His Last Gamble Read Free

his contemplation of the hedge.
    â€˜No? Then why are you acting like a virgin who’s just wandered by mistake into an orgy?’
    Charmaine blinked. ‘Wh-what did you just say?’ she stuttered. She couldn’t have heard him right.
    Could she?
    â€˜You see,’ he said, grinning again, shaking his head as if she was providing him with no end of entertainment. ‘You looked shocked to the core. And here I was, thinking all fashion models were hard-as-nails, seen-it-all, done-it-all, women of the world.’
    Charmaine felt herself blush hotly, and groaned inwardly. Oh no. Not now. But she felt the tell-tale colour wash over her, and knew, from experience, that when it left, it would leave her skin, even under her artful make-up, ghostly white.
    Why did she have to be so cursed with shyness? All her life, she’d battled an almost paralysing bashfulness.
    And besides, he was right. She
was
worlds away from the other models currently sleeping off jet lag back at the hotel. From their conversation on the flight over, she knew that most of them were exactly as this aggravating blond giant had described. Strong, sophisticated, sexually confident young women. A world away from herself. She’d never even taken a lover yet. And everybody knew that twenty-four was ridiculously old to still be a virgin.
    How was she ever going to convince someone like Payne Lacey that she belonged in his world of gambling, champagne, high-living and casual sexual conquest, if she couldn’t even fool a gardener?
    The blond stranger watched, fascinated, as her colour ebbed and flowed. Her remarkable blue eyes darkened, became shadows. He watched her exquisite shoulders actually begin to droop.
    When he’d first turned and seen her, he’d been stunned. Literally. He’d felt like the proverbial mullet, zapped with a lightning bolt. But not for the world would he have shown it. Faking more interest in the rare shrub he was pruning than her own far more beautiful self, had simply given him the means to get himself under control.
    It hadn’t taken him two seconds to figure out she must be one of the models from England. Nobody but a fashion model for a firm as prestigious as
Jonniee
could look half so gorgeous. That drop-dead gorgeous sarong, that silver hair, those eyes set in such a perfect face.
    And that sort of trouble he could do without.
    Now, though, as he watched her blush, he wondered just what in the hell was going on. Since when did women as beautiful as this one, with the world at their feet, act like a Victorian maiden being propositioned by a rascally footman?
    â€˜This is my first shoot,’ he heard her say, somewhat forlornly, and glanced at her sharply. Was she kidding? No, he realised, a moment later, she wasn’t. As incredible as it seemed, she looked unsure of herself. Ah. So that explained it. She was just a baby piranha in the making and not a fully-fledged member of the shark club yet.
    He felt himself smiling cynically. But once she saw herself on the front cover of
Vogue
, once playboys driving Ferrari’s fell over themselves to take her out to dine in Paris, and men fought to buy her the biggest diamonds, then things would be different.
    â€˜Don’t worry, you’ll ace it,’ he said starkly, and although the words should have comforted her, somehow they didn’t.
    It didn’t, somehow, feel like a compliment.
    Hopelessly confused she merely smiled uncertainly. ‘I hope so.’ A lot depended on it. And besides, she owed it to Jo-Jo not to entirely mess up his shoot.
    â€˜I hear it’s really nice inside there. Mr Lacey’s supposed to have spent millions on it,’ she said instead, steering the conversation to where she needed it to go. Not that she expected a mere gardener to be able to tell her much. Why, Charmaine thought, indignant on his behalf, she’d bet her year’s salary that this man had never even seen inside