Tom hesitated, then said slowly, ‘I’m sure we can.’

‘Good. So, two thousand, then?’ He opened a cheque book.

Without warning, Tom turned and kicked Stanley straight in the balls. As with the perfect golf swing, everything fluked into place, and when he connected, he felt the power of the strike right up to his teeth. He thought Stanley actually left the ground, but he couldn’t be sure.

‘Yo!’ one of the security guards shouted in surprise and, behind Tom, the dealer squeaked.

Stanley dropped as if his legs had been cut off. Tom watched him try to breathe, making a painful, high-pitched sound as he rolled gently back and forth on the carpet, clutching himself. Tears squeezed out of his tightly shut eyes and his gritted teeth were stained with blood from his bitten tongue. Tom figured that was as close to a look of sincere regret as Stanley was ever going to get.

Tom turned to Tarryk. ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘These things do happen fast.’

Tarryk merely closed the cheque book and sighed.

Tom tossed his ice bag at Stanley, and walked out with the giggling dealer behind him. A few paces outside the manager’s door, Tom turned and peeled a fifty off the roll and handed it to her. She grinned broadly and bobbed her head in thanks, then hurried away, still laughing.

For some unfathomable reason, the blonde was waiting right where she’d said she’d be.

10

HER NAME WAS Ness Franklin, and by the time the waiter brought their second bottle of Pinot Noir, Tom was in lust.

Every damn thing she did was sexy. The way she murmured, ‘Thank you,’ and looked at him from under her dark lashes when he opened the door for her into the Honolulu parking lot; the way her midnight-blue dress split open to reveal a long, pale thigh as she slid gracefully into the Buick; the smooth feel of the small of her back under his palm as he ushered her gently to their table at Divo’s; even the fact that she ignored the salad and ordered lobster in butter sauce, which proceeded to glisten on her full red lips as they ate and talked.

She did most of the talking and most of the eating while he sat and watched, listened and wondered how long it would be before his battered groin could muster an erection. It would be just his luck if Stanley’s knee-drop had done irreparable damage just when he’d met the sexiest woman in the world, he thought wryly, as Ness dipped her red-tipped fingers into the lemon-scented finger bowl. If that proved to be the case, the kick in the groin was not going to be payback enough: Tom would have to hunt Stanley down and kill him. Slowly.

Ness sucked each of her fingers clean – not as a turn-on, but slightly absent-mindedly – while trying to catch the waiter’s eye for more butter. Tom’s stomach rolled slowly with desire, which only translated into a sharp pain in his balls that made him wince.

‘You okay?’

‘Yes, fine.’

She gave him a wry smile. ‘You sure?’

‘Well, as fine as a man can be after having some Neanderthal squish his balls and pummel his face to a pulp. That kind of fine, y’know?’

She laughed and ran her eyes over his face. ‘I know that guy. He’s an asshole.’

Tom raised a glass to that and she clinked hers against it.

Before they’d left the Honolulu, Ness had led him into the ladies’ room and tried to clean him up, but he knew he still looked like a crash-test dummy. The cut over his eye did need stitching, but the butterfly plasters would keep it together until tomorrow, he reckoned. He wasn’t going to spend his first evening with this woman in the emergency room with a bunch of drunks.

His nose hurt a lot. ‘You think it’s broken?’ he’d asked.

She’d touched the bridge gently. ‘No. Just cut and bruised.’

‘Shame.’

She’d looked at him quizzically.

‘I always kind of wanted a broken nose. Don’t you think it’s manly?’

She’d screwed up her face, making herself even more desirable in his eyes. Up close, he noticed a small white scar striped across her chin like a shooting star.

‘Manly is as manly does,’ she’d said at last.

When they’d first walked into Divo’s, he’d felt every eye in the place turn towards him and it took him a moment to realize that they weren’t admiring his taste in women. Whatever. Let them stare at his face – he was just grateful he had something prettier to look at across the table.

The waiter had brought the butter, and now Ness dipped a piece of lobster into it. When she put it between her lips, a trickle ran down her chin. She touched it casually with a napkin, as if she didn’t really care whether it carried on down her neck or not. Tom winced again.

‘So, Ness …’ he searched his brain for the right words so his question would not seem presumptuous or downright dumb ‘… to what do I owe this pleasure?’

She shrugged, her pale skin hollowing deliciously around her collar bones. ‘You impressed me tonight.’

‘Yeah, I’m pretty impressive when I’m getting beat up.’

She smiled. ‘You remembered your chips.’

The statement surprised him.

‘You’d hardly stopped throwing up before you remembered your chips and wanted to check on them.’

‘It was a big pot.’

‘Hard won.’ She toyed with a claw but didn’t crack it.

‘You were watching?’

She nodded and picked the meat out with her elegant fingers. ‘Was it a bluff?’

Tom felt himself close off to her as surely as if an iron door had slammed into place. It was the one question serious players never asked and never, ever answered. He tried to hide his knee-jerk defence with a smile and took a sip of wine even though it hurt his lip. Her eyes held his, so he said, ‘Winners don’t tell.’

‘Not even me?’ She almost pouted and looked so erotic that he had to swallow to clear his airway. This was crazy. Why not tell her? All she was doing was flirting with him. Why not play the game?

But something in his gut kept him silent, although he raised his eyebrows to show he wasn’t angry. ‘Not even you.’

He thought she might be offended but, after a momentary hesitation, she smiled and cracked the claw. ‘You’re right. Winners don’t tell.’

‘Did the Pinball Kid tell?’

She looked at him, confused.

‘The kid with the shades and iPod.’

‘Oh, Garvey.’ She nodded slyly. ‘Yes, he told.’

‘Is that why you dumped him?’ He held his breath – it was pretty much a make-or-break question.

Her eyes slid slowly up from her plate and gazed into his with an expression that made him shiver, although he didn’t know whether it was lust or something far more strange.