glance from beneath her lashes, a little surprised at the question. Beneath that casual mien, he seemed to be trying to find out an awful lot about the way the casino was run. ‘We…take it in turns,’ she responded stiffly.
He laughed, seeming to know somehow that she was lying—though how could he know, after being here only two days, that she generally checked the takings herself? ‘You mean you don’t trust him to count your money?’ he queried, those disturbing shark-grey eyes glinting in sardonic amusement.
‘Of course I do,’ she insisted, injecting her voice with several degrees of frost. ‘I trust him totally.’ The lie came out easily—there was no way she was going to discuss her private affairs with this disturbing stranger. She twisted her wrist to glance pointedly at her watch. ‘Well, I’m afraid my break is nearly over,’ she announced coolly. ‘If you’ll excuse me, Mr…?’
‘The name’s Hugh.’ There was a note of mocking reproof in his voice. ‘I’ve told you twice already.’
‘I’m sorry. The casino has a great many customers— I’m afraid I really can’t remember every single name.’ She was lying—she had remembered his name. Hugh Garratt. Though why it had fixed itself in her mind, she wasn’t quite sure.
‘I thought it was a croupier’s job, to remember names?’ he taunted.
‘No—to remember the cards,’ she corrected him with a hint of lofty disdain.
‘And you can do that?’
‘Extremely well.’
‘Ah!’ He grinned, playing the big, amiable fool again. ‘No wonder I kept losing.’
She didn’t want to laugh, but she couldn’t help it. ‘So, will you be staying another night?’ she asked, struggling to maintain her usual air of untouchability.
He smiled, that dangerous smile that made her heart kick against her ribs again. ‘Do you want me to?’ he countered, his voice a little huskier, his breath warm against her cheek.
She drew back, her eyes flashing him an instant frost warning. ‘I was merely being polite,’ she snapped.
That smile lingered, taunting her. ‘Maybe I will,’ he mused softly. ‘I haven’t made up my mind yet. It depends.’
‘On what?’
‘On whether I think it may be worth my while.’
She stiffened, her hackles rising. He appeared to have mistaken her for Darlene. ‘If you mean what I think you mean, you might as well leave right now,’ she retorted in a voice that would strip paint.
He merely laughed, feigning an innocence that would have fooled no one. ‘Now, what could you possibly think I mean?’ he taunted.
For one tense moment she felt an uncharacteristic urge to slap that arrogant face. She knew he had been deliberately needling her, but she was almost too angry to care if she made a scene. Instead she swept down and outwards with her elbows, to break his hold on her, and without another word turned him an aloof shoulder and stalked away.
CHAPTER TWO
‘WHO was that you were dancing with last night?’
‘No one,’ Natasha responded coolly, reaching for a second croissant. It was rare for Lester to appear at the breakfast table—he didn’t usually get up until the afternoon—and it didn’t augur a good start to the day. After the scene last night in the garage, she would have preferred to have had as little contact with him as possible.
Lester laughed unpleasantly. ‘It wasn’t “no one”,’ he insisted. ‘You never dance with the customers—what makes that one so special?’
‘He caught me as I was walking back to the bar,’ she conceded stiffly. ‘I couldn’t very well avoid him.’
‘It was the guy that’s been losing heavily on the blackjack tables.’ Lester’s pale eyes glinted with greed. ‘That’s the sort of punter I like. You be nice to him, girl. Schmooze him a little. Play him along. The guy’s a sucker—if he thinks he’s in with a chance of making it with you he’ll stick around until his pockets are empty.’
Natasha returned him a look of cold dislike, spreading her croissant with apricot jam and biting into it delicately. The table was their usual one, set in the sunny bay window of the empty supper room. None of the other tables was laid—the casino wouldn’t be open for another couple of hours.
Only the cleaners were in—she could hear one of them singing tunelessly as she worked, the quiet hum of a vacuum cleaner replacing the usual clamour of the slot machines in the foyer. In the gaming room the curtains at the long windows had been drawn back and the windows opened to air the room, letting the bright, unfamiliar sunshine stream in.
‘You’re suggesting I should let him think I might go to bed with him so that he’ll stay and go on losing money at the tables?’ she clarified with icy disdain.
‘So what’s wrong with that?’ Lester demanded, sneering. ‘You don’t have to deliver. Come on—you know how the game works.’
‘I might know how it works, but that doesn’t mean I have to like how it works,’ she countered. ‘Not the way you play it, anyway.’
Her stepfather slammed down his coffee cup, his face as red as a tomato. ‘Damned toffee-nosed bitch!’ he snarled. ‘This place’d be losing money hand over fist if it wasn’t for me. And what thanks do I get? You can’t even bring yourself to be civil to my friends.’
‘If by “friends” you mean that creep you brought over here last month, and if by “civil” you mean not objecting to his hands wandering all over me when I was talking to him, then forget it,’ she returned crisply. ‘His sort don’t warrant civility—in fact he’s damned lucky he didn’t get my knee in his groin. And you can warn him that if he tries that sort of thing on with me again, that’s exactly what he will get.’
Lester leaned forward, prodding a finger at her across the table. ‘You’d better watch your tongue, my girl. Nobody speaks to Tony de Santo like that,’ he warned menacingly. ‘He’s got connections.’
Natasha merely laughed. Her stepfather was always boasting of his friends and their ‘connections’, but she wasn’t impressed. ‘I’ll speak to him how I like,’ she retorted. ‘The man’s a snake—and that’s probably being unfair to snakes.’ Her appetite gone, she drained her coffee and got up from the table without bothering to finish her breakfast.
The family’s private apartment was on the upper floor of the casino, in the old warehouse manager’s quarters. Natasha still shared it with Lester—somehow neither of them had got around to moving out. But, since neither of them spent very much time there, even taking their meals downstairs in the supper room, sharing it had never really been a problem.
But now, as she climbed the narrow staircase, she pulled a wry face. Maybe it was time to start talking about one of them living elsewhere.
What she needed was a swim to burn the edge off her tension, she decided briskly. She changed into a swimsuit and pulled her T-shirt and shorts back on over top, and then, pausing only to pick up some sunscreen and a towel, a broad-brimmed hat and a good
