She should have suspected that Chris would go to some lengths to find out if she was telling the truth, but she wasn't yet accustomed to telling lies. She felt very sick. Chris wasn't the man she had thought she knew- all night she had been facing that and feeling like someone who has woken up to find themselves in a beautiful, but treacherous jungle. The air was heavy with sweet scents, but death lurked in every shadow.
Luc's veiled eyes were slipping down her slender body. The tiny white bikini seemed suddenly even more inadequate, and she had pulses beating at neck and wrist.
She thought of last night again and wondered what had happened between him and that woman. Lissa's feminine instincts did not need evidence to pick up the tingle of attraction which had been passing between them in the club last night. How long had Luc stayed in her room? And what had gone on?
She turned to walk down to the water and Luc followed, his feet sinking into the sharp gritty sand. They swam out into the blue water with the sun burning down on their heads. Halting to drift on her back, she heard the splash of his movement nearby and glanced sidelong at him. 'You ought to go back,' she said. 'I don't- want Chris to see me with you.'
He nodded, accepting it. 'My yacht is ready to leave at a moment's notice,' he told her. 'The crew have been sleeping on board and going ashore by day. I can contact them down in the town and tell them to start off tonight.'
'When you leave is your business,' said Lissa.
Luc made a rough sound of impatience. 'You know what I'm saying. Will you come with me?'
She shook her head, the wet blonde hair plastered down the side of her face.
'Lisa,' he said through his teeth, 'you can't stay here. You can't marry him.'
'It's my decision,' Lissa said flatly. 'Nothing to do with you.'
He stared at her, his face set, 'You don't fit into this set-up. If you stay you're going to regret it.'
A movement back on the beach drew their attention. Lissa flicked a look across the blue water and her whole body jerked with alarm. Chris stood there, in a tight-fitting blue T-shirt and skimp blue jeans, his slim body tense as he stared across the ocean at them.
'I told you to go away,' she moaned at him.
Turning, she swam back towards the beach and Luc followed. Lissa waded up out of the waves, feeling her limbs heavy with salt water and fear.
Chris did not move. He stood there, the hot steel of his eyes riveting her. Danger came out of him in waves.
Luc ran his hand through his stiff wet hair. His skin-was gleaming with salt and his dark blue eyes were lazy, betraying none of the alarm making Lissa move so stiffly.
'Hallo, Brandon. Your fiancé swims like a fish,' he drawled. 'She tells me she disapproves of gambling. I hope that doesn't mean you're going to duck out on our arranged game.'
Lissa looked at him in sharp anger and disbelief. Although his tone was slow and cool he was challenging Chris directly.
She looked back at Chris, but he wasn't looking at her. He was staring at Luc with rigid features.
'Women and poker don't mix,' Luc murmured mockingly. 'Take my advice, Brandon, decide on one or the other. You can't run both. Women take you over and ruin you as a gambler.'
Chris still studied him as though trying to see right through his head. Lissa moved and Chris turned his head slowly to meet her eyes.
'You promised me,' she whispered, touching his bare brown arm. 'Chris, don't play poker with him.'
For another second Chris bored into her lifted green eyes, his face sharply angled. Then he smiled and she felt the tension seeping out of him. 'Run on back to the hotel, honey,' he said softly, patting her on the hip. His hand smoothed down her thigh intimately, possessively, and although she did not look at Luc she could feel his eyes on the little movement.
Lissa stared into Chris's eyes pleadingly. She was no longer afraid that Chris would lose heavily to Luc, yet she still feared that clash between them for a reason she could not quite put her finger on-her instincts warned her against the idea.
In the beginning Chris had wanted to beat Luc just because Luc was a famous player; now she knew without needing to be told that Chris had other reasons for wanting to beat Luc. She was terrified of what might happen if, as she strongly suspected, Luc beat Chris hands down.
Chris smiled tightly at her. 'Run along, honey,' he said in a voice which left her no option.
She went slowly, feeling sick. The vivid sunlight, the gaudy flesh of the tropical flowers, seemed hateful to her for the first time. She had once loved this place. Now. she felt she could not bear the sight of it.
Why had Luc done it? Why had he deliberately dared Chris to a duel? He must know the dangers he ran. Lissa did not investigate too closely on what her own suspicions were based, but she knew Luc would be in danger if he won against Chris.
There was to be a dinner-dance that evening in the club and Lissa was due to sing for the guests, She rehearsed with Pierre for a while and then went down into the town. She wandered through the gay shopping centre without really noticing much. At a distance she saw Joanne Lucas in a flower-printed sun-dress which left her slim thighs bare. The woman was smiling to herself with a sensuality which made Lissa's teeth meet. The absent, amused expression on Joanne Lucas's face-sickened her.
Had Luc stayed in her room long? Had he gone to bed with the woman? What did she know about him, anyway? She had only met him a few days ago and she only knew about him what he had told her himself. She had known Chris all her life and loved him more than anyone she had ever met. Her mother had been a distant memory, her father always drinking. Chris had been brother, friend, lover to her. Why should she blindly accept what a stranger told her about him?
She went into the fort and wandered around there in the bat-haunted crumbling walls listening to the roar of the surf and the laughter and cries of swimmers and surfers.
In a few short days everything in her world had changed, including herself. She felt as though she had been half alive, a formless creature, half child half woman, but now Luc had somehow brought her fully to life, stiffened her dreamy contentment into something very different.
She felt fully mature for the first time in her life. Her mind was thinking harshly, certainly, and she was suffering the ravages which maturity can bring.
Now that Luc had opened her mind to it there were so many little things she had noticed but never thought about. The whole luxurious, soft-centred ambiance of the hotel, the island, had been part of her life for so long that it had never occurred to her to question any of it. She had heard snatches of talk, seen Chris and his men move in on someone who was causing trouble, without thinking about it. She had blithely accepted Chris's standards, his ready explanations.
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.