She studied his face. “That’s…peculiar. That’s not how my father and Volkov feel. Winning is everything. I don’t know if it would make a difference or not,” she said slowly. “So far you’ve kept your promises, but you could be tricking me. Could I ever be sure?” She added wearily, “And why would it make a difference to you if I believed you anyway? I’ve already told you that we’d go with you until you finished Kaskov’s job. That should be all that matters to you.”

He muttered an oath. “I don’t know why the hell it makes a difference, but it does.” He finished his coffee and got to his feet. “So what the hell?” He was smiling recklessly down at her. “And since it does matter, I’ll just have to look on you as a game I have to win. Oh, not like the games you’ve had to play before. What do you want to bet that before this is over, I’ll get you to admit that I’ve never broken a promise to you and that you actually trust me?”

“I told you that I never bet.”

“You don’t have to. I’ll win either way.” He took her plate from her and tossed it in the trash disposal in the galley. “Now you can go back to playing. Two hours…as promised. Make the most of it.” He turned and strode up the aisle away from her.

Lara sat there looking after him. For an instant she had thought that she might have hurt him, but that was ridiculous. Tanner was tough; nothing she said would have bothered him. Though he’d obviously expected her to be upset to know that he was a gambler, and it had probably annoyed him that she had compared him to Volkov.

No one was less like Volkov than Tanner. Volkov was a nightmare of ugliness and cruelty. Tanner wasn’t like anyone else she had ever met. Pantherlike sleekness, strength, intelligence, the way he’d watch with narrowed gray-blue eyes as she spoke, seeing far too much. That smile so rare, you found yourself waiting for it. Yet she felt that he understood and accepted her words in a way no one else could. And he had understood how much the keyboard would mean to her and gone to the trouble to get it for her.

The keyboard.

Why was she staring after Tanner, she thought impatiently. He was an enigma and too fond of hurling out challenges. She could deal with him later. She only had another two hours of the music before she’d have to give it up for a little while.

She flexed her hands, leaned forward, and started to play.

* * *

“Time’s up,” Mallory told Lara gently. “Tanner told me to pack up the keyboard and ask you to go up and sit with Maria and buckle up. We’ll be landing in fifteen minutes.”

“That soon?” She got to her feet and shook her head to clear it. “Tanner left it to the last minute, didn’t he? He said he’d only give me two more hours.”