The Highest Stakes of All Read Online Free PDF

Persephone.
    Only he wasn’t smiling now, and the hooded eyes studied her without any particular expression in their obsidian depths as he lounged back in his chair, his tie hanging loose and his frilled white shirt half-unbuttoned, providing her with an unwilling reminder of the bronze muscularity she’d seen only that morning.
    He had a half-smoked cheroot in one hand, while the other held a short string of amber beads, which he was sliding constantly and restlessly through his long fingers.
    He did not get to his feet at her approach, and instinct told her this was not prompted by any acceptance of male and female equality as preached by Jackie’s mother, who saw any demonstration of masculine courtesy as a form of subjugation and therefore an implied insult.
    No, this insult was quite intentional, she thought, designed to show her exactly where she stood in his personal scheme of things—which seemed to hover somewhere between contempt and indifference.
    Why didn’t you just bar me? she wanted to ask him. Tell my father that women were taboo? God knows I’d have been so grateful.
    Instead, here she was, a total fish out of water, the cynosure of all eyes.
    ‘Oh, Dad,’ she whispered to herself, swallowing as Gaston Levaux began to perform the introductions. ‘You really miscalculated here.’
    However, on the plus side, Vassos Gordanis could not possibly recognise her. After all, she looked totally different from the girl in the straw hat whom he’d seen earlier that day. Her distinctive hair had been completely hidden then, while the heavy layer of make-up she was now wearing completed her disguise.
    ‘And now,’ Monsieur Levaux added with open reluctance, ‘may I present to you Mademoiselle Joanna.’
    ‘Ah, yes, I was informed she would be joining us.’ His voice was low-pitched and husky, his English good in spite of his marked accent. The dark eyes swept her from head to foot in a glance that both assessed and dismissed. The firm mouth curled with faint insolence. ‘So this is Kyrios Vernon’s—lucky charm.’
    She heard smothered laughter from the group behind her, and felt her skin warm.
    ‘If she remains silent, then she may stay,’ Vassos Gordanis went on. ‘Tell me, kyrie, is she that miracle—a woman who knows her place and can keep her mouth shut? Or would it be better to send her back to her room before we begin?’
    ‘Yes,’ Joanna pleaded under breath. ‘Oh, please— yes.’
    But Denys was managing to mask his obvious discomfiture with a smile. ‘She’s indeed my mascot, Mr Gordanis. If she goes, she may take my luck with her. And she knows how to behave at these little gatherings. You have my word for it.’
    ‘Yes,’ Vassos Gordanis said softly, drawing on his cheroot and regarding its glowing end almost dispassionately. ‘I am sure I can believe that.’ He added silkily, ‘And we should all enjoy such good fortune.’
    Slipping the beads into the pocket of his dinner jacket, he gestured abruptly for a chair to be brought for Joanna and stationed exactly opposite to where he himself was sitting.
    Which was the last thing she’d expected—or wanted, she thought, forcing a taut smile as she moved to the offered seat. Usually she kept her distance at the edge of the room until Denys made an excuse to summon her to his side. As she sat down, she tried unobtrusively to smooth her brief skirt over her thighs, and realised that Vassos Gordanis was watching the nervous movement, the corner of his mouth curling sardonically.
    Remember what you told yourself earlier, she thought, taking a deep breath, and folding her hands carefully in her lap. You don’t talk, you don’t hear, you don’t think. And now—above all—you don’t look back at him.
    ‘Gentlemen.’ Their host acknowledged his other guests with a faint inclination of the head. ‘Join me, if you please.’
    He signalled again, and one of the dealers from the Casino came forward, gathering up the cards from the