Devil And The Deep Sea

She collected a towel from one of the changing cabins, stripped and plunged into the water. But, as she struck out with her swift, practised crawl, she couldn’t seem to capture her usual sense of wellbeing.

Oh, it wasn’t fair, she thought with a kind of desperate impatience. Of all the men who’d passed through Cristoforo, there had never been one who’d come even close to touching her emotions. Yet, in the space of a few minutes, Roche Delacroix, of all people, had given her a swift, disturbing insight into what it might mean to be a woman—even though he’d treated her for most of the time like a child, she thought stormily, as she turned for another length.

And then—paradoxically—had come that cynical—that abominable offer.

‘A year out of your life.’ His words seemed to beat a tattoo in her brain. How dared he? she raged inwardly. Oh, how dared he? And it was no comfort to tell herself that he’d simply been amusing himself at her expense. After all, a man like that could have no real interest in an inexperienced nineteen-year-old. Margot, or even the absent Nina, would be far more his type.

But soon Allegra would be gone, she tried to console herself, and she would never have to see Roche Delacroix or think about him again.

She hauled herself out of the water, and began to blot the moisture from her arms and body, then paused suddenly, a strange prickle of awareness alerting her nerve-endings as if—as if someone was watching her.

She stopped towelling her hair, and glanced over her shoulder, searching for a betraying movement in the shadows, listening for some sound. But there was nothing.

She was being over-imaginative, she told herself, but she still felt disturbed, and she resolved to give nude swimming a miss for a while. If one of the waiters from the club, say, was taking a short-cut through the garden, there was no need to give him a field day.

She pulled her clothes on to her still-damp body, and set off back towards the bungalow, her head high, looking neither to right or left.

Probably there was no one there at all. But everything was off-key tonight because of Roche Delacroix, and she would be eternally grateful when he turned his back on Cristoforo for ever.

Because, to her shame, she knew she would always be left wondering just what that—that year out of her life might have been like—with him.

CHAPTER THREE (#ua1db9062-2319-5d92-a394-cb4f8dd65f57)

SAMMA was woken from a light, unsatisfactory sleep by a crash, and a muffled curse. She sat up, glancing at the illuminated dial of the clock beside her bed, whistling faintly when she saw the time. The poker game had gone on for longer than usual.

She lay for a few moments, listening to the sounds of movement from the kitchen, then reached resignedly for her robe.

Clyde was sitting at the table, staring into space, a bottle and glass in front of him. The eyes he turned on her were glazed and bloodshot.

He muttered, ‘Oh, there you are,’ as if he’d been waiting for her to join him.

She said, ‘I’ll make some black coffee.’

‘No, sit down. I’ve got to talk to you.’

She said, ‘If it’s about what happened earlier—I’m sorry …’

‘Oh, that.’ He made a vague, dismissive gesture. ‘No, it’s something else.’

He was a terrible colour, she thought uneasily.

He said, ‘Tonight—I lost tonight, Samma.’

The fact that she’d been expecting such news made it no easier to hear, she discovered.

She said steadily, ‘How much?’

‘A lot. More than a lot. Money I didn’t have.’ He paused, and added like a death knell, ‘Everything.’

Samma closed her eyes for a moment. ‘The hotel?’

‘That, too. It was the last game, Samma. I had the chance to win back all that I’d lost and more. You never saw anything like it. There were only the two of us left in, and he kept raising me. I had a running flush, king high. Almost the best hand you can get.’

She said in a small, wintry voice, ‘Almost, but not quite it seems.’

Clyde looked like a collapsed balloon. She was afraid he was going to burst into tears. ‘He had—a running flush in spades, beginning with the ace.’

There was a long silence, then Samma roused herself from the numbness which had descended on her.

She said, ‘You and Hugo Baxter have been playing poker together for a long time. Surely he’ll be prepared to give you time—come to some arrangement over the property …’

‘Baxter?’ he said hoarsely. ‘I’m not talking about Baxter. It was the Frenchman, Delacroix.’

This time, the silence was electric. Samma’s hand crept to her mouth.

She felt icy cold. ‘What—what are we going to do?’

‘Baxter will help us,’ he said rapidly. ‘He promised me he would. He—he doesn’t want to see us go under. He’s going to see Delacroix with me tomorrow to—work something out. He’s being—very generous.’

There was something about the way he said it—the way he didn’t meet her gaze.

She said, ‘Why is he being so—generous? What have you promised in return. Me?’

He looked self-righteous. ‘What do you take me for?’

‘Shall we try pimp?’ Samma said, and Clyde came out of his chair, roaring like a bull, his fists clenched. He met her calm, cold stare and subsided again.

‘We—we mustn’t quarrel,’ he muttered. ‘We have to stick by each other. Baxter—likes you, you know that. And he’s lonely. It wouldn’t hurt to be nice to him, that’s all he wants. Why, you could probably get him to marry you …’

‘Which would make everything all right, of course,’ she said bitterly. ‘Forget it, Clyde, the idea makes me sick to my stomach.’

‘Samma, don’t be hasty. What choice do we have? Unless Baxter supports me in some deal with Delacroix, we’ll be bankrupt—not even a roof over our heads.’

She rose to her feet. ‘This is your mess, Clyde,’ she said. ‘Don’t expect me to get you out of it.’

Back in her own room, she leaned against the closed door and began to tremble like a leaf. In spite of her defiant words, she had never felt so frightened, so helpless in her life. She seemed incapable of rational thought. She wanted to cry. She wanted to be sick. She wanted to lie down on the floor, and drum with her heels, and scream at the top of her voice.

All she seemed to see in front of her was Hugo Baxter’s sweating moon face, his gaze a trail of slime as it slid over her body.

No, she thought, pressing a convulsive fist against her lips. Oh God, no!

Clyde said there was no other choice, but there had to be. Had to …

‘A year out of your life.’ The words seemed to reverberate mockingly in her brain. ‘A year out of your life.’

She wrapped her arms round her body, shivering. No, that was unthinkable, too. She shouldn’t even be allowing such an idea to enter her mind.

And yet, what could she do—caught, as she was, between the devil and the deep sea once again? But surely that didn’t mean she had to sell herself to the devil?