There was a movement among the trees. Startled, she looked up, and the willow leaf fell from her hand and drifted, swirling, down the stream.,
Her heart beat a rapid tattoo as the black-haired figure moved towards her.
'How old did you say you were?' Luc Ferrier asked drily, staring at her long brown legs, the stream washing softly round them. The hem of her shorts was dark with splashed water. Her hair shone golden in the sunlight glancing through the trees.
It was more than a coincidence that he was there and
Lissa knew it, her instincts prickling.
'You followed me I' she accused.
He leaned on the low branch of the willow, his long lean body as briefly clad as her own in shorts and a sleeveless black cotton top.
'Clever,' he mocked, eyeing her with amusement.
Last night he had flung her into panic and confusion, but this morning it was daylight and she did not intend to let him bother her again. She lifted her rounded chin defiantly and glared at him, the green eyes very sharp and cold.
'I don't know what's in your mind, Mr Ferrier…'
'Oh, yes, you do,' he drawled, a wicked light in his eyes.
Her flush deepened, but she obstinately went on with her little speech. 'But I'm not interested.'
'Sleep well last night?' he asked softly, and their eyes clashed before Lissa could look away. She felt the probe of his stare intensely. He slowly moved his eyes and looked at her throat. The tiny blue vein visible beneath her skin began to beat faster than ever. Lissa struggled to get a grip on herself; bewildered, deeply disturbed. She didn't even like him. He frightened her. Why was she trembling like this?
He moved, the water lapping round his bare legs, and she looked at him, eyes wide and nervous. He was a head taller, his shoulders very broad under the black cotton. The throat of it lay open, and sunlight flickered over his brown skin. Lissa looked at the powerful muscled strength of his body and her heart was in her throat.
She had never thought of herself as particularly superstitious, but she was feeling a primitive, superstitious dread now, an instinct older than time, buried deep in the back of her subconscious. Slender and dry-mouthed, she looked back at Luc Ferrier and felt a pressing urge to run, to hide. She had never in her life been so conscious of being a woman. She had grown up sheltered and protected by the men around her. Even Chris kept a strong hold over his own feelings around her. Now she felt her own femininity and, in contrast, the strong threat of this man's masculinity, and she hadn't got a clue how to deal with him except by running.
As if he understood exactly how she felt he was watching her with a strange little smile, his winged black brows rising. 'My God,' he drawled, 'you show everything, don't you?'
Her flush deepened, her eyes widened further.
'You shouldn't be allowed out on your own,' he added with a mixture of amusement and wryness. 'It's time you learnt to hide your feelings.'
'I don't know what you're talking about,' she muttered huskily, head bent.
'You know precisely what I'm talking about,' he said with a smile in his voice. 'I wouldn't be here if you didn't.'
That ambiguous remark quickened her heart and intensified her state of nervous tension. He was close, far too close, the strength of his tall body an increasing threat the closer be came. The cotton shirt rose and fell as he breathed and she watched it, staring at the muscled structure of his chest beneath it.
A flash of startling blue winged over the stream and they both glanced round as a bird vanished into the close-set trees behind them. 'Fascinating,' Luc Ferrier said. 'The colours here make the eyes ache.'
'You haven't been here before?'
He turned his head towards her, the strong brown throat catching her eye, and smiled down at her. 'No, my first time: I'm impressed, but in five years' time the place will be ruined. You can see the signs everywhere. Once tourists start flocking" in, everything changes.'
Lissa sighed. 'I'm afraid you're probably right.'
'Your fiancé’s casino has started the rot,' he informed her.
'You wouldn't be here if the casino wasn't here,’ Lissa counter-attacked sharply.
He inclined his head. 'True. That doesn't stop me seeing that the march of progress doesn't always make for happiness. The islanders are still able to enjoy life in their own way, but once foreigners flood in with more money than most of the natives have ever seen and a way of life they never dreamt about, discontent and resentment will spread like wildfire.'
Lissa had no argument with that point of view. She had seen the beginning of it already in Ville-Royale. But for some reason she bristled when Luc Ferrier said what she had thought herself. She looked at him sharply, her green eyes dagger-bright.
'It depends on their sense of values.'
'Values have to be pretty strong to stand up to a dose of modern Westernised living,' he drawled, watching the angry gleam of her eyes.
'If you disapprove of that sort of world why do you go from casino to casino gambling?' she asked contemptuously.
His blue eyes held a mixture of laughter and odd appraisal. 'That's what I am,' he shrugged, 'a gambler.
That's how I live.'
'Surely you could live some other way? It can't be a very, pleasant life. You can't win all the time.' Lissa looked at the powerful body, the compelling blue eyes, the fierce bone structure of his face, and frowned. He did not look like a man with a weakness. You could read the flaw in Chris by merely looking into his restless eyes. He couldn't hide it because it weakened the whole fibre of his nature. But Luc Ferrier betrayed no such weakness. It wasn't merely that he was physically strong-there was a lazy, certain strength in his eyes. He was aware of himself, of everything around him, and sure of his own ability to face and defeat anything that barred his path.
He was smiling slightly, a mocking twist of the lips which held a faint grimness. 'Ah, but I do,' he told her. 'I never lose. Now and then I have a temporary problem, some resistance, but in the end I always get what I want.'
She met the direct, watchful gleam of the blue eyes and her nerve ends rang wild alarm bells. Looking away hurriedly, she looked round. 'I wonder where Fortune has got to.' She called him loudly and got no answer. All was silence.
Luc Ferrier whistled on a long, high note and she heard the crashing through undergrowth of the dog making his way towards them.
Luc glanced down at her, grinning. 'He's coming.'
She sensed his amusement and her eyes grew more annoyed. 'He couldn't have heard me,' she said, because she was not going to admit that her dog had ignored her but come to that man's whistle.
The white body hurled itself through the stream, but as Lissa turned to catch him, Fortune flung himself at Luc Ferrier, barking excitedly, in welcome and recognition, his pink tongue lolling. Luc bent and picked him up, squirming. Holding him away, he said in mock sternness: 'And where have you been? You're filthy, you horrible animal!'
She saw he was right. The dog's white coat was smeared with sand and mud, his paws black.
Luc lowered the dog and deliberately immersed him in the water, rubbing his coat and paws to clean them. Fortune struggled and barked, but was helpless in the firm grip.
'Now you look better,' said Luc, releasing him.