'Don't!'

'Don't take him?' Luc raised his dark brows in sardonic query.

'Don't say that,' she muttered. 'That's what Chris says. I hate those words.' She looked at him bitterly. 'And he thinks he can beat you too.'

'Of course he does,' Luc shrugged indifferently, his face casual and uncertain. 'But he can't.'

'How can you know that?' she flared in anger.

He smiled at her, his lips crooked. 'Sweetheart, you can be sure of that. I know. Brandon couldn't win against me even if he had the devil's own luck.' His eyes mocked her. 'And he hasn't got that, has he? I have. Don't you know what they say about me? The devil gives me the cards, and I know bow to play them.'

'It isn't funny,' Lissa said huskily. 'Don't talk like that.' Lucifer, she thought, watching the saturnine harshness of his face as he stared unsmilingly at her. Yes, it was a very apt nickname. The winged darkness of his brows, the stark bones beneath the smooth brown flesh, the tight cold mouth as he watched her, all gave the nickname the ring of absolute truth.

Luc looked dangerous when he did not smile. He looked tough and icy and immovable.

'You're a funny sort of stockbroker,' she said with anger and pain.

He laughed under his breath, his face altering. 'I learnt it at my father's knee,' he told her.

'Was he a stockbroker?'

Luc's eyes danced. 'Not quite. He dealt in stocks and shares, all right, but I don't think you could call him a stockbroker. You couldn't call me one, either. Not strictly speaking.'

'You said…'

'You misunderstood me,' Luc drawled. 'I said in passing that I dealt in the stock market in London. I buy and sell shares. It's all a question of knowing when to do it.'

'You don't have an English name,' she realised.

'That's because I'm not English,' he agreed. 'French by descent, anyway. I was born in England, actually, but my father was born and brought up in Paris.'

'If you're not a stockbroker, what are you?'

He threw her a dry glance. 'A rose by any other name,' he said, and she felt a surge of rage at the evasive nature of the answer.

'Don't tell me if you don't want to,' she snapped.

'I never do anything I don't want to,' he agreed softly.

'I don't believe you've got a job at all!'

He laughed shortly. 'Don't you?'

'You were just filling my head with fairy stories,'

'Don't confuse me with Brandon,' Luc drawled.

'I won't,' she said with a raging huskiness that made him stare at her intently.

She looked away because the sudden sharpness in his eyes disturbed her; Her anger and deep sense of attraction had made her voice far too betraying.

Staring over his wide shoulder, she kept her eyes on the band and saw Pierre watching them. As Luc slid her smoothly across the floor she felt the back of her neck prickle with the feeling of being watched. But it was not Pierre 's eyes that were sending that quiver of disturbance through her. It was Chris whose stare was-making her feel nervous and uptight.

The music came swirling to a stop. She suspected Pierre had got a nod from Chris to halt. Luc's arms dropped from her and they moved off the floor.

Chris stood there, elegant and very tense in a white evening jacket. His bright, hard eyes met those of Luc Ferrier. 'Mine, I think,' he said as he took her hand, and the tone, the words, meant far more than the smile he gave Luc pretended.

Luc smiled. His facial muscles moved, his lips twisted. To a casual eye it could be called a smile, but the icy glint of his eyes made it clear it was nothing of the sort.

'When are you and I going to fight it out?' he asked with a reckless excitement in his voice.

Chris glanced at Lissa briefly. 'Liss doesn't approve of gambling,' he said.

She began nervously to speak and Luc cut her dead before a word had fully escaped.

'That's tough,' he said viciously. 'I never let women get in my way, but if you're that sort of man maybe it would be as well to forget it, anyway.' He turned on his heel with a contemptuous smile and Lissa heard Chris take a deep, angry breath. His face had reddened. His eyes were murderous.

'Tonight,' he said to Luc's back, hurling the word at him like a knife.

Luc halted. He turned his black head and smiled. 'Tonight, then,' he said before he moved away.

Lissa was shaking with terror and shock. She clutched at Chris's sleeve. 'No! Don't, Chris-you promised!'

'I don't take that sort of slap around the face from anybody,' he said furiously. 'You heard what he said. You got the implication as well as I did. Nobody calls me a coward and gets away with it.'

'You promised,' she whispered.

'I know,' he muttered, his face still a dark red. 'But I can't keep my promise. After tonight I swear to you…'

'If you play with him I won't marry you,' Lissa said on a desperate note.

Chris looked at her with a narrowed surveillance. He smiled at her. 'Oh, yes, you will,' he said, and then he walked away.

Lissa barely knew what she was doing as she went into her act. The music beat inside her head and her lips opened and shut, emitting sounds, but she might as well have been alone on a desert island. The applause, the watching eyes, did not impinge upon her consciousness.

Fear streaked along her nerves. Chris had looked vicious as he stared alter Luc. When he told her that she would marry him he had had cold determination in his eyes.

Once she had seen weakness in him, a flaw running through his charming facade, but now she had been brought to recognise that he was weak in quite a different sense from the one she had imagined. His weakness lay in a sort of strength Lissa had never known him to display. He was coldly, cruelly determined on his own way. It was still weakness-but he had shored himself up with his murderous gang of henchmen, his power over the lives of everyone on the island. It was power which gave his weakness the icy glitter of danger. Chris had no moral scruples to make him halt in anything he did, in the pursuit of anything he wanted.

She left the club and collected Fortune from the desk clerk. The dog shot off into the night and Lissa followed slowly, biting her lip. How could she sleep tonight? She couldn't calmly go to bed while Luc was facing Chris across a table and fighting a.duel whose outcome could be disastrous whichever way it went.

She lingered to inhale the scent of honeysuckle, the creamy yellow flowers thickly clustered on their bushes. While she stood there in the shadows of the garden she heard a step and shivered, looking round.

Luc halted to stare at her. His face was unreadable, but she could sense hostility.

'Don't play with him,' she begged, pulling one of the flowers down. The petals showered on the grass at her feet and she twisted the stem restlessly, her eyes on Luc's dark features,

'It's fixed for midnight,’ he said coolly. He moved closer and she saw the sudden flare of his eyes, their brightness lighting up his face. 'Lissa, it's a perfect opportunity for you to get away. The whole place will be in the gaming rooms. All his men will be there. Nobody will see you leave the hotel. Pack a few things and slip out around one in the morning.'

'Where could I go? she asked wildly. 'Where do you think I could hide on this island?'

'I've fixed that,' Luc said.

She stared at him, her eyes enormous.

'Go down to the beach where we usually swim. One of my men will be waiting for you. He's going to bring a dinghy and row you out to the yacht. You'll be safe out there during the night.'

For a moment Lissa felt a sick relief, then she looked hard at him. Luc would be staying to play that game with Chris. He would be hostage for her. Once Chris discovered she had vanished he would immediately suspect Luc, and her heart winced at the thought of what Chris might do to Luc.