your game tonight, Charles,” Ali remarked over coffee and cake.
“I’m just a bit rusty,” he replied.
“Maybe he’s setting us all up for a sting later on in the evening,” Renée suggested.
Charles smiled what he hoped was an enigmatic smile.
“Trust you to think that,” Rico snapped. “That’s just the sort of thing a devious female like you would do. But Charles is a straight shooter. The reason he’s not playing well tonight is because he can’t keep his thoughts above his waist.”
“And who could blame him?” Ali said in that rich Eton-educated voice of his. “Renée is right. You are a very lucky man, Charles, to have found a woman so beautiful for your bed.”
Charles bristled at the inference that Dominique’s role in his life was nothing more than sexual.
“Dominique has a beautiful mind as well as a beautiful body, Ali,” he said with a hint of reproach in his voice. “We are friends as well as lovers. Equals, in every way.”
Rico laughed. “Who do you think you’re kidding, Charles? That girl has you by the short and curlies.”
“Must you be so crude?” Renée said with a withering glance Rico’s way. “Take no notice of him, Charles. He’s just jealous because he can’t find anyone to love, or who truly loves him in return.”
Rico laughed again, yet it had a hard, hollow ring to it. “I wish I were jealous. Oh, yes. That would be much better.”
“Better than what?” Charles asked, not quite following Rico’s train of thought.
Rico looked remorseful for opening his mouth. “Nothing. I’m rambling. I’ve had too much to drink. I think I’ll stick to coffee for the rest of the night.”
“An excellent idea, Enrico,” Ali said. “Alcohol is the root of all evil.”
“I thought that was money,” Rico retorted.
“No. It’s sex,” Renée surprised them all by saying. “Sex is the root of all evil. We would all be much better off without it.”
“But then there wouldn’t be any children,” Charles pointed out.
“Exactly,” she returned.
“Trust you not to like children,” came Rico’s cutting comment.
Renée stiffened. “I didn’t say that. But the world is overpopulated as it is. And so many children are suffering. I would rather there be no more children than to see such suffering.”
“Sorry, but I can’t oblige you there, Renée,” Charles piped up. “Dominique and I are planning to have children. And soon.”
Rico’s eyes jerked his way. “I thought you’d put that off for a while,” he said with a frown. “Hell, Charles, you’ve only been married a month!”
“I’m forty-one next birthday, Rico. I haven’t got time to waste. Besides, Dominique’s keen to have a baby.”
“Is she, now?” he said, and Charles heard the cynical note which always flavoured Rico’s voice when he spoke about Dominique.
Rico didn’t like Dominique. Charles could no longer ignore that fact. Why Rico didn’t like her was just as obvious. He thought Dominique was a gold-digger, like his own ex.
Charles could have been insulted by his friend’s opinion—didn’t he think any woman could love him for himself?—but he understood Rico was still going through a bitter phase after his own wretched marital experience. In time, he’d realise Dominique wasn’t anything like Jasmine. When that happened he might even decide to give marriage another go himself.
“I think we should cease to discuss personal issues and get back to the game,” Ali suggested wisely. “That is why we meet here each Friday night. To play poker and to escape life’s little stresses and strains for a while. Let us leave such matters at the door in future.”
Rico and Renée both gave Ali a look which implied a man of his massive power and privilege wasn’t subjected to too many of life’s little stresses and strains.
Till Charles had met Dominique, he might have agreed with them. Money and success had certainly smoothed his path in life. But he knew now that it didn’t bring real happiness. Love did.
Without love, having all the money in the world could become very empty indeed. Charles suspected Ali was no more happy in his private life than was Rico, or the merry widow. You only had to look into that woman’s eyes to know she wasn’t happy. Not where it mattered. Not in her heart.
Earlier, she’d made it sound as if she didn’t want children. But was that the truth? Or was it a rationalisation of where her life was heading, fast past that age where it was easy for a woman to conceive, especially without a partner?
Charles was only guessing, of course. Renée was like Ali, never revealing much about her private life. Presumably she did have a love life, but what kind and with whom Charles had no idea. All he knew was that she always showed up at the races alone. And she never cancelled on a Friday night. Unusual for a woman.
There again, Renée was an unusual woman. An enigma. A rather intimidating enigma. Charles pitied any man who ever fell in love with her. No man wanted to be intimidated by his woman. They wanted a woman who could make a man feel good about himself, the way Dominique did.
Aah…Dominique. She was very much on his mind tonight. Ali could command they leave their personal lives at the door but Charles couldn’t do that just yet. His love for his lovely wife was all too new, and all too consuming.
He patted the jewelry box in his jacket pocket before he sat back down again, his stomach tightening in pleasurable anticipation of that moment when she opened the lid and saw the necklace. He couldn’t wait to put it on her, to see how it looked.
The next two hours dragged, his play deteriorating further. Ali shook his head at his many mistakes. Renée smiled wryly and Rico scowled.
“What am I going to do with you, Charles?” Rico said when the night’s poker was over and the two men rode the lift together down to the ground floor. Renée had already gone ahead, always the first to leave after play was halted, usually around midnight. Tonight it had been twelve-thirty, due to their late start.
Charles laughed. “I’ll do better next week,” he said, thinking that by then he might have the worst of his lust out of his system.
Not that he said that to Rico. Rico would pounce on the word lust, and claim he’d been right all along; it was just the promise of sex which had bewitched and entrapped him.
But Charles knew that wasn’t the case. It was only natural that he and Dominique were still going through that phase when they couldn’t keep their hands off each other. Unlike most newlyweds these days, they hadn’t been living together before their wedding. Hell, they hadn’t even kissed!
“Did you mean it when you said you and Dominique weren’t waiting to have children?”
Rico’s question surprised Charles. “Why would I lie about something like that?”
“But you haven’t actually gotten her pregnant yet.”
“No. She’s on the Pill for now. But she’s coming off it next month.”
“I honestly don’t think that’s a good idea, Charles. You should wait at least a year before you take such a big step. Get to know your wife a bit better first. You hardly know the girl, after all.”
Charles’s forbearance over Rico’s negative attitude towards Dominique began to wane. “I know all I need to know,” he replied tautly. “Look, Rico, I realise you don’t like Dominique. You probably think she’s a fortune hunter, but—”
“You’re wrong,” Rico interrupted, his expression grim. “I don’t