Chris's mouth twisted. 'You could have picked it up from me,' he grimaced. 'This man is like a radar system, he picks up every tiny signal. If he reckons I'm scared of him that will give him an advantage.'
'Don't play with him,' she said huskily. She paused, 'Chris, are you afraid of him?'
He laughed curtly, 'No, Liss, but I'm no fool. I know his reputation. I'm wary of him, that's all. When I'm ready…' He broke off and she looked at him with anxiety.
'When you're ready, what? You aren't planning to play with him?' -
'What did you find out about him?' Chris asked, evading her question. 'Did he tell you anything? Or just pump you dry and tell you nothing?'
She felt a curious reluctance to discuss Luc Ferrier with him. 'He didn't tell me anything,' she lied.
Chris made a little face. 'I didn't imagine he would have,' he shrugged. 'Why on earth did you talk to him in the first place? How did you come to run into him?'
She had never knowingly lied to Chris before. She had never hidden anything from him. Her nature and her old affection for him had made her as open as the day, but now she was evading issues, concealing feelings, and she felt alien to herself.
'I went for a walk in the forest and bumped into him,' she said.
Chris frowned. 'How did the subject of poker come up?'
'He noticed my ring,' she explained, not meeting his eyes. 'He asked me who I was engaged to and I told him. Then he told me he'd met you, played poker with you.'
'And what did you say?' Chris shot that back crisply, staring at her.
It took her a great deal to turn and meet his eyes without showing anything which was going on inside her. She was deeply aware of the deliberate nature of her smile at him.
'I told him I didn't approve of gambling.'
She saw Chris relax and he half-smiled. 'And what did he say to that?'
'He laughed,' Lissa shrugged, still keeping her eyes on him and smiling.
'So how did he come to offer you this bargain?' Chris demanded.
'He asked me to show him the sights of the town,' Lissa told him. 'And when I refused he suggested a bargain-if I took him round the town he wouldn't gamble with you tonight.'
His eyes narrowed. 'What happened while you were with him?' She saw his hands tighten at his side. 'He didn't touch you?'
Lissa could not stop the heat coming into her face and Chris watched it with a hardening stare.
'So he did! What did he do?'
'He kissed me,' she whispered, alarmed by the look in his face.
Chris grabbed her arms, staring down at her with a fixed, aggressive expression. 'And? Her eyes widened. 'And what?' ‘And then?' he asked thickly, probing the wide startled eyes. The fierce pressure of his fingers on her arms slackened and he gave a stifled sigh. 'That's all? One kiss and nothing else?'
'What do you think I am?' Lissa asked angrily. 'Do you think I wanted him to kiss me?'
Chris laughed shortly. 'So you didn't fancy him? Well, I didn't imagine you had, but you never know with women.' There was a cold twist to his mouth. 'Even girls like you can fall for a good line, and Ferrier certainly has a great line.'
Lissa frowned, disliking the cynical gleam in Chris's eyes. 'Well, I didn't.' She was lying and she knew it. She had not found Luc Ferrier's kisses distasteful. What's happening to me? she thought. She was meeting Chris's eyes and showing nothing of her secret thoughts, and her own ability to deceive was very disturbing.
'In future keep right out of his way,' Chris told her. 'If he tries it on again let me know and the boys will sort him out.'
Lissa shivered at the way Chris said that, the bright gleam of his eyes as he spoke.
As she walked back through to the foyer she met Rebecca. Lissa knew who had told Chris that she had gone off with Luc Ferrier. She met Rebecca's cold smile with an unsmiling stare of her own.
Pierre was in a teasing mood. 'I've had a request,' he told her. 'In fact, I've had dozens, for you to do the little song I wrote you. So how about it?'
Lissa flushed. 'I…'
'Come on, Liss,' he grunted. 'Either you want to be a professional or you don't. The people loved that song. They loved your dress, too. It's time you made up your mind whether you're going to give the people what they want or get out and let someone else do it.'
'Someone else meaning Jo-Jo,' she suggested, half smiling.
'Whatever,' Pierre said flatly. 'Chris wants you and you could be much better than you are, if only you'd do it the way the people want it.'
It wasn't the first time Pierre had said as much. She looked at him uncertainly. 'I feel shy when I sing it,' she muttered.
'Sure,' Pierre nodded, 'I know that. But you can sing it, Liss. All you have to do is grow up, for God's sake.' He put a thin arm round her shoulders in a brotherly hug, smiling. 'You were a sweet little kid, but now you're a woman. Start acting like one.'
There was so much she could say to that that the words all jammed up inside her head. She was frightened of changing, of becoming a full adult, and she knew it. She looked up into Pierre 's round dark eyes and smiled pleadingly at him.
He gave her an encouraging nod. 'Going to try, baby?'
Lissa drew a deep breath and nodded. 'That's my girl!' Pierre grinned, hugging her again.
They went over the song a dozen times before he was satisfied with the way she was singing it. Lissa felt the provocative, ambiguous words sinking into her mind. They disturbed her even more now. Every time she sang them she thought about Luc Ferrier and her pulses raced. Pierre gave her an odd look when she was going.
'You're coming on,' he told her, grinning, and she wasn't sure what he meant by that, but knew she didn't want to know.
Chris gave her a sharp look as he saw her in the black dress that evening. 'I thought you preferred not to wear it,' he said with unhidden suspicion.
Pierre came up and winked at him. 'I talked her into it. The fans were demanding another look at it.'
Chris relaxed. 'Went down well, didn't it? I know. I got told as much over and over again.'
When Liss walked out into the spotlight her eyes involuntarily slid to the table where Luc usually sat and widened in surprise as she saw he was not alone. One of the other guests sat with him, Lissa had seen her several times before; she was one of the wives whose husband rarely left the gaming rooms. Luc was smiling into the woman's eyes and listening to whatever she was saying to him. The woman lifted her glass and sipped, fluttering her lashes at him over the edge of the glass.
She was a very attractive woman, Lissa recognised, suntanned, slim, her low red dress provocative.
Lissa felt a strange stab of anger and began to sing. She did not look at Luc again, but she sang as she had never sung before, using the purring voice she had heard Pierre use as he tried to get her to sing as he wanted.
It was nothing but mimicry. She remembered the teasing looks Pierre had given her as he sang certain lines and looked round the audience in the same way, smiling. She heard the laughter start, as it had started the first time she sang the song. She paused where Pierre had paused, smiled where he had smiled, and her slender body moved in the sinuous gestures Pierre had used as he sang.
She felt Pierre 's excited look, saw his grin out of the side of her eye. As she ended, the audience erupted in whistles and shouts, as they had before. 'More, more!' they yelled. Pierre bent forward and whispered: 'Sing it again.'
Lissa looked at him in startled disbelief. She had never sung a song twice before. Pierre nodded at her vigorously and struck up the bars which opened the song.