His Last Gamble (21 page)

‘Hurry back,' he'd husked, his eyes devouring hers, as he'd lifted her fingers to his lips and kissed each fingertip in turn. ‘I can't bear to have you out of my sight for too long.'

If only he'd known the real truth, Charmaine thought now, with a lurch of pain so physical it almost brought her out of her seat, he'd never want to set eyes on me again.

She had no illusions on the score. For a man like Payne, a man who was used to doing all the running, a predator, a gambler, a man so sure of his masculinity and his place in the world's pecking order, to find out that he'd been duped by a woman would be a massive and irreparable blow to his pride.

And one that a brand new love like theirs would never be able to salve.

But oh . . . How she wished this wasn't happening! How she wished she could stay and marry him and live happily ever after.

She gripped her fingers together hard, not wanting the others to see her grief, and stared out of the window as Grantley Adams Airport came into view.

At the check in desk, Jo-Jo sorted things out whilst she and the rest of the gang went into the cafeteria. Not that she was hungry. She
ordered
coffee and sat nursing it, only looking up when Jo-Jo finally re-joined her.

‘There's been a bit of a mix-up, it appears,' he said, sliding out a chair and collapsing into it. ‘Airports! Don't you just love ‘em? Apparently, you're not booked on this flight at all, and as it's full, you'll have to wait for the next one.'

Charmaine sighed wearily. ‘Great.' Just what she needed.

Jo-Jo shrugged. ‘Well, that's the way it is. I can't swap with you myself, because I need to get back in time to do that meet with Hot Stuff,' he named the latest up-and-coming High Street fashion outlet. ‘And neither Phil nor his assistants will let the cameras and film go without them baby-sitting them every inch of the way. And you know the girls. They've all got things to do and places to go.'

Charmaine nodded listlessly. ‘It's fine. I'll wait.' If she'd been less depressed and more alert, she might have picked up on the fact that her partner was talking too much, and looked far more excited than miffed about a genuine snafu.

As it was she chatted with only half an ear until the boarding call, then followed him out into the main area and watched them go.

At the gate, Jo-Jo turned and waved frantically, a broad grin on his face.

Only then did Charmaine get a funny feeling running down her spine. A feeling of
having
been set up.

‘So they've gone then,' a voice, a wonderfully familiar voice said right behind her. ‘Not that I have anything against them, mind, but I'm glad to have you on your own at last.'

Charmaine turned a pale, big-eyed face to look up at him, and swallowed hard. ‘I thought you had a meeting?'

Payne grinned. ‘I lied.'

‘B-but, what are you doing here?'

‘Oh, a little birdie told me you wouldn't be leaving today.'

Charmaine closed her eyes briefly, then smiled wearily. ‘You set this up with Jo-Jo.'

‘I told him I couldn't live without you, even for a day, and he agreed to help out.'

Charmaine sighed heavily. ‘So am I really going to have to go and book my own flight out?'

Payne's smile faded.

‘When were you going to tell me?' he asked softly, and her heart began to thump—hard and loud. The room swayed a bit, then settled.

‘Tell you what?' she whispered.

‘That you weren't going to come back. You weren't planning on it, were you?' he added, when she simply stared mutely back at him.

At last she let out a long, slow breath. ‘No. No I wasn't,' she admitted.

He nodded, but surprisingly didn't look very angry. Instead he slipped his hand around her
arm
and led her out of the airport. His sports car was illegally parked (naturally!) and she let him settle her inside with a dull feeling of resignation. When he roared away from the airport and drove them to a tiny, deserted, crescent-shaped beach, she tried not to think about the agony that lay ahead.

She should have known she could never fool a man like Payne. He'd probably seen right through her like glass. So it was going to be a head-to-head confession after all, and all the pain and angst she'd tried to spare them was now ahead of them.

Her heart ached as he wordlessly took her hand and led her onto the sand. Pink shells littered the beach, and out in the bay, a cheerful red, green, blue and yellow windsurfer's sail bobbed up and down on the waves. A tiny crab scuttled for cover, but apart from themselves, it was the only thing moving on the beach.

He sank down onto the white sandy beach and spotted the patch next to him. ‘Come on. I won't bite.'

Not now, Charmaine thought. But just you wait. The irreverent thought actually made her smile.

Payne watched her as she sank next to him, and resisted the urge to reach out and kiss her. To lay her down against the sand and ravish her.

Ever since he'd taken her virginity, he
couldn't
wait to teach her more and more. He had a big Queen-sized four poster bed back at the Palace just waiting for them in his master suite that he wanted to introduce her to and never let her out of for the next year.

Or ten years.

Or the rest of their lives. But first they had to get things sorted.

‘All right, first of all, let me apologise,' he said, making her nearly faint. She snapped her head around so fast, she went dizzy.

‘You apologise? What on earth for? You haven't done anything wrong.' He'd been the only innocent one in all this sorry mess.

‘For the way I made you accept my proposal at the casino. It was unfair, but in my defence, I wanted to make you see that we were meant to be together.'

Charmaine felt tears fill her eyes and quickly blinked them back. ‘You knew you were going to win that bet, didn't you?' she said, with something approaching awe in her voice. ‘I mean, there was never even the slightest doubt in your mind that if I'd said red, it would be black, or if I'd said black, then it would be red?'

Across the space of the few inches separating them, Payne smiled softly. ‘No, sweetheart, I didn't have the faintest doubt. I knew I loved you, you see, and I knew that you loved me, even though you might not have known it yourself.'

Charmaine
swallowed back a hard lump in her throat.

‘I also knew it was going to be my last gamble,' he said, making her eyes widen even further.

‘But why?' she'd breathed. Gambling was like meat and drink to him.

‘Because, after that, there would never be anything worth gambling for again,' he said simply. Then he smiled. ‘Besides, after we're married, I wouldn't want our kids to get into bad habits.'

She gulped. Tears blurred her vision, and she looked away. ‘Payne, I can't marry you,' she choked.

‘Why? Because you tried to con me?' Payne said off-handedly. ‘Because you thought I'd done the dirty on your sister and you wanted to teach me a lesson? Forget it. I already have.'

Charmaine nearly fainted. ‘Wh-what did you say?'

Payne smiled wolfishly. ‘I guessed why you'd come to the island some time ago. I thought it was rather sweet, actually, the way you charged to her defence. The maiden rushing to the desert island to slay the dragon. A bit of a twist on the old fairy story, but I liked it.'

‘Payne, this isn't funny!' she cried. ‘Don't you see? I was out for revenge. I would have had it too, if things hadn't turned out they way they did. So . . . so you see how impossible it is,' she said at last. ‘I knew after we'd made
love,'
she blushed as she said this, ‘that I couldn't marry you, not without telling you about everything. And I knew once I did that, you'd be furious and want nothing more to do with me. I thought I could spare us all this by flying to England and then, just not coming back.'

Payne waited until her voice had trailed away, then sighed. ‘Charmaine, do I look furious?' he asked at last, and watched, his breath lodged somewhere in his throat, as she slowly turned towards him.

Her eyes looked full of bewilderment and hope. He thought it was quite possible that he'd never love her more than he did in that moment.

‘N-no,' she said at last, still a little uncertainly.

‘That's because I'm not. Oh, I grant you, at first I wasn't best pleased. And yes, maybe my ego took a bit of a battering. But it didn't take me long to find out that this thing between us was far stronger than my hurt pride. But far more importantly, what I really needed to know was—had you fallen for me as hard as I'd fallen for you. And there was only one way to find out. And that was to propose.'

Charmaine blinked. ‘But how was that going to tell you anything,' she queried.

‘Simple. If you jumped at the chance, then it meant you were still working to your plan. It would have suited you perfectly to publicly
dump
me at the altar, right?'

‘Well, I wasn't going to go that far,' she demurred.

‘But you didn't jump at the chance. Instead you looked shell-shocked. So you were obviously having second thoughts about me. Then I began to make love to you, just to be sure,' he carried on modestly, making her glance at him sharply.

‘Oh you did, did you?' she huffed. ‘And did I pass that test too?'

‘Oh yes. With flying colours,' he said infuriatingly. ‘So then I knew you loved and wanted me, but until we had all this Lucy stuff sorted out, we were stuck. So here we are,' he finished with a flourish, waving a hand around the deserted beach.

Charmaine gasped. ‘You . . . you . . .you . . .'

‘Clever thing?' he supplied innocently.

Charmaine huffed. ‘That wasn't quite what I was going to say,' she said, then squealed as he suddenly lunged over her, rolling her onto the sand, and looming over her.

‘But it worked though, didn't it?' he said smugly.

‘Then you forgive me for what I planned to do,' she said, as if, even now, hardly daring to believe it.

‘Forgive you with knobs on,' he said. ‘Besides, I found it thrilling. I find you thrilling. And more than that,' he said gravely, his voice suddenly serious, ‘I love you. And
want
you. And you will marry me, or else.' He spoke almost harshly, and yet there was still an edge of pleading in his voice, a hint of vulnerability that touched her to the core.

Charmaine nodded. ‘Of course I will marry you,' she husked, reaching out to touch his face tenderly. Then she grinned impishly. ‘After all, I can hardly renege on a bet, now, can I?' she asked.

And kissed him.

Hard.