The Highest Stakes of All

CHAPTER TWO

‘So THERE you are.’ Denys marched briskly into the sitting room, kicking the door shut behind him.

Joanna, curled up in the corner of the sofa, finishing off the remains of her breakfast rolls which had not improved with keeping, glanced up warily.

‘It’s where you told me to be,’ she pointed out mildly, observing with faint disquiet the brightness in his eyes, and the tinge of excited red in his face. There was a bunched tension about him too that she remembered from other times. That, and the way he kept clenching and opening one fist.

She added, ‘Has something happened?’

‘It has indeed, my pet. We’re about to hit the jackpot—bigtime.’ He paused for effect. ‘Do you know the name of that yacht in the bay?’

Oh, God, she thought, cringing inwardly as she remembered that insolent, mocking grin. It would have to be that.

‘I didn’t learn Greek at school,’ she said. ‘Only Latin.’

He waved an impatient hand. ‘Well, she’s called Persephone. And she’s owned by no less a person than Vassos Gordanis.’

Joanna frowned. ‘Should I have heard of him?’

‘You’re hearing now.’ Denys came to sit beside her. ‘He’s Atlas Airlines.’ He counted on his fingers. ‘He’s the Andromeda tanker fleet. He’s the Hellenica hotel chain—the outfit currently buying the building we’re living in, along with all the other BelCote hotels.’

He smiled exultantly. ‘He’s one of the super-rich. Had the wit to stay out of harm’s way on his boat and some island he owns in the Aegean, avoiding politics during these past years in Greece when the Colonels were in charge. But when the Junta was finally overthrown last year he began to operate freely again, and they say he’s set to climb into the financial stratosphere.’

Joanna suddenly remembered the portly man in the silk suit she’d seen with Gaston Levaux. So that was what a Greek tycoon looked like, she thought, reflecting that the heavy-jowl-ed face had possessed undoubted shrewdness if nothing else to write home about.

‘How did you discover all this?’ she asked.

‘Nora Van Dyne told me over bridge this morning.’ His face clouded momentarily. ‘She’ll never make a card player. Talks too damned much. But she knows everything that’s going on, and this time she told me something I wanted to hear.’

And don’t I wish she hadn’t? Joanna thought wanly. Why couldn’t she go on chatting about the New York cultural scene, the cute things her grandchildren said last Thanksgiving, and what her late husband paid for all that wonderful jewellery she wears morning, noon and night?

Denys leaned forward. ‘Do you know why he decided to buy the St Gregoire? Because he comes here each year to play poker with some of his cronies and business connections and has got to like the place. They have dinner in a private suite on the top floor, then they get down to the real business of the evening—by invitation only, of course.’

‘I see.’ Joanna managed to conceal her relief. ‘Well, that settles that.’

‘On the contrary, my pet. I had a quiet word with Levaux, asked him to pull a few strings. Get me into the game.’ He smiled with satisfaction. ‘And somehow he’s done it. Probably thinks it’s the only way he’ll get paid.’

Joanna moved restively. ‘Dad—are you quite sure about this?’

‘Have a little faith, darling.’ Denys spoke reproachfully. ‘It’s the answer to our prayers.’

Not for me, Joanna thought. Not for me.

‘But I’ll need you to pull all the stops out tonight,’ he added, confirming her worst fears. ‘So get down to the boutique. I’ve already spoken to Marie Claude, and she’s picked out a dress for you.’

‘But it’s a private game,’ Joanna protested desperately. ‘You—you said so. I wouldn’t be allowed in.’

‘That’s fixed, too. Levaux has explained I can’t play without you—my talisman—my little lucky charm—and it appears that Mr Gordanis is prepared to stretch a point on this occasion.’

He paused. ‘According to Nora, he’s a widower with more than just an eye for the girls. In fact he’s got one hell of a reputation. So you definitely have to be there.’

Joanna recoiled inwardly, knowing only too well what would be expected of her tonight and with a man whose sole attraction had to be his money. Because it would never be his looks.

She thought how she would have to smile and flutter her mascaraed lashes. Would have to toss back her hair and cross her legs as she perched artlessly on the arm of Denys’s chair, distracting his opponent for that vital instant when he most needed to concentrate on the cards in his hand.

After all, she’d done it so often before, she thought bitterly. Had learned to move her young, slim body in deliberate, provocative enticement in order to make men stare at her, their fantasies going into overdrive, and their minds dangerously off the game.

She’d hoped, after the incident in Australia the previous year, that she’d be let off the hook, but her reprieve had only lasted a couple of months. Then it was business as usual, responding, when Denys signalled by brushing his forefinger across his lips, as if she was on auto-pilot.

She felt a knot of tension tighten in her chest. ‘Dad—I’d really rather not be involved in this.’

‘But you already are, my pet.’ There was a harsh note in his voice. ‘If we can’t pay our hotel bill, you won’t be spared. You know that. So be a good girl and collect your dress from Marie Claude. And I don’t want you rushing to get ready this evening,’ he added warningly. ‘You need to take your time. Make sure you look dazzling. So tell those people they’ll have to look after their own brat for once.’

Joanna sat up very straight. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I can’t. I won’t. Or you’ll be on your own in that suite tonight, looking down the barrel of this tycoon’s gun.’

‘You’ll do as you’re told, young lady—’

‘No, Dad,’ she interrupted quietly and firmly. ‘Not this time. After all, you can hardly drag me in there by force, not if I’m to convince this Mr Gordanis that he’s everything I’ve ever wanted in a man.’

She took a deep breath. ‘But first I’m going to babysit for Chris and Julie, or the deal’s off. And I have to tell you that this is going to be the last time I act as a diversion for you, because each time I do it I feel sick to my stomach.’

She paused again. ‘You told me you wanted me with you because I was all you had left. Because I reminded you of my mother. So what do you think she’d say if she could see me—paraded around like this, like some—cheap tart?’

‘My dear child.’ Denys’s tone was uneasy as well as placatory. ‘I think you’re taking our little deception much too seriously.’

‘Am I?’ Joanna asked bitterly. ‘I wonder if the men whose wallets I’ve helped to empty would agree with you.’

‘Well, you certainly don’t have to worry about Mr Gordanis,’ Denys said with faint surliness. ‘His bank account will survive a quick raid.’

‘I’m not worried about him,’ she said quietly. ‘It’s you.’ She hesitated. ‘Dad—swear to me that if you start winning tonight you’ll get out while you’re ahead. Make enough to cover our expenses here and a couple of plane tickets to somewhere else, then stop.’ She put a hand on his arm. ‘Please—I’m begging you. Because I need a real life.’

He sighed impatiently. ‘Oh, all right. If that’s what you want. But I think you’re being quite ridiculous, Joanna.’

‘I can deal with that,’ she said. ‘It’s feeling dirty that I can’t handle.’ She paused again, awkwardly. ‘There won’t be any other—problems, will there?’

His mouth tightened. ‘That was a one-off,’ he said. ‘As I told you at the time.’

Yes, she thought unhappily. You told me. So I have to trust you. And I just pray that when tonight’s over I’ll feel able to do that again.

The dress from the boutique did nothing to reassure her, or lift the bleakness of her mood. It was a black crochet affair, with a deeply scooped neck and a skirt that just reached mid-thigh. The sleeves provided the most concealment, fitting closely to the elbow then flaring to the wrist, but that was little comfort when, underneath, the dress accommodated nothing more than a body stocking, giving the troubling impression that she could be naked.

She’d looked at herself in the mirror of the tiny changing room with something like despair. ‘Surely there must be something else? Something not quite so—revealing?’

Marie Claude had shrugged, her eyes cynical. ‘You have a good body. Use it while you are young.’

So Joanna took the dress back to the suite, and hung it in the armoire.

She spent the rest of the afternoon washing her hair and conditioning it until it shone with all the rich depth of a horse chestnut, then gave herself a pedicure, painting her toenails in the clear light red that matched her fingertips.

Lastly, she arranged the cosmetics she planned to use later on the dressing table, together with her precious bottle of Miss Dior, before changing into shorts and a tee shirt, and heading off to Chris and Julie’s bungalow situated on the farthest edge of the hotel gardens.

Its remoteness didn’t bother Joanna, who loved the sense of privacy imparted by the surrounding hedges of flowering shrubs.

‘I expect we’ve been dumped here out of the way,’ Julie had confided. ‘But that’s fine by us. Because if Matt decides to squall we don’t have to worry about disturbing the neighbours.’

It had another advantage, too, thought Joanna. There was no direct sea view, so she was spared the sight of the Persephone together with her owner and any stray members of her crew who might still be hanging around, behaving like God’s gift to women.

The sun was getting lower in the sky, but it was still warm, so she let herself in and took a bottle of chilled Coke from the refrigerator in the tiny kitchen, and the copy of Watership Down which Julie had promised to leave for her ‘together with a box of tissues. It’s all about rabbits'.

‘And I’ll give you Jaws,’ Chris had teased. ‘By way of contrast.’

She settled herself with a sigh into one of the cane chairs on the small verandah, relishing the peace, longing to start her new book, but unable to dismiss from her mind the horrors she knew were awaiting her later that night.

She had watched poker games in the past until her eyes glazed over, as they often did when a game continued through the small hours into dawn. But that was through boredom as much as tiredness. She had tried at first to establish some kind of interest in the game, but she still didn’t follow its intricacies or understand its attraction.

In fact I wouldn’t care, she told herself, if I never saw another pack of cards as long as I live.

But she wasn’t likely to be bored this evening. Far too much depended on it, and the role of mindless dolly-bird would be even more difficult to sustain than usual.

It was a good ten minutes before Chris and Julie arrived with the baby, looking harassed.

‘He’s been really grumpy at supper,’ Julie reported. ‘Started crying and threw his food on the floor. I could feel waves of disapproval reaching me from the nannies all over the room.’

She unstrapped a red-faced Matt from his pushchair and lifted him out, whereupon he began to cry again, a steady, bad-tempered wail.

‘Leave him to me,’ said Joanna, sounding more reassuring than she actually felt. ‘Go and have a smashing meal together, and I’ll bath him and get him settled.’

Julie looked at her with a mixture of doubt and relief. ‘Well, if you’re quite sure …’

Half an hour later, Joanna wasn’t certain of very much at all. Matt was standing up in his cot, roaring with discontent and shaking the bars, only desisting when Joanna picked him up and held him.

‘You haven’t got a temperature,’ she told him. ‘And I don’t think you’ve got a pain anywhere. I suspect, my lad, you’re just having a major strop.’

Any attempt to get him back in the cot, however, met with stern resistance, so in the end Joanna bowed to the inevitable, heated up his milk, and carried him out to the twilit verandah, settling his squirming red-faced person gently but firmly in the crook of her arm.

‘This had better not become a habit,’ she said, dropping a kiss on his silky head.

By the time he’d drunk nearly all the milk his eyelids were drooping, but he was still attempting to cry intermittently as he fought against sleep.

‘Drastic measures called for, I think,’ Joanna whispered to herself, and, cuddling him close, she began to sing, clearly and very sweetly, a song from her own early childhood, ‘"There were ten green bottles, hanging on the wall …"’

As the number of bottles gradually decreased, she allowed her voice to sink lower and lower, until it was barely a murmur, and Matt, thumb in mouth, was finally fast asleep.

Joanna sat for a while, looking down, smiling, at the sleeping baby. A faint breeze had risen, bringing a delicious waft of the garden’s evening scents. And also, she realised, something more alien. A faint but unmistakable aroma of cigar smoke.

But Chris, she thought, puzzled, was a non-smoker. Besides, it would be another half-hour or more before he and Julie returned.

Suddenly nervous, she wanted to call Who’s there? but hesitated for fear of waking Matt. In the next instant she thought she could hear the sound of footsteps quietly receding, yet wasn’t entirely sure.

She got carefully to her feet, listening hard, but there was nothing—only the distant sound of the sea.

I’m imagining things, she thought. Because I’m feeling jumpy about tonight. That’s all it is.

Which was probably why the breeze seemed suddenly colder, too, she thought, shivering as she carried Matt inside and closed the door.

The crochet dress did not improve on acquaintance, Joanna thought, sighing, as she made a last check of her appearance. Worn with knee-length white boots that laced up the front, the outfit presented itself as the kind of sexy tease which needed a certain amount of sophistication to carry off, and she knew she was nowhere near that level.

However, she’d done her best. She’d used the heavier foundation she reserved for these occasions, transforming her face into a blank canvas, then smoothed shimmering silver on to her eyelids, accentuating it with softly smudged black liner, before adding two coats of mascara to her long lashes. The bronze blusher on her cheekbones had a touch of glitter, too, and she had applied a deeper shade of the same colour to her mouth.

Fancy dress and a mask, she told herself, as she applied scent to her pulses, her temples, and the valley between her breasts. Think of it that way.

There was room for very little but the basics in her tiny evening purse, and as she searched in her shoulder bag for the compact of pressed translucent powder she always wore, she found the slip of paper Chris and Julie had given her, with their name, address and telephone number.

It was the nearest to a friendship she’d achieved since leaving Britain, and it was also a possible lifeline, she thought wryly as she tucked it carefully into her wallet.

Denys was pacing the sitting room, and he gave a nod of judicious satisfaction as she emerged from the bedroom.

‘Once dinner is over,’ he told her, ‘someone will come to escort us up to the Gordanis suite.’

‘Very formal.’ Her tone was dry. ‘As are you,’ she added, removing a speck of fluff from the lapel of his dinner jacket. ‘Is the black tie strictly necessary?’

He shrugged. ‘It’s a big night. And a very big game. Mr Gordanis can afford to impose his own rules.’

But can you afford to play by them? was the question she did not dare ask as they took the lift down to the dining room.

She ate sparingly at dinner, and drank even less, noting that her father was being equally abstemious. Afterwards they drank coffee on the terrace outside the dining room while the time ticked slowly past, building the tension inside her.

She said, ‘Do you think it’s not going to happen—that we’ve been forgotten?’

‘No.’ Denys shook his head. ‘Apparently, he plays for amusement first with some of his friends. After they leave, the stakes rise and the game becomes serious. We’ll be sent for soon.’

But it was well after midnight when Gaston Levaux appeared unsmilingly beside them. ‘Monsieur Vernon. I am here on behalf of Monsieur Vassos Gordanis who invites you to join him.’ He paused. ‘I should warn you that you will be required to pay one thousand dollars simply to buy into the game.’

Oh, God, Joanna thought, suddenly weak with relief. We haven’t got a thousand cents. I never thought I’d be glad to be broke.

But her father was meeting Monsieur Levaux’s questioning glance with an airy shrug. ‘There’s no problem about that. I was told he played in dollars and I have the money.’

Thanks, no doubt, to Mrs Van Dyne, Joanna whispered under her breath, silently cursing all rich American widows.

‘I must also caution you that Monsieur Gordanis is a formidable opponent. It is not too late for you to make your excuses—or at least those of the mademoiselle,’ he added.

‘You really mustn’t concern yourself.’ There was a note of steel in Denys’s voice. ‘I’m looking forward to the game, and so is Joanna—aren’t you, darling?’

Joanna saw the manager’s mouth tighten. As they walked to the lift, he spoke to her quietly in French. ‘Do you ever suffer from migraine, mademoiselle? If so, I suggest you develop one very quickly.’

If only, thought Joanna, aware that she was being warned and a little startled by it. Knowing, too, that she would probably have to develop a brain tumour in order to deflect Denys from his purpose.

When they reached the top floor, a small group of men were waiting in the corridor, laughing and talking. As Joanna emerged they fell silent, and she saw glances being exchanged, and even heard a murmur of, ‘Oh, là là!’ from one of them.

You take no notice, she reminded herself stonily. You behave as if you were a dummy in a shop window. You don’t see, hear, talk or think. And you just pray that Dad wins—and wins quickly.

The double doors at the end of the corridor swung open as they approached. The room ahead was hazy with tobacco smoke, and the smell of alcohol hung in the air. Half a dozen men were standing around, chatting as they waited for play to recommence, while a waiter in a white jacket was moving among them, refilling glasses and emptying ashtrays.

So many other rooms, she thought. So many other times, yet all the same.

Except, she realised, that tonight there were no other women present. It was then she saw Vassos Gordanis walking towards the door, smiling expansively and talking to a man in a dark blue tuxedo, who also seemed to be leaving.

As he saw Joanna, the smile faded from his pouched face, and she felt herself quail inwardly beneath his hard, opaque gaze.

A sudden hush had fallen on the room as everyone turned to look at her, too, and she knew an overwhelming impulse to turn and run, only Denys’s hand was under her arm, urging her forward.

‘Come along, my sweet,’ he said. ‘Come and meet our host.’

She thought, But we’ve just walked past him. And then the group in front of her fell back, revealing a circular table littered with chips and a scatter of playing cards.

But, more importantly, revealing also the man who was seated facing her across the green baize.

She knew him at once, of course. He was clean-shaven now, and the curling black hair was combed back, but the arrogant lines of his face with its high-bridged nose and strongly marked chin were quite unmistakable, as were the heavy-lidded dark eyes and that hard, frankly sensual mouth that she’d last seen smiling at her from the deck of Persephone.

Only he wasn’t smiling now, and the hooded eyes studied her without any particular expression in their obsidian depths as he lounged back in his chair, his tie hanging loose and his frilled white shirt half-unbuttoned, providing her with an unwilling reminder of the bronze muscularity she’d seen only that morning.

He had a half-smoked cheroot in one hand, while the other held a short string of amber beads, which he was sliding constantly and restlessly through his long fingers.

He did not get to his feet at her approach, and instinct told her this was not prompted by any acceptance of male and female equality as preached by Jackie’s mother, who saw any demonstration of masculine courtesy as a form of subjugation and therefore an implied insult.

No, this insult was quite intentional, she thought, designed to show her exactly where she stood in his personal scheme of things—which seemed to hover somewhere between contempt and indifference.

Why didn’t you just bar me? she wanted to ask him. Tell my father that women were taboo? God knows I’d have been so grateful.

Instead, here she was, a total fish out of water, the cynosure of all eyes.

‘Oh, Dad,’ she whispered to herself, swallowing as Gaston Levaux began to perform the introductions. ‘You really miscalculated here.’

However, on the plus side, Vassos Gordanis could not possibly recognise her. After all, she looked totally different from the girl in the straw hat whom he’d seen earlier that day. Her distinctive hair had been completely hidden then, while the heavy layer of make-up she was now wearing completed her disguise.

‘And now,’ Monsieur Levaux added with open reluctance, ‘may I present to you Mademoiselle Joanna.’

‘Ah, yes, I was informed she would be joining us.’ His voice was low-pitched and husky, his English good in spite of his marked accent. The dark eyes swept her from head to foot in a glance that both assessed and dismissed. The firm mouth curled with faint insolence. ‘So this is Kyrios Vernon’s—lucky charm.’