Conveniently His Omnibus(45)

‘But surely she must realise that you don’t want to marry her,’ Saskia suggested a little bit uncomfortably. It was so foreign to her own way of behaving to even consider trying to force anyone into a relationship with her that it was hard for her to understand why Athena should be driven to do so.

‘Oh, she realises it all right,’ Andreas agreed grimly. ‘But Athena has never been denied anything she wants, and right now...’

‘She wants you,’ Saskia concluded for him.

‘Yes,’ Andreas agreed heavily. ‘And, much as I would like to tell her that her desires are not reciprocated, I have to think of my grandfather.’

He stopped speaking as their plane started to lose height, a small smile curling his mouth as he saw Saskia’s expression when she looked out of the window down at their destination.

‘He can’t possibly be intending to put this plane down on that tiny piece of land,’ she gasped in disbelief.

‘Oh, yes, he can, It’s much safer than it looks,’ Andreas said reassuringly. ‘Look,’ he added, directing her attention away from the landing strip and to the breathtaking sprawl of his family villa and the grounds enclosing it.

‘Everything is so green,’ Saskia told him in bemusement, her eyes widening over the almost perfect oval shape of the small island, the rich green of its gardens and foliage perfectly shown off by the whiteness of its sandy beaches and the wonderful turquoise of the Aegean Sea that lapped them.

‘That’s because the island has its own plentiful supply of water,’ Andreas told her. ‘It’s far too small to be able to sustain either crops or livestock, which is why it was uninhabited—as you can see it is quite some distance from any of the other islands, the furthest out into the Aegean.’

‘It looks perfect,’ Saskia breathed. ‘Like a pearl drop.’

Andreas laughed, but there was an emotion in his eyes that made Saskia’s cheeks flush a little as he told her quietly, ‘That was how my grandmother used to describe it.’

Saskia gave a small gasp as the plane suddenly bumped down onto the runway, belatedly realising that Andreas had deliberately distracted her attention away from their imminent landing. He could be so entertaining when he wanted to be, so charming and so easy to be with. A little wistfully she wondered how much difference it would have made to his opinion of her had they met under different circumstances. Then she very firmly pulled her thoughts into order, warning herself that her situation was untenable enough already without making it worse by indulging in ridiculous fantasies and daydreams.

There was a bleak look in Andreas’s eyes as he guided Saskia towards the aircraft’s exit. There was such a vast contradiction in the way he was perceiving Saskia now and the way he had perceived her the first time he had seen her. For his own emotional peace of mind and security he found himself wishing that she had remained true to his first impression of her. That vulnerability she fought so determinedly and with such pride to conceal touched him in all the ways that a woman of Athena’s coldness could never possibly do. Saskia possessed a warmth, a humanity, a womanliness, that his maleness reacted and responded to in the most potentially dangerous way.

Grimly Andreas tried not to allow himself to think about how he had felt when he had kissed her. Initially he had done so purely as an instinctive response to his awareness that Athena was in his apartment—that appalling overpowering scent of hers was instantly recognisable. Quite how she had got hold of a key he had no idea, but he suspected she must have somehow cajoled it from his grandfather. But the kiss he had given Saskia as a means of reinforcing his unavailability to Athena had unexpectedly and unwontedly shown him—forced him to acknowledge—something he was still fighting hard to deny.

He didn’t want to want Saskia. He didn’t want it at all, and he certainly didn’t want to feel his current desire to protect and reassure her.

Athens had been hot, almost stiflingly so, but here on the island the air had a silky balminess to it that was totally blissful, Saskia decided, shading her eyes from the brilliance of the sun as she reached the ground and looked a little uncertainly at the trio of people waiting to greet them.

Andreas’s husky, ‘Here you are, darling, you forgot these,’ as he handed her a pair of sunglasses threw her into even more confusion, but nowhere near as much as the warm weight of his arm around her as he drew her closer to him and whispered quite audibly, ‘Our harsh sunlight is far too strong for those beautiful Celtic eyes of yours.’

Saskia felt her fingers start to tremble as she took the sunglasses from him. They carried a designer logo, she noticed, and were certainly far more expensive than any pair of sunglasses she had ever owned. When Andreas took them back and gently slipped them on for her she discovered that they fitted her perfectly.

‘I remembered that we didn’t get any in London and I knew you’d need a pair,’ he told her quietly, leaning forward to murmur the words into her ear, one arm still around her body and his free hand holding her shoulder as though he would draw her even closer.

To their onlookers they must look very intimate, Saskia recognised, which was no doubt why Andreas had chosen to give them to her in such a manner.

Well, two could play at that game. Without stopping to think about the implications of what she was doing, or to question why she was doing so, Saskia slid her own arm around his neck, turning her face up to his as she murmured back, ‘Thank you, darling. You really are so thoughtful.’

She had, she recognised on a small spurt of defiant pleasure, surprised him. She could see it in his eyes—and she could see something else as well, something very male and dangerous which made her disengage herself from him hastily and step back. Not that he allowed her to go very far. Somehow he was holding her hand and refusing to let go of it, drawing her towards the small waiting group.

‘Mama. This is Saskia...’ he announced, introducing Saskia first to the older of the two women.

Warily Saskia studied her, knowing that if she and Andreas were really in love and engaged her heart would be in her mouth as she waited to see whether or not she and Andreas’s mother could build a true bond. Physically she looked very much like Athena, although, of course, older. But the similarity ended once Saskia looked into her eyes and saw the warmth there that had been so markedly lacking from Athena’s.

There was also a gentleness and sweetness about Andreas’s mother, a timidity almost, and intuitively Saskia sensed that she was a woman who, having loved only one man, would never totally cease mourning his loss.

‘It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs Latimer,’ Saskia began, but immediately Andreas’s mother shook her head chidingly.

‘You are going to be my daughter-in-law, Saskia, you must call me something less formal. Helena is my name, or if you wish you may call me Mama, as ‘Reas and my daughters do.’ As she spoke she leaned forward and placed her hands gently on Saskia’s upper arms.

‘She is lovely, ’Reas,’ she told her son warmly.

‘I certainly think so, Mama,’ Andreas agreed with a smile.

‘I meant inside as well as out,’ his mother told him softly.

‘And so did I,’ Andreas agreed, equally emotionally.

Heavens, but he was a wonderful actor, Saskia acknowledged shakily. If she hadn’t known how he really felt about her that look of tender adoration he had given her just now would have...could have... A man like him should know better than to give a vulnerable woman a look like that, she decided indignantly, forgetting for the moment that so far as Andreas was concerned she was anything but vulnerable.

‘And this is Olympia, my sister,’ Andreas continued, turning Saskia towards the younger of the two women. Although she was as darkly Greek as her mother, she too had light-coloured eyes and a merry open smile that made Saskia warm instantly to her.

‘Heavens, but it’s hot down here. Poor Saskia must be melting,’ Olympia sympathised.

‘You could have waited for us at the villa,’ Andreas told her. ‘It would have been enough just to have sent a driver with the Land Rover.’

‘No, it wouldn’t,’ Olympia told him starkly, shrugging her shoulders as her mother made a faint sound of protest. She looked anxiously at her, saying, ‘Well, he has to know...’

‘I have to know what?’ Andreas began to frown.

‘Athena is here,’ his mother told him unhappily. ‘She arrived earlier and she...’

‘She what?’

‘She said that your grandfather had invited her,’ his mother continued.

‘You know what that means, don’t you Andreas?’ Olympia interrupted angrily. ‘It means that she’s bullied Grandfather into saying she could stay. And that’s not all...’

‘Pia...’ her mother began unhappily, but Olympia refused to be silenced.

‘She’s brought that revolting creep Aristotle with her. She claims that she is right in the middle of an important business deal and that she needs him with her because he’s her accountant. If it’s so important, how come she had time to be here?’ Olympia demanded. ‘Oh, but I hate her so. This morning she went on and on about how concerned Grandfather is about the business and how he’s been asking her advice because he’s worried that you...’