of presents: clothes, jewellery, ornaments. He paid her a salary, but Lissa had never saved much of it. She had not realised until now just how financially dependent she was—now she saw that Chris had her more securely than she had realised.
Her act was timed to take place half-way through the dance that evening. She ate with Chris and felt the constant glitter of his eyes as he watched her. She was wearing the black dress, at the request of the guests again. Pierre had teased her about it. 'They really fancy you in it, Liss,' he had said, and she had not had to pretend to blush.
She blushed now as she caught Chris's eye and he leaned over to whisper to her. 'Fix that date.' He was teasing, smiling, but his eyes did not hold any smile at all; they were filled with a liquid heat that dismayed her.
The pressing menace of his desire left slivers" of ice in her veins, 'I'll need a trousseau,' she parried lightly, smiling at him, and marvelling at her own new-found ability to act.
'Name it,' Chris breathed, stroking her arm with trembling fingers. 'Buy what you like tomorrow.'
'Tomorrow?' She laughed, shaking her head. 'I'll need more than one day.'
'Do you know what I need?' Chris was losing the ability to control the heat inside him and she could see it. 'Baby, it's got to be soon. Stop playing around.'
'Next month?' she suggested. It seemed a long time ahe
ad now and by the time it came closer surely she would have thought of a way out?
'Next month,' Chris said hoarsely, nodding. He bent his fair head over her arm, kissing it moistly, 'Liss, Liss,' he groaned.
When the dancing began Lissa gave him a light, flirtatious little smile. 'Aren't you going to dance with me?'
He had been talking in a low voice to Max, out of her hearing, but he came over to smile and take her hand to lead her out on to the floor. Max and the other two men with him watched, grinning broadly. ,
Held close to Chris, both his arms round her, his hands on her slender shoulderbones, she felt the pressure of his tense thighs on her body and had to resist the shiver running through her.
She leaned her cheek against his face and his arms tightened. 'God, I want you, Liss,' he muttered, nibbling her ear.
Over his shoulder her eyes met those of Luc Ferrier. He was dancing with Joanne Lucas. The woman was moving sensually against his lean body, both arms round his neck. Luc's face was hard and unreadable as Lissa looked at him.
She looked away, a very faint blush creeping into her cheeks. Chris was kissing her neck now and she felt the excitement inside him with wary alarm.
She wriggled. 'Don't,' she whispered. 'People are watching.'
He grinned and drew back a little, 'What a little rabbit you are,' he teased. 'Does it matter? Do you think I care what other people think?'
'I don't like being stared at,' she muttered.
'You'll have to get used to it,' Chris told her with a twist of the lips. 'With a body like yours you're going to be stared at whatever you do.'
She could not control the burning blush rising in her face and Chris watched the colour with half-impatient amusement.
'You've got the sexiest body I've ever seen,' he murmured into her ear, his breathing quickening again. 'Didn't you know that? When you move every man in sight goes crazy and that wide-eyed stare of yours makes you all the more exciting.' He laughed thickly. 'God, Liss, when you do wake up you're going to be something. You're going to be as sexy as hell one day.' She felt his hand sliding up and down her body, his fingers gripping her, and over his shoulder she met Luc's narrowed, flintlike eyes and could not hold them.
Max came over to tap Chris on the shoulder and whisper. Chris turned his head, listening, made a wry face. 'Okay, I'm coming.' He released Lissa and gave her a quick smile. 'Sorry, angel. I'll be back in ten minutes. Don't go away.'
He left her at their table and vanished with his men treading behind him like dogs on his heels. Lissa stared after them all and her face was cold and hard. Oh, she saw it now. She must have been blind not to see it long ago. Chris hid his nature under his charm, but she should have seen the real man in the way all those toughs from the back alleys of Ville-Royale took his orders, leapt to the soft sound of his voice, prowled at his heels.
A figure moved on the periphery of her vision. She turned and Luc leaned there casually, watching her, his features tight and cold.
'Enjoying the evening?' he asked. 'You and Brandon dance well together. 'I'm sure there are going to be other things you do well together very soon.'
The deliberate, slashing insult made her stiffen and glare at him. Luc ran his icy eyes down her body. 'I don't blame him. In that dress you're a walking invitation. You've decided to stick with the devil you know, have you?'
'I haven't decided anything,' Lissa threw back fiercely. 'It's none of your business—but then that wouldn't bother you, would it? You think you've got some God-given right to interfere and criticise and do as you please!'
His dark blue eyes held a spark of angry amusement. 'Stop spitting like a ruffled cat and dance with me,' he said, taking hold of her wrist and jerking her to her feet as though she were a child.
'No,' she refused, shaking her head.
She said it again as Luc drew her into the intimate crowd of other dancers. 'I don't want to dance,' she hissed, and he took her wrists and placed her arms round his neck.
His own arms went round her and drew her so close she felt the lithe hardness of his body against her own and a slow shiver of pleasure ran through her. Luc looked down into her eyes and Lissa knew he had felt her physical reflex reaction.
'Why did you challenge Chris?' she flung angrily. 'Are you mad?'
'No,' he drawled. 'Very sane, in fact. It distracted him.'
'Can't you see how dangerous it would be?'
'I can take him,' said Luc, and she remembered Chris saying that and her green eyes were as fierce as a cat's, angry and frightened and anxious.
'Don't!'
'Don't take him?' Luc raised his dark brows in sardonic query.
'Don't say that,' she muttered. 'That's what Chris says. I hate those words.' She looked at him bitterly. 'And he thinks he can beat you too.'
'Of course he does,' Luc shrugged indifferently, his face casual and uncertain. 'But he can't.'
'How can you know that?' she flared in anger.
He smiled at her, his lips crooked. 'Sweetheart, you can be sure of that. I know. Brandon couldn't win against me even if he had the devil's own luck.' His eyes mocked her. 'And he hasn't got that, has he? I have. Don't you know what they say about me? The devil gives me the cards, and I know bow to play them.'
'It isn't funny,' Lissa said huskily. 'Don't talk like that.' Lucifer, she thought, watching the saturnine harshness of his face as he stared unsmilingly at her. Yes, it was a very apt nickname. The winged darkness of his brows, the stark bones beneath the smooth brown flesh, the tight cold mouth as he watched her, all gave the nickname the ring of absolute truth.
Luc looked dangerous when he did not smile. He looked tough and icy and immovable.
'You're a funny sort of stockbroker,' she said with anger and pain.
He laughed under his breath, his face altering. 'I learnt it at my father's knee,' he told her.
'Was he a stockbroker?'
Luc's eyes danced. 'Not quite. He dealt in stocks and shares, all right, but I don't think you could call him a stockbroker. You couldn't call me one, either. Not strictly speaking.'
'You said...'
'You misunderstood me,' Luc drawled. 'I said in passing that I dealt in the stock market in London. I buy and sell shares. It's all a question of knowing when to do it.'
'You don't have an English name,' she realised.
'That's because I'm not English,' he agreed. 'French by descent, anyway. I was born in England, actually, but my father was born and brought up in Paris.'
'If you're not a stockbroker, what are you?'
He threw her a dry glance. 'A rose by any other name,' he said, and she felt a surge of rage at the evasive nature of the answer.
'Don't tell me if you don't want to,' she snapped.
'I never do anything I don't want to,' he agreed softly.
'I don't believe you've got a job at all!'
He laughed shortly. 'Don't you?'
'You were just filling my head with fairy stories,'
'Don't confuse me with Brandon,' Luc drawled.
'I won't,' she said with a raging huskiness that made him stare at her intently.
She looked away because the sudden sharpness in his eyes disturbed her; Her anger and deep sense of attraction had made her voice far too betraying.
Staring over his wide shoulder, she kept her eyes on the band and saw Pierre watching them. As Luc slid her smoothly across the floor she felt the back of her neck prickle with the feeling of being watched. But it was not Pierre's eyes that were sending that quiver of disturbance through her. It was Chris whose stare was-making her feel nervous and uptight.
The music came swirling to a stop. She suspected Pierre had got a nod from Chris to halt. Luc's arms dropped from her and they moved off the floor.
Chris stood there, elegant and very tense in a white evening jacket. His bright, hard eyes met those of Luc Ferrier. 'Mine, I think,' he said as he took her hand, and the tone, the words, meant far more than the smile he gave Luc pret
ended.
Luc smiled. His facial muscles moved, his lips twisted. To a casual eye it could be called a smile, but the icy glint of his eyes made it clear it was nothing of the sort.
'When are you and I going to fight it out?' he asked with a reckless excitement in his voice.
Chris glanced at Lissa briefly. 'Liss doesn't approve of gambling,' he said.
She began nervously to speak and Luc cut her dead before a word had fully escaped.
'That's tough,' he said viciously. 'I never let women get in my way, but if you're that sort of man maybe it would be as well to forget it, anyway.' He turned on his heel with a contemptuous smile and Lissa heard Chris take a deep, angry breath. His face had reddened. His eyes were murderous.
'Tonight,' he said to Luc's back, hurling the word at him like a knife.
Luc halted. He turned his black head and smiled. 'Tonight, then,' he said before he moved away.
Lissa was shaking with terror and shock. She clutched at Chris's sleeve. 'No! Don't, Chris—you promised!'
'I don't take that sort of slap around the face from anybody,' he said furiously. 'You heard what he said. You got the implication as well as I did. Nobody calls me a coward and gets away with it.'
'You promised,' she whispered.
'I know,' he muttered, his face still a dark red. 'But I can't keep my promise. After tonight I swear to you...'
'If you play with him I won't marry you,' Lissa said on a desperate note.
Chris looked at her with a narrowed surveillance. He smiled at her. 'Oh, yes, you will,' he said, and then he walked away.
CHAPTER SIX
Lissa barely knew what she was doing as she went into her act. The music beat inside her head and her lips opened and shut, emitting sounds, but she might as well have been alone on a desert island. The applause, the watching eyes, did not impinge upon her consciousness.
Compulsion Page 9