Charlotte Lamb: Compulsion

This morning she felt stiff and tense, as though she had slept in a state of alarm all night. She slipped into one of her brief bikinis and put on a tiny white towelling robe. Fortune scrambled after her as she made her way across the lawns towards the palms. The hotel was silent. The guests wouldn't be up for an hour or two at earliest. Many did not cat breakfast and only got up late in the morning, particularly those who played half the night in the casino.

On the beach Lissa dropped her robe and waded into the water, letting the warm swell of it carry her forward. The splash of Fortune entering alongside her made her turn to grin at him. He bobbed along in her rear, paddling vigorously with his paws.

The sky this morning had a mild milky radiance. She swam for a while before turning on to her back to drift back to shore and was so absorbed by her thoughts that she did not notice the arrival on the beach until she came close enough to see and recognise him.

He was wearing sun-glasses, his face barred darkly by them, and they increased the faint threat she felt in him.

He stood on the pale sands, his hands on his hips, the short black swimming trunks belted low on his body, watching her as she uneasily walked out of the water.

'Good. morning, she said politely, smiling In a nervous manner.

'You get up early,' he observed, still staring. The mirror lenses flashed in the rising sun and made his face unreadable.

'Yes,' she said vaguely, looking round for her robe.

As she turned away Luc Ferrier remarked, 'I enjoyed your act last night. Clever.'

'Thank you.'

'Surprisingly so,' he added in a faint drawl which made her face grow pink. 'It wasn't what I'd been expecting.' Although she could not see the eyes behind their barrier, she felt them intensely as they swept over her. 'Particularly the dress. You're deceptive, Miss Radley.'

Lissa did not like the way he said that or the smile curling round his mouth as he said it.

She stood hesitantly, poised to go, and Luc Ferrier asked: 'What's the origin of the name Lissa? Unusual.'

'I was named Melissa,' she explained. 'But it was too long for me to say when I was little and Lissa stuck somehow.'

'Melissa,' he drawled, eyeing her. 'No, I don't like that. Lissa is much more suitable.'

She watched Fortune gambolling like a saturated lamb, shaking himself clear of water which sprayed across the fine brittle sand in dark swirls.

'Well,' she stammered, 'enjoy your swim, Mr Ferrier.'

'Ah,' he said softly, 'you know my name.' She got a strange impression that that pleased him, for some reason. Did it give him a triumphant sensation to be recognised everywhere he went? When they had famous visitors at the hotel she had noticed that although they protested fiercely against their fame they were, all the same, irritated if they went unrecognised.

She was dying to ask him if he had played with Chris last night but felt hesitant to bring the subject up, as though it would reveal too much of her frame of mind to him.

From the first moment they met she had been strangely wary of him and as he watched her, her wariness increased.

'I'm in no hurry to swim,' he said. 'Sit and talk to me.'

Lissa looked at him in nervous alarm. 'Thank you, but I must get back to the hotel,' she said huskily.

'Why must you? Nobody is stirring yet,' he said. 'It's only seven o'clock.'

Lissa searched for some plausible reason, but took too long to do it. He took her elbow and pulled her down on the sand before she even knew his intention. Lissa looked at him with wide, troubled green eyes. If only he would take off those sun-glasses, she thought, staring at the arrogant nose and hard mouth.

As if he had heard her, he suddenly readied up and removed them. She looked unguardedly into the dark blue eyes arid felt her stomach turn over without knowing why.

'How long have you worked at the hotel?' he asked.

'Since I left school.'

'When was that?' He smiled as he asked and the glint of amusement in his eyes deepened her flush.

'Two years ago,' she admitted.

'Which makes you?'

'Twenty,' she said.

His mouth twisted. 'Twenty,' he said on an odd, hard note. His blue eyes stared into hers intently. 'I'm thirty-seven,' he said as though she had asked, as though he was answering some unspoken question.

Lissa had no idea how to answer that, how to react. She looked away, nodding, her damp hair clinging to her damp shoulders as her head moved.

Fortune was running along the pale sand, dancing on his own shadow. A seabird cried over his head and he looked up, barking, excited by the darting, daring flight.

She glanced back and her stomach turned over again as she found Luc Terrier's blue eyes moving over her with a cool intensity which seemed to strip the few thin barriers between them from her body. Lissa drew a harsh breath and her blood ran fiercely up her neck and face.

His eyes lifted as if he had heard that intake of breath and he gave her a veiled smile.

'You're very lovely,'

She moved to rise and his hand clamped down on her arm, tethering her by his side.

'Where are you going?'

'I must go,' she muttered huskily.

She saw his black brows rise in that winged flight, mockery coming into the blue eyes. 'You're a funny mixture,' he commented. 'The quiet manner of a schoolgirl one minute and then when you came on to the stage last night you'd become a very sexy little package at a stroke. Is it your stage manner? Or do you reserve it for close acquaintances?'

Face burning, she said drily. 'Please let go of my arm, Mr Ferrier.'

He still stared at her, mockery in his face. His hand slid slowly, tantalisingly, down her arm and her skill tingled everywhere he touched.

'How do I register?' he asked, and she stared in bewilderment. 'As a close acquaintance?' he added to clarify the issue and Lissa was stiff with outrage at the tone he used.

He laughed at her flashing anger, her green eyes vivid in her suntanned face.

'Is there an entrance fee?'

'Let me go!' she snapped furiously, pulling free of him, and as she did so he caught sight of the handsome diamond glittering on her left hand. His fingers seized hers and he twisted her hand to bring it up into the sunlight. 'So,' he said curtly, 'you're engaged?'

'Yes,' she said with unhidden hostility. 'Who to?' he asked.

'Chris,' she said.

He was staring at the ring, his face totally expressionless. 'Chris?' He raised his dark blue eyes and Lissa could see no thought in them, only a cold blank fixity.

'Chris Brandon.'

His brow knitted. 'The hotel manager?'

'He owns the hotel.' She said that with a faint emphasis as though establishing Chris's status.

He dropped her hand and she rubbed it as though the grip of his powerful fingers had cramped the blood.

'How long have you been engaged? When's the wedding?' He sounded politely interested, and she could think of no reason for refusing to answer, although every fibre of her being was screaming out as though she were in some deadly danger. Lissa had never thought of herself as superstitious, yet something about Luc Ferrier raised the hair on the back of her neck. She could well understand why people called him Lucifer and said he was connected with the devil. She felt exactly the same herself.

'We've been engaged for a year,' she muttered.

'A year?' He asked that sharply as though eager to hear her answer.

Lissa looked at him in nervous impatience. 'Yes.'

He stared at her fixedly, the impassive lines of his features gleaming in the sunlight. The sun struck light from his tanned skin and turned it a brilliant gold, gave depth and power to the blue eyes, so that they pierced her and made her feel more and more alarmed. She felt he was looking right through her to her backbone, that he could read her mind as though her head was made of glass.