Luc broke off the kiss to lift his head. Her lids flicked back and her green eyes stared, glazed and incredulous.

She felt the piercing probe of those eyes with heated embarrassment and self-disgust.

Luc stepped away, smiling. 'Be more careful as we go down the rest of these stairs,' he drawled. 'You never know what may happen if you slip.'

Lissa couldn't move for a moment. Her legs were shaking under her and she was so hot she felt as though she had a fever. After a pause to drag herself back from that disturbed state of consciousness, she followed him slowly.

Chris was in the foyer when they got back to the hotel. He was talking to the desk clerk with his back towards them, but at the sound of Luc Ferrier's cool voice he swung and looked across the empty foyer at them, a spot of red burning in each cheek. Chris was angry. Lissa saw the fury in him and stiffened in alarm. Luc sauntered away, a smile on his hard mouth, and she slowly walked towards Chris.

He didn't say a word. He took her elbow and marched her into his office, slamming the door in Rebecca's face as she watched them.

Swinging on Lissa, Chris asked tightly: 'Okay, why did you go off with him, and where the hell have you been? You've been gone most of the afternoon.'

'He asked me to show him the fort,' Lissa began.

'He what?' Chris reacted with outright fury, his flush deepening. 'He wasn't interested in any forts!'

Meeting his blue eyes, she swallowed, and Chris watched the movement of her throat, his face hard.

'What happened?' he demanded, keeping his eyes fixed on her. 'And I want the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, Liss!'

'He said if I went with him he wouldn't play with you,' she confessed, and Chris looked at her in fierce stupefaction.

'I was quite safe in daylight,' she began, but Chris wasn't even, listening.

'You actually bargained with him about it?'

'I was worried____________________' she began, and he cut her short with a loud, harsh expletive.

'You talked to him about it? You discussed me with him? Told him you were worried in case I played with him?' He used words he had never used before in her presence and the charm and warmth was stripped from his face as though it had never been present. She did not know him. The hoarse tone of his voice frightened her.

He grabbed her shoulders, his fingers digging into her, and shook her. 'You stupid little bitch,' he hissed. 'Do you know what you've done? Have you any idea? My God, I could slap your damned face for you!'

Lissa shrank, trembling, looking at him with wide and horrified eyes.

'He'll use every tiny scrap you fed him,' Chris bit out. 'You just tossed me into the jaws of a crocodile, you little bitch…'

'Don't,' she winced as his cruel fingers clenched on her. 'You're hurting!'

Tears burst into her eyes, partly of pain from the way he was shaking her, partly from misery because he was so angry. Chris stared at her as the drops slid down her cheek, and, she felt the rage in him die out. He drew a long breath and then sighed deeply.

'Okay,' he muttered, drawing her into his arms. His lips brushed the top of her head. 'Don't cry, honey baby. Liss, stop crying. I can't stand to hear you cry like that.'

She had never seen him so angry before. The brutal, violent face he had shown her was a face she did not recognise. She was so shaken that she trembled in his arms and Chris groaned under his breath.

'Okay, it's okay, Liss. I realise you were only trying to save me from myself.' There was a peculiar smile in his voice, a secret amusement she didn't understand.

He put a hand under her chin and pushed back her head. Wet-eyed, she gazed up at him, and Chris brushed his lips lightly across her trembling mouth.

'I told you I wouldn't gamble with him!'

'Then why were you so angry?'

She caught a wary flicker in his eyes. He looked away as she watched him.

'If you aren't going to gamble with him, why should it matter what I said to him?' she insisted, staring at him.

An odd little shiver ran down her spine as she observed the shadow of some secret thought passing through his face. She had known Chris most of her life, but what did she really know about the man behind that handsome face?

Chris's charm and easy smile didn't quite add up, and she had never realised it before. Even now she couldn't be certain what it was about him that was disturbing her. She had thought it was his urgent desire for her that made her hang back in nervous wariness, but behind her innocence she was intelligent enough to receive faint, puzzling signals from the atmosphere here in the island, fleeting indications that all was not what it seemed. Chris disturbed her, but she could not be sure why.

'Why were you so angry?' she pressed, and Chris gave her a casual, impatient grin.

'You never know-I might come up against him some day and I wouldn't want him to know too much about me. You shouldn't have let him see you were afraid he'd beat me. It's too revealing.' 'What difference does it make what I think?' Lissa asked, frowning as she watched him.

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?'