'You still love him? I gathered that last night,' Luc bit out. 'Why didn't you stay with him, then?' He didn't wait for her to answer, his voice flaying her, cold and tipped with steel. 'I'll tell you why, shall I? You knew damned well I was right about him and you ran because you knew that sort of life wasn't what you wanted. But you still hanker for him, don't you? I realised that when you kissed him last night.'
Lissa stared, her face distraught, tears on her lashes.
Luc smiled at her icily. 'Very touching scene it was, too. I thought at the time it meant you'd decided to stay with him. He was purring like a stroked cat after you'd gone, grinning at me triumphantly.' His mouth twisted. ' Brandon knew we were playing for more than money, and after you kissed him he thought he'd already won. He couldn't keep his mind on the game after that-he was sweating to get to you. You may not have meant to, but you were helping me.'
Lissa shivered. She had gone in there like Judas to give Chris the kiss of betrayal, hut Luc was looking at her with icy distaste and she knew he would not believe her if she told him why she had gone to the gambling rooms.
'It must have been a hard decision to make,' Luc remarked in that chilly voice. 'Poor Lissa!'
She drank some of the coffee, her head bent, not even trying to answer.
When she felt able to speak quite steadily she asked: 'Where are we going?'
'Does it matter? England, eventually. But I'm in no hurry.' Luc crossed to the door and opened it. He looked back at her, his smile malicious. 'I intend to enjoy the voyage.'
He went out and the door snapped shut. Lissa stared at it, her body trembling. Luc had not needed to expand on that cryptic little remark; his narrowed eyes had enforced it.
She had had a choice to make, and she had chosen on driven impulse, but when she contemplated what might lie ahead of her, her stomach turned over in humiliation and shame.
There was nowhere for her to run to-she was imprisoned on a yacht with a blue ocean around her and no choice but to submit to whatever Luc demanded.
The inevitability of her own submission was not the worst thing preying on her mind. It was the shameful truth that Luc wouldn't even need to use force. He could take her, whenever he chose, because she wouldn't even put up a fight. The thought of belonging to Chris had finally become intolerable to her. His lovemaking had always alarmed and disturbed her, but even the contemplation of Luc's lovemaking could send waves of weakening heat around her whole body.
She wondered how long it had taken Chris to realise she had gone and to guess who had taken her away.
Chris had lost last night. He might be the ruthless thug Luc had called him, but Lissa had known him for so many years." She covered her face with her hands, feeling sick with pain. Poor Chris! She didn't know if he loved her, but he would have lost face with his men, he would be feeling humiliated, angry. Old affection for him made her wish he had not had to lose quite so openly.
Fortune was finishing her breakfast greedily. Lissa put an arm around his neck and hugged him. Burying her face in his coat, she muttered to him, 'I despise myself, Fortune. I'm crazy!'
Fortune licked whatever part of her he could reach, aware of her need for comfort and ready to supply it in his own fashion. She laughed, tears on her lashes, then jumped as someone knocked loudly on the cabin door.
'Come in,' she quavered huskily.
Dandy put his grizzled head around the door. 'Morning, princess. Your ladyship's clothes.' He had them over his arm, neatly pressed. 'All present and correct,' he told her, draping them over the end of the bunk. He reached a long arm over and plucked the dog out of her arms. 'While you get dressed I'll take the little dog for a walk.' He held Fortune up by his neck and grinned at him as he growled. 'What sort of dog d'you call that?'
'He's a poodle,' Lissa said indignantly.
'Poodle, is he? Come on, horrible, Dandy is going to show you the deck.'
When he had gone she slid out of bed. The cabin was large and elegantly furnished, she found on inspection. There was a narrow shower cubicle in one corner of it and the furniture was all fitted so that it did not shift as the yacht rolled with the waves. However Luc made his money, it was clear he had it. Lissa couldn't even begin to guess how much this yacht was worth. She had never seen one like it.
It was, she thought wryly, like a floating hotel. Last night in the shock and depression of her arrival she had barely taken in any of it, but she had retained an impression of size which had stayed with her.
A long, narrow mirror lined a wardrobe. Lissa studied herself in it. The loose sweater fell to her bare thighs. She looked dishevelled and very flushed. Grimacing at her own reflection, she pulled off the sweater and went into the cubicle to shower.
When she had dried herself she dressed in her own sweater and the neatly pressed jeans. They had, she-suspected, been washed overnight. She made her bed and tidied up the cabin before she went on deck.
She could hear the low throbbing of the engine vibrating through the timbers. At a glance she could only guess at the number of cabins, but there were a row of doors leading off the gangway running from the base of the steps. Everything gleamed with polish, the wood, metal and glass immaculate.
When she emerged on deck she found Fortune being dragged to and fro on the end of a long thin rope. Dandy grinned at her. 'Seasick,' he told her. 'He doesn't like the sea much, does he?'.
Fortune was whining, trying to get back to her.
'Take him below,' said a voice behind her, and she stiffened, swinging to face Luc.
Dandy picked the little dog up and marched off with him. Luc met her eyes coolly. 'He'll feel better below. He won't notice the motion so much.'
She moved to the rail and leaned on it, watching the flying white wake streaking behind them. Luc moved to stand beside her. She looked at his long, brown hands on the iron rail and her throat filled with dry tension.
How did you manage to get away?' she asked huskily.
'How could he stop me?' Luc asked with a grim smile. 'I had a car waiting at the hotel and a boat waiting in the town. He thought I was making a getaway with the money I'd won.' He laughed. 'He didn't realise precisely what stakes we were playing for.'
Lissa shivered. 'He won't come after us, will he?'
Luc glanced over his shoulder at the empty blue water. 'Even if he did he wouldn't catch us. The Queen has too much of a headway.'
'I shan't feel safe until I'm in England,' said Lissa, and Luc gave her a long, sardonic smile.
'I'm sure you won't,' he drawled, and there was a threat in the softness of his voice.
She shifted uneasily at the sound of it. Luc turned to lean his back on the rail, glancing up at the burning, untiring sun. 'Why don't you take a lounger and sunbathe for an hour? I've got some work to do.'
He went below and Lissa stretched out on the padded lounger which Dandy put up for her on the deck. Occasionally one of the crew came up and moved around, but although they always gave her a polite nod they did not speak to her. She counted four of them and wondered how many more there were on the yacht.
Dandy called her down to lunch just as she was falling asleep under the spell of wind and sun. Flushed and drowsy, she went down to wash and followed Dandy to the cabin two doors down from her own. She found herself eating alone with Luc at a polished rosewood table guarded at the edges with low rims of silver which stopped things sliding off the table.
They ate well-cooked and elegantly served food of which Lissa barely tasted a morsel. She ate it but she only vaguely realised what she was eating. Luc was quiet and when their eyes met she could not see a flicker of expression in the dark blue ones opposite her.