But then perhaps Athena’s display was meant only for Andreas...perhaps it was meant to be a reminder to him of intimacies they might already have shared. She did, after all, have the key to his apartment, and she certainly seemed to want to make it plain to Saskia that there was a very special intimacy between the two of them.
As though in confirmation of Saskia’s thoughts, Athena suddenly leaned forward, putting one manicured hand against Andreas’s face and effectively coming between them. With a sultry suggestiveness she said softly, ‘Aren’t you going to kiss me? You normally do, and I’m sure your fiancée understands that in Greece family relationships...family loyalties are very, very important.’
‘What Saskia understands is that I love her and I want her to be my wife,’ Andreas informed Athena curtly, stepping back from her and taking Saskia with him. As he held her in front of him and closed his arms around her, tucking her head against his shoulder, Saskia reminded herself just why he was doing so and just what her role was supposed to be.
‘How sweet!’ Athena pronounced, giving Saskia an icy look before turning back to Andreas and telling him insincerely, ‘I hate to cast a shadow on your happiness, Andreas, but your grandfather really isn’t very pleased with you at all at the moment. He was telling me how concerned he is about the way you’re handling this recent takeover. Of course I understand how important it must be to you to establish your own mark on the business, to prove yourself, so to speak, but the acquisition of this hotel chain really was quite foolhardy, as is this decision of yours to keep on all the existing staff.
‘You’ll never make a profit doing that,’ she scolded him mock sweetly. ‘I must say, though, having had the opportunity to look a little deeper into the finances of the chain, I’m glad I pulled out of putting in my own bid. Although of course I can afford to lose the odd million or so. What a pity it is, Andreas, that you didn’t accept my offer to run the shipping line for me. That would have given you much more scope than working as your grandfather’s errand boy.’
Saskia felt herself tensing as she absorbed the insult Athena had just delivered, but to her astonishment Andreas seemed completely unmoved by it. Yet she only had to make the merest observation and he fired up at her with so much anger.
‘As you already well know, Athena,’ he responded, almost good-humouredly, ‘It was my grandfather’s decision to buy the British hotel chain and it was one I endorsed. As for its future profitability... My research confirms that there is an excellent market for a chain of luxurious hotels in Britain, especially when it can boast first-class leisure facilities and a top-notch chef—which is what I am going to ensure that our chain has.
‘And as for the financial implications of keeping on the existing staff—Saskia is an accountant, and I’m sure she’ll be able to tell you—as you should know yourself, being a businesswoman—that in the long run it would cost more in redundancy payments to get rid of the staff than it will cost to continue employing them. Natural wastage and pending retirement will reduce their number quite dramatically over the next few years, and, where appropriate, those who wish to stay on will be given the opportunity to relocate and retrain. The leisure clubs we intend to open in each hotel alone will take up virtually all of the slack in our staffing levels.
‘However, Saskia and I are leaving for Athens tomorrow. We’ve had a busy day today and, if you’ll excuse us, tonight is going to be a very special night for us.’
As Saskia tensed Andreas tightened his hold on her warningly as he repeated, ‘A very special night. Which reminds me...’
Still holding on to Saskia with one hand, he reached inside his jacket pocket with the other to remove a small jeweller’s box.
‘I collected this. It should be small enough for you now.’
Before Saskia could say anything he was slipping the box back into his jacket, telling her softly, ‘We’ll find out later...’
In the living area beyond the lobby a telephone had started to ring. Releasing her, Andreas went to answer it, leaving Saskia on her own with Athena.
‘It won’t last,’ Athena told her venomously as she walked past Saskia towards the door. ‘He won’t marry you. He and I were destined to be together. He knows that. It’s just his pride that makes him fight his destiny. You might as well give him up now, because I promise you I shall never do so.’
She meant it, Saskia could see that, and for the first time she actually felt a small shaft of sympathy for Andreas. Sympathy for a man who was treating her the way Andreas was? For a man who had misjudged her the way he had? She must be crazy, Saskia derided herself grimly.
* * *
APPREHENSIVELY SASKIA watched as the new suitcases, which were now carefully packed with her new clothes, were loaded onto the conveyor belt. The airline representative was checking their passports.
On her finger the ring Andreas had given her the previous evening glittered brilliantly.
‘It’s amazing how good fake diamonds can look these days, isn’t it?’ she had chattered nervously when Andreas had taken it from its box. She’d tried to disguise from him how edgy and unhappy she felt about wearing a ring on the finger that she had imagined would only ever bear a ring given to her by the man she loved, a ring she would wear forever.
‘Is it?’ Andreas had responded almost contemptuously. ‘I wouldn’t know.’
His comment had set all her inner alarm bells ringing and she had demanded anxiously, ‘This... It isn’t real, is it?’
His expression had given her her answer.
‘It is!’ She had swallowed, unable to drag her gaze away from the fiery sparkle of the magnificent solitaire.
‘Athena would have spotted a fake diamond immediately,’ Andreas had told her dismissively when she’d tried to protest that she didn’t want the responsibility of wearing something of such obvious value.
‘If she can spot a fake diamond so easily,’ she had felt driven to ask him warily, ‘then surely she will be able to spot a fake fiancée.’
‘Athena deals in hard facts, not emotions,’ had been Andreas’s answer.
Hard facts, Saskia reflected now, remembering that brief conversation. Like the kiss Andreas had given her last night, knowing Athena would witness it. Andreas himself had made no mention of what he had done, but Saskia had known that her guess as to why he had done it was correct when, immediately after he had ended his telephone call, he had switched on the apartment’s air conditioning with the grim comment, ‘We need some fresh air in here.’
Later, Andreas had gone out, as promised, and, after picking at the meal he had ordered her, Saskia had gone to bed—alone.
* * *
‘HOW LONG WILL it take us to reach Aphrodite?’ Saskia asked Andreas as they boarded their flight.
‘On this occasion it will take longer than normal,’ Andreas answered as the stewardess showed them to their seats—first-class seats, Saskia noted with a small frisson of nervous awe. She had never flown first class before, never really done anything that might have equipped her to feel at home in the rarefied stratosphere of the mega-wealthy that Andreas and his family obviously inhabited.
‘Once we arrive in Athens I’m afraid I shall have to leave you to occupy yourself for a few hours before we continue with our journey. That was my grandfather who rang last night. He wants to see me.’
‘He won’t be at the island?’ Saskia asked.
‘Not immediately. His heart condition means that he has to undergo regular check-ups—a precautionary measure only, thank goodness—and they will keep him in Athens for the next day or so.’
‘Athena told me she doesn’t believe that our relationship will last. She believes that the two of you are destined to be together,’ Saskia said.
‘She’s trying to intimidate you,’ Andreas responded, the smile he had given the attentive stewardess replaced by a harsh frown.
Impulsively Saskia allowed the sympathy she had unexpectedly felt for him the previous evening to take precedence over her own feelings. Turning towards him, she said softly, ‘But surely if you explained to your grandfather how you feel he would understand and accept that you can’t be expected to marry a woman you don’t...you don’t want to marry...’
‘My grandfather is as stubborn as a mule. He’s also one hell of a lot more vulnerable than he thinks...than any of us want him to think. His heart condition...’ He gave a small sigh. ‘At the moment it’s stable, but it is important that he—and we—keep his stress levels down. If I told him that I didn’t want to marry Athena without producing you as a substitute he would immediately become very stressed indeed. It isn’t just that by marrying Athena as he wishes I would attach her fortune and assets to our own, my grandfather is also a man to whom male descendants are of paramount importance.
‘My elder sister already has two daughters, and Athena also has two. My grandfather is desperate for me, as his direct male descendent, to produce the next male generation...a great-grandson.’
‘But even if you did marry Athena there would be no guarantee that you would even have children, never mind sons,’ Saskia protested.