His Last Gamble (16 page)

‘No,' she said softly. What a remarkable man this was. All this time she'd been thinking of him as a shallow playboy with no real values
or
understanding of humanity, when in reality he'd grasped truths that, until now, she'd never even thought of. Or had to think of.

‘The thing is,' Payne said, ‘life is risky. So when you find something worthwhile you grab it with both hands and never let go.' He looked at her keenly. Did she understand what he was saying? Had she realised that she was being given fair warning?

Charmaine sighed. That's all right if you have the courage, she thought sadly. Or had only yourself to consider. But not everyone could afford such a bold policy.

‘That's why I bought this,' he went on, making her look up in surprise. He was already pulling a small square box from his slacks pocket, and when he opened the lid with a casual flick of his thumb, exposing a beautiful square-cut Ceylon sapphire, surrounded by diamonds, she felt stunned.

She stared at the ring in utter stupefaction.

‘Will you marry me, Charmaine?' Payne asked softly.

* * *

Years could have passed. Or seconds. She couldn't tell. Slowly, things became familiar again. The touch of the hot Caribbean sun on her skin, the song of the birds, the sensation of her own breathing.

‘Wh-wh-what did you say?' she managed to
blurt
out at last. Perhaps she'd been dreaming, or had fallen asleep for an instant, or gone suddenly insane.

‘I want you to marry me,' Payne repeated, his voice, for a man proposing marriage, sounding curiously calm and almost emotionless.

Charmaine dragged her eyes from the most beautiful ring she'd ever seen and forced herself to meet his eyes. Instantly she was drowning in their soft grey depths.

‘But, but, why?' she finally demanded. It was the only thing she could think of to ask. Things were out of control, and she had no idea what was happening. Things like this just didn't happen to her.

‘Because we fit together,' Payne said simply. ‘I knew it the moment I first saw you, in the garden. When you mistook me for a mere humble gardener.'

Charmaine flushed.

‘I knew then you were special, but I didn't want to admit it to myself. Afterwards, I tried to think of you as just another one of the models, someone who'd be here today and gone tomorrow. But I just couldn't make you insignificant. You had a way of becoming the most important thing in my life, and you just wouldn't quit.'

Charmaine swallowed a painful, dry lump in her throat. So she'd succeeded. She'd come here determined to make Payne fall for her,
and
here he was, telling her that she'd done just that.

And yet her victory was nothing but dust and worthless ash.

‘I can tell by the way you're falling over yourself to say yes, that my argument is winning you over,' Payne said dryly. ‘So I'll tell you what. I'll keep this for now—but I want you to promise to think it over. And if you say no, then I'll understand.'

He hoped, after what he'd just told her, that she'd know better than to believe him. He was going to have her, no matter what. It was as simple, as basic, as that.

She almost cried out in pain as he snapped the lid shut on the ring and thrust the little box back into his pocket. She had to curl her fingers into fists to stop herself from reaching out and snatching it back. Her engagement ring finger was almost throbbing, as if sensing the ghostly presence of the enclosing circle.

‘I have to warn you though,' Payne said, suddenly moving across the blanket, until he was only inches away from her, ‘that I won't take ‘no' for an answer.'

And then he kissed her.

Charmaine felt his weight remorselessly and wonderfully pressing her down onto the blanket, his sweeping arm scattering the containers of food away onto the grass.

She moaned beneath his lips, shuddering as his hand moved up the length of her bare
thigh,
over her waist and came around to cup one breast. Through the thin material of her dress, her nipple burgeoned with silent begging. He lifted his lips from hers, allowing her to drag in a much needed breath, but it was only so he could trail tiny kisses along the length of her jaw. Then he rained kisses down the side of her neck and nibbled on her ear lobes before crossing her throat to lathe her other ear.

Above her the azure sky spun in giddy swirls, and she gasped as his other hand slipped beneath the hem of her dress and caressed her inner thigh tormentingly. As if answering to the code of some magic marauder, her thighs parted and she cried out as his fingers pressed against the material of her panties, finding the outline of her femininity and rubbing against her a knowing, tantalising message with his fingers.

She shuddered and gasped out his name, the tension inside her flooding out in a warm ooze that left her feeling boneless.

When he at last lifted his head to look down at her, his eyes were blazing, and a hot flush coloured his high cheekbones. He looked incredibly sexy.

Wordlessly, she lifted one hand to cup it behind his head and pull him down to her breast, where he licked and kissed her nipples. She whimpered, badly wanting the touch and taste of him on her bare flesh, but suddenly
he
sat up, running a shaking hand through his tousled blond hair, and grinning down at her.

‘When we're married,' he said ominously, his voice thick and slightly slurred, ‘you won't get off so lightly.'

She stared at him numbly as he re-packed the untouched picnic, and then, when he stood above her holding out his hand, she let him pull her unresistingly to her feet.

She felt utterly bemused. Her body was still clamouring wantonly for more, but already she was beginning to feel ashamed. Ashamed and just a little scared.

She had a tiger by the tail, and was damned if she knew what to do with him!

‘Come on, we'd best get back,' he said almost grimly. He stashed the hamper then opened the door for her, watching her intently as she stumbled into her seat.

She looked shell shocked, and he knew just how she felt. He was feeling a bit blasted himself. But at least now he had the answer to two very important questions.

Firstly, that she wanted him, every bit as much as he wanted her. And secondly, she was not so hell-bent on revenge that she'd snapped up his offer of marriage just like that. Which meant, which had to mean, that she must have some sort of kinder feelings for him after all.

Now all he had to do was find the best way to make use of both these fascinating and heart-thumping pieces of information.

Which
was not something that a man of his talents should find too challenging. In fact, it wasn't until they were nearly back at Paradise Beach, that the answer suddenly came to him.

They were parked at a T-junction when he looked across at a billboard announcing Saturday's celebration of his ownership of ‘The Palace.' It promised all who came, a spectacular night of once-in-a-lifetime gambling opportunities, entertainment, food and wine, and suddenly he knew. It was perfect. Like a gift from Lady Luck herself.

When Charmaine looked across at him, she felt her world lurch on its axis. Why was he smiling like that? He looked like an art collector who'd just stumbled on a hitherto unknown da Vinci. What did it mean?

And how was she to get herself out of this mess?

* * *

When she reached the top of the stairs, she was glad of the hotel's air conditioning. As it was, she felt almost too tired to trudge the few yards to her door.

She was glad that Payne had simply dropped her off at the entrance with a brief, breathtaking kiss, for she simply didn't know how to cope with him now. If he'd walked her to the door she just knew that they'd have spent the afternoon in bed, and now that she'd
had
a taste of what bliss that would be, she was sufficiently self aware to admit that there was no way she'd ever be able to deny him.

With a sigh that was half-relieved, half disappointed, she opened the door, walked in, then stopped dead.

‘Lucy!' she breathed.

And there, indeed, was her sister, sitting on the edge of her bed, restlessly flipping over the pages of a magazine.

‘Sis!' Lucy grinned, tossing aside the magazine and walking over to hug her. ‘You look like a stunned mullet! I hope you don't mind—I sort of bribed one of the maids to let me in.'

Lucy was smiling at her in puzzlement. ‘You are glad to see me, aren't you?'

Charmaine, aware that she was being less than welcoming, abruptly snapped out of it. ‘Of course I am. Of course! It's just that I never expected to see you here.' And hugged her back.

If her sister did but know it, she was just one shock too many. She felt punch drunk.

‘Well, the run at Stratford was over, and besides . . .' Lucy trailed off and shrugged one shoulder. ‘I have things to sort out.'

She was shorter than Charmaine, and dark, but had an aura of energy about her that was priceless in her profession. Even now she was dominating the room, and there wasn't even an audience! Charmaine felt a wave of
love
and affection wash over her, and quickly hugged her again.

‘It's great to have you here,' she said, and meant it. And yet, at the same time, she felt uneasy. Why had Lucy really come back? And what unfinished business could she possibly have here? Try as she might, Charmaine just couldn't understand why her sister would want to come back to the same island as the man who'd almost destroyed her.

‘Glad to hear it, Sis, because I'm booked in right next door,' Lucy chirruped.

For a heart-stopping moment, Charmaine thought she meant that she was staying in the Palace. Then her sister waved a hand at the far wall. ‘In the next room in fact, so if I hold a wild party, don't go banging on the wall and yelling for me to shut up! Well, actually, you'd be at the party as well, so you wouldn't be yelling for quiet, you'd be in there helping us make all the noise, so . . .' Lucy paused for a much needed breath, and Charmaine felt herself giggling.

It was always this way with her half-sister. She had such a zest for life that she was always dragging her shy sibling into scrapes and situations way beyond her.

‘So, how's the shoot been going?' Lucy demanded, bouncing back down onto the bed, but eyeing her sister closely. ‘I saw Jo-Jo on the way in, at reception. He was telling me that you're actually doing some of the modelling.'

‘Don't
sound so surprised,' Charmaine laughed, trying to look nonchalant. ‘I'm not that bad at it. Well, I was a bit inexperienced at first, but I think Phil was pleased with me, which is all that matters.'

Lucy crossed her legs and swung one foot in a tell-tale gesture. Charmaine knew that particular piece of body language from old, and felt her spirits sink. Lucy scented a mystery, and she was not the kind of woman to let a mystery pass her by. Even as a little girl, she'd always sought out her Christmas presents, no matter how carefully their parents tried to hide them, and opened them to see what was inside.

‘Jo-Jo was surprised I didn't know,' Lucy mused, looking up from an apparently disinterested inspection of her fingernails—painted in a rainbow of colours—and snared her sister with a sharp glance.

‘He always thought you told me everything. And until now, so did I.'

Charmaine couldn't mistake the hurt tone underneath the banter, and she bit her lip.

‘I just didn't want you to know in case I made a fool of myself,' she lied frantically. ‘You know how it is. Ideas that seem good at the time slowly begin to look like the biggest mistake of all time. Well, this was one of those. I thought it would help me break out of my rut. It seemed like such fun—model a few of my own clothes, take an exotic holiday at
the
same time, kick over the traces. But then I began to worry I wouldn't be any good and well, decided not to mention it to you or Dad.'

Lucy shook her head wryly. ‘You are a dope. I keep on telling you and telling you that you're a born star, and still you persist in doing yourself down. Of course you were a hit. I bet that spiteful red-head you use is howling at the moon.'

Charmaine chortled. ‘She is, a bit,' she said, with understandable glee.

Lucy laughed. Then her eyes narrowed. ‘So, what made you choose Barbados?'

Charmaine swallowed hard. This could get tricky. Lucy was no fool. ‘Oh, well, you had something to do with it actually. You told me how great this place was when you came back off holiday a few months ago. Remember?'

Lucy watched as her sister walked to the dressing table and kicked off her shoes, refusing to meet her eyes. She always knew when Charmaine was lying. She was always so hopeless at it. Unlike herself, who could and did lie regularly, and very well indeed.

‘So, what brings you back?' Charmaine asked, unable to bear it any longer. She simply had to know. ‘Another holiday is it? It's not like you to go the same place twice. I thought you said the next vacation you took was going to be to Bangkok or Singapore? Somewhere wickedly oriental, is how I think you put it.'

She looked up at her sister's reflection
in
the mirror just in time to see the look on Lucy's face, and her heart jolted.

Her sister looked grim, and yet resolute. Like someone about to face something unpleasant. And yet, at the same time, she looked excited. Almost radiant. She turned slowly, a sense of fear and dread beginning to rise up in her throat.

‘Oh, I'm not here on holiday,' Lucy said at last.

‘No?' Charmaine croaked.

Lucy shook her head, then looked up, smiling.

‘Charmaine, I'm here to get back the man I love.'

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Charmaine groped behind her for the chair and sank down abruptly. ‘Y-you've come back for . . .' She almost said Payne's name out loud but stopped herself just in time, remembering that, as far as her Lucy was aware, her sister knew nothing about her doomed love affair.