Page 7 of His Last Gamble

Then he realised that, of course, she couldn’t afford to make a bad impression on her boss and lover. Sleeping with Jo-Jo might have got her onto the shoot and off to a flying start in the supermodel stakes, but insulting the owner of the casino where he hoped to shoot would hardly make for good bedtime conversation later on that night.

Payne smiled wolfishly, knowing he had her right where he wanted her. And at the same time, tried to pretend that the thought of her belonging to another man didn’t make him feel like chewing the expensive, hand-painted wallpaper right off the walls.

‘Let’s dance, gambling man,’ Jinx purred, pulling on his arm coquettishly, and he sighed slightly. But there was nothing else a gentleman could do but oblige the lady.

‘Of course, I’d be delighted,’ he said smoothly, steering her through the main salon to a small bar, dance and stage area. It was mostly empty, for although a sultry nightclub singer, justly famous on the islands, sang the blues to the accompaniment of a visiting New Orleans jazz combo, few came to the Palace to drink or dance.

Jinx nestled into him sensuously, but he was already looking over her shoulder, watching as some of the other models, the chief photographer, Charmaine and Jo-Jo wandered around the salons, checking out possible photo opportunities, before heading up to the bar.

When the song ended, he firmly led Jinx to the others, and deposited her on a bar stool, ordering her a choice of drink, on the house.

Then he turned to Charmaine, her cameo profile perfect in the soft lighting. Behind him, the throaty-voiced singer began to sing ‘I Only Have Eyes For You’.

His lips twisted in self-mockery. How appropriate.

‘You don’t mind if I steal your lady from you for a dance, do you, Mr Jones?’ he asked, holding out his hand to Charmaine, who stared at it like a rabbit might stare at a hooded cobra.

‘Jo-Jo, please,’ he responded, eyeing first the casino owner then his friend, an arch, speculative look creeping across his face.

‘Oh, she’s not his,’ Jinx drawled spitefully, not best pleased at being dismissed so quickly.

Charmaine, having no other choice, reluctantly put her hand in his, but her legs shook as he led her to the dance floor. The neon-blue lighting and lingering smoke from the scented table candles reminded her of the kind of films where Bette Davis planned seduction and murder, and in which men were men, and women knew it! And she had to fight back the absurd desire to laugh. She was utterly out of her depth here. She must have been out of her mind to think she could ever pull this off.

‘Relax,’ the deep timbre of his voice, with that underlying melodic resonance that so thrilled her, whispered across the top of her head, his breath rustling the tendrils of hair on her forehead. He was so close, if he just bent his head a few more millimetres, his lips would be brushing her brow.

She shuddered as she longed, suddenly and violently, for him to do just that. To trail his lips across her temple, down beside her eye, to move across to kiss the tip of her nose and down to her mouth.

She firmed her lips against the imagined touch, but they throbbed, as if feeling cheated.

His arm felt like a band of molten steel around her waist, his fingers, resting on the bare skin of her back, like branding irons. Her thighs, encased in the velvet of her dress, trembled against the length of his own, and she was sure he must be able to feel it.

Her head swam as she fought to get her breathing under control. She couldn’t faint now. Couldn’t do something so ignominious. And yet, she felt as if she was floating.

She didn’t know what was happening in the world outside. Here, on the dance floor, there was only the two of them. Payne’s voice, his breath on her hair, his arms around her, the length of her body pressed to his. She was breathing in his scent, her very heartbeat synchronising itself to his.

‘You’re beautiful,’ he said softly. ‘But then, you must hear that every day. From lots of men.’

Charmaine’s eyes snapped open. The spell abruptly broke.

She wondered, with something approaching hysteria, what he would say if she told him that, no, men in fact never said that to her. She never gave them the chance. On the rare occasions that she had dated, she never followed up on that first meal out, or that first visit to the cinema.

It was Lucy who was the famous actress. Lucy who could be really beautiful, just because she made people believe that she was so. Lucy who had the charm, the talent, the appeal. It had always been so.

Charmaine just designed dresses.

For a moment, she felt an intense longing to be back home. Safe in her cottage, with her cat, Wordsworth, and the garden that she loved to fill with all the old-fashioned country garden plants. There all was calm and right with her world. Here, she was lost. Buffeted by sensations and feelings that were alien and strange. And, she was sure, dangerous.

Unspeakably dangerous.

‘Your friend is well named,’ he said, wondering what was making her shake all over again. Surely it wasn’t her temper coming back.

‘Who? Jo-Jo?’

‘No. Jinx.’

And suddenly Charmaine was burbling with laughter. He hadn’t fallen for the super-glamorous model after all, then. When she’d seen them dancing, with Jinx’s flame-red hair against his shoulder, they’d looked so right together. But they’d only danced the once, and she’d hoped, oh how she’d hoped, that she hadn’t imagined it when he’d seemed relieved to deposit her back at the bar.

Now she knew she’d been right.

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