Page 34 of His Last Gamble

And that intensity could only mean one thing.

She hadn’t been mistaken.

She really was in love with Payne Lacey.

* * *

The next half an hour passed in a blur. She was vaguely aware of him urging her back to the boat, of climbing the ladder while he swarmed up behind her, hovering over her and all but hauling her up the rungs himself. She barely acknowledged the warm blanket he slipped around her shoulders, and she sipped out of the balloon glass of brandy he pressed on her without even tasting the fiery liquid that gradually warmed and thawed her.

She was dimly aware that he was trying to reassure her about the shark and apologising all the time for her fright. In some still-functioning part of her mind, she even knew that he must be silently berating himself for bringing her snorkelling.

And she wanted to reassure him that that wasn’t it. The shark didn’t matter. But if she did that, then she’d have to come up with some other reason for her shock.

And she could hardly blurt out the real reason for that, could she?

How embarrassing it would be for him. What a nuisance to have a smitten woman around. She was supposed to be a sophisticated model, a seen-it-all, done-it-all woman of the world who knew the rules. Jinx would never do something so crass as to fall in love with a man who only wanted a few weeks’ dalliance in the sun.

And so she let him tuck her feet underneath her on the sofa, and closed her eyes and pretended to sleep. And tried not to think about what would happen next. Because, now more than ever, that vision of her lonely future looked totally inescapable.

* * *

Payne watched her sleeping and cursed himself silently. Of all the stupid things to do. He should have warned her about the small sharks. They were harmless enough, but he should have known that just their presence would be enough to scare her. She was not a native, after all, she wasn’t used to such things.

He was a fool. All kinds of a fool.

He groaned as he remembered the horror in her eyes as she stared at him, out there in the water. She’d looked as if her world was coming to an end. But she must have known that even if it had been a Great White down there, he’d have killed it before he let it get anywhere near her. Women just knew these things. They knew when they had a man hopelessly hooked.

And he was hooked, he finally admitted to himself.

It was a thought far more frightening than any shark! And yet, as he gazed down at the sleeping beauty on his sofa, he just wished he could make her understand that he’d do anything to keep her safe. He’d do anything to make her happy.

Anything at all.

He sighed and leaned back on the chair, closing his eyes. As he did so, Charmaine risked peeking out from under her lashes, saw that he wasn’t looking her way, and watched him openly.

He really was breathtaking. His hair had dried in clumps, still sticky from the sea, and she yearned to smooth it down with her fingers. She knew it would be so easy to get up and go to him, perhaps slip onto his lap and startle him awake. Then she could kiss him, long and lovingly, not even trying to hide her emotion for him, and then let him carry her into the bedroom. He was welcome to her virginity. He was welcome to all she possessed.

It would be worth all the heartache that would follow, she just knew it would. It would be bliss. And, after all, she might never fall in love again. Oh yes, it would be so easy to convince herself that it was better to love and lose than never love at all. And that being Payne Lacey’s lover was worth any pain or consequence. And if it was only herself that she had to think of, she knew she’d be making love to him right now.

But there was Lucy.

How could she betray Lucy by taking up with the man she had loved so much that she’d almost killed herself because of him? How could she add a second betrayal to the one she’d already suffered? How could her own sister stab her in the back like that?

The stark, unalterable, unbearable answer to that was simple.

She couldn’t.

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