LITMIR.BIZ

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to congratulate her father, wanting to demonstrate their delight in seeing someone beat the bank against all the odds for once. Luiz’s arm came back, looping round her in protection this time against several elbows being aimed in her direction, and Caroline found herself being pressed so close to him that she would have to be dead not to be aware of every hard-packed nuance of the man.

      Her heart-rate picked up and her breathing grew shallow. It was awful. Memories began to flood her mind. They had been lovers once. Their bodies knew each other as intimately as two bodies could. Standing here, virtually imprisoned by the crowd closing round them, was the worst kind of punishment that fate could have doled out to her for being stupid enough to agree to come back here.

      It was a knowledge that filled her with a kind of acrimony that poured itself into her voice. ‘Still playing games for a living, Luiz?’ she shot at him sarcastically. ‘I wonder what the management would do if they found out they have a professional in their club.’

      His dark eyes narrowed. And it was because she was being forced to stand so close to him that she felt the slight tensing of certain muscles—like a dangerous cat raising its hackles. ‘Was that your version of a veiled threat by any chance?’ he questioned very carefully.

      Was it? Caroline asked herself, aware that all it would take was a quiet word in the ear of the management to have Luiz very quietly but very firmly hustled out of here. But—

      ‘It was merely an observation,’ she sighed, knowing that she had no right to criticise Luiz when her own father was just as bad.

      ‘Then, to answer your observation, no,’ he replied. ‘I am not here to play.’

      But Caroline wasn’t listening. A sudden idea had hit her, one that had her heart leaping in her breast. ‘Luiz…’ she murmured urgently. ‘If I had a quiet word with the management about my father, would they stop him from playing any more?’

      ‘Why should they?’ His mouth took on a derisive twist. ‘He’s no professional, just a man with a vice he has turned into an obsession.’

      ‘A suicidal obsession,’ Caroline extended with a shiver.

      The hand at her spine gently soothed her. And what was worse was that Luiz didn’t say a single word. He knew her father—knew him only too well.

      ‘I hate this,’ she whispered, wishing she could just creep away and pretend it wasn’t happening. But she couldn’t, and somehow, some way she had to try and stop this madness before her father ruined them completely.

      ‘Do you want me to stop him?’ Luiz offered.

      Her eyes flicked up to clash with his. ‘Do you think you can?’ she murmured anxiously.

      In response Luiz simply lifted his gaze to where her father was emerging from his sea of congratulations. ‘Sir Edward,’ he said.

      That was all. No raising of his voice, no challenge in the tone. Just the two quietly spoken words. Yet they carried enough impact to cause a small cessation in the buzz of excitement taking place.

      And the fine hairs on the back of Caroline’s neck began to tingle as she sensed her father spinning around. She couldn’t see him because Luiz was keeping her pressed against him, but in the following long seconds of tense silence she certainly felt the full thrust of her father’s shock.

      His recovery was swift though. ‘Well,’ he drawled. ‘If it isn’t Luiz. This is a surprise…’

      Eton-educated, brought up to be always aware of his own worth, Sir Edward Newbury’s King’s-English accent was a pitch-perfect blend of sarcasm and condescension that made his daughter wince.

      Luiz didn’t wince. He just offered a wry smile. ‘Isn’t it?’ he agreed. ‘Seven years on and here we are again. Same time, same place—’

      ‘It must be fate,’ her father dryly tagged on.

      And fate just about covered it, Caroline was thinking hollowly. Ill fate. Cruel fate.

      ‘I see your luck is in tonight,’ Luiz observed. ‘Taken the bank to the cleaners, have you?’

      ‘Not yet, but I’m getting there.’ Her father sounded different suddenly. Enlivened, invigorated.

      At which point Caroline made herself turn in the circle of Luiz’s arm to witness for herself the covetous gleam she knew was going to be in her father’s eyes. But she also saw the childlike pique that took hold of him as he skimmed his gaze over her face. He knew very well how badly he was letting her down tonight, but was belligerently defiant about it.

      It made her heart want to break in despair.

      ‘How much do you think you’ve managed to win so far?’ Luiz questioned curiously.

      Sir Edward didn’t even give his winnings a glance. ‘Bad luck to count it, Luiz. You know that,’ he dismissed with a shrug.

      ‘But if you’re feeling really lucky, then perhaps you could be tempted into a private bet with me?’ Luiz suggested. ‘Put the lot on the next spin,’ he challenged. ‘If you win, I’ll double the amount, then play you for the lot at poker. Fancy the long shot?’ he added provokingly, ignoring Caroline’s protesting gasp.

      Their curious audience was suddenly on edge. Caroline simply went cold. Luiz called this stopping him? In all her life she had never felt so betrayed—and that included the last time Luiz had betrayed her trust in him.

      ‘No,’ she whispered, her eyes pleading with her father not to take Luiz on.

      But he wasn’t even aware of her presence any more. And she knew exactly what he was doing; he was busily adding up his present winnings, doubling them and doubling them again, then playing Luiz at a game even she knew Luiz was lethal at, and seeing all his problems melting away in one sweet lucky night.

      ‘Why not?’ He accepted the challenge, and as his daughter stared at him in dismay he turned and, with a brief nod of his head to the waiting croupier, coolly instructed, ‘Let it all ride.’

      And the wheel began to spin once again.

      Behind her Caroline could feel Luiz watching things over the top of her head. In front of her, her father stood, outwardly calm and supremely indifferent to the eventual outcome even though their lives, in effect, stood hovering in the balance. And all around it was as if the whole casino had come to a breathless standstill while everyone watched the game play itself out. There wasn’t a person present who believed that Sir Edward could win on the same col-our for a fourth time.

      Caroline certainly did not believe it. ‘I’ll never forgive you for this,’ she told Luiz, and shrugged herself free of his grasp.

      He let her go, though he remained standing directly behind her. And, like everyone else, they stood watching as the wheel began to slow, allowing that wretched ball to bounce playfully from slot to slot.

      It was torture at its worst. She had known they should not have come here, had told her father over and over again that Marbella was the last place on earth they should look for salvation.

      But he hadn’t listened. He was desperate, and desperate men do desperate things. ‘We have no choice!’ was all he’d said. ‘The finance company that bought up all our debts is based in Marbella. They refuse to speak to us unless we show up personally. We have to go there, Caroline.’

      ‘And your gambling debts?’ she’d hit out at him angrily. ‘Do they have their greedy hands on all of those too?’

      He’d flushed with guilt, then gone peevish on her as he always did when caught by his own inadequacies. ‘Do you want to help sort this mess out or not?’ he’d challenged harshly.

      She had, but not this way. Not by banking everything they had on the spin of a stupid roulette wheel.

      The dizziness returned, the blood seeping slowly out of her head as if squeezed by that steadily slowing wheel. Then, quite suddenly, it stopped. Silence hit

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