Conveniently His Omnibus
Page 26
Andreas was such a very male man it was hard to imagine him in the role of hunted rather than hunter. If ever a man had been designed by nature to be proactive, arrogant and predatory that man was, in Saskia’s opinion, Andreas. But there was something so alien to Saskia’s own experience in Athena, a coldness, a greed, almost an obsessiveness that Saskia found it hard to relate to her or even think of her in terms of being a member of her own sex.
Her determination to marry Andreas was chillingly formidable.
‘Of course, if it wasn’t for Grandfather’s health there wouldn’t be any problem,’ Pia was saying ruefully. ‘We all know that. Grandfather likes to think that because he works for him Andreas is financially dependent on him, but...’ She stopped, shaking her head.
‘You are going to wear the black, aren’t you? I’m dying to see you in it. You’ve got the colouring for it. I look so drab in black, although you can bet that Athena will wear it. Whoops!’ She grimaced as they both heard male footsteps in the corridor outside the bedroom. ‘That will be Andreas, and he’ll scalp me if he thinks I’m being a pest.’
Saskia tensed as Andreas came into the room, watching as his glance went from the bed to where she was standing in the corner of the room.
‘Pia,’ he began ominously, ‘I told you...’
‘I was awake when she came,’ Saskia intervened protectively. She liked Andreas’s sister, and if she’d been genuinely in love with him and planning to marry him she knew she would have been delighted to have found a potential friend in this warm-hearted, impulsive woman.
Pia launched herself at Andreas, laughing up into his face as she hugged him and told him triumphantly, ‘See? You are wrong, big brother, and you must not be so firm and bossy with me otherwise Saskia will not want to marry you. And now that I have met her I am determined that she will be my sister-in-law. We were just discussing what she is going to wear for dinner,’ she added. ‘I have warned her that Athena will be dressed to kill!’
‘If you don’t take yourself off to your own room so that we can all get ready, Athena is going to be the only one who is dressed for anything,’ Andreas told her dryly.
Kissing his forehead, Pia released him and hurried to the door, pausing as she opened it to give Saskia an impish grin and remind her, ‘Wear the black!’
‘I’m sorry,’ Andreas apologised after the door had closed behind her. ‘I asked her not to disturb you.’
So he hadn’t been deceived by her fib, Saskia recognised.
‘I don’t mind. I like her,’ Saskia responded, this time telling him the truth.
‘Mmm... Pia’s likeability is something I’m afraid she tends to trade on on occasion. As the baby of the family she’s a past mistress at getting her own way,’ he told Saskia in faint exasperation, before glancing at his watch and informing her, ‘You’ve got half an hour to get ready.’
Saskia took a deep steadying breath. Something about the revelations Pia had made had activated the deep core of sympathy for others that was so much a part of her nature. Somewhere deep inside her a switch had been thrown, a sea change made, and without her knowing quite how it had happened Andreas had undergone a transformation, from her oppressor and a dictator whom she loathed and feared to someone who deserved her championship and help. She had a role which she was now determined she was going to play to the very best of her ability.
‘Half an hour,’ she repeated in as businesslike a manner as she could. ‘Then in that case I should like to use the bathroom first.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
‘SO, SASKIA, HOW do you think you will adjust to being a Greek wife—if you and Andreas do actually get married?’
Saskia could hear Pia’s indrawn gasp of indignation at the way Athena had framed her question, but she refused to allow herself to be intimidated by the other woman. Ever since they had all taken their places at the dinner table Saskia had recognised that Athena was determined to unnerve and upset her as much as she could. However, before she could say anything Andreas was answering the question for her.
‘There is no “if” about it Athena,’ he told her implacably. ‘Saskia will become my wife.’
Now it was Saskia’s turn to stifle her own potentially betraying gasp of shock, but she couldn’t control her instinctive urge to look anxiously across the table at Andreas. What would he do when he ultimately had to back down and admit to Athena that their engagement was over? That was his problem and not hers, she tried to remind herself steadily.
Something odd had happened to her somehow; she was convinced of it. Andreas had walked out of the office adjoining ‘their’ bedroom earlier this evening and come to a standstill in front of her, saying quietly, ‘I doubt that any man looking at you now could do anything other than wish that you were his, Saskia.’
She had certainly never had any desire to go on the stage—far from it—and yet from that moment she had felt as though somehow she had stepped into a new persona. Suddenly she had become Andreas’s fiancée and, like any woman in love, not only was she proud to be with the man she loved, she also felt very femalely protective of him. The anxiety in her eyes now was for him and because of him. How would he feel when Athena tauntingly threw the comment he had just made back in his face? How must he have felt when he had first realised, as a boy, just what she wanted from him?
‘Wives. I love wives.’ Aristotle, Athena’s accountant, grinned salaciously, leaning towards Saskia so that he could put his hand on her arm.
Immediately she turned away from him. Saskia fully shared Pia’s view of Athena’s accountant. Although he was quite tall, the heavy, weighty structure of his torso made him look almost squat. His thick black hair was heavily oiled and the white suit he was wearing over a black shirt, in Saskia’s opinion at least, did him no favours. Andreas, on the other hand, looked sexily cool and relaxed in elegantly tailored trousers with a cool white cotton shirt.
If she had privately thought her black dress might be rather over the top she had swiftly realised how right Pia had been to suggest that she wore it once she had seen Athena’s outfit.
Her slinky skintight white dress left nothing to the imagination.
‘It was designed especially for me,’ Saskia had heard her smirking to Andreas. ‘And it is made to be worn exactly the way I most love—next to my skin,’ she had added, loudly enough for Saskia to overhear. ‘Which reminds me. I hope you have warned your fiancée that I like to share your morning swim so she won’t be too shocked...’ She had turned to Saskia. ‘Andreas is like me, he likes to swim best in his skin,’ she had told her purringly.
In his skin. Saskia hadn’t been able to prevent herself from giving Andreas a brief shocked look which, fortunately, Athena had put down to Saskia’s jealousy at the thought of another woman swimming nude with her fiancée.
Whilst Saskia had been digesting this stomach-churning disclosure she had heard Andreas himself replying brusquely, ‘I can only recall one occasion on which you attempted to join me in my morning lap session, Athena, and I recall too that I told you then how little I appreciate having my morning peace interrupted.’
‘Oh, dear.’ Athena had pouted, unabashed. ‘Are you afraid that I have said something you didn’t want your fiancée to know? But surely, Andreas,’ she had murmured huskily, reaching out to place her hand on his arm, ‘she must realise that a man as attractive as you...as virile as you...will have had other lovers before her...’
Her brazenness had almost taken Saskia’s breath away. She could imagine just how she would be feeling right now if Andreas had indeed been her fiancée. How jealous and insecure Athena’s words would be making her feel. No woman wanted to be reminded of the other women who had shared an intimate relationship with her beloved before her.
But Andreas, it seemed, was completely unfazed by Athena’s revelations. He had simply removed her arm by the expedient
of stepping back from her and putting his own arm around Saskia’s shoulders. He had drawn her so close to his body that Saskia had known he must be able to feel the fine tremor of reaction she was unable to suppress. A tremor which had increased to a full-flooded convulsion when his lean fingers had started almost absently to caress the smooth ball of her bare shoulder.
‘Saskia knows that she is the only woman I have ever loved—the woman I want to spend my life with.’
The more she listened to and watched Athena the more Saskia subscribed to Pia’s belief that it wasn’t love that was motivating the other woman. Sometimes she looked at Andreas as though she hated him and wanted to totally destroy him.
Aristotle, or ‘Ari’ as he had told Saskia he preferred to be called, was still trying to engage her attention, but she was deliberately trying to feign a lack of awareness of that fact. There was something about him she found so loathsome that the thought of even the hot damp touch of his hand on her arm made her shudder with distaste. However, good manners forced her to respond to his questions as politely as she could, even when she thought they were intolerable and intrusive. He had already told her that were he Andreas’s accountant he would be insisting she sign a prenuptial contract to make sure that if the marriage ended Andreas’s money would be safe.
Much to Saskia’s surprise Andreas himself had thoroughly confounded her by joining in the conversation and telling Aristotle grimly that he would never ask the woman he loved to sign such an agreement.
‘Money is nothing when compared with love,’ he had told Aristotle firmly in a deep, implacable voice, his words so obviously genuine that Saskia had found she was holding her breath a little as she listened to him.
Then he had looked at her, and Saskia had remembered just how they had met and what he really thought of her, and suddenly she had felt the most bitter taste of despair in her mouth and she had longed to tell him how wrong he was.
At least she had the comfort of knowing that his mother and sister liked her, and Pia had assured her that their elder sister was equally pleased that Andreas had fallen in love, and was looking forward to meeting Saskia when she and her husband and their children came to the island later in the month.
‘Lydia’s husband is a diplomat, and they are in Brussels at the moment, but she is longing to meet you,’ Pia had told her.
She would have hated it if Andreas’s close family had not liked and welcomed her.
Abruptly Saskia felt her face start to burn. What on earth was she thinking? She was only playing the part of Andreas’s fiancée. Their engagement was a fiction, a charade...a lie created simply to help him escape from the trap that Athena was trying to set for him. What she must not forget was that it was a lie he had tricked and blackmailed her into colluding with.
Aristotle was saying something to her about wanting to show her the villa’s gardens. Automatically Saskia shook her head, her face burning with fresh colour as she saw the way Andreas was watching her, a mixture of anger and warning in his eyes. He couldn’t seriously think she would actually accept Aristotle’s invitation?
‘Saskia has had a long day. I think it’s time we said our goodnights,’ she heard him saying abruptly as he stood up.
Saskia looked quickly round the table. It was obvious from the expressions of everyone else just what interpretation they were putting on Andreas’s decision, and Saskia knew that the heat washing her face and throat could only confirm their suspicions.
‘Andreas...’ she started to protest as he came round to her chair and stood behind her. ‘I don’t...’
‘You’re wasting your breath, Saskia.’ Pia chuckled. ‘Because my dear brother obviously does! Oh, you needn’t put that lordly expression on for me, brother dear.’ She laughed again, before adding mischievously, ‘And I wouldn’t mind betting that you won’t be lapping the pool at dawn...’
‘Pia!’ her mother protested, pink-cheeked, whilst Athena gave Saskia a look of concentrated hatred.
Hastily Saskia stood up, and then froze as Aristotle did the same, insisting in a thick voice, ‘I must claim the privilege of family friend and kiss the new addition to the family goodnight.’
Before Saskia could evade him he was reaching for her, but before he could put his words into action Andreas was standing between them, announcing grimly, ‘There is only one man my fiancée kisses...’
* * *
‘IF YOU’LL TAKE my advice, you’ll keep well away from Aristotle. He has a very unsavoury reputation with women. His ex-wife has accused him of being violent towards her and—’
Saskia turned as she stepped into the bedroom, her anger showing. ‘You can’t mean what I think you mean,’ she demanded whilst Andreas closed the door. How could he possibly imagine that she would even contemplate being interested in a man like the accountant? It was an insult she was simply not prepared to tolerate.
‘Can’t I?’ Andreas countered curtly. ‘You’re here for one reason and one reason only, Saskia. You’re here to act as my fiancée. Whilst I can appreciate that, being the woman you are, the temptation to feather your nest a little and do what you so obviously do best must be a strong one, let me warn you now against giving in to it. If you do, in fact...’
If she did... Why, she would rather die than let a slimeball like Ari come anywhere near her, Saskia reflected furiously. And to think that back there in the dining room she had actually felt sympathetic towards Andreas, had actually wanted to protect him. Now, though, her anger shocked through her in a fierce, dangerous flood of pride.
‘If you want the truth, I find Ari almost as repulsively loathsome as I do you,’ she threw bitterly at him.
‘You dare to speak of me in the same breath as that reptile? How dare you speak so of me...or to me...?’ Andreas demanded, his anger surging to match hers as he reached out to grab hold of her. His eyes smouldered with an intensity of emotion that Saskia could see was threatening to get out of control.
‘That man is an animal—worse than an animal. Only last year he narrowly escaped standing on a criminal charge. I cannot understand why Athena tolerates him and I have told her so.’
‘Perhaps she wants to make you jealous.’
It was an off-the-cuff remark, full of bravado, but Saskia wished immediately she had not said it when she saw the way the smoulder suddenly became a savage flare of fury.
‘She does? Or you do...? Oh, yes, I saw the way he was looking at you over dinner...touching you...’
‘That was nothing to do with me,’ Saskia protested, but she could sense that the words hadn’t touched him, that something else was fuelling his anger and feeding it, something that was hidden from her but which Andreas himself obviously found intolerable.
‘And as for you finding me loathsome,’ Andreas said through gritted teeth. ‘Perhaps it is unchivalrous, ungentlemanly of me to say so, but that wasn’t loathing I could see in your eyes earlier on today. It wasn’t loathing I could hear in your voice, feel in your body...was it? Was it?’ he demanded sharply.
Saskia started to tremble.
‘I don’t know,’ she fibbed wildly. ‘I can’t remember.’
It was, she recognised a few seconds later, the worst possible thing she could have said. Because immediately Andreas pounced, whispering with soft savagery, ‘No? Then perhaps I should help you to remember...’
She heard herself starting to protest, but somehow the words were lost—not because Andreas was refusing to listen, but because her lips were refusing to speak.
‘So when exactly was it that you found me so loathsome Saskia?’ Andreas was demanding as he closed both his arms around her, forming them into a prison from which it was impossible for her to escape. ‘When I did this...?’ His mouth was feathering over hers, teasing and tantalising it, arousing a hot torrent of sensation she didn’t want to experience. ‘Or when I did this...?’
‘What? Still no answer...? I wonder why not,’ he was taunting her, before adding bitingly, ‘Or do I need to wonder at all? You are a woman who is used to giving her body to a man, Saskia, who is used to experiencing pleasure. And right now you want that pleasure from me.’
‘No,’ Saskia moaned in denial, trying to turn her face away from his and to break free of him.
‘Yes,’ he insisted rawly. ‘Yes. Admit it, Saskia... You want me... Your body wants mine. It wants the sexual satisfaction it’s used to...it aches and craves for.’
A shudder of shock ripped through her as Saskia recognised the truth of what he was saying. She did want him, but not in the way he was suggesting. She wanted him as a woman wanted the man she loved, she realised shakily. She wanted him as her lover, not merely as her sexual partner, someone with whom she could find a release for a basic physical need, as he was so cruelly saying. But how could she love him? She couldn’t... But she did.
She had fallen in love with him virtually the moment she had set eyes on him, Saskia acknowledged despairingly, but she had told herself that because of her loyalty to her friend he was out of bounds to her and that she could not, must not allow herself to have such feelings, just as she could not allow herself to have them now. Although for very different reasons. Megan was no longer a barrier to her loving Andreas, but Andreas himself and what he thought about her certainly was.
‘Let me go, Andreas,’ she demanded.