Saskia could hear quite plainly the PA’s sudden shocked indrawn breath, but once again the other woman could not be any more shocked than she was herself. Andreas had claimed that she was a good actress, but he was no slouch in that department himself. The look that he was giving her right now alone, never mind the things he had said...
After his PA had scuttled out of his office, closing the door behind her, she told him shakily, ‘You do realise, don’t you, that by lunchtime it will be all over the office?’
‘All over the office?’ he repeated, giving her a desirous look. ‘My dear, I shall be very surprised and even more disappointed if our news has not travelled a good deal further than that.’
When she gave him an uncomprehending look he explained briefly, ‘By lunchtime I fully expect it to have travelled at least as far as Athens...’
‘To your grandfather,’ Saskia guessed.
‘Amongst others,’ Andreas agreed coolly, without enlightening her as to who such ‘others’ might be.
Unexpectedly there were suddenly dozens of questions she wanted to ask him: about his family, as well as his grandfather, and the island he intended to take her to, and about the woman his grandfather wanted him to marry. She had a vague idea that Greeks were very interested in protecting family interests and according to Emma his cousin was ‘mega wealthy’, as was Andreas himself.
Somehow, without knowing quite how it had happened, she discovered that Andreas had released her hand and that she was walking through the door he had opened for her.
* * *
‘READY, Saskia?’
Saskia felt the embarrassed colour start to seep up under her skin as Andreas approached her desk. Her colleagues were studiously avoiding looking openly at them but Saskia knew perfectly well that they were the cynosure of their attention. How could they not be?
‘Gordon, I’m afraid that Saskia is going to be late back from lunch,’ Andreas was announcing to her bemused boss as he came out from his office.
‘Have you told him our news yet, darling,’ Andreas asked her lovingly.
‘Er...no...’ Saskia couldn’t bring herself to look directly at him.
‘Saskia,’ she could hear her boss saying weakly as he looked on disbelievingly, ‘I don’t understand...’
He would understand even less if she tried to explain to him what was really happening, Saskia acknowledged bleakly. It seemed to her that it was a very unfair thing to do to deceive the man who had been so kind to her but what alternative did she really have.
‘You mustn’t blame Saskia,’ Andreas was saying protectively. ‘I’m afraid I’m the one who’s at fault. I insisted that our relationship should be kept a secret until the outcome of our takeover bid became public. I didn’t want Saskia to be accused of having conflicting loyalties—and I must tell you, Gordon, that she insisted that any kind of discussion about the takeover was off-limits between us... Mind you, talking about work was not exactly my number one priority when we were together,’ Andreas admitted, with a sensual look at Saskia that made her face burn even more hotly and caused more than one audible and envious gasp from her female co-workers.
‘Why did you have to do that?’ Saskia demanded fretfully the moment they were alone and out of earshot.
‘Do what?’ Andreas responded unhelpfully.
‘You know perfectly well what I mean,’ Saskia protested. ‘Why couldn’t we just have met somewhere?’
‘In secret?’ He looked more bored now than amorous, his eyebrows drawing together as he frowned impatiently down at her. He was a good deal taller than her, well over six foot, and it hurt her neck a little, craning to look up at him. She wished he wouldn’t walk so close to her; it made her feel uncomfortable and on edge and somehow aware of herself as a woman in a way that wasn’t familiar to her.
‘Haven’t I already made it plain to you that the whole object of this exercise is to bring our relationship into the public domain? Which is why—’ He smiled grimly at Saskia as he broke off from what he was saying to tell her silkily, ‘I’ve booked a table at the wine bar for lunch. I ate there last night and I have to say that the food was excellent—even if what happened later was less...palatable...’
Suddenly Saskia had had enough.
‘Look, I keep trying to tell you, last night was a mistake. I...’
‘I completely agree with you,’ Andreas assured her. ‘It was a mistake...your mistake...and whilst we’re on the subject, let me warn you, Saskia, if you ever manifest anything similar whilst you are engaged to me, if you ever even look at another man...’ He stopped as he saw the shock widening her eyes.
‘I’m half-Greek, my dear,’ he reminded her softly. ‘And when it comes to my woman, I’m more Greek than I am British...very much more...’
‘I’m not your woman,’ was the only response Saskia found she could make.
‘No,’ he agreed cynically. ‘You belong to any man who can afford you, don’t you, in reality? But...’ He stopped again as he heard the sharp sound of protest she made, her face white and then red as her emotions overwhelmed her self-control.
‘You have no right to speak to me like that,’ Saskia told him thickly.
‘No right? But surely as your fiancée I have every right,’ Andreas taunted her, and then, before she could stop him, he reached out and ran one long finger beneath her lower eyelashes, collecting on it the angry humiliated tears that had just fallen. ‘Tears?’ he mocked her. ‘My dear, you are an even better actress then I thought.’
They had reached the wine bar and Saskia was forced to struggle to control her emotions as he opened the door and drew her inside.
‘I don’t want anything to eat. I’m not hungry,’ she told him flatly once they had been shown to their table.
‘Sulking?’ he asked her succinctly. ‘I can’t force you to eat, but I certainly don’t intend to deny myself the pleasure of enjoying a good meal.’
‘There are things we have to discuss,’ he added in a cool, businesslike voice as he picked up the menu she had ignored and read it. ‘I know most of your personal details from your file, but if we are to convince my family and especially my grandfather that we are lovers, then there are other things I shall need to know...and things you will need to know about me.’
Lovers... Saskia just managed to stop herself from shuddering openly. If she had to accede to his blackmail then she was going to have to learn to play the game by his rules or risk being totally destroyed by him.
‘Lovers.’ She gave him a bleak smile. ‘I thought Greek families didn’t approve of sex before marriage.’
‘Not for their own daughters,’ he agreed blandly. ‘But since you are not Greek, and since I am half-British I am sure that my grandfather will be more...tolerant...’
‘But he wouldn’t be tolerant if you were engaged to your cousin?’ Saskia pressed, not sure why she was doing so and even less sure just why the thought of his cousin should arouse such a sensation of pain and hostility within her.
‘Athena, my cousin, is a widow, a previously married woman, and naturally my grandfather...’ He paused and then told her dryly, ‘Besides, Athena herself would never accept my grandfather’s interference in any aspect of her life. She is a very formidable woman.’
‘She’s a widow?’ For some reason Saskia had assumed that this cousin was a young girl. It had never occurred to her that she might already have been married.
‘A widow,’ Andreas confirmed. ‘With two teenage children.’
‘Teenage!’
‘She married at twenty-two,’ Andreas told her with a shrug. ‘That was almost twenty years ago.’
Saskia’s eyes widened as she did her sums. Athena was obviously older than Andreas. A lonely and no doubt vulnerable woman who was being pressurised into a second marriage she perhaps did not want, Saskia decided sympathetically.
‘However, you need not concern yourself too much with Athena, since it is doubtful that you will meet her. She lives a very peripatetic existence. She has homes in Athens, New York and Paris and spends much of her time travelling between them, as well as running the shipping line she inherited.’
A shipping line and a hotel chain. No wonder Andreas’s grandfather was so anxious for them to marry. It amazed Saskia that Andreas was not equally keen on the match, especially knowing the hard bargain he had driven over the takeover.
As though he had guessed what she was thinking, he leaned towards her and told her grittily, ‘Unlike you, I am not prepared to sell myself.’
‘I was not selling myself,’ Saskia denied hotly, and then frowned as the waiter approached their table carrying two plates of delicious-looking food.
‘I didn’t order a meal,’ she began as he set one of them down in front of her and the other in front of Andreas.
‘No. I ordered it for you,’ Andreas told her. ‘I don’t like to see my women looking like skinny semi-starved rabbits. A Greek man may be permitted to beat his wife, but he would never stoop to starving her.’
‘Beat...’ Saskia began rising to the bait and then stopped as she saw the glint in his eyes and realised that he was teasing her.