by Penny Jordan
* * *
‘THAT IS A VERY pretty little ring you are wearing,’ Athena commented disparagingly as she got up off the lounger and came to stand next to Saskia.
They were alone at the poolside, Athena’s accountant having gone to make some telephone calls and Pia having left to help her mother, who was preparing for the arrival of her father.
‘But an engagement ring is no guarantee of marriage,’ Athena continued. ‘You look like a sensible girl to me, Saskia. Andreas is a very wealthy and experienced man. Men like him get so easily bored. You must know that yourself. I suspect that the chances of you actually walking down the aisle and marrying Andreas are very limited indeed, and they will become even more slender once Andreas’s grandfather arrives. He doesn’t want Andreas to marry you. He is very old-fashioned and very Greek. He has other plans for his only grandson and for the future of the business he has built up.’
She paused, watching Saskia calculatingly, and Saskia knew what she was thinking. Athena too had other plans for Andreas’s future.
‘If you really loved Andreas then surely he would be far more important to you than your own feelings. Andreas is devoted to his grandfather. Oh, I know he may not show it, but I can promise you that he is. Think what it would do to him emotionally, not to mention financially, if there were to be a rift between them. Andreas’s mother and his sisters are both financially dependent on their grandfather... If he were to banish Andreas from his life then Andreas would be banished from their lives as well.’
Athena gave a deep, theatrical sigh and then asked pseudo-gently, ‘How long do you think he would continue to want you once that had happened? And I can make it happen, Saskia...you know that, don’t you. His grandfather listens to me. It is because he wants my business to be joined to his, of course. That is the Greek way of doing things.’ She bared her teeth and gave Saskia an unkind smile. ‘It is not the Greek way of doing things for a millionaire to allow his heir to marry a penniless foreigner.
‘But let’s talk of something more pleasant. There is no reason why we shouldn’t come to a mutually happy arrangement—you and I. I could sit back and wait for Andreas to leave you, but I will be honest with you. I am approaching the age when it may become less easy for me to give Andreas the sons he will want. So, to make it easy for us both, I have a proposition to put to you. I am willing to pay you one million pounds to remove you from Andreas’s life—permanently.’
Saskia could feel the blood draining out of her face as shock hit her. Somehow she managed to drag herself into a sitting position on the sun lounger and then to stand up, so that she and Athena were face to face.
‘Money can’t buy love,’ she told her fiercely. ‘And it can’t buy me. Not one million pounds, not one hundred million pounds! No amount.’ Tears stung her eyes and she told herself that shock had put them there. ‘If at any time Andreas wants to end our engagement then that is his prerogative, but—’
‘You’re a fool—do you know that?’ Athena breathed, her whole face contorted with fury and malice. ‘Do you really think Andreas meant what he said about not insisting on a prenuptial agreement? Ha! His grandfather will make him have you sign one, and when Andreas grows tired of you, as he undoubtedly will, you will get nothing...not even any child he may have given you. Greek men do not give up their children. Greek families do not give up their heirs.’
Saskia didn’t want to hear any more. Without even bothering to pick up her wrap she started to walk towards the house, only just managing to prevent herself from breaking into a run.
As Saskia reached the house Pia was coming out of it through the open patio door.
‘Saskia...’ she began in concern, but Saskia shook her head, knowing she was in no fit state to talk to her—to her or indeed to anyone. She felt degraded by what Athena had said to her, degraded and angry. How dared Athena believe that her love was for sale...that money mattered more to her than Andreas...that she would ever...? Abruptly Saskia stopped. What was she thinking? She turned round and went back outside, heading not for the pool area but beyond it...to the island and the pathway along the cliffs. She needed to be on her own.
The full irony of what had happened was only just beginning to sink in. She had agreed to come to the island only because Andreas had blackmailed her into doing so and because she couldn’t afford to lose the income from her job. Yet when she was offered what amounted to financial security for life, not just for herself but more importantly for her beloved grandmother, as well as an immediate escape from her intolerable situation, she turned both down.
* * *
ANGRILY PIA started to hurry towards where Athena was lying sunning herself. After what she had just overheard there was no way she was not going to tell Athena what she thought of her. How dared she treat Saskia like that, trying to bribe her into leaving Andreas?
Andreas!
Pia came to an abrupt halt. Perhaps she ought to tell her brother what Athena had been up to and let him deal with her. Saskia had looked so dreadfully upset, and no wonder. Reluctantly Pia listened to the inner voice warning her that Andreas would not thank her for pre-empting his right to be the one to confront Athena. Turning on her heel, she walked back inside the villa in search of Andreas.
CHAPTER NINE
LESS THAN A third of the way along the path that circumnavigated the island Saskia stopped walking and turned round. She couldn’t go on; she had had enough. Loving Andreas—being so close to him every day in one sense and yet with such an unbridgeable gap between them in all the senses that really mattered—was more than she could cope with. Her love for him, her longing for him, was tearing her apart.
Slowly she started to walk back to the villa. She had no idea what she was going to do—throw herself on Andreas’s mercy and beg him to release her from their ‘agreement’? There was no point in trying to tell him what Athena had done. He was hardly likely to believe her, not with his opinion of her, and besides, she didn’t want him to know. If he did...once he did... Andreas was no fool, he was an astute, sharp-minded businessman, it wouldn’t take him long to guess what had happened, how she felt, and that was something she could not endure.
Once she reached the villa Saskia went straight to ‘her’ room which, thankfully, was empty. The maid had been in and the bed was freshly made. Quickly removing her swimsuit, she went to have a shower.
* * *
‘ANDREAS,’ ATHENA purred seductively as she saw him coming out of his grandfather’s office.
‘Not now, Athena.’ Andreas cut her short. He had spent the best part of the last couple of hours trying to come to terms with feelings he had never expected to have, never mind wanted to have, and now that he had come to a decision he was anxious to act on it without any delay, especially from Athena.
It was no use trying to hide the truth from himself any longer.
He had fallen in love with Saskia. How? Why? When? To his exasperation no amount of analytical self-probing on his part had been able to produce any kind of logical answers to such questions. All his heart, his body, his emotions, his very soul kept insisting over and over again was they wanted her; loved her; craved and needed her. If the logical-thinking part of him that was already fighting a desperate rearguard action should dare to argue, then his emotions would see to it that his life was no longer worth living.
But look at what she is he had tried to remind himself. But his emotions had refused to listen. He loved her as she was, past errors of judgement and all. Errors of judgement? Picking up men in bars...coming as near as dammit to selling herself to them—if not for money then certainly for the pseudo-love they had offered her.
It wasn’t her fault, his heart had protested in loving defence. She had been deprived of her father’s love as a child. She was simply trying to compensate for that. With love, his love, she could be made whole again. She would forget her past a
nd so would he. What mattered was the here and now and the future they would share...a future which meant nothing to him without her in it.
And so it had continued, on and on, when he was supposed to be working. In the end he had had no option other than to give in, and now he was on his way to find Saskia to tell her...ask her...to beg her if necessary.
‘Is Saskia still outside?’ he asked Athena, impatient to tell Saskia how he felt.
Athena’s eyes narrowed. She knew that look in a man’s eyes, and to see it now, in the eyes of the only man she wanted, was not to be tolerated. If Saskia couldn’t be induced to leave Andreas then he must reject her, and Athena knew exactly how to make that happen.
‘Oh...’ Immediately she faked a look of concern, ‘Didn’t you know? She’s gone for a walk...with Ari. I know you won’t like me saying this, Andreas, but—well, we all know how much Ari likes women, and Saskia has been making it rather obvious that she reciprocates... Not whilst you’re around, of course...’
‘Andreas—’ Pia tried to stop him several minutes later but he refused to stop or listen.
‘Not now, Pia, whatever it is...’ he said brusquely, before striding down the corridor towards his suite.
Goodness, but he looked angry, Pia reflected as she watched his departing back. Well, what she had to tell him wasn’t going to lighten his bad mood, but he would have to be told. She knew that.
Andreas could hear the sound of the shower running as he walked into the bedroom and slammed the door behind him.
‘Saskia?’ he demanded, striding towards the bathroom and pulling open the door.
Saskia blanched as she saw him. She had just that second stepped out of the shower and wrapped a towel around her damp body—thank goodness.
‘Why are you having a shower?’ Andreas demanded suspiciously.
Saskia stared at him nonplussed.
‘I’ve just been for a walk and it was hot and...’
Andreas could feel the shock of his jealousy jolt right through his body, exploding inside him, almost a physical pain. It furnished him with some very vivid and very sexual images of just why Saskia might want to cool down. Like any man in love, he couldn’t bear the thought of his beloved in the arms of someone else, and he reacted predictably.
Taking hold of her, his fingers gripping painfully into the delicate flesh of her upper arms, he gritted jealously, ‘You just couldn’t wait, could you? Where did he take you?’
‘He...?’ Saskia started to protest, confused by both his words and his actions. ‘What on earth...?’
But Andreas wasn’t listening.
‘Was it out in the open, where anyone could have seen you? Is that what you like, Saskia...demeaning yourself so completely that...? But of course you do. I already know that, don’t I? You want to be treated badly, to be used and then discarded like a... Well, then, if that’s the way you like it then let’s see if I can come up to your expectations, shall we? If I can give you what you so obviously want.’
He was a man no longer in control of what he was doing, wanting passionately to stamp his possession on her—body and soul—to make her his and wipe from her memory all thoughts of any other man!
What on earth had happened to turn Andreas from the cool, remote man she was familiar with into the raw explosion of male fury and passion she was facing now? Saskia wondered in bemusement. It was passion she could sense most strongly, she recognised dizzily. It emanated from him like a heat haze, drawing her into its danger and excitement, melting, burning away her own protective caution.
Wasn’t this secretly what a part of her had wanted to happen? For him to look at her as he was doing now, with the fierce, elemental need of a man no longer able to fight off his own desire.
Somehow, seeing Andreas so close to losing control allowed her to give full reign to her own feelings and longings.
‘You’re mine,’ Andreas was telling her rawly as he pulled her hard against his body. ‘Mine, Saskia... And what is mine I mean to have full measure of,’ he added thickly.
Saskia could feel her skin starting to quiver responsively where he was touching it. He slid his hands oh, so deliberately up her bare arm and over her shoulder, his fingertips caressing the nape of her neck. Blissfully she arched her spine, offering herself up to his touch, feeling the quiver-raising goosebumps on her skin moving deeper, growing stronger, as they became a pulse that echoed and then drove her heartbeat.
‘Kiss me, Andreas...’
Had she actually said that? Demanded it in that unfamiliar husky little voice that sounded so sexy and made Andreas’s eyes glitter even more hotly?
‘Oh, I can promise you that I’m going to do far more than just kiss you,’ Andreas assured her as his hands very deliberately removed the towel from her body. ‘Far, far more,’ he repeated sensually, before adding, ‘But if a kiss is what you want...’
His hands were spread against her collarbone and her throat, his thumbs massaging her fragile bones, his lips brushing just the merest tantalising breath of heat against the pulse that raced so frantically beneath her skin.
‘Where exactly is it you want me to kiss you, Saskia?’ he was asking her. ‘Here...? Here...? Here..?’
As his mouth moved tantalisingly over her throat and then her jaw, covering every inch of her face but her lips, Saskia heard herself start to moan softly with longing until, unable to endure any more of his delicious torment, she put her hand against his face and turned his mouth to hers, exhaling in a soft swoon of relief as she finally tasted the hard warmth she had been aching for.
‘Andreas... Andreas...’ She could hear herself whispering his name as she slid her fingers into his hair and clasped his head, probing the hard outline of his lips with small, frantic thrusts of her tongue-tip.
Over her shoulder Andreas caught sight of their entwined reflections in the mirror. Saskia’s naked back view was as perfectly sculpted as that of any classical statue, but her body was composed of living, breathing flesh, and just the feel of her sweetly firm breasts pressing against him, never mind what the dedicated assault of her honey tongue was doing to him, totally obliterated everything but the way he felt about her.
Against the delicate pallor of her Celtic skin his hands looked shockingly male and dark as he caressed her, held her, moulded her so close to his body that he could taste her small gasp of sensual pleasure as she felt his arousal. His clothes were a hindrance he no longer wanted, but he couldn’t make the time to remove them until he had punished that sexily tormenting tongue of hers for the way it was destroying his self-control.
He felt the deep, racking shudder of pleasure that ran right through her body as he opened his mouth on hers, taking into his domain full control of their kiss and of her.
Saskia gasped and trembled, yielding the sweet intimacy of her mouth and the soft-fleshed nakedness of her body to Andreas’s dominance. What was happening between them was surely the pinnacle of her whole life, the reason she had been born. Here, in Andreas’s arms, love and desire were coming together for her in the most perfect way possible.
Saskia had forgotten what she had been going to tell him, why it was so imperative for her to leave. This was what she had wanted to happen from the very first second she had set eyes on him.
Unable to bring himself to break the intoxicating sensuality of their shared kiss, Andreas picked Saskia up and carried her over to the bed. Whatever she had been before no longer mattered. From now on she would be his.
The heavy natural linen curtains Saskia had closed over the large windows before taking her shower diffused the strong sunlight outside, bathing the room in a softly muted glow that turned her fair skin almost ethereally translucent. As he laid her on the bed Andreas gave in to the temptation to caress the taut quivering peak of one breast with his lips, savouring it in a slow, careful exploration which made Saskia’
s whole body shake with sharply intense arousal.
‘No, I don’t want to rush this,’ Andreas denied to her, his voice thick, almost cracking over the words as he refused the frantic pleas of her writhing body. ‘I want to take my time and savour everything!’ he emphasised as his hand caressed the breast he had just been suckling, his thumb tip etching unbearably erotic circles around the sensitively receptive nub of flesh.
‘I want you so much,’ Saskia whispered achingly. ‘I want you...’ She stopped, her eyes clouding with a mixture of anxiety and uncertainty as she heard her own voice and briefly recognised her own danger.
It was too late. Andreas had heard her. Pausing in the act of removing his clothes, he leaned over her, bracing himself so that the muscles in his arms corded tautly, capturing her awed gaze whilst he asked her rawly, ‘Where do you want me, Saskia? Tell me... Show me...’
But he already knew the answer to his question because he had already lifted his hand from the bed and brushed his knuckles in the gentlest of touches the full length of the centre of her body, letting it come to rest palm-down against the soft swelling of her most intimate heart.
‘You haven’t answered my question, Saskia,’ he reminded her softly, as his fingertips drew delicate circles of pleasure against her, so jaw-clenching desirable that Saskia thought she might actually faint from the heat and intensity of the longing they were arousing.
‘Tell me...tell me what you want,’ Andreas was insisting, spacing each word between kisses so ravishingly tender that Saskia felt as though she was melting.
In the cocoon of her own private world he had become for Saskia the lodestone that drew her, the focus of everything she was experiencing, of everything she was and ever wanted to be, the centre of her world.