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Lissa stood very still.
‘I’m afraid I don’t do private hires,’ she said quietly. ‘I did make that clear when I started.’
The manager narrowed his small eyes.
‘You’re lucky I’m in a good mood. And you’re lucky you made a hit last night. The guy who’s booked you is that fancy Frog who dropped a ton at the tables. He’s paying premium price for you, so make sure you give value for money, all right?’
Lissa swallowed. So Xavier Lauran had not been the type to stoop to coming on to her last night after offering her a lift home? No, he was just the type who liked the euphemism of a ‘private hire.’
‘Maybe Tanya would—’ she ventured.
‘He’s booked you, all right? And you deliver—understand? Or you walk—permanently.’
Lissa understood. Schooling her face into immobility, she nodded and got out. She felt sickened, more than sickened. It just wasn’t something she’d thought of the man last night.
Somehow she got herself back downstairs again, picked up her things and left the casino.
Just as last night, the rain was coming down heavily. She shivered, but not because of the wet. She had just lost her job. She knew it. Knew the manager would sack her instantly as soon as he found out she had no intention whatsoever of accepting a ‘private hire.’ Worse, she wouldn’t even get the wages she was owed for this week’s work.
Anger and intense depression mingled venomously inside her. Avoiding the front of the casino, she made her way with rapid, urgent footsteps to the main road. At least there were plenty of buses at this time of night, and the Tube was still running. Another thought struck her. What reason could she give for getting home so early? She didn’t want to say she’d lost her job because she’d been offered one she wouldn’t take.
Well, she would think up something on the way home. She would have to. That was the least of her problems.
Acid still curdled in her stomach, and more than acid. Anger, gall and bitterness. More even than that. But she would not give it words. Instead she found other words.
Creep. Jerk. Slimeball.
She said them in her head, over and over again, pounding them down on the pavement with each hurrying step.
A car pulled on to the pavement ahead of her.
She recognised it instantly. Equally instantly she swerved out on to the roadway in automatic avoidance.
‘What are you doing?’
The voice was a demand, wanting an answer. She didn’t even look around.
He strode up to her, catching her arm as she tried to plunge through the traffic.
‘You’ll kill yourself!’
She tried to tear herself free, but he was strong, the grip around her forearm unyielding.
‘Let go of me, you total creep.’ She tugged again, just as ineffectually. Rain was streaming into her eyes.
‘Comment?’ The surprise in his voice snapped something in her. She wheeled on him.
‘I said let go of me, you creep! You pig! How dare you try and buy me like that? My God, I might work in that fleapit, but the only work I do is to get jerks like you to buy rip-off drinks. You’ve got no right to think I do anything else. So take your bloody “private hire” and—’
He said something in French. Abrupt. Basic. Very basic.
His grip tightened on her arm as she stood struggling at the kerbside behind his chauffeured car.
‘I do not know what you have been told, but clearly you have been misinformed.’
His voice was icy. Formal. Lissa glared round at him, anger still boiling in her—and still that unwanted awareness of him.
It was a mistake to look at him. Even as she did so she felt again the incredible blow that went right through her solar plexus. The streetlight etched the planes of his face, and the sudden hardness in them, in his eyes, sent an unwilling thrill of reaction through her.
