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‘I don’t gamble.’
‘The whole of life is a gamble.’
She didn’t like the idea of being at the mercy of the random rules of chance. ‘What did the police say when you reported it? Are they looking for me, too?’
‘I told you, I don’t like the police poking into my private affairs. You could call it a legacy from my childhood.’
‘Your childhood?’ She found herself teetering on the brink of understanding.
‘My parents are a very charming pair of con artists,’ he admitted, nudging her over the edge. She already knew this, she thought as she listened to him. ‘They dragged Katy and me all over the world in pursuit of their grand scams, even using us to help reel in the suckers when we got old enough to tell a convincing lie. I struck out on my own as soon as I could, but that left Katy to their tender mercies.
‘When they finally settled in Australia after a big score, she and I thought she would have her chance at a decent education and a stable life, but Max and Irene found respectability boring. So they pulled up stakes and went back to their swindles, but this time Katy was old enough to kick up a fuss and I was able to persuade them to leave her with me.’
I have a duty to stand between my sister and harm, she remembered him telling her in the exhausted aftermath of the encounter in the kitchen of her flat. I haven’t always been there for her when she needed me. I owe it to her to be there for her now. I always protect my own.
His expression became sardonic. ‘One thing my parents taught me that I did consider good advice—make sure you always have a cash float stashed away for emergencies, preferably in untraceable, small used bills.’
‘So you have no record of ever having had the money and never told the police it was missing,’ Nina guessed shrewdly. ‘In other words, you have no proof of anything you say!’
‘I have all the proof I need in here.’ He pointed to his temple.
‘So you’re out for revenge. Is that what all this is about?’ Nina demanded, hands on hips. In a twisted kind of way, it would be a relief!
The man wanted his money back. He would soon have to accept that she didn’t have it. She had never been materialistic. Clothes, jewellery, possessions—they had never been more important to her than people.
‘Not revenge. Satisfaction.’
‘What’s the difference?’ she challenged unwisely.
He smiled. ‘Come here and I’ll show you,’ he purred.
She bridled at the sudden change in his demeanour. ‘If I walked out on you, how can you still want anything to do with me? Have you no pride?’ she ripped at him.
‘Oh, you’ve already stripped me of that, Nina, so what do I have to lose? But if you assume I’m going to grovel to get you back in my bed, you have another think coming. You’re the one who’ll be doing the begging.’
Her eyes blazed with a fury that made him laugh, enraging her even more. ‘The hell I am! What’s the matter, can’t your ego accept that you’re obviously completely forgettable in bed?’
‘Liar,’ he goaded. ‘I slept with you for two years. I know your body as well as you do. I know all the nuances of its language. You can close your mind to our relationship, but your body definitely remembers how good we were together. You’re as hot for me right now as I am for you. Arguments always did spice up our sex life.’
She spluttered, her hand itching to slap his face as she had once before. ‘Get out!’
‘No way. I’m bonding to you like superglue from now on, sweetheart. The only way you’ll get rid of me is to stick a knife in my chest.’
She went white, then red. ‘Don’t tempt me!’ she choked.
‘Oh, I intend to tempt you every which way,’ he said, then turned towards the kitchen. ‘Starting with your taste-buds.’
Another lightning switch of moods to set her off balance.
‘What are you doing?’ she asked, following him suspiciously, still spoiling for a fight.
‘Making dinner,’ he said, rattling through the cupboards and getting out a shallow pan and three beautiful, oval pottery ramekins from the set of crockery Nina had got for giving painting lessons to the potter’s ten-year-old daughter. ‘Ray gave me the scallops and a bottle of white wine he brought back from his daughter’s.’
