His Last Gamble (19 page)

‘I know what you mean,' she said wryly. ‘I'm beginning to learn that Payne is an unstoppable force of nature, when he starts on something.'

Charmaine knew she should be, at the very least, annoyed with him. He knew her well enough to know that she'd die rather than make a public scene, but surely he didn't expect her to accept their engagement in the cold light of day?

The thing was, she was feeling too happy to be mad. And yet, she knew, it couldn't last.

There came a knock on the door, and Charmaine looked up in surprise.

‘Oh, that'll be room service,' Lucy said
brightly.
‘I ordered the fruit special for breakfast and the morning papers. Be a love and get it, will you?'

Charmaine grinned as she went to the door. All the time she'd been staying here, and she'd never thought to order room service. How wasteful it seemed now. Trust Lucy to know how to live life to the full.

Tomorrow, Charmaine vowed, she'd have breakfast in bed and indulge herself.

‘Thank you,' she took the attractively laid-out tray from the beaming waiter and took it over to the bed, then gave him a tip from Lucy's purse.

‘Uh-oh, looks like you made the front page of the paper,' Lucy said excitedly. ‘They must have run an extra printing to get it out so soon. Still, Payne's news, wherever he goes.'

Charmaine felt a chill run down her spine at her sister's words. She sounded so carefree and almost admiring. Hard to believe it must be eating her up inside.

Nervously Charmaine went back to the bed and perched on the side. ‘What are they saying?' she asked fearfully.

‘Oh, you know, the usual,' Lucy said, reading avidly. ‘Some are wondering what the female population of the island will do now that Barbados's most eligible bachelor has finally been snared. Ugh, some tacky hack is giving odds on how long the marriage will last. Bastards! Don't you take any notice. Any fool
can
see that Payne's fathoms deep in love with you.'

Charmaine winced as both guilt and hope washed over her at her sister's comment, then watched as Lucy tossed the papers aside and reached for her glass of freshly squeezed mango juice.

‘You really are a great actress, aren't you?' Charmaine said softly, making Lucy stop, glass mid-way to her lips, and blink.

‘Well, thank you. I think. Look, Sis, I don't want you to think I'm interfering but . . . well, are you sure about all this?'

Charmaine took a long, shaky breath. So here it comes at last.

‘About what?'

Lucy put down her juice and leaned back against the headboard. ‘About what, she says! Payne silly. Don't get me wrong,' Lucy carried on, leaning forward and reaching out to touch Charmaine's arm tenderly. ‘Nobody could be better pleased than me to see you finally taking charge of things and getting yourself a love life. But . . . well, to be honest, I thought you'd chose someone a little more . . . I don't know. Gentle. More your type. I mean, for a first time effort, Payne Lacey seems so . . .'

‘Out of my league?' Charmaine finally came to her rescue, when Lucy realised she couldn't quite think of the right words.

‘Yes, exactly. Look, Sis, I know these kinds of people. I move in their world. And I know
you,
and it scares me a little, to think of you out here all alone among the sharks. Oh not Payne so much, I think he's quite a sweetheart actually, but let's face it Sis, the crowd he runs with could eat you alive!'

Charmaine nodded. ‘So you're warning me off. Is that it?'

Lucy blinked again, surprised at the edge of hardness she suddenly detected in her sister's voice. She'd never heard Charmaine sound so tough before.

‘What's wrong?' she asked sharply. ‘I just don't want to see you get hurt, that's all.'

‘Oh. So if I was bringing home as a fiancé some nice librarian from Oxford, or a mild-mannered accountant, you'd be happier?'

Lucy gaped. ‘What? What's wrong with you? I don't under . . .'

‘Why don't you just say it?' Charmaine finally cried, tired of all the subterfuge and not liking herself very much in that moment at all. But the truth was, she suddenly found herself wanting to fight like a tiger for Payne, even when her opponent was her own sister!

Just what did that say about her?

‘Why don't we just have it out once and for all. It's me he wants, not you. And you can't stand it, can you?' Charmaine cried, hating herself even more, yet unable to stop now.

Lucy felt her jaw drop open. She stared at her hard-eyed, stormy-faced sister and slowly, unbelievably began to smile.

‘Wow!
Look at you! At last. I still don't get what it is that you're going on about, but I'm glad to see you fighting mad. I was beginning to think you didn't have it in you. Now, what exactly have I done to get you so good and mad?'

Charmaine gazed back, all the anger suddenly draining from her. She simply couldn't play this game with Lucy. It just wasn't in her.

‘You know,' she said flatly.

But Lucy was already shaking her head. ‘Nuh-huh, not a clue. You'll have to spell it out, I'm afraid.'

Charmaine sighed. ‘All right. Have it your way. You came back to Barbados to get your lover back, right? You said so.'

Lucy nodded, her eyes bright and alert and still with that unnervingly encouraging smile on her face. ‘Right.'

‘But Payne wants me. He's proposed. And I'm not giving him up.'

There, she'd said it. She lifted her chin and stared at her sister steadily. For all their lives, Lucy had been the dominant one. The true showman of the family, Daddy's favourite. But now, this time, Charmaine Reece was at last going to come into her own and fight for the man she loved.

And everyone had better watch out, or else!

‘OK. So, what's your problem?' Lucy said, sounding genuinely baffled. ‘I'm not asking
you
to give Payne up. I just thought he might be a bit too much for you, that's all. But now I can tell that I needn't worry about that! Wow, Sis, when you come out of your shell you really don't do it in half measures, do you? Looking at you now, I'd say it was Payne who had to watch out himself.'

Charmaine felt a slow, tightening grip, gradually squeeze the breath out of her. From somewhere alarm bells began clamouring. Something was off here. Her sister wouldn't carry the charade this far.

‘Lucy,' she said slowly. ‘You are in love with Payne, aren't you?' she asked at last, almost too afraid to hear the answer.

But the look on her sister's face said it all. She looked astonished. Amazed even.

‘Payne? Payne? No! What on earth made you think that?' Lucy gasped.

‘Because everyone was saying it!' Charmaine cried, pushed beyond her endurance. ‘All your friends were talking about how you'd fallen hard for this casino owner over in Barbados and that he'd dropped you. It was no big secret.'

Lucy suddenly clapped a hand to her mouth and looked at her sister with stricken eyes.

‘I know,' she finally pulled her hand away and whispered. ‘And that's my fault. All my fault,' she confessed. ‘When I was over here before I let everybody think that it was Payne I was having an affair with. Oh,
I
didn't deliberately start the rumour, but when I was aware that it was going around, I did everything I could to encourage it. Payne didn't like it when he found out, but, bless him, he acted like the perfect gentlemen and never let on the truth.'

Charmaine took several long, deep, breaths. Her heart felt as if it was trying to burst out of her chest and sing like a bird, but after all that had been happening to her recently, her mind was still urging caution. There'd been too many misunderstandings. She had to get things absolutely straight this time.

‘Lucy, what are you going on about? If you weren't having an affair with Payne, why did you want everyone to think you were?' she demanded.

‘To cover up the truth of course,' Lucy said, a shade sadly, a little more defiantly. ‘Oh Sis, don't tell me off, I couldn't help it, really. But I fell head over heels in love with a married man.'

And as her sister gazed at her, silently begging for understanding and forgiveness, it all suddenly clicked into place.

‘Max!' Charmaine breathed. ‘You fell in love with Max.'

‘Right,' Lucy nodded. ‘Right next door at the casino, where I met him. Of course, we were ever so discreet because of his wife, and that's why I just let people think it was Payne I was seeing,' Lucy rushed to explain, having
the
grace to blush. ‘But the more it became obvious that this was the real thing for both Max and me, things became more fraught. Although Max and his wife didn't have any children, they had been married a long time, and Max just couldn't bring himself to break the news to Maria. So, in the end, I became so miserable, I gave him an ultimatum and went home. But, oh, Charmaine, I was so miserable without him. I thought I'd never see him again.'

‘So you took an overdose?'

‘No! I told you, over and over again, that that was an accident, and it was!' Lucy slapped the mattress in her frustration. ‘And then, last week, Max came over to England and told me he was getting a divorce. Apparently, he'd been as miserable as me. Well, after that, I just had to come back with him and help him to face the music, didn't I? His wife has a lot of friends on the island, and I couldn't let him go through all this alone. It wouldn't be right. So, no matter what people say, Max and I are going to be together.'

And yet again there was that touch of bravado mixed with defiance and unease in her sister's voice; but now Charmaine could understand it only too well. Love did things to you—it turned you into a different person, it seemed. Having been willing to fight tooth and nail for Payne, she could hardly condemn her sister for fighting for Max, could she?

‘Oh,
Luce! I believed the rumours,' she finally confessed. ‘I thought Payne Lacey had seduced and dumped you. So I persuaded Jo-Jo to do the next shoot out here and got myself invited along as a model. I had this big plan to go all out for Payne, make him fall for me, and then dump him, just like I thought he'd done to you.'

Lucy stared at her sister amazed. Was this her quiet little country-mouse sister? No, obviously not.

‘Well . . . I don't know what to say,' Lucy eventually blurted. ‘Thanks, I suppose, for rushing to avenge me. And . . . well, good on you girl! If this is what it took to get you to start living your life at last then I can't say I'm sorry,' she finally finished, with a spurt of laughter and a huge grin.

Charmaine couldn't help but laugh too, then abruptly groaned. ‘Oh but Lucy, it all went so wrong,' she wailed. ‘I fell for him, instead! And then he proposed and I thought I had to say no, because of you. Thinking you loved him still, I mean. And then last night happened, and that wild, silly bet, and now . . . .well, now I don't know what I'm going to do!' she finished in despair.

Lucy smiled ruefully. ‘What a hopeless pair we are when it comes to romance. Still, there's nothing standing in your way now, right?' she pointed out slyly.

And Charmaine gulped at the thought.
‘Right,'
she agreed. But her heart was pounding like a frightened rabbit.

* * *

Payne glanced up as the office door opened and Charmaine looked around. When she saw he was alone, she pushed open the door and walked in, and Payne gasped at the sheer effrontery of her outfit. On anyone else that grey jump suit with the industrial sized zipper and rolled back sleeves would look workmanlike and about as sexy as a potato sack.

On her, it set his pulses racing dizzily.

‘Hello. I wondered if I could have a word,' she said, sounding unbelievably nervous. ‘About last night.'

‘Ah yes. The bet you lost,' he said, which was not exactly the start she'd been hoping for. He smiled like a wolf. ‘Come on in.'

Charmaine nervously closed the door behind her and looked around the office. It was light and airy, with views across the gardens, acres of beige carpet and a pale wooden desk and matching filing cabinets. Bright splashes of artwork, scenes of the island done by a local artist, brightened up the room.

And, taking up one whole wall . . . She stopped dead in her tracks and gaped at it.

It was a giant print of herself, taken that first day on the beach. She was wearing swim wear, and a gauzy beach jacket lapped around
her
feet in the waves. As a fashion shot it was hopeless of course—one of her many mistakes.

‘Phil presented it to me this morning as a wedding present. He must have been up all night getting it done,' Payne said, his voice husky with emotion.

He too was staring at the picture, at her face, which had a sensual, almost haunted quality. Charmaine remembered what she'd been thinking when Phil had snapped it, and felt her heart contract.

For the first time, she saw herself as Payne and Phil saw her, and realised that she was beautiful.

But what would Payne say now if she'd told him that, at the moment that picture was being taken, she was plotting his downfall?

She dragged her eyes away from the picture with some effort.

‘I wondered what Jinx was up to in here the other night,' she said the first thing that came into her mind, then could have bitten off her tongue. Why had she blurted that out? What did it matter now? And she sounded like a jealous fish wife!

‘Jinx?' Payne said. ‘Oh,' he added, and grinned. ‘Don't worry darling,' he purred, ‘when that red-haired virago was in here—and she's only been in here the once—so was Mrs Simms.'

‘Mrs Simms?'

‘My secretary. Seventy, feisty, and more
than
a match for mischief making red-heads, believe me.'

Charmaine nodded. So Jinx was just up to her usual tricks, trying to create the impression of an intimate and satisfying little tête-à-tête. She must have known Charmaine would be watching out for Payne—of course she'd known. Jinx was an expert on the men-women, all's-fair-in-love-and-war game.