Conveniently His Omnibus(57)

‘I told Maria to pack for both of us. We’re booked onto the first flight in the morning for Heathrow.’

‘We’re leaving?’

Even as she spoke Saskia knew that showing her shock was a giveaway piece of folly. Of course they were leaving. After all, there was no need for Andreas to keep her here any more. His grandfather had made it very plain during lunch that Athena would no longer be welcome beneath his roof.

‘We don’t have any option,’ Andreas replied flatly. ‘You heard my grandfather. Now that he’s been given a clean bill of health he’s itching to find something to occupy him. Organising our wedding and turning it into something between a lavish extravaganza worthy of a glossy magazine and a chance to gather as many of his business cronies under one roof as he can isn’t going to be an opportunity he’ll want to miss out on. And my mother and sister will be just as bad.’ He started to scowl. ‘Designer outfits, a wedding dress that could take months to make, plans to extend the villa so that it can accommodate the children my mother and my grandfather are so determined we’re going to have...’

Greedily Saskia drank in every word. The mental image he was creating for her, the blissful pictures he was painting were becoming more alluring with every word he said. Mistily she allowed herself to dream about what she knew to be impossible—and then Andreas’s next words sent her into shocked freefall.

‘We need to get married immediately. We just don’t have the time for that kind of delay. Not after... If you are already carrying my child then...’

‘What are you saying?’ Saskia protested, white-faced. ‘You can’t be serious. We can’t get married just because...’

‘Just because what?’ Andreas challenged her bitterly. ‘Because you were a virgin, an innocent who had never known a man before? I...I am Greek, Saskia, and there is no way I would ever abandon any child I had fathered. Under the circumstances there is nothing else we can do.’

‘You’re only half-Greek,’ Saskia heard herself reminding him dizzily, before adding, ‘And anyway I may not even be pregnant. In fact I’m sure I’m not.’

Andreas gave her a dry, almost withering look.

‘And you’re an expert on such things, of course. You, a woman who hasn’t even...’

‘They say you don’t always...not the first time...’ Saskia told him lamely, but she could see from his face that he had as little faith in that particular old wives’ tale as she did herself.

‘I don’t want this, Andreas,’ she insisted, trying another tack. Her voice and her body had both begun to shake with shock at what Andreas intended.

‘Even if I am to...to have a child...these days that doesn’t mean... I could bring it up by myself...’

‘What on?’ he challenged her. ‘Not the one million pounds you turned down from Athena, obviously.’

Saskia’s eyes looked bewildered at the way he’d slipped the thrust up under her guard.

‘A child needs more than money. Much, much more,’ she defended herself quickly. How did he know about Athena’s offer to her? Athena herself wouldn’t have told him. ‘A child needs love,’ she continued.

‘Do you think I don’t know that?’ Andreas shot back. ‘After all, surely I am far better placed to know it than you, Saskia. I had the love of both my parents as a child, and I can promise you I would never allow a child of mine to grow up without my love.’

He stopped abruptly as he heard the quick indrawn gasp of pain she had given, his eyes darkening with remorse.

‘Saskia, my beloved heart, I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you, just to make you understand that I could no more walk away from our child than I can from you.’

Saskia stared at him, unable to speak, to move, to breathe as she listened to the raw fervency of his declaration. He was acting. He had to be. He didn’t love her. She knew that. And somehow hearing him say to her the words she so much ached to hear whilst knowing they were lies filled her with more anguish than she could bear.

Tugging frantically at the ring he had given her, she started to pull it off, her eyes dark with anger, sparkling with tears of pride and pain whilst Andreas watched her as he had been watching her all through lunch, and then afterwards when the wine she had drunk had relaxed her.

‘I felt so angry when Athena offered Saskia that money,’ Pia had told him passionately. ‘And so proud of her. She loves you so much. I used to think that no one could ever be good enough for you, my wonderful brother, but now I know I was wrong. She loves you every bit as much as you deserve to be loved, as I one day want to love the man I marry...’

‘She is perfect for you, darling,’ his mother had whispered to him.

‘She is a beautiful young woman with an even more beautiful heart,’ his grandfather had said emotionally.

There had been one unguarded moment after lunch, when his grandfather had been teasing her about something and she had turned to him, as though seeking his protection. The look in her eyes had made him ache to snatch her up and carry her away somewhere he could have her all to himself and create that look over and over again.

Finally she managed to pull the ring off, holding it out to him she told him, head held high, ‘There is no way I would ever marry a man who does not love me.’

Andreas closed his eyes, replayed the words to make sure he hadn’t misheard them, and then opened his eyes again and walked purposefully towards her. He was about to take the biggest gamble he had ever taken in his entire life. If he lost he would lose everything. If he won...

He took a deep breath and asked Saskia softly, ‘Shouldn’t that be you wouldn’t ever marry a man you did not love?’

Saskia froze, her face going white and then a soft, deepening shade of pink.

‘I...that was what I meant,’ she began, and then stopped as panic overwhelmed her. ‘I can’t marry you, Andreas,’ she protested as he closed the distance between them, masterfully sweeping her up into his arms.

‘And I won’t let you go, Saskia,’ he told her in a low, throbbing voice.

‘Because of what happened...because there might be a baby?’ she guessed, but the words had to be mumbled because Andreas was holding her so tightly, his lips brushing irresistibly tender kisses against her throat and then her jaw, moving closer and closer to her mouth.

‘Because of that,’ he agreed, whispering the words against her lips. ‘And this...and you...’

‘Me?’ Saskia started to squeak, but Andreas wouldn’t let her.

Cupping her face instead, he looked down into her eyes, his own grave with pain, heavy with remorse, hot with love and desire, as he begged her, ‘Please give me a chance to show you how things could be between us, Saskia. To show you how good it could be, how good it will be...’

‘What are you trying to say?’ Saskia demanded dizzily.

Still cupping her face, Andreas told her, ‘I’m trying to say with words what my emotions, my heart, my soul and my body have already told you, my beloved heart, my adored, precious love. Surely you must have guessed, felt how it was for me when we made love?’

Lifting her head so that she could look into his eyes, search them to see if she actually dared believe what she was hearing, Saskia felt her heart starting to thud in a heady mixture of joy and excitement. No man could possibly fake the way Andreas was looking at her, and if that wasn’t enough his body was giving her a very distinct and intimate message of its own. Unable to help herself Saskia started to blush a little as she felt her own body respond to Andreas’s arousal.

‘I...I thought that must just be sex,’ she told him bravely.

‘What have I said?’ she demanded in bewilderment when Andreas started to laugh.

‘My dearest love,’ he told her, still laughing, ‘if I hadn’t already had incontrovertible proof of your innocence, that remark would have furnished me with it. Any woman who had experienced “just sex” would have known immediately that—’ He stopped and smiled down at her, tenderly kissing her before telling her gruffly.

‘No. Why should I bother to explain? After all, there’s never going to be any way that you will know what it is to have “just sex”. You and I, Saskia, will be making love, sharing love, giving one another love for all our lives.’

‘Oh, Andreas,’ Saskia whispered deliriously as he pulled her firmly into his arms.

‘No, Andreas, we can’t,’ she protested five minutes later as he carried her towards the bed and started to undress her.

‘All my clean clothes are packed...I won’t have anything to wear...and...’

‘Good,’ Andreas informed her without the remotest hint of remorse. ‘I can’t think of anything I want more right now than to have you naked in my bed with no means of escape.’

‘Mmm... That’s funny,’ Saskia told him impishly. ‘I was thinking exactly the same thing myself!’





                 Epilogue

‘WELL, YOUR GRANDFATHER may not have got his own way over our wedding, but he certainly wasn’t going to allow us to have a quiet family christening!’ Saskia laughed with Andreas as they both surveyed the huge crowd of people filling the recently completed and refurbished ‘special occasions’ suite at the group’s flagship British hotel.