'You can t stay. I can't concentrate on the game with you here.'

'Can't you?' She smiled down into his eyes.

Little beads of perspiration came out on his forehead and upper lip. 'Liss,' he muttered, his other hand curving round her head and pulling her down to kiss him. She submitted without protest, letting her lips part under the moist invasion. Chris ran his hand down the warm curve of her body and she heard the muffled gasp of his pleasure.

Then he slapped her lightly, drawing back. 'I'll see you later, sweetheart,' he said huskily. 'Off you go for now.'

Luc was staring down at the table, his face and body rigid. Lissa put her finger to her lips and laid it on Chris's cheek, then she turned and walked across the room past Max.

As she went out she turned and saw Chris watching her. The avid probe of his eyes sickened her, but she smiled at him over her shoulder before she went.

She had done what she could, she thought, going up to her own room. She had had to put Chris off the scent, put him into a relaxed frame of mind which might help Luc. Her provocative behaviour, the kiss she had given him, had partly distracted Chris from his game, and Lissa knew it. He would now have an undivided mind as he played his cards. She had put her own image into Chris's head, promising a pleasure which would constantly come between him and what he was doing.

She hurriedly took off her black dress and dressed in a black sweater and jeans. They wouldn't be seen easily at night and they would be warm when she was on the boat.

She packed a few necessary items in a light bag, gathered up Fortune under her arm, whispering to him not to make a sound, and then she carefully locked her door. Chris might come up later to try it. She had a shrewd idea he would. She had been inviting him with every look she gave him and Chris was not going to be slow in taking her up on it. She hoped the idea was eating into his brain even now. She hoped he was hardly aware of the cards he was getting.

Her room looked out on to the garden. As a child, she had often climbed down the gnarled, deformed branches of the sycamore winch grew close to the wall. She hadn't tested the strength of it lately. She would have to trust to luck that she could make it bear her weight.

Opening her window, she quietly slid out and looked down into the darkness. There wasn't a sound, a movement. She dropped her bag and watched it fall into a flowerbed. Listening, she waited, and when there was still no sound she slithered, down into the first wide fork. It was difficult with the dog clutched in her arm. He wriggled nervously, whimpering, and she put her hand over his muzzle. 'Ssh!' she begged.

She was almost at the base of the tree when she heard movements. Freezing against the trunk, she held her breath and kept a hand over the dog's jaws.

A figure walked slowly past. She recognised one of the men from the gaming rooms. His eyes swept around the gardens in watchful intensity, and Lissa trembled.

He seemed to take hours to get out of sight as he patrolled round the other side of the hotel.

When his steps died away she jumped the last of the way to the ground and grabbed up her bag from among the clustered flowers. Still carrying the dog under her arm, she began to run from tree to tree, slipping and sliding on the grass.

It was only as she began to make her way through the palm trees along the edge of the beach that it occurred to her that Luc's man might have come and gone, or not arrived at all.

Heart racing, she stood in the trees, searching the sands. There wasn't a sound, a sight, of anyone.

Lissa felt sick. She swallowed and gazed across the rolling waves. Luc's yacht was anchored around the bay off Ville-Royale. She stared in that direction, but there wasn't a sign of any craft heading towards the hotel beach.

Luc's man had not come. She walked out of the trees, her eyes glinting with unshed tears, and moved slowly down the beach. All that trouble for nothing. How was she to get back into her room? She would have to climb up the tree again with Fortune under her arm and it wouldn't be easy.

The sound was so tiny she thought at first she hadn't heard it, then another came and she whirled round, gasping with alarm and fear.

The shape moved warily, coming closer.

'Miss?' The whispered question was a mere breath.

'Come over here.'

Lissa peered through the darkness, not moving.

'You waiting for a boat?' the man asked, still not coming any closer. 'You're in the moonlight over there, you'll be seen. We must start off down the far end. Walk down there slowly.'

Lissa swallowed and began to walk. She heard the Other movements and at last she was in the shadow of the tree-hung cliff at the far end of the beach.

She heard the splash with which the dinghy was launched. 'Hop in,' the man muttered.

Fortune did not like the look of the boat and the man did not like the look of the dog. 'He coming?' he asked with dismay.

'I can't leave him,' Lissa whispered. 'I can't,' He shrugged and sighed. She settled down, the cold rubber of the dinghy against her arm, and the boat shot away from the shoreline.

'What is Mr Ferrier going to do?' she asked the man, peering at him. 'How will he get away?'

He grinned, showing white teeth. 'Luc will manage.'

The casual confidence did not soothe her. She twisted her fingers in her lap, biting her lip.

'What if there's trouble?'

'Trouble is Luc's middle name,' the man replied easily, laughing under his breath. 'And he's been in tighter spots than this-you should have been with him in Rio when he was jumped by two guys with knives. I was ten feet away and before I could get to him Luc had knocked one of them out cold and broken the other guy's wrist.'

'How lovely,' Lissa said with a raging wail. 'That really comforts me!'

He grinned. 'Don't worry. I haven't worried about Luc since he was twelve years old.'

She looked at him in startled surmise. 'You've known him that long?'

'I've known him since he was five,' the man said. 'Taught him to sail myself. Taught him to play poker too.'

'Oh, it was you?' Lissa asked furiously. 'Well, you should be ashamed of yourself! It would have been much better if you'd taught him something else.'

'Oh, oh,' the man murmured under his breath. 'Poor Luc! You're that sort of honey, are you?.'

She didn't answer that. After a pause she asked, 'What's your name?'

'They call me Dandy,' he said, offering a calloused hand which totally engulfed her own. He shook her hand firmly.

'I'm Lissa,' she said, and he nodded, the movement of his head in the darkness just visible.

'I know. Luc told me.'

'Does he tell you everything?'

Dandy considered this for a moment. 'Yeah,' he said, then laughed. 'Well, most things. He has to.'

'Why? Do you have a hold over him?' Lissa wasn't sure if she liked this large man with the deep warm voice who had taught Luc to play poker.

Dandy laughed. 'Sort of. I'm his bodyguard.'

'He needs one,' she said, angry again. 'He needs you now. Why aren't you with him?'

'Luc will tell me if he needs me,' Dandy said casually. 'His antennae work too well for him to make a mistake.'

'I never heard of a stockbroker having a bodyguard,' Lissa said snappily.

'A what?' Dandy stopped rowing and stared.

'Isn't he?'

'A stockbroker?' Dandy threw back his head and roared with amusement. 'Is that what he told you?'

Lissa was stiff and cold. 'I knew he was a liar,' she said with fury. 'I should have known better than to believe a word he told me.'

'You should, you should indeed,' Dandy teased her, grinning. 'Luc didn't get his nickname for nothing. You know what they call Lucifer-the father of all lies?'

Lissa dropped her cold face into her shaking hands.