Compulsion

CHAPTER FOUR

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?'

'What do you think I am?' Lissa asked angrily. 'Do you think I wanted him to kiss me?'

Chris laughed shortly. 'So you didn't fancy him? Well, I didn't imagine you had, but you never know with women.' There was a cold twist to his mouth. 'Even girls like you can fall for a good line, and Ferrier certainly has a great line.'

Lissa frowned, disliking the cynical gleam in Chris's eyes. 'Well, I didn't.' She was lying and she knew it. She had not found Luc Ferrier's kisses distasteful. What's happening to me? she thought. She was meeting Chris's eyes and showing nothing of her secret thoughts, and her own ability to deceive was very disturbing.

'In future keep right out of his way,' Chris told her. 'If he tries it on again let me know and the boys will sort him out.'

Lissa shivered at the way Chris said that, the bright gleam of his eyes as he spoke.

As she walked back through to the foyer she met Rebecca. Lissa knew who had told Chris that she had gone off with Luc Ferrier. She met Rebecca's cold smile with an unsmiling stare of her own.

Pierre was in a teasing mood. 'I've had a request,' he told her. 'In fact, I've had dozens, for you to do the little song I wrote you. So how about it?'

Lissa flushed. 'I…'

'Come on, Liss,' he grunted. 'Either you want to be a professional or you don't. The people loved that song. They loved your dress, too. It's time you made up your mind whether you're going to give the people what they want or get out and let someone else do it.'

'Someone else meaning Jo-Jo,' she suggested, half smiling.

'Whatever,' Pierre said flatly. 'Chris wants you and you could be much better than you are, if only you'd do it the way the people want it.'

It wasn't the first time Pierre had said as much. She looked at him uncertainly. 'I feel shy when I sing it,' she muttered.

'Sure,' Pierre nodded, 'I know that. But you can sing it, Liss. All you have to do is grow up, for God's sake.' He put a thin arm round her shoulders in a brotherly hug, smiling. 'You were a sweet little kid, but now you're a woman. Start acting like one.'

There was so much she could say to that that the words all jammed up inside her head. She was frightened of changing, of becoming a full adult, and she knew it. She looked up into Pierre 's round dark eyes and smiled pleadingly at him.

He gave her an encouraging nod. 'Going to try, baby?'

Lissa drew a deep breath and nodded. 'That's my girl!' Pierre grinned, hugging her again.

They went over the song a dozen times before he was satisfied with the way she was singing it. Lissa felt the provocative, ambiguous words sinking into her mind. They disturbed her even more now. Every time she sang them she thought about Luc Ferrier and her pulses raced. Pierre gave her an odd look when she was going.

'You're coming on,' he told her, grinning, and she wasn't sure what he meant by that, but knew she didn't want to know.

Chris gave her a sharp look as he saw her in the black dress that evening. 'I thought you preferred not to wear it,' he said with unhidden suspicion.

Pierre came up and winked at him. 'I talked her into it. The fans were demanding another look at it.'

Chris relaxed. 'Went down well, didn't it? I know. I got told as much over and over again.'

When Liss walked out into the spotlight her eyes involuntarily slid to the table where Luc usually sat and widened in surprise as she saw he was not alone. One of the other guests sat with him, Lissa had seen her several times before; she was one of the wives whose husband rarely left the gaming rooms. Luc was smiling into the woman's eyes and listening to whatever she was saying to him. The woman lifted her glass and sipped, fluttering her lashes at him over the edge of the glass.

She was a very attractive woman, Lissa recognised, suntanned, slim, her low red dress provocative.

Lissa felt a strange stab of anger and began to sing. She did not look at Luc again, but she sang as she had never sung before, using the purring voice she had heard Pierre use as he tried to get her to sing as he wanted.

It was nothing but mimicry. She remembered the teasing looks Pierre had given her as he sang certain lines and looked round the audience in the same way, smiling. She heard the laughter start, as it had started the first time she sang the song. She paused where Pierre had paused, smiled where he had smiled, and her slender body moved in the sinuous gestures Pierre had used as he sang.

She felt Pierre 's excited look, saw his grin out of the side of her eye. As she ended, the audience erupted in whistles and shouts, as they had before. 'More, more!' they yelled. Pierre bent forward and whispered: 'Sing it again.'

Lissa looked at him in startled disbelief. She had never sung a song twice before. Pierre nodded at her vigorously and struck up the bars which opened the song.

The audience clapped enthusiastically and Lissa, off balance, turned to launch into the song again. She felt a movement at the back of the room and saw Chris standing there. He had taken the red carnation from his buttonhole and held it in his fingers. He was shredding it absently, staring fixedly at her.

Something inside her hardened. She turned her eyes back to the grinning audience and began to sing.

The applause, the enthusiasm, had melted her inhibitions. She was relaxed, leaning on the piano, smiling. In the clinging black dress she suddenly had a new sophistication and was aware of it. Her old self was gone. She was no longer a little girl, Pierre had reminded her; she was a woman, and it was a woman singing, breathing out the witty lines, glancing past the smiling faces in the audience as though she invited an interest from them which in the past she would have run from like a terrified child.

She did not even look towards Luc's table. Walking off in a storm of applause, she found Chris waiting for her. His eyes had an odd harsh glitter in them.

Lissa looked at him defiantly, her mouth level.

Chris stared and didn't say anything, but his eyes were trying to read hers.

Lissa walked past him and went through the club to the foyer. She got Fortune from the desk clerk and took him out into the warm still night.

She could not sleep after that. She felt wrung and yet elated, her mind confused with the rush of too many impressions. She watched the dog's white coat ahead of her and heard the sigh of the sea far off on the beach. The stars pierced the deep blue mantle of the sky, brighter than steel, sharper than knives. She stared up at them as she walked and shivered.

She would not think about the odd painful emotion she had felt before she began to sing.

She wouldn't think at all. She walked because her mind was far too wide awake for sleep and her body was restless and taut.

When she found herself on the edge of the pale beach she stood there watching the waves sigh up on to the sands. The dog ran down towards them, kicking up sand with his paws, printing the immaculate silvery beach with his marks.

The sound of movement behind her did not surprise her. She had known he was coming for at least a minute. She had been standing there, listening to his footsteps and shuddering like someone with a chill.

He came up behind her and stood there, breathing. Lissa stared at the sky, the sea, the silvery sands.

His hands touched her arms, slid caressingly down them, the cool brush of his fingers making her skin leap with awareness.

He moved closer, turning her to face him. She stood with lifted head and hard, wide eyes watching him as he watched her.

'Well, well, well,' he murmured. 'You are the most surprising creature, aren't you? What got into you tonight?'

She did not bother to reply. The peculiar anger inside her wouldn't let her speak.

His fingers ran down her check. He softly touched her folded lips with one of them gently tracing the warm moulded shape of her mouth. 'Why so silent?'

The tickling sensation of his finger went back and forward. He stared at her, brows sharply lifted.

'What's wrong, Lissa?' His tone had changed. The amused warmth had gone out of it and he was no longer smiling. 'What happened when you got back this afternoon? What did Brandon say to you?'

'Do you care?' She shot the words out like a dagger and saw his features tighten, his eyes narrow.

'What happened?'

'He told me never to see you again,' Lissa said icily. 'So please go back to the hotel, Mr Ferrier.'

His frown deepened. He took her slender shoulders in his hands and bent towards her, speaking curtly. 'Tell me! He was angry? What did he do? Did he threaten you?'

'Threaten me? Chris?' Her astonishment was in her face, but even as she threw back the words incredulously her mind was recalling the brutal violence in Chris's handsome face and she was shaken by the memory.

'He's no angel,' Luc Ferrier said harshly. 'His reputation on the island is far from pretty.'

Her eyes flew wide, her heart hurt inside her breast. 'What?'

Luc Ferrier's skin was taut, the hard bone structure beneath it clenched. He looked as tough as Chris had claimed he was-he looked dangerous, ruthless, a man with eyes that bofed into her own and made her deeply nervous.

'He runs this place with a private army, doesn't he? Those men in the gaming rooms would carve you up sooner than look at you. He has the island nicely organised. Makes money hand over list, keeps a whole horde of women busy making the swag he sells in his shops, and pays them in peanuts to do it.' 'That's a lie,' Lissa said angrily, trembling. 'Is it? Do you know how much he pays them?' 'Do you?' she asked furiously, glaring up at him.

'Oh, yes,' he returned, taking her breath away. 'On average, I understand, he pays them one percent of what he makes from the finished product.'

'One per cent?' Lissa's lips stiffened, dried. 'Who told you that? It's a lie!' It must be, she thought. Chris wouldn't, surely? Make money like that out of the local people? Cheat and manipulate them? Chris wasn't that sort of man. He was warm and friendly and kind. He wouldn't.

'It's the truth,' Luc Ferrier bit out, staring at her. 'Ask around. You know them all, you've known them all your life. Surely you must have realised how he ran this place?'

She ran her tongue tip over her dry lips and he watched the movement with an impassive face. 'Chris has to be firm with difficult customers. That's why he has so many men around the gaming rooms. Trouble can flare up if someone loses. Gamblers have volatile tempers.'

'That's what he told you?' Luc Ferrier said drily.

'Well, of course, it's true-up to a point. One or two tough boys are always around a place like this-but he has squads of them on tap. He doesn't just run the hotel, he runs the whole town. He's into everything from the tourist shops to the restaurants. He takes a percentage of that place we were eating at today.'

Her eyes wide and shocked, Lissa shook her head. 'No,' she muttered. 'I don't believe you.'

'Why should I lie?'

She looked at him fixedly and tried to decipher the hard strong face. 'You're making Chris sound like a gangster,' she protested.

Luc grinned humourlessly. 'He may use different words. He probably calls himself a businessman, but that's what he is, Lissa-a thug.'

'Don't!' she shivered, her brows drawn. 'Not Chris!'

He looked probingly into her anxious green eyes. 'Do you love him?'

'Of course I do,' she came back in a husky tone, but her eyes slid away from him. A week ago she would have been astonished by the question, given a firm and unthinking 'yes'. Now although she still made that positive reply she felt a strange tremor running through her, an uneasy flicker of uncertainty. Her love for Chris had been part of the backcloth of her life. She did not know what had changed- Herself, perhaps. She wasn't the same girl she had been a week ago. Odd things had happened to her, and all of them connected with this man.

She was half afraid Luc would press her, make her look at him. She knew instinctively that he was aware of the way her eyes had moved away as she spoke, but he didn't say anything. He just watched the smooth flushed oval of her face with a hard, intent observation of which she was very conscious.

'You owe it to yourself to look at him very carefully before you think of marrying him,' he said flatly. 'You're the type to whom marriage means a lifetime. Before you sign up for life I'd take a good, hard look at what you're getting, if I were you.' He paused, then said slowly, 'Especially his women.'

The shock of that took her breath away. For a moment she didn't move, then she looked up and asked him in a voice which shook: 'Women?' He was lying; he had to be. He wasn't talking about Chris, her Chris. She had never seen Chris giving interest to any girl but herself.

Luc stared down at her, his eyes glinting silver in the moonlight which was streaming down the sky. 'You didn't know about them, either?'

'You're lying,' she denied furiously, scarlet sweeping up her face. 'Lying, lying! I don't believe you!'

'Jealous?' asked Luc in a harsh curt voice.

'I don't believe you. Why should I be jealous? Chris wouldn't.' She glared at him. 'I've known him all my life, practically. Do you think I wouldn't have noticed if there was anyone but me around him?'

'He keeps the current woman in Joubeau Street,' Luc said calmly.

She swallowed. ' Joubeau Street?'

'So I'm told. She's one of Pierre 's cousins.'

Lissa swayed, feeling faint and sick. All the colour went out of her face. She shook her head over and over again, refusing to believe it, but she found it hard to shut out the hard certainty of Luc's face. Her eyes clung to him, pleading with him to say he was lying.

Luc slid his arms round her, supporting her. 'You'd better sit down,' he said curtly, 'You look as if you're going to pass out.'

She was too dazed to argue. She let him take off the white jacket he was wearing and spread it on the sand. He helped her to sit down on the jacket and sank down beside her. She was shivering as though, she were icy cold, her head bent.

'Who told you all this?' she demanded.

'A little bird,' Luc drawled. 'An expensive little bird.'

'Expensive?' she stared, bewildered, then her breath caught in a long sigh. 'You paid someone? But they might have lied to you if you offered them money. You don't know these people. They're cheerful about making up stories to amuse visitors. They don't see it as telling lies, it's just a game to them.'

'This was no game,' Luc insisted. 'I got the truth.'

'You don't know Chris,' said Lissa, shaking her head.

'No, Lissa,' Luc denied, 'it's you who doesn't know him. The man you grew up with isn't the man you think he is.'

'People can't hide things like that, not for years,' she protested shakily.

'When someone like you is so damned innocent, they can,' Luc said with a grim smile. 'It wouldn't have entered your head to suspect any of this-to notice any of it. You've been drifting around with your eves closed for the past couple of years and Brandon has seen to it that your eyes were kept shut as far as he could. All his people have strict orders to treat you with kid gloves,’

Lissa knew that. She wasn't so innocent that she hadn't been aware of the smiling, protective kindness surrounding her. Looking at Luc with disturbed anxiety, she asked: 'Is Chris in trouble? He isn't doing something illegal?'

Luc laughed brusquely. 'Hell, I doubt it. The law is as much in his pocket as everything else around here. He's got the place sewn up. His only danger is going to come when a bigger shark moves in and decides to take over from him. Once St Lerie is on the tourist map it will attract the attention of speculators elsewhere, then Brandon may have a fight on his hands. The kid gloves will come off then, Lissa. You'll see how tough he is if that happens,'

She stared down at the pale, moonlit sands. The dog was dancing through the waves excitedly, the faint splash of his movements coming clearly to her ears.

'What are you going to do?' Luc asked, his eyes on her averted profile.

She turned to look at him dully. 'I don't know.'

Luc drew in his lower lip. 'Don't face him with it, Lissa. It wouldn't be wise of you to do that. Just keep your eyes open from now on-stop seeing him in a romantic mist and start thinking. It doesn't take much digging to show what's going on underneath the tourist tinsel. All you have to do is use your eyes and your ears.' He paused, added, 'And your brain, Lissa. For God's sake, use that.' 'I wish you hadn't told me,' she broke out miserably.

Luc's brows twitched together in sharp anger. 'You would have preferred to stay in dreamy ignorance, would you? And married him? What then, Lissa? Are you prepared to share him with the lady in Joubeau Street? And turn a blind eye to his commercial activities?' ‘I don’t know,’ Lissa groaned, confused and bewildered. 'No, of course not. But Chris… I can't believe it.'

'You mean you don't want to,' Luc agreed. 'It would swallow you up too, Lissa. Don't you realise that? How long could you stay blind? And what would it do to you to find out later? You're changing already. That song you sang tonight-you sang it differently this time. You may not know it, but the scales are already falling and you may not like what he makes you. Corruption isn't always as simple as it sounds. It eats you up inch by inch like rust spreading on metal.'

'Chris loves me!' Her voice was low and he bent to hear her.

'Sure he does,' Luc said curtly. 'You're not only very sweet, you're potentially very sexy. You don't know it yourself yet. But he can see it and he's prepared to wait until you wake up. But he means to be the one to wake you. Brandon believes in monopolies. He's had you tied up and waiting for him for two years while he eases his frustration elsewhere. Lissa, open your eyes and look at him.'

She opened her eyes, but in the moonlight she was looking at Luc, her face pale and disturbed.

He lifted a hand to touch her cheek gently. She did not move, her green eyes enormous.

Luc kissed her softly, his lips moulding her own, brushing over them and returning.

Lissa drew back, breathing painfully. 'Don't,' she said under her breath.

Luc's hand dropped. He sat watching her.

'Why did you tell me all this?' she asked, staring at him.

His mouth twisted. 'Don't you think it was time someone did?'

'But why you? You paid someone to tell you these stories, you said.'

'I paid someone to dig up what they could about him,' Luc said. 'I hadn't expected to hear all that. I'd already realised he ran the casino like an armed camp. The rest of the stuff came as a surprise to me.'

'Why did you get someone to investigate Chris in the first place?'

Luc ran a hand through his black hair, grimacing. 'I was curious about him.'

'There's more to it than that,' she accused.

For a moment the blue eyes were as hard as steel, glittering between their shielding lids, then he shrugged. 'That's right, I told you, Brandon has something I want and I was trying to discover if he had any weak spots.'

Her body ran with a strange, cold flame. She looked away and Luc moved closer. She glanced back, shivering.

'Come away with me, Lissa,' he whispered. 'Let me ' take you out of all this-you can't marry Brandon.'

She was too confused to know what she felt or thought. She shook her head, feeling so brittle she would snap in two if he touched her.

'You're worse than he is,' she said bitterly. 'At least Chris loves me. Even if he's all the things you say he is-he still loves me. I may be stupid, but I'm not so stupid that I don't know what you want.'

'Do you?' He breathed close to her, his hard features unreadable. 'What do you think X want, Lissa?'

She turned her head sharply to look away. 'The answer is no, Mr Ferrier.'

'You don't even know the question,' he said mockingly.

She felt a peculiar melting sensation deep inside her as he moved even closer. 'Don't touch me,' she said shakily, jerking away and getting to her feet.

'I'm going to touch you,' Luc whispered, slowly raising himself from the sand. 'You want me to touch you.'

She shook her head fiercely. 'No!'

'Liar,' he breathed, smiling, 'From the minute I saw you on the beach that first morning I wanted to make love to you.'

'Is that why you told me all those lies about Chris?' she asked angrily.

'They were the truth,' said Luc. 'And so is this, Lissa

She pushed at his chest as he drew her closer, his arms going round her. He laughed at her impotent attempts to escape the tightening circle in which he held her. 'Will you let go? I won't____________________' she began furiously, and was silenced by the driving force of a kiss that was unlike any kiss she had ever been given.

Luc's hands were behind her, pressing her against him, pinning her to the lean hardness of his own body, and his mouth plumbed hers, the warm moist invasion leaving her shaking. A groan escaped her and she tried to shut her mind to the insidious, coaxing movement of his hands as they stroked down her back and caressed her hips. Her hands dug into his chest, clenching. Her mouth opened weakly. She felt and heard the hoarse sigh Luc gave.

'Liss,' he muttered, his kiss flaring hungrily. His mouth crushed her lips, the demand he made so fierce that she swayed in his arms.

She had her eyes dosed. All around them the palms breathed softly and the sea whispered on the moonlit sands. Luc's thighs were moulded to her body, forcing her to recognise the desire his mouth was reinforcing. Her hands slowly moved up to his shoulders, dung there, trembling against the warmth of his shirt.

Suddenly Luc lifted her off the ground and then lowered her again, but he had come with her and her eyes flew open in shock as she realised that she was lying full length on the sand with Luc's hard body pressing her down.

'Don't!' she groaned, pushing at his wide shoulders.

He looked at her with a twisted little smile. 'You're such an intoxicating mixture of innocence and fire, Lissa. You blush like a baby, but your eyes beckon. You don't even know what you're doing half the time, do you? It's all instinctive.'

She was too shaken by the wild tremors running through her body to be able to say a word, looking up at him and as much afraid of herself as of Luc.

'Come away with me,' he whispered. 'You can't stay here, and if you're honest you knew as well as I did the minute we met that this was going to happen.'

'No,' she muttered, stiffening under the powerful body which held her down with such ease.

'Don't lie to yourself,' he smiled. 'As soon as I set eyes on you I knew you were going to end up in my bed.'

Shock ran through her like fire. Her skin burned and her throat ached. She met the fierce flare of his blue eyes and shook her head dumbly.

'Your mouth promises so much more than you're prepared to admit,' he said huskily. He caressed her lips with his thumb, smiling at the helpless shiver which ran through her.

'Let go of me,' Lissa forced out through dry lips. 'You're not seducing me, Mr Ferrier, so get your hands off me!'

The smile vanished from his face. The blue eyes hardened and Dickered with heat. 'Aren't I?' He lowered his head and she felt his lips on the underside of her chin, his breath warm on her flesh. 'Aren't I, Liss?' The deep, breathed question sent waves of panic along her nerves.

'No,' she whispered, trembling so hard it was painful.

He lifted his head and the blue eyes mocked her coolly. 'What a little liar you are,' he drawled. 'No? That isn't the truth, is it, Lissa? You make all the correct responses-trained to a hair by the good nuns, I've no doubt. But even while you're mouthing all that shocked stuff about my wicked liberty-taking, your eyes are begging me to go on.'

Lissa reacted like a scalded cat. She slapped him so hard her palm burnt and stung.

Luc's head rocked with the blow. The amusement went from his face and rage flashed down at her from his eyes. She felt instinctively that he almost hit her back, then his face tightened into an alarming mask,

'That was unwise of you, Lissa,' he drawled, his lips scarcely moving. 'You've made me angry now.'

She was quivering, watching him nervously.

He moved too fast for her to evade him. His dark head shut out the night sky. His mouth burned, bruised, delved into her own, forcing her to surrender her lips without a further protest. His hands moved possessively over her. Her dress was dragged down and his fingers slid down her shoulders to find the high, warm swell of her breasts.

Chris had never once touched her with such demanding intimacy. She had no previous experience of love-making to compare it with-whenever Chris had tried to accelerate their caresses anywhere near this point she had anxiously broken away from him. Now her own reactions were so fierce, so piercingly exciting, that she lost all sense of what she was doing, absorbed into a private dizzying world of pleasure.

The smooth, warm fingers held her trembling body and softly caressed it until she was groaning, yielding. Her heart beat so hard she was deaf. She couldn't think. She couldn't even hear her own voice as she gave those hoarse little sighs of pleasure. The roaring blood shut her ears and her eyes were blind as she twisted in Luc's exploring, arousing hands.

'Let me have you,' he whispered, and she heard the question through the singing of her blood and couldn't answer.

'You drive me crazy,' Luc muttered, his mouth at her throat, the demanding heat of it sliding down to the hollow between her breasts.

Lissa's hands dug into his back as his thigh forced itself between hers. Desire spiralled crazily inside her. A deep, heated urgency possessed her and her hands trembled as she touched Luc's body, her restless movements filled with driven necessity.

Luc suddenly sat up, breathing thickly. 'You see?' he asked in a low, unsteady voice. I could have you, couldn't I, Liss? Whatever you say, your reactions make that very clear.'

She felt horribly sick. She pushed him away, suddenly facing what had happened to her and reacting with shame and violence.

She scrambled to her feet, swaying weakly as her legs almost gave way under her. Luc stood too and held her elbow, his long fingers resting on it lightly.

'Stay away from me!' Lissa snapped. Humiliation and self-contempt were eating at her. The burning temptation of a moment ago had evaporated and she was sick.

'Come back to England with me,' Luc said quietly. 'You can trust me, Lissa. I'm no Brandon, I won't lie to you or cheat you.'

'I know what you want to do to me,' Lissa bit out.

'Oh, that,' he said, and laughed, and somehow it was the last straw. She looked at him savagely, then turned and walked away 'fast. Luc came after her, but as Lissa left the darkness of the palms fringing the beach they both heard voices. She halted and instinctively moved back into the trees. Luc came up with her and she looked at him nervously, her eyes wide…

' Brandon,' he said through his teeth.

'Looking for me,' she whispered. 'Luc, you must go. Don't let him see you.'

He studied her, his face calm.

'Please, please!' she whispered.

Luc bit down on his lower lip. 'I'm not leaving you,' he said.

'He won't hurt me,' Lissa muttered, flushing. 'But he might hurt you.'

Luc laughed harshly. 'You think I'm scared of him?'

'He has Max and several others with him,' she whispered. 'Max carries a knife, I'm sure he does.'

Fortune had spotted the men and was running towards them, barking excitedly, pleased to see them.

'Go, please, Luc, do go!' she groaned, grasping his arm.

He hesitated then shrugged, and in a second he had melted into the darkness and she did not even see where he went.

She softly trod back through the palms and sat down where she and Luc had sat before. The impressions of their bodies lay there, betraying far too much of what had happened. Lissa quickly dragged a fallen palm leaf over the marks and began to draw a battlemented castle in the sand. Her hand shook, but she kept on drawing.

She heard the movements behind her and turned her head to look at Chris calmly, forcing every sign of guilt or fear out of her face. He stood there and behind him she heard the advance of his men.

For a moment Chris was totally silent. His narrowed hard eyes shot over her face, trying to read her expression.

He looked around. She had never noticed it before, but now she saw the raw violence which Chris held contained when she was around. His jaw was taut and his eyes flamed like hot metal.

The men stood, waiting, poised and dangerous. They were black shadows on the edge of the whispering palm, but the threat emanating from them was very real.

'What are you doing down here?' Chris asked softly. His eyes dropped to the sand around her, studied the disturbed surface.

'Drawing pictures,' she said, and she made her voice sound sulky and cold.

'Who's been here with you?' Chris asked, and she saw the flick of his eyes over the beach and realised with a shudder that the print of Luc's feet was only too visible.

'Mr Ferrier was down here,' she said, and felt Chris stiffen. He threw her a searching look.

'Oh?'

'He was talking to someone,' she said. 'They went off ten minutes ago.'

'Who was he talking to?' Chris demanded, and she knew he did not believe a word.

'I don't know her name. She was wearing a red dress,'

Max moved and whispered in Chris's ear. Chris half turned his head and listened and the moonlight struck a medallion of his profile, turning it to the brutal harshness of a war leader. She had never seen cruelty and greed and violence in Chris before, but she saw them now.

He turned and looked back at her. She went on drawing her castle, making arrow slits in the walls, adding a flag on the top. Chris jerked his head silently and his men melted away.

He walked forward and stood there, his feet near her moving hand. Lissa did not look up.

'Why are you out here? What do you think you're doing?' he asked sharply.

Lissa had been searching her mind desperately for something to put him off the scent. She kept her eyes on her hand. In a low, angry voice she said: 'Why did you listen to Rebecca about me? Why do you encourage her to spy on me? Is she in love with you?'

Whatever Chris had been expecting her to say it had not been that, and the accusation took him by surprise.

'What?' he asked, shifting his feet.

She looked up, realising she had taken him off guard and pressing her advantage. 'Have you been flirting with her?' She stood up and glared at him. 'I hate you!' She used a furious, child's voice, letting it tremble, her lips quivering too.

'Honey,' Chris began, his body softening. ‘Darling…’

She pushed him away as he tried to put his arm round her. 'Don't call me darling, tell me the truth. What have you been doing with Rebecca? She hates me-she showed it to me today. Why should she hate me?' Even as she made the accusation she was registering with surprise that it had already been in the back of her mind. Rebecca had looked at her with hostility. She often had in the past. Was she interested in Chris?

Chris was smiling. His voice was gentle and soothing. 'Baby, don't be silly.'

'I'm not silly!' Lissa retorted in the most childish voice she could manage. Her eyes stayed wide and bright, glazed with unshed tears. The tears were there already, tears of fear and disturbed realisation that she had never known Chris. But she used them ruthlessly, letting them slip from her trembling lashes. 'I'm not a baby, either. I didn't sing like a baby tonight. Pierre said I was very good. Don't patronise me any more. I won't be called a baby!'

Chris gave a little groan, half of laughter, half of passion, 'Darling Liss,' he said, looking at her with what she recognised now as a blatant, hungry desire for her. 'You certainly didn't sing like a baby. You turned me on so hard I've got to have you, darling. Liss…,'

She slapped his hands away. 'Don't touch me, you… you Lothario!' she shouted and ran.

Chris came after her, but she managed to reach the hotel first and bolted out of sight. She heard some guests halt him with eager, excited words. Chris hovered, trying to get away, and Lissa had time to get to her room. She locked the door and stood there, shaking.

'Liss,' he whispered a few moments later. 'Darling, let me in-I must talk to you. You're wrong-I've never laid a finger on Rebecca. She doesn't do a thing to me. God, Liss, don't you know I'm mad about you? Darling, open the door. Let me talk to you.'

'Go away!' she said in a high, cross voice.

'Liss!'

'Go away or I'll scream,' she promised.

Chris stood there. She could hear him breathing fast and hard. Waves of emotion, came through the door and Lissa was frightened.

'You're frightening me,' she whispered unsteadily, and it was so true, the irony of it almost made her laugh.

Chris sighed. 'Okay, baby.'

'Don't call me that!'

'Oh, Liss.' he said wryly. 'Prove you're not. Open the door and let me love you.'

She didn't answer.

She beard other steps, a voice muttering. 'I've got to go, darling,' Chris said huskily. 'We'll talk tomorrow.

Tomorrow we'll fix our wedding day, Liss, and I won't take no for an answer.'

She heard him move away and slowly sank down on to a chair, her body huddled in fear and misery.

What was she going to do?