Dimistrios’s Bought Mistress

Prologue

There was complete silence in the room. It was not a large room, more of a salon privé, and it was dominated by the baize-covered table around which the players were sitting.

For a moment, the scene held like a living tableau.

The croupier sat in his position, quite motionless, face professionally blank.

Players holding their cards with piles of chips and rolls of cash of assorted sizes in front of them.

And sitting in the centre of the table was a loose heap of chips and cash, reaching sky-high denominations, along with a hand written note.

The only two players with hands still being played stared at each other across the table.

One of the players held his cards in a grip so tight that his nails had left indentations in them.

The tension in him was reflected vividly in his reddened, puffy cheeks, the venomous stare in his pouched eyes and the press of his fleshy lips.

The other player was leaning back in his gilt chair, holding his cards with nothing showing in his face.

He might have been a stone statue carved by a master sculptor who had delineated the hard planes of his high cheekbones, the blade of his nose, the compressed line of his mouth and the chiselled line of his jaw, shadowing now once more at this late hour.

Only his eyes could not have been captured by the sculptor.

Half-lidded, very slightly narrowed and dark as night.

And with no emotion showing in them. Nothing at all.

‘Messieurs?’

The neutral prompt by the croupier made the tenser of the players clench his cards tightly with a jerk. His expression changed. He saw the chance to make a greedy, triumphant thrust at his opponent. He put down his hand.

A subliminal collective murmuration came from the other players present and, as one, their eyes turned to the other player.

For a microsecond, even a microsecond of a microsecond, he still did not move.

The look of greedy triumph in the other man’s face intensified.

Behind the triumph was another expression—relief.

Sweat visibly beaded on his brow. A pulse throbbed at his neck.

Then his opponent, with a movement so slight he might only have been flicking a speck of dust from the table, laid down his hand. There was still nothing in his eyes. Nothing at all.

An audible gasp sounded from those watching and an audible murmur of disbelief came from one.

‘The Wolf wins—again.’