‘Pia!’ her mother protested again, and this time Andreas’s sister did fall silent, but only for a few seconds.
‘What I can’t understand is why Gramps is so taken in by her,’ she burst out, as though unable to contain herself. ‘It’s obvious what she’s doing. She’s just trying to get at you, Andreas, because you won’t marry her.’
‘I’m sorry about this,’ Helena Latimer was apologising gently to Saskia. ‘It can’t be pleasant for you. You haven’t met Athena yet, I know—’
‘Yes, she has,’ Andreas interrupted his mother, explaining when both she and Pia looked at him questioningly, ‘Somehow or other she managed to get a key for the London apartment.’
‘She’s the worst, isn’t she?’ Pia told Saskia. ‘The black widow spider I call her.’
‘Pia!’ Andreas chided her sharply.
‘Mama hasn’t told you everything yet,’ Pia countered, looking protectively at her mother before continuing, ‘Athena has insisted on having the room that Mama had arranged to be prepared for Saskia. It’s the one next to your suite—’
‘I tried to stop her, Andreas,’ Helena interrupted her daughter unhappily. ‘But you know what she’s like.’
‘She said that Saskia could have the room right down at the end of the corridor. You know, the one we only use as an overspill when absolutely everyone is here. It hasn’t even got a proper bed.’
‘You’ll have to say something to Athena, Andreas. Make her understand that she can’t...that she can’t have that room because Saskia will be using it.’
‘No, she won’t,’ Andreas contradicted his mother flatly, sliding his arm very firmly around Saskia, imprisoningly almost, drawing her right into his body so that her face was concealed from view as he told his mother and sister, ‘Saskia will be sharing my room...and my bed...’
Saskia could sense their shock, even though she could not see their faces. Now she knew why he was holding her so tightly, preventing anyone else from seeing her expression or hearing the panicky denial she was trying to make but which was muffled against the fine cotton of his shirt.
There was just no way that she was prepared for anything like this. No way that she could ever be prepared for it. But her attempts to tell Andreas were bringing her into even more intimate contact with him as she tried to look up into his face.
His response to her efforts to attract his attention made the situation even worse, because when he bent his head, as though anxious to listen to what she was saying, her lips inadvertently brushed against his jaw.
It must be a combination of heat and shock that was sending that melting liquid sensation of weakness swooshing through her, Saskia decided dizzily. It certainly couldn’t be the feel of Andreas’s skin against her lips, nor the dangerous gleam she could see in his narrowed eyes as they glittered down into hers. The arm he had around her moved fractionally, so that the hand that had been resting on her waist was now somehow just beneath the curve of her breast, his fingertips splaying against its soft curve and making her...making her...
‘Saskia will be sharing your room!’ Pia was breathing, verbalising the shock that Saskia herself felt and that she suspected his mother was too embarrassed to voice.
‘We are engaged...and soon to be married...’ Andreas told his sister smoothly, adding in a much rougher, rawer, spine-tinglingly possessive voice, ‘Saskia is mine and I intend to make sure that everyone knows it.’
‘Especially Aristotle,’ Pia guessed. ‘I don’t know how Athena can endure him,’ she continued shuddering. ‘He’s like a snake, Saskia. All cold and slimy, with horrid little eyes and clammy hands...’
‘Athena endures him because of his skill at “creative” accounting,’ Andreas informed his sister dryly.
‘You mean he’s dishonest,’ Pia translated pithily.
‘You didn’t hear that from me,’ Andreas warned her as he started to shepherd all three of them towards the waiting Land Rover.
Whilst they had been talking the driver had loaded their luggage, and as he held the door open for his mother, sister and Saskia to get in Saskia heard Andreas asking him about his family, listening interestedly whilst the driver told him with pride about his son who was at university.
‘Grandfather was not very pleased at all when Andreas said that he wanted to use the money our father had left him to help pay for the education of our personal household staff,’ Pia told Saskia.
‘Pia, you aren’t being very fair to your grandfather,’ her mother objected.
Andreas had done that? Stubbornly Saskia refused to acknowledge that she was impressed by his philanthropy.
Had he really meant what he had said about them sharing a room? He couldn’t have done—could he? Personally she didn’t care where she slept, even if it was a normally unused bedless room, just so long as she occupied it on her own.
‘We have both had a long day and I imagine that Saskia is going to want to have a rest before dinner,’ Andreas was saying as the Land Rover pulled up in a cool paved courtyard with a central fountain that sent a musical plume of water up into the air to shower back to earth in millions of tiny teardrops.
‘I’ll make sure everyone knows that you aren’t to be disturbed,’ his mother responded. ‘But perhaps Saskia would like something light to eat and drink...’
Before Saskia could say anything Andreas was answering for her, telling his mother, ‘I’ll see to that,’ before placing his hand beneath Saskia’s elbow and telling her in a soft voice in which she suspected only she could hear the underlying threat, ‘This way, Saskia...’
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘I CAN’T SLEEP in this room with you!’
Saskia had been able to feel herself trembling as Andreas had whisked her down a confusing maze of corridors. She had known that he must be able to feel her nervousness as well, but somehow she had managed to keep her feelings under control until they were both inside the huge elegant bedroom with the door firmly shut behind them.
Right now, though, she was in no mood to appreciate the cool elegance of her surroundings. Whirling round, she confronted Andreas determinedly. ‘No way was that part of the deal.’
‘The “deal” was that you would act as my fiancée, and that includes doing whatever has to be done to ensure that the act is believable,’ he told her angrily.
‘I won’t sleep here with you,’ Saskia protested wildly. ‘I don’t... I haven’t...’ She could hardly bear to look at the large king-sized bed as panic filled her, flooding out rationality. She had gone through so much, and now she was hot and tired and very, very afraid. Her emotions threatened to overwhelm her.
Quickly she turned away as she heard Andreas saying, almost mundanely, ‘I’m going to have a shower, and if you’ll take my advice you’ll do the same. Then, when we’re both feeling cooler and calmer, we can discuss this whole situation less emotively.’
A shower! With Andreas! Saskia stared at him in mute shocked disbelief. Did he really think that she would...that she could...?
‘You can use the bathroom first,’ he told her.
First! So he hadn’t meant... Relief sagged through her, quickly followed by a furious burst of toxic anger.
‘I don’t want to use the bathroom at all,’ she burst out. ‘What I want is to be at home. My own home, with my own bathroom and my own bedroom. What I want is to be free of this stupid...stupid charade... What I want...’ She had to stop as her feelings threatened to overwhelm her, but they refused to be contained, spilling out in a furious fierce torrent of angry words. ‘How could you let your mother and sister think that you...that we...?’ She shook her head, unable to put into words what she wanted to say.
Andreas had no such qualms.
‘That we are lovers?’ he supplied dramatically for her. ‘What else should they think? I’m a man, Saskia, and you and I are supposed to be engaged. And if in reality we were, do you think for one minute that I wouldn’t—’
‘Want to test the goods before you bought them?’ Saskia threw wildly at him. ‘Oh, of course, a man like you would be bound to want to do that...to make sure...’
She tensed as she saw the way he was looking at her and the bitter anger in his eyes.
‘That kind of comment is typical of a woman like you,’ he ground out. ‘Reducing everything to terms of money. Well, let me tell you—’
But Saskia wouldn’t let him finish, defending herself sharply instead as she insisted, ‘You were the one who said...’
But Andreas immediately checked her.
‘What I said, or rather what I was trying to say before you interrupted me,’ he told her grittily, ‘was that if I genuinely loved you there would be no way I would be able to deny myself—or you—the pleasure of showing that love in the most intimate physical way there is. There would be no way that I could bear to let you out of my sight or my arms, certainly not for the length of a whole night.’
Saskia discovered that she had started to tremble almost violently as his words struck sharply sensitive chords deep within her body that she had not even known existed. Chords that activated a deep core of feminine longing, that brought her dangerously close to the edge of tears she had no idea why she wanted to cry. Panic raced through her veins, flooding out common sense. She could feel her heart thumping frantically with anxiety.