by Penny Jordan
Andreas had no such qualms.
‘That we are lovers?’ he supplied dramatically for her. ‘What else should they think? I’m a man, Saskia, and you and I are supposed to be engaged. And if in reality we were, do you think for one minute that I wouldn’t—’
‘Want to test the goods before you bought them?’ Saskia threw wildly at him. ‘Oh, of course, a man like you would be bound to want to do that...to make sure...’
She tensed as she saw the way he was looking at her and the bitter anger in his eyes.
‘That kind of comment is typical of a woman like you,’ he ground out. ‘Reducing everything to terms of money. Well, let me tell you—’
But Saskia wouldn’t let him finish, defending herself sharply instead as she insisted, ‘You were the one who said...’
But Andreas immediately checked her.
‘What I said, or rather what I was trying to say before you interrupted me,’ he told her grittily, ‘was that if I genuinely loved you there would be no way I would be able to deny myself—or you—the pleasure of showing that love in the most intimate physical way there is. There would be no way that I could bear to let you out of my sight or my arms, certainly not for the length of a whole night.’
Saskia discovered that she had started to tremble almost violently as his words struck sharply sensitive chords deep within her body that she had not even known existed. Chords that activated a deep core of feminine longing, that brought her dangerously close to the edge of tears she had no idea why she wanted to cry. Panic raced through her veins, flooding out common sense. She could feel her heart thumping frantically with anxiety.
She opened her mouth to tell Andreas that she had changed her mind, that she wanted to go home, that she was not prepared to stay a minute longer, no matter how much he tried to blackmail her into doing so. But her panic didn’t stem from any fear of him. No. It was herself she feared now, and the way she was beginning to feel, the thoughts she was beginning to have. She couldn’t allow herself to feel that way about him. She couldn’t be attracted to him. He wasn’t her type of man at all. She abhorred the way he had treated her, the way he had misjudged her. But the shocking shaft of self-awareness, of longing she had felt as he’d described his desire for the woman he would love wasn’t going to be dismissed.
‘I can’t...’ she began, stopping as Andreas held up his hand warningly, silencing her as someone knocked on the door.
Dry-mouthed, Saskia waited whilst he went to open it, watching as their cases were brought in—not by the driver of the Land Rover but by another smaller, older man to whom Andreas was talking in Greek, smiling warmly at him as he did so, and then laughing good-humouredly as the older man looked past him at Saskia herself, before clapping him on the shoulders with a wide, beaming smile.
‘What was that all about?’ Saskia demanded curiously once he had gone and they were on their own again.
‘Stavros was saying that it is high time I had a wife...and that I must lose no time in getting myself a fine boy child,’ he added mercilessly.
Saskia could feel herself colouring to the roots of her hair as she looked everywhere but at the king-sized bed in the centre of the room.
Despite the room’s air conditioning she felt stifled, unable to breathe...hunted and desperate to escape.
‘I’m going to have that shower,’ Andreas told her, mundanely breaking into her thoughts, turning away from her as he did so and heading for one of the three doors that opened off the bedroom.
Once he had disappeared Saskia looked at the door to the corridor, longing to have the courage to walk through it and demand that she be flown back immediately to Athens. But if she did she would lose her job—Andreas would make sure of that!
Fiercely Saskia tried to concentrate on something else, anything else but the appalling situation she was in. She hated what Andreas was doing to her...what he was making her do. And she hated Andreas himself too...didn’t she?
Unable to answer her own question honestly, Saskia studied the view beyond the large patio doors that opened out onto an enclosed courtyard, which itself surrounded a tantalisingly tempting swimming pool complete with its own bubbling spa pool.
Small oases of green plants broke up the paving and the brilliant harshness of the sunlight. Comfortable-looking sun loungers complete with umbrellas offered a lazy way to enjoy the sunshine. The whole scene looked like something out of an exclusive holiday brochure, the kind Saskia had only been able to glance at enviously, knowing such a holiday was way beyond her means. But right now the only place she wanted to be was safe in her own home.
Andreas couldn’t really expect her to share a room—never mind a bed—with him. She couldn’t do it. She wouldn’t...she was so...
‘The bathroom’s free...’
Saskia froze. She had been so engrossed in her thoughts she hadn’t realised that Andreas was in the bedroom with her...standing right behind her, she recognised as she picked up the clean, warm scent of his newly showered body.
‘I’ll go and sort out something light for you to eat. Dinner won’t be for a few hours yet, and if you’ll take my advice you’ll try to rest for a while. Greeks eat late and go to bed even later.’
‘But I thought that we’d be having separate rooms,’ Saskia burst out, unable to control her panic any longer. ‘I would never have agreed to come here if I’d thought that I’d— No! Don’t you dare touch me,’ she protested as she felt him moving closer to her, reaching out to her. She wouldn’t be able to bear it if he touched her, if he...
Frantically she turned and ran towards the door, but somehow Andreas managed to get there before her, blocking her access to it, taking hold of her, his fingers biting into the soft flesh of her arms.
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ he ground out savagely. ‘What exactly is it you’re pretending to be so afraid of? This? A woman like you!’
Saskia gasped and shook from head to foot as his arms closed imprisioningly around her and his mouth came down on hers. He was wearing a robe, but as she struggled to break free it was his bare skin she could feel beneath her flaying hands. Warm, damp...hard, his chest roughened by dark hairs. Her hands skittered wildly over his torso, shocked by the intimate unexpected contact with his bare skin, seeking some kind of purchase to thrust him away and finding none.
He was kissing her with an angry passion that made her feel weak, the blood roaring in her head as her brain recognised her inability to deal with the searing experience of so much furiously male arrogant sensuality.
‘Stop acting like a novice, an innocent,’ Saskia heard him demanding against her mouth. His tongue forced her lips to part for its entry and the hand that was imprisoning her urged her even deeper into the sensual heat of his parted thighs as he leaned back against the door, taking her with him. His free hand was on her body, arrogantly stroking its way up past her waist to the curve of her breast.
Saskia tensed in shock as it cupped her breast, his thumb-pad circling her nipple and somehow enticing it to peak into a shocking bud of delicious wanton pleasure.
She could feel the aroused heat of him like a brand, and beneath her anger she felt a sharp, spiralling stab of female curiosity and excitement...a dangerous surge to conspire with him, to allow her traitorous body to experience even more of the intimacy of their embrace.
Without knowing she had done so she opened her mouth, hesitantly allowing him access to its sweetness, shyly starting to return his kiss and even more shyly allowing her tongue to mesh seductively with his.
‘Andreas? Are you in there? It’s me, Athena...I need to talk to you.’
Saskia froze as she heard Athena’s voice from the other side of the door, but Andreas showed no sign whatsoever of any confusion or embarrassment. Still holding Saskia against him in a grip she could not break, he opened the door and told Athena flatl
y, ‘Not now, Athena. As you can see, Saskia and I are busy.’
‘She is with you,’ Athena snapped angrily, darting Saskia a look of icy venom. ‘Why isn’t she in her own room?’
‘She is,’ Andreas returned coolly. ‘My room is Saskia’s room. My bed...her bed. My body...her...’
‘Your grandfather will never allow you to marry her,’ Athena breathed, but Andreas was already closing the door, ignoring her insistence that he listen to her.
‘Andreas, let me go,’ Saskia demanded. She couldn’t bear to look at him. Couldn’t bear to do anything, least of all think about the way she had responded to him...the way she had encouraged him...
Derisively Andreas watched her.
‘Okay, Saskia, that’s enough,’ he told her. ‘I know I told you I wanted you to act like a faithful fiancée, but that does not mean you have to pretend to be an innocent virgin who has never—’ Abruptly he stopped, frowning as he mulled over the unwanted suspicions that were striking him as he looked at Saskia’s pale face and hunted eyes.
Even though he had let her go she was still shaking, trembling from head to foot, and he could have sworn just now, when he had held her in his arms and kissed her...touched her, that he was the first man to make her feel so...
For a moment he examined what he was thinking, and feeling, and then firmly dismissed his suspicions. There was no way she could be so inexperienced, no way at all. There was enough Greek in him for him to consider that the gift of her virginity, her purity, was one of the greatest gifts a woman could give to the man she loved, but his cultural heritage from his British father and schooling mocked and even deplored such archaic feelings.
Would a woman expect a man to keep himself pure until he met her? No. So why should it be any different for a woman? As a mature man he accepted and respected a woman’s right to choose how she dealt with her own sexuality. But he knew too that as a lover, a husband, there would be a deeply, darkly passionate and possessive part of him that yearned to be his beloved’s only partner, an ache within him to teach her, show her the delights of sensual love. And right now something about Saskia’s reaction to him was sparking off a reaction he was having to fight to control, a response that was pure primitive Greek male. A need!
‘I’m not sleeping in this room with you,’ Saskia reiterated numbly. ‘I’m...’
If she was acting then she deserved an Oscar, Andreas decided grimly. But a fiancée who looked terrified at the very thought of being with him was the last thing he needed. He had to calm her down, to calm them both down.
‘Come with me,’ he commanded, taking hold of her hand and drawing her towards one of the doors that opened off the bedroom.
When he opened it Saskia could see that the room that lay beyond it was furnished as an office, with all the latest technological equipment.
‘Will it make you feel any better if I tell you that I intend to sleep in there?’ Andreas demanded.
‘In there? But it’s an office. There’s no bed,’ Saskia whispered shakily.
‘I can bring in one of the sun loungers and sleep on that,’ Andreas told her impatiently.
‘You mean it...’ Saskia was wary, reluctant to trust or believe him.
Andreas nodded his head grimly, wondering why on earth he was allowing his overactive conscience to force him into such a ridiculous situation. He knew there was no way she could possibly be the naïve, frightened innocent she was behaving as though she was.
‘But surely someone would notice if you removed a sun bed?’ she was asking him uncertainly.
‘Only my room opens out onto this pool area. It’s my private territory. The main pool which everyone else uses is round the other side of the villa.’
His own private pool. Saskia fought not to be impressed, but obviously she had not fought hard enough, she recognised ruefully as Andreas gave her an impatient look.
‘I’m not trying to make a point, Saskia, one-upmanship of that boastful sort is anathema to me. My grandfather may be a millionaire but I most certainly am not.’
It wasn’t entirely true, but something about the look in Saskia’s eyes made him want to refute any mental criticism she might have that he was some kind of idle playboy, lounging by a swimming pool all day.
‘It’s just that I happen to like an early-morning swim when I’m here at the villa; my sisters used to claim that I woke them up so I had this pool installed for my own use. Swimming laps helps me to clear my thoughts as well as allowing me to exercise.’
Saskia knew what he was saying, she felt the same about walking. Whenever she was worried about something, or had a problem to mull over, she walked.
As he watched her Andreas asked himself grimly why he was going to so much trouble to calm and reassure her. That frightened heartbeat he had felt thudding so anxiously against his own body just had to have been faked. There was no way it could not have been. Just like that huge-eyed watchfulness.
Saskia bit her lip as she looked away from him. It was obvious that Andreas meant what he said about sleeping in his office, but right now it wasn’t their sleeping arrangements that were at the forefront of her mind so much as what was happening during their waking hours—and what she herself had just experienced when he kissed her.
She couldn’t have secretly wanted him to kiss her. Surely it was impossible that that could happen without her being consciously aware of it. But what other explanation could there be for the way she had responded to him? her conscience demanded grittily.
‘Right,’ she could hear Andreas saying dryly, ‘now that we’ve got that sorted out I’ve got some work to do, so why don’t you have something to eat and then have a rest?’
‘I need to unpack,’ Saskia began to protest, but Andreas shook his head.
‘One of the maids will do that for you whilst you’re resting.’
When he saw her expression he told her softly, ‘They work for us, Saskia. They are servants and they work to earn their living just as you and I work to earn ours.’
* * *
‘OH, I’M SORRY, I didn’t wake you, did I?’ Pia said sotto voce. ‘But it will be dinner time soon and I thought you might appreciate some extra time to get ready.’
As Saskia came fully awake and struggled to sit up in the bed she recognised that her unexpected visitor was Andreas’s sister Olympia.
The arcane grin that crossed Pia’s face as she added, ‘We normally dress down here, not up, but Athena is bound to want to make an impact,’ made Saskia warm to her friendliness.
‘Where’s...?’ she began anxiously, but didn’t get any further than the first word of her enquiry.
‘Where’s Andreas?’ Pia supplied for her, ‘Grandfather telephoned to speak to our mother and then he wanted to have a word with Andreas.’ She gave a small shrug. ‘He’s probably still on the phone, and I have to warn you he isn’t in a very good mood.’ As she saw the way Saskia’s eyes became watchful she hastened to assure her. ‘Oh, it isn’t you. It’s Athena. She’s brought her accountant with her and Andreas is furious. He can’t stand him. None of us can, but Athena insisted that Grandfather invited Aristotle personally.’
As Pia darted about the room, switching on lamps to illuminate the darkness of the Greek evening, Saskia swung her feet to the floor. She had fallen asleep fully dressed and now she felt grubby and untidy. The thought of having to sit down at a dinner table with Andreas and Athena was not one she was looking forward to, but Pia was right about one thing: she would need to make an impact. Andreas would no doubt expect it of her. Still, with her suitcase full of the new clothes he had insisted on buying for her, she had no excuse not to do so.
‘Maria’s already unpacked your cases for you,’ Pia informed her. ‘I helped her,’ she added. ‘I love that little black number you’ve brought with you. It’s to die for. Your clothes are gorgeous. Andrea
s kept coming in and telling me not to make so much noise in case I woke you up.’ She pulled another face. ‘He’s so protective of you.
‘Mama and I are so glad that he’s met you,’ she added more quietly, giving Saskia a look of warm confidence that immediately made her feel horribly guilty. ‘We both love him to bits, of course,’ she went on, ‘and that hardly makes us impartial. But we were beginning to get so afraid that he might just give in to Grandfather and Athena for Grandfather’s sake—and we both know he could never love her. I suppose he’s told you about what she did when he was younger?’
Without waiting for Saskia to say anything Pia continued in a quick burst of flurried words, ‘I’m not supposed to know about it really. Lydia, my sister, told me, and swore me to secrecy, but of course it’s all right to discuss it with you because Andreas must have told you about it. He was only fifteen at the time—just a boy, really—and she was so much older and on the point of getting married. I know the actual age gap in terms of years would be nothing if it had been between two adults, but Andreas wasn’t an adult. He was still at school and she... I think it was wonderfully brave and moral of Andreas to refuse to go to bed with her—and do you know something else? I think that although Athena claims to love him a part of her really wants to punish him for not letting her—well, you know!’
Athena had tried to seduce Andreas when he had still been a schoolboy! Saskia had to fight hard to control both her shock and the distaste Pia’s revelations were causing her.
It was true that in terms of years—a mere seven or so—the age gap between them was not large. But for a woman in her twenties to attempt to seduce a boy of fifteen—surely that was almost sexual abuse? A cold shiver touched Saskia’s skin, icy fingers spreading a chilling message through her.
Would a woman who was prepared to do something like that allow a mere bogus fiancée to come between her and the man she wanted? And Athena obviously did want Andreas very badly indeed—even if her motivation for doing so was shrouded in secrecy.