Kissing his forehead, Pia released him and hurried to the door, pausing as she opened it to give Saskia an impish grin and remind her, ‘Wear the black!’
‘I’m sorry,’ Andreas apologised after the door had closed behind her. ‘I asked her not to disturb you.’
So he hadn’t been deceived by her fib, Saskia recognised.
‘I don’t mind. I like her,’ Saskia responded, this time telling him the truth.
‘Mmm... Pia’s likeability is something I’m afraid she tends to trade on on occasion. As the baby of the family she’s a past mistress at getting her own way,’ he told Saskia in faint exasperation, before glancing at his watch and informing her, ‘You’ve got half an hour to get ready.’
Saskia took a deep steadying breath. Something about the revelations Pia had made had activated the deep core of sympathy for others that was so much a part of her nature. Somewhere deep inside her a switch had been thrown, a sea change made, and without her knowing quite how it had happened Andreas had undergone a transformation, from her oppressor and a dictator whom she loathed and feared to someone who deserved her championship and help. She had a role which she was now determined she was going to play to the very best of her ability.
‘Half an hour,’ she repeated in as businesslike a manner as she could. ‘Then in that case I should like to use the bathroom first.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
‘SO, SASKIA, HOW do you think you will adjust to being a Greek wife—if you and Andreas do actually get married?’
Saskia could hear Pia’s indrawn gasp of indignation at the way Athena had framed her question, but she refused to allow herself to be intimidated by the other woman. Ever since they had all taken their places at the dinner table Saskia had recognised that Athena was determined to unnerve and upset her as much as she could. However, before she could say anything Andreas was answering the question for her.
‘There is no “if” about it Athena,’ he told her implacably. ‘Saskia will become my wife.’
Now it was Saskia’s turn to stifle her own potentially betraying gasp of shock, but she couldn’t control her instinctive urge to look anxiously across the table at Andreas. What would he do when he ultimately had to back down and admit to Athena that their engagement was over? That was his problem and not hers, she tried to remind herself steadily.
Something odd had happened to her somehow; she was convinced of it. Andreas had walked out of the office adjoining ‘their’ bedroom earlier this evening and come to a standstill in front of her, saying quietly, ‘I doubt that any man looking at you now could do anything other than wish that you were his, Saskia.’
She had certainly never had any desire to go on the stage—far from it—and yet from that moment she had felt as though somehow she had stepped into a new persona. Suddenly she had become Andreas’s fiancée and, like any woman in love, not only was she proud to be with the man she loved, she also felt very femalely protective of him. The anxiety in her eyes now was for him and because of him. How would he feel when Athena tauntingly threw the comment he had just made back in his face? How must he have felt when he had first realised, as a boy, just what she wanted from him?
‘Wives. I love wives.’ Aristotle, Athena’s accountant, grinned salaciously, leaning towards Saskia so that he could put his hand on her arm.
Immediately she turned away from him. Saskia fully shared Pia’s view of Athena’s accountant. Although he was quite tall, the heavy, weighty structure of his torso made him look almost squat. His thick black hair was heavily oiled and the white suit he was wearing over a black shirt, in Saskia’s opinion at least, did him no favours. Andreas, on the other hand, looked sexily cool and relaxed in elegantly tailored trousers with a cool white cotton shirt.
If she had privately thought her black dress might be rather over the top she had swiftly realised how right Pia had been to suggest that she wore it once she had seen Athena’s outfit.
Her slinky skintight white dress left nothing to the imagination.
‘It was designed especially for me,’ Saskia had heard her smirking to Andreas. ‘And it is made to be worn exactly the way I most love—next to my skin,’ she had added, loudly enough for Saskia to overhear. ‘Which reminds me. I hope you have warned your fiancée that I like to share your morning swim so she won’t be too shocked...’ She had turned to Saskia. ‘Andreas is like me, he likes to swim best in his skin,’ she had told her purringly.
In his skin. Saskia hadn’t been able to prevent herself from giving Andreas a brief shocked look which, fortunately, Athena had put down to Saskia’s jealousy at the thought of another woman swimming nude with her fiancée.
Whilst Saskia had been digesting this stomach-churning disclosure she had heard Andreas himself replying brusquely, ‘I can only recall one occasion on which you attempted to join me in my morning lap session, Athena, and I recall too that I told you then how little I appreciate having my morning peace interrupted.’
‘Oh, dear.’ Athena had pouted, unabashed. ‘Are you afraid that I have said something you didn’t want your fiancée to know? But surely, Andreas,’ she had murmured huskily, reaching out to place her hand on his arm, ‘she must realise that a man as attractive as you...as virile as you...will have had other lovers before her...’
Her brazenness had almost taken Saskia’s breath away. She could imagine just how she would be feeling right now if Andreas had indeed been her fiancée. How jealous and insecure Athena’s words would be making her feel. No woman wanted to be reminded of the other women who had shared an intimate relationship with her beloved before her.
But Andreas, it seemed, was completely unfazed by Athena’s revelations. He had simply removed her arm by the expedient of stepping back from her and putting his own arm around Saskia’s shoulders. He had drawn her so close to his body that Saskia had known he must be able to feel the fine tremor of reaction she was unable to suppress. A tremor which had increased to a full-flooded convulsion when his lean fingers had started almost absently to caress the smooth ball of her bare shoulder.
‘Saskia knows that she is the only woman I have ever loved—the woman I want to spend my life with.’
The more she listened to and watched Athena the more Saskia subscribed to Pia’s belief that it wasn’t love that was motivating the other woman. Sometimes she looked at Andreas as though she hated him and wanted to totally destroy him.
Aristotle, or ‘Ari’ as he had told Saskia he preferred to be called, was still trying to engage her attention, but she was deliberately trying to feign a lack of awareness of that fact. There was something about him she found so loathsome that the thought of even the hot damp touch of his hand on her arm made her shudder with distaste. However, good manners forced her to respond to his questions as politely as she could, even when she thought they were intolerable and intrusive. He had already told her that were he Andreas’s accountant he would be insisting she sign a prenuptial contract to make sure that if the marriage ended Andreas’s money would be safe.
Much to Saskia’s surprise Andreas himself had thoroughly confounded her by joining in the conversation and telling Aristotle grimly that he would never ask the woman he loved to sign such an agreement.
‘Money is nothing when compared with love,’ he had told Aristotle firmly in a deep, implacable voice, his words so obviously genuine that Saskia had found she was holding her breath a little as she listened to him.
Then he had looked at her, and Saskia had remembered just how they had met and what he really thought of her, and suddenly she had felt the most bitter taste of despair in her mouth and she had longed to tell him how wrong he was.
At least she had the comfort of knowing that his mother and sister liked her, and Pia had assured her that their elder sister was equally pleased that Andreas had fallen in love, and was looking forward to meeting Saskia when she and her husband and their children came to the island later in the month.
‘Lydia’s husband is a diplomat, and they are in Brussels at the moment, but she is longing to meet you,’ Pia had told her.
She would have hated it if Andreas’s close family had not liked and welcomed her.
Abruptly Saskia felt her face start to burn. What on earth was she thinking? She was only playing the part of Andreas’s fiancée. Their engagement was a fiction, a charade...a lie created simply to help him escape from the trap that Athena was trying to set for him. What she must not forget was that it was a lie he had tricked and blackmailed her into colluding with.
Aristotle was saying something to her about wanting to show her the villa’s gardens. Automatically Saskia shook her head, her face burning with fresh colour as she saw the way Andreas was watching her, a mixture of anger and warning in his eyes. He couldn’t seriously think she would actually accept Aristotle’s invitation?
‘Saskia has had a long day. I think it’s time we said our goodnights,’ she heard him saying abruptly as he stood up.
Saskia looked quickly round the table. It was obvious from the expressions of everyone else just what interpretation they were putting on Andreas’s decision, and Saskia knew that the heat washing her face and throat could only confirm their suspicions.