His Last Gamble

  HIS LAST GAMBLE

  HIS LAST GAMBLE

  Maxine Barry

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data available

  This eBook edition published by AudioGO Ltd, Bath, 2012.

  Published by arrangement with the Author.

  Epub ISBN 9781471308000

  U.K. Hardcover ISBN 978 1 4458 2602 8

  U.K. Softcover ISBN 978 1 4458 2603 5

  Copyright © Maxine Barry 2010

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All rights reserved

  Jacket Illustration © iStockphoto.com

  CHAPTER ONE

  Charmaine Reece looked at the vision in the mirror and laughed. That was not her! Definitely not.

  And yet it was.

  Large blue eyes, the exact colour of Ceylon sapphires gazed back at her, the lashes flattered and elongated by unfamiliar mascara. Arched, delicate brows were likewise darkened and framed what others had always assured her were her most bewitching feature. Not that she’d ever believed them.

  She shook her head, watching with bemused wonderment as her newly cut, water-straight hair shimmered gloriously, falling well past her shoulders. Almost silver in colour, it now had glints of old gold, courtesy of the company’s hair stylist.

  A pale plum lipstick complemented the figure-hugging deep plum sarong she was wearing, and long, long legs tapered to trim ankles and a flattering, strappy pair of white sandals. She wore no jewellery.

  She felt almost naked, uncomfortably aware that she was bra-less beneath the wrap-around silky material, and that she wore only the skimpiest of bikini-briefs.

  She felt like a fraud. A ridiculous fraud.

  Taking a deep breath, she walked to the door, locking her hotel room behind her and heading for the reception area and then on out into the blazing Barbados sunshine.

  She’d forgotten her sunglasses, although she’d been warned, by some of the other models, to always wear them. Squinting, apparently, gave a face wrinkles.

  In front of her, the small hotel garden gave way to the breath-taking panorama that was Paradise Beach.

  It hadn’t been hard to persuade Jo-Jo to come here for a photo-shoot, not with a name like that to be featured as a selling point to potential customers. Plus the discount the hotel had been willing to cut them, when they discovered the amount of glamour and cachet that Jonniee, one of Britain’s leading Fashion Houses, would be bringing with them.

  Not that the girls had felt particularly glamorous after the long night-flight. But Charmaine, at least, was too tense to flop into bed and grapple with a hangover. Now that she was here, she was eager to check out the lair of her enemy.

  But to do that, she needed to look her best. She needed to look every inch the successful model. Just in case. Even though her chances of her running into Payne Lacey right away were almost zero.

  Although she had no doubt that, even at this hour, the fabulous and famous Palace Casino right next door would be open, she doubted if the manager-owner himself put in a personal appearance much before midnight. If then.

  Still, it never hurt to be prepared. And she had to get used to looking and dressing like a million dollars, even if, in her heart, she felt strictly bargain basement!

  She was sure that, sooner or later, one of the other girls, one of the real models, was going to catch on to the fact that she was a fraud. Only Jo-Jo knew the truth. Or at least, some of it.

  For Jo-Jo, her business partner and the flamboyant front man of Jonniee, this was all a bit of a laugh. Like everyone else in her life, he thought she needed to live a little, break out of her rut, and throw her usual innate caution to the winds and experience life to the full. So when she’d suggested doing some modelling herself on one of their fashion shoots, he’d been only too eager to encourage her.

  But she knew he wouldn’t be feeling quite so relaxed if he knew why she’d really persuaded him to come here. Why she really wanted to be in Paradise beach, right next to the famous ‘Palace’, and dressed like this.

  And, with a bit of luck, he would never need to know. She’d have brought Payne Lacey to his knees, broken his heart, and be back on her way home to England before the films had even had a chance to be developed. Or digitised and run through the computer for that matter.

  She walked onto the pavement, sternly ignoring the siren call of the white sandy beach and the bright, blue azure of the Caribbean sea and turned instead to walk the short distance to the entrance of ‘The Palace’.

  Nobody ever called it by its full name. The Palace Casino. No. It was so famous, so ‘the’ place to be, that everybody on the island, and those visiting from overseas, simply referred to it as ‘The Palace.’

  And, reputedly, that’s exactly what it looked like on the inside. She bit her lip, then remembered her perfectly applied lipstick just in time. She wasn’t used to wearing make-up. Nor a thousand pound’s worth of designer couture either, if it came to it. Even if she had designed it herself.

  As she walked through the intricately wrought-iron gates into the lush, tropical paradise that were the casino’s grounds, she felt suddenly cold. In spite of the bird song, the primordial sound of the sea, and the scent of exotic blooms, she shivered. Somewhere, close by, he was here.

  Skirting the lush roses, bird-of-paradise flowers, oleander and hibiscus bushes, she stared grimly at the edifice in front of her.

  Here people came from all over the globe to answer the lure of the black-jack table, to sing the song of the roulette wheel, and revel in the adrenaline-creating excitement of the cards.

  ‘The Palace’ was built like something from Versailles, its shimmering stone imported, she supposed, from some far-off place. Grey-slated turrets and sloping roofs gave way to wide windows, graced with wrought iron balconies. Bougainvillaea climbed the white-painted walls, almost hurting the eyes with the brilliance of their colour. Inside, she knew, would be marble, gold plate, silver, chandeliers, plush carpeting, all creating an illusion of grandeur to make the pulse race.

  And all as fake and as worthless as the man who owned it.

  Didn’t those millionaires who came here to lose their money so carelessly, realise that they were just lining the pockets of a charlatan? A man with a till where his heart should be, and a money-making machine in place of a human brain?

  And what of those normal, every day people, people like her, hard-working tourists and holiday makers, out for a little taste of the high life. Just a little taste. Surely no harm in that? Lose a few chips here, drop some foreign-looking coins in a slot machine there. Didn’t they realise that they were just throwing their hard-earned money away on a man who’d already gambled and won millions?

  She realised her hands were clenched into hard fists, her knuckles white with tell-tale fury, and forced herself to take deep breaths. Calm.

  She must be calm.

  She was so close now. All the hard work and planning had been done. She’d positioned herself, in an advantageous light, to within a hair’s-breadth of the enemy.

  Everything was set and ready.

  She moved closer, fascinated by the size and lure of the Palace. A doorman, dressed in livery, came down the wide, fan-shaped steps as a Silver Ghost Rolls Royce pulled up in front. A man in flowing Arab robes stepped outside, and nodded gracefully as the doorman held open one of a double pair of heavily decorated doors that had come from a ruined monastery somewhere in Tuscany.

  Since acquiring The Palace, legend had it that Payne Lacey had spared no expense in making sure that ‘The Palace’ lived up to its name.

  It was known that several suites on the second and third floors were leased to the fabulously wealthy, famous and reclusive for exorbitant rates. One rumour that had since passed
into legend had it that a star of Hollywood’s silver screen from the fifties, mysteriously retired and never seen for over thirty years, lived in the penthouse.

  Looking at the casino, Charmaine could believe it. She felt as if she’d stepped into a Gothic novel. And that somewhere inside, like an evil Mr Rochester, Payne Lacey was aware of her presence. He knew why she’d come, and was laughing at her, waiting for her to make her move. Confident of defeating and humiliating her before she could even so much as say her first word. Which was nonsense, of course. But still, just the thought of it was enough to make her blood run cold.

  She shook her head, then jumped as a noise to her left made her swivel around, blue eyes wide in alarm.

  But it was only a gardener.

  She felt like laughing, except that it wasn’t really funny. If just the mere thought of Payne Lacey could sap her confidence like this, making her react like a silly pre-school child hearing her first scary fairy story, then what realistic chance did she have of getting her revenge?

  She moved forward, intrigued by the skill of fast-flying shears. He was squatting down with his broad back turned towards her, and as she watched, the sunlight rippled over the muscles of his skin, highlighting the ridges of shoulders and the lean expanse of smooth, tight ribs. He was wearing cut-off jeans, the denim almost white with age and wear, the ends ragged and looking like little white feathers against the deep bronze skin of his powerful thighs.

  He seemed oblivious of her presence, and as he duck-walked to the next area of overgrown greenery, she saw the tendons in his thighs stand out.

  He was in superb shape, and she could understand why. Such huge gardens would require constant care and hard physical labour. And in this heat, too. Used to the cooler northern climes of her native Oxfordshire, Charmaine could feel her own strength wilting in the strong Caribbean sunshine.

  This man though, looked set to continue clipping and weeding, mowing and pruning, for hours. Small rivulets of sweat beaded the hard planes of his cheeks, running to drip off his clean-shaven chin, glinting with the remains of a golden stubble.

  He turned his head sharply, suddenly aware of her, and the cool grey eyes, as deep as a stormy ocean, took her by surprise.

  His hair was dark gold, the colour of newly harvested corn, and she’d expected eyes the colour of her own. Not eyes like steel. They regarded her coldly and boldly, moving from her shining silvery hair to the tips of her feet. She’d painted her toenails, for the first time in her life, the night before flying out here, and she saw his lips quirk at this bit of frippery.

  She wanted, absurdly, to withdraw her feet, to wipe off the polish, to apologise for the little vanity of it. But that was out of the question.

  Besides, he was only the gardener here. Why should she feel so off-balance?

  Still, she felt the urge to explain. All the other models had painted toenails. She had to fit in.

  Instead, she firmed her lips and told herself not to be so wet. She really was going to have to develop a much tougher skin than this if she was to survive the ordeal of the next few days.

  ‘Hello,’ she said softly. ‘That looks like hard work.’ Although naturally friendly by nature, she had always been plagued by shyness. Something, of course, a top-flight fashion model would never be!

  The gardener turned and slowly stood up. And up. And up.

  Charmaine blinked nervously and took an involuntary step back. Although, at five feet eight, she wasn’t exactly short herself, he seemed to tower over her. As he turned, she couldn’t help but notice that the muscles on his biceps matched those of his powerful thighs. His stomach was tight and washer-board hard, his chest hairless but even more deeply bronzed than his back. In contrast, his light hair and grey eyes seemed even more disconcerting.

  ‘Plants deserve hard work,’ he said simply, his accent throwing her. It sounded Americanised, and yet had a lilting, almost musical undertone that she knew she recognised, and yet couldn’t quite place.

  It was an odd thing to say, and she wasn’t quite sure how to respond. His eyes moved over the silken flow of the sarong—the way it hugged her full breasts, clung to her waist like a lover, then wrapped sensuously around her thighs. His lips began to twist into a smile. A speculative look rose to his eyes.

  Her skin began to tingle, as if someone was rubbing ice-cold sorbet all over it. She took a deep breath and told herself to relax. The other models would have taken a look like that in their stride.

  They certainly wouldn’t feel like running a mile!

  ‘I take it you like working here,’ she managed to mumble, casting a somewhat helpless look around the lush garden. She almost groaned. What a pathetic thing to say. Why didn’t she have the ability to flirt, like the other girls? They’d had the male staff on the plane over twisted around their fingers.

  Although, in all fairness, she didn’t think that this particular male of the species was all that twistable. Not even for someone like Jinx, the acknowledged star of the latest fashion shoot.

  As if to confirm this instinctive understanding, the giant Adonis in front of her smiled. It was a strange smile, as if she’d said something really funny which didn’t particularly amuse him.

  ‘Oh, it has its compensations,’ he agreed, casually tossing down the pair of shears he was carrying and pushing back a lock of sweat-darkened hair that had fallen over his brow.

  He moved towards her, his long loping strides eating the short distance between them, and making her retreat hastily. She flushed when he raised a sardonic brow, looked pointedly at the newly created distance between them, then merely stooped to retrieve a bottle of mineral water that had been resting near her feet.

  Taking the top off, he drank deeply.

  She watched, fascinated, the movement of his Adam’s apple as it moved up and down the strong, tanned column of his throat. When he finished, he wiped the top of the bottle and put the top back on.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked softly. ‘Did you think I was going to grab you and ravish you in the bushes?’

  Charmaine, for one mad moment, had thought something exactly like that. Although why she should assume a man like this would be interested in her, she couldn’t have said. A man who looked as good as this, living and working on a tourist island that was annually inundated with gorgeous female holiday makers, must have his pick of beautiful women.

  She laughed nervously, and its utter falseness made her wince, deep inside.

  ‘No. No, of course not,’ she denied uselessly.

  But even as she spoke, she was aware that this Adonis of a man, this gorgeous blond giant, knew that she was lying. He looked at her, a slightly puzzled expression pulling his dark brows together.

  ‘You are one of the models doing a shoot over here, aren’t you?’ he said, making her stiffen in sudden alarm.

  ‘Yes. How did you know?’ she asked, far more sharply than she’d meant to.

  The stranger grinned sardonically. ‘Did you think it was a big secret or something? The whole island—well, this side of it anyway—knows that some models from England are doing a fashion shoot on the beach here and up at the casino.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said, feeling somewhat deflated. Yes, that made sense. Certainly Payne Lacey would have been at pains to make sure that everybody knew about it. For wasn’t it just one more feather in his cap? Owning a place coveted by a top-ranking fashion house.

  ‘For a fashion model you sure are jumpy,’ the gardener said, distracting her dark thoughts, and replacing them once again with fear.

  Was she so obviously a phoney then? So much of a fraud that even a humble gardener could spot her weaknesses?

  ‘What do you mean?’ she said, trying to inject some scorn into her voice, some world-weary cynicism.

  Those arctic ocean eyes swept over her again, and a dismissive grin made her blood begin to simmer. ‘Forget it,’ he said casually, reaching down once more for the shears.

  ‘No,’ she insisted grimly. ‘I mean it. Wha
t did you mean by that crack. I’m not jumpy.’

  Not much!

  He glanced back across at her from his contemplation of the hedge.

  ‘No? Then why are you acting like a virgin who’s just wandered by mistake into an orgy?’

  Charmaine blinked. ‘Wh-what did you just say?’ she stuttered. She couldn’t have heard him right.

  Could she?

  ‘You see,’ he said, grinning again, shaking his head as if she was providing him with no end of entertainment. ‘You looked shocked to the core. And here I was, thinking all fashion models were hard-as-nails, seen-it-all, done-it-all, women of the world.’

  Charmaine felt herself blush hotly, and groaned inwardly. Oh no. Not now. But she felt the tell-tale colour wash over her, and knew, from experience, that when it left, it would leave her skin, even under her artful make-up, ghostly white.

  Why did she have to be so cursed with shyness? All her life, she’d battled an almost paralysing bashfulness.

  And besides, he was right. She was worlds away from the other models currently sleeping off jet lag back at the hotel. From their conversation on the flight over, she knew that most of them were exactly as this aggravating blond giant had described. Strong, sophisticated, sexually confident young women. A world away from herself. She’d never even taken a lover yet. And everybody knew that twenty-four was ridiculously old to still be a virgin.

  How was she ever going to convince someone like Payne Lacey that she belonged in his world of gambling, champagne, high-living and casual sexual conquest, if she couldn’t even fool a gardener?

  The blond stranger watched, fascinated, as her colour ebbed and flowed. Her remarkable blue eyes darkened, became shadows. He watched her exquisite shoulders actually begin to droop.

  When he’d first turned and seen her, he’d been stunned. Literally. He’d felt like the proverbial mullet, zapped with a lightning bolt. But not for the world would he have shown it. Faking more interest in the rare shrub he was pruning than her own far more beautiful self, had simply given him the means to get himself under control.