“Okay Saskia, that’s enough,” Andreas said. “I know I told you to act like a faithful fiancée but that does not mean you have to pretend to be an innocent virgin who has never…”

Abruptly he stopped, frowning as he mulled over the unwanted suspicions that were striking him as he looked at Saskia’s pale face.

He could have sworn just now, when he had held her in his arms and kissed her…touched her…that he was the first man to make her feel so…For a moment he examined what he was thinking and then firmly dismissed his suspicions.

There was no way she could be so inexperienced, no way at all.

Celebrate the legend that is bestselling author

PENNY JORDAN

Phenomenally successful author of more than two hundred books with sales of over a hundred million copies!

Penny Jordan's novels are loved by millions of readers all around the word in many different languages. Mills & Boon are proud to have published one hundred and eighty-seven novels and novellas written by Penny Jordan, who was a reader favourite right from her very first novel through to her last.

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About the Author

Penny Jordan is one of Mills & Boon’s most popular authors. Sadly, Penny died from cancer on 31st December 2011, aged sixty-five. She leaves an outstanding legacy, having sold over a hundred million books around the world. She wrote a total of one hundred and eighty-seven novels for Mills & Boon, including the phenomenally successful A Perfect Family, To Love, Honour & Betray, The Perfect Sinner and Power Play, which hit the Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller lists. Loved for her distinctive voice, her success was in part because she continually broke boundaries and evolved her writing to keep up with readers’ changing tastes. Publishers Weekly said about Jordan ‘Women everywhere will find pieces of themselves in Jordan’s characters’ and this perhaps explains her enduring appeal.

Although Penny was born in Preston, Lancashire and spent her childhood there, she moved to Cheshire as a teenager and continued to live there for the rest of her life. Following the death of her husband, she moved to the small traditional Cheshire market town on which she based her much-loved Crighton books.

Penny was a member and supporter of the Romantic Novelists’ Association and the Romance Writers of America—two organisations dedicated to providing support for both published and yet-to-be-published authors. Her significant contribution to women’s fiction was recognised in 2011, when the Romantic Novelists’ Association presented Penny with a Lifetime Achievement Award.

The Demetrios Virgin
Penny Jordan

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

‘FOUR forty-five.’ Saskia grimaced as she hurried across the foyer of the office block where she worked, heading for the exit. She was already running late and didn’t have time to pause when the receptionist called out. ‘Sneaking off early…Lucky you!’

Andreas frowned as he heard the receptionist’s comment. He was standing waiting for the executive lift and the woman who was leaving hadn’t seen him, but he had seen her: a stunningly leggy brunette with just that gleam of red-gold in her dark locks that hinted at fieriness. He immediately checked the direction of his thoughts. The complication of a man to woman entanglement was the last thing he needed right now, and besides…

His frown deepened. Since he had managed to persuade his grandfather to semi-retire from the hotel chain which Andreas now ran, the older man had begun a relentless campaign to persuade and even coerce Andreas into marrying a second cousin. Such a marriage, in his grandfather’s eyes, would unite not just the two branches of the family but the wealth of the family shipping line—inherited by his cousin—with that of the hotel chain.

Fortunately Andreas knew that at heart his grandfather was far more swayed by emotion than he liked to admit. After all, he had allowed his daughter, Andreas’s mother, to marry an Englishman.

The somewhat clumsy attempts to promote a match between Andreas and his cousin Athena would merely afford Andreas some moments of wry amusement if it were not for one all-important fact—which was that Athena herself was even keener on the match than his grandfather. She had made her intentions, her desires, quite plain. Athena was a widow seven years his senior, with two children from her first marriage to another wealthy Greek, and Andreas suspected that it might have been Athena herself who had put the ridiculous idea of a marriage between them in his grandfather’s head in the first place.

The lift had reached the penthouse floor and Andreas got out. This wasn’t the time for him to be thinking about his personal affairs. They could wait. He was due to fly out to the Aegean island his grandfather owned, and where the family holidayed together, in less than a fortnight’s time, but first his grandfather wanted a detailed report from him on his proposals to turn the flagging British hotel chain they had recently bought into as successful an enterprise as the rest of the hotels they owned.

Even though Andreas had become the company’s chief executive, his grandfather still felt the need to challenge his business decisions. Still, the acquisition would ultimately be a good one—the chain-owned hotels were very run down and old fashioned, but had excellent locations.

Although officially he was not due to arrive at the chain’s head office until tomorrow, Andreas had opted to do so this afternoon instead, and it looked as though he had just discovered one way at least in which profitability could be improved, he decided grimly, if all the staff were in the habit of ‘sneaking off early’, like the young woman he had just seen…

Sneaking off early! Saskia grimaced as she managed to hail a cruising taxi. If only! She had been at her desk for seven-thirty this morning, as she had been every morning for the last month, and neither had she had a lunch hour, but they had all been warned that Demetrios Hotels, who had taken over their own small chain, were relentless when it came to pruning costs. Tomorrow morning they were all due to meet their new boss for the first time, and Saskia wasn’t exactly looking forward to the occasion. There had been a lot of talk about cutbacks and there had also been grapevine rumours about how very formidable Andreas Latimer was.

‘The old man, his grandfather, had a reputation for running a tight ship, and if anything the grandson is even worse.’

‘They both favour a “the guest is always right even when wrong” policy, and woe betide any employee who forgets it. Which is, of course, why their hotels are so popular…and so profitable,’

That had been the general gist of the gossip Saskia had heard.

Her taxi was drawing up outside the restaurant she had asked to be taken to. Hastily she delved into her handbag for her purse, paying the driver and then hurrying quickly inside.

‘Oh, Saskia—there you are. We thought you weren’t going to make it.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Saskia apologised to her best friend as she slipped into the spare seat at the table for three in the Italian restaurant where they had arranged to meet.

‘There’s been a panic on at work,’ she explained. ‘The new boss arrives tomorrow.’ She pulled a face, wrinkling the elegant length of her dainty nose and screwing up her thick-lashed aquamarine eyes. She paused as she saw that her friend wasn’t really listening, and that her normally happy, gentle face looked strained and unhappy.

‘What’s wrong?’ she asked immediately.

‘I was just telling Lorraine how upset I am,’ Megan answered, indicating the third member of their trio, Megan’s cousin Lorraine, an older woman with a brisk, businesslike expression and a slightly jaded air.

‘Upset?’ Saskia queried, a small frown marring the elegant oval of her face as she pushed her long hair back and reached hungrily for a bread roll. She was starving!

‘It’s Mark,’ Megan said, her voice shaking a little and her brown eyes full of quiet despair.

‘Mark?’ Saskia repeated, putting down her roll so that she could concentrate on her friend. ‘But I thought the two of you were about to announce your engagement.’

‘Yes, we were…we are…At least, Mark wants to…’ Megan began, and then stopped when Lorraine took over.

‘Megan thinks he’s involved with someone else…’ she told Saskia grimly. ‘Two-timing her.’

Older than Megan and Saskia by almost a decade, and with a broken marriage behind her, Lorraine was inclined to be angrily contemptuous of the male sex.

‘Oh, surely not, Megan,’ Saskia protested. ‘You told me yourself how much Mark loves you.’

‘Well, yes, that’s what I thought,’ Megan agreed, ‘Especially when he said that he wanted us to become engaged. But…he keeps getting these phone calls. And if I answer the phone whoever’s ringing just hangs up. There’ve been three this week and when I ask him who it is he says it’s just a wrong number.’

‘Well, perhaps it is,’ Saskia tried to reassure her, but Megan shook her head.

‘No, it isn’t. Mark keeps on hanging around by the phone, and last night he was talking on his mobile when I walked in and the moment he saw me he ended the call.’

‘Have you asked him what’s going on?’ Saskia questioned her in concern.

‘Yes. He says I’m just imagining it,’ Megan told her unhappily.

‘A classic male ploy,’ Lorraine announced vigorously with grim satisfaction. ‘My ex did everything to convince me that I was becoming paranoid and then what does he do? He moves in with his secretary, if you please!’

‘I just wish that Mark would be honest with me,’ Megan told Saskia, her eyes starting to fill with tears. ‘If there is someone else…I…I just can’t believe he’s doing this…I thought he loved me…’

‘I’m sure he does,’ Saskia tried to comfort her. She had not as yet met her friend’s new partner, but from what Megan had told her about him Saskia felt he sounded perfect for her.

‘Well, there’s one sure way to find out,’ Lorraine announced. ‘I read an article about it. There’s this agency, and if you’ve got suspicions about your partner’s fidelity you go to them and they send a girl to try to seduce him. That’s what you should do,’ she told Megan crisply.

‘Oh, no, I couldn’t,’ Megan protested.

‘You must,’ Lorraine insisted forcefully. ‘It’s the only way you’ll ever know whether or not you can trust him. I wish I’d been able to do something like that before I got married. You must do it,’ she repeated. ‘It’s the only way you’ll ever be sure. Mark is struggling to make ends meet since he started up his own business, Megan, and you’ve got that money you inherited from your great-aunt.’

Saskia’s heart sank a little as she listened. Much as she loved her friend, she knew that Megan was inclined to allow herself to be dominated by her older and more worldly cousin. Saskia had nothing against Lorraine, indeed she liked her, but she knew from past experience that once Lorraine got the bit between her teeth there was no stopping her. She was fiercely determined to do things her own way, which Saskia suspected was at least part of the reason for the breakdown of her marriage. But right now, sympathetic though Saskia was to Megan’s unhappiness, she was hungry…very hungry…She eyed the menu longingly.

‘Well, it does sound a sensible idea,’ Megan was agreeing. ‘But I doubt there’s an agency like that in Hilford.’

‘Who needs an agency?’ Lorraine responded. ‘What you need is a stunningly gorgeous friend who Mark hasn’t met and who can attempt to seduce him. If he responds…’

‘A stunningly gorgeous friend?’ Megan was musing. ‘You mean like Saskia?’

Two pairs of female eyes studied Saskia whilst she gave in to her hunger and bit into her roll.

‘Exactly,’ Lorraine breathed fervently. ‘Saskia would be perfect.’

‘What?’ Saskia almost choked on her bread. ‘You can’t be serious,’ she protested. ‘Oh, no, no way…’ She objected when she saw the determination in Lorraine’s eyes and the pleading in Megan’s. ‘No way at all.’

‘Meg, this is crazy, you must see that,’ she coaxed, trying to appeal to her friend’s common sense and her conscience as she added winningly, ‘How could you do something like that to Mark? You love him.’

‘How can she risk committing herself to him unless she knows she can trust him?’ Lorraine interjected sharply, adding emphatically, ‘Good, that’s settled. What we need to do now is to decide just where Saskia can accidentally run into Mark and put our plan into action.’

‘Well, tonight is his boys’ night out,’ Megan ventured. ‘And last night he said that they were planning to go to that new wine bar that’s just opened. A friend of his knows the owner.’

‘I can’t do it,’ Saskia protested. ‘It…it’s…it’s immoral,’ she added. She looked apologetically at Megan as she shook her head and told her, ‘Meg, I’m sorry, but…’

‘I should have thought you would want to help Megan, Saskia, to protect her happiness. Especially after all she’s done for you…’ Lorraine pointed out sharply.

Saskia worried guiltily at her bottom lip with her pretty white teeth. Lorraine was right. She did owe Megan a massive favour.

Six months ago, when they had been trying to fight off the Demetrios takeover bid, she had been working late every evening and at weekends as well. Her grandmother, who had brought her up following the breakdown of her young parents’ marriage, had become seriously ill with a viral infection and Megan, who was a nurse, had given up her spare time and some of her holiday entitlement to care for the old lady.

Saskia shuddered to think even now of the potentially dangerous outcome of her grandmother’s illness if Megan hadn’t been there to nurse her. It had been on Saskia’s conscience ever since that she owed her friend a debt she could never repay. Saskia adored her grandmother, who had provided her with a loving and stable home background when she had needed it the most. Her mother, who had given birth to Saskia at seventeen was a distant figure in her life, and her father, her grandmother’s son, had become a remote stranger to both of them, living as he now did in China, with his second wife and young family.

‘I know you don’t approve, Saskia,’ Megan was saying quietly to her, ‘but I have to know that I can trust Mark.’ Her soft eyes filled with tears. ‘He means so much to me. He’s everything I’ve ever wanted in a man. But…he dated so many girls before he met me, before he moved here, when he lived in London.’ She paused. ‘He swears that none of them ever meant anything serious to him and that he loves me.’

Privately Saskia wasn’t sure that she could even begin to think about committing herself to a relationship with a man without being able to trust him—and trust him to such an extent that there would be no need for her to use any underhand methods to test his fidelity. But then she acknowledged that she was perhaps a trifle more wary of love than her friend. After all, her parents had believed themselves to be in love when they had run away to get married and conceived her, but within two years of doing so they had parted, leaving her grandmother with the responsibility of bringing her up.

Her grandmother! Now, as she looked at Meg’s tearstained face, she knew she had no option but to go along with Lorraine’s scheme.

‘All right,’ she agreed fatalistically. ‘I’ll do it.’

After Megan had finished thanking her she told her wryly, ‘You’ll have to describe your Mark to me, Megan, otherwise I shan’t be able to recognise him.’

‘Oh, yes, you will,’ Megan said fervently with a small ecstatic sigh. ‘He’ll be the best-looking man there. He’s gorgeous, Saskia…fantastically good-looking, with thick dark hair and the most sexy mouth you’ve ever seen. Oh, and he’ll be wearing a blue shirt—to match his eyes. He always does. I bought them for him.’

‘What time is he likely to get there?’ Saskia asked Megan practically, instead of voicing her feelings. ‘My car’s in the garage at the moment, and since Gran’s house is quite a way out of town…’

‘Don’t worry about that. I’ll drive you there,’ Lorraine volunteered, much to Saskia’s surprise. Lorraine wasn’t known to be over-generous—with anything!

‘Yes, and Lorraine will pick you up later and take you home. Won’t you, Lorraine?’ Megan insisted with unexpected firmness. ‘There’s no taxi rank close to the wine bar and you don’t want to be waiting for a mini-cab.’

A waiter was hovering, waiting to take their order, but bossily Lorraine shook her head, telling Megan and Saskia firmly, ‘There won’t be time for us to eat now. Saskia will have to get home and get ready. What time is Mark likely to go to the wine bar Megan?’ she asked her cousin.

‘About eight-thirty, I should think,’ Megan answered.

‘Right, then you need to get there for nine, Saskia,’ Lorraine informed her, ‘So I’ll pick you up at half-eight.’

Two hours later Saskia was just coming downstairs when she heard the front doorbell. Her grandmother was away, spending several weeks with her sister in Bath. A little nervously Saskia smoothed down the skirt of her black suit and went to open the door.

Only Lorraine was standing outside. They had agreed that it would be silly to take the risk of Megan being seen and recognised. Now, as Lorraine studied her, Saskia could see the older woman beginning to frown.

‘You’ll have to wear something else,’ she told Saskia sharply. ‘You look far too businesslike and unapproachable in that suit. Mark’s got to think you’re approachable—remember. And I really think you ought to wear a different lipstick…red, perhaps, and more eye make-up. Look, if you don’t believe me then read this.’ Lorraine thrust an open magazine beneath Saskia’s nose.

Reluctantly Saskia skimmed through the article, a small frown pleating her forehead as she read of the lengths the agency was prepared to have its girls go to in order to test the faithfulness of its clients’ men.

‘I can’t do any of this,’ she told Lorraine firmly. ‘And as for my suit…’

Stepping into the hall and closing the front door behind her, Lorraine stood squarely in front of Saskia and told her vehemently, ‘You have to—for Megan’s sake. Can’t you see what’s happening to her, the danger she’s in? She’s totally besotted with this man; she’s barely known him four months and already she’s talking about handing over the whole of her inheritance to him…marrying him…having children with him. Do you know how much her great-aunt left her?’ she added grimly.

Silently Saskia shook her head. She knew how surprised and shocked Megan had been when she had learned that she was the sole beneficiary under her great-aunt’s will, but tactfully she had not asked her friend just how much money was involved.

Lorraine, it seemed, had not had similar qualms.

‘Megan inherited nearly three million pounds,’ she told Saskia, nodding her head in grim pleasure as she saw Saskia’s expression.

‘Now do you see how important it is that we do everything we can to protect her? I’ve tried to warn her umpteen times that her precious Mark might not be all he tries to make out he is, but she just won’t listen. Now, thank goodness, she’s caught him out and he’s showing his true colours. For her sake, Saskia, you just do everything you can to prove how unworthy he is. Just imagine what it would do to her if he not only broke her heart but stole all her money as well. She’d be left with nothing.’

Saskia could imagine it all too well. Her grandmother had only a small pension to live on and Saskia, mindful of the sacrifices her grandmother had made when she was growing up, to make sure she did not go without the treats enjoyed by her peers, contributed as much as she could financially to their small household.

The thought of losing her financial independence and the sense of security that earning money of her own gave her was one that was both abhorrent and frightening to her, and Lorraine’s revelations suddenly gave her not just the impetus but a real desire to do everything she could to protect her friend.

Megan, dear sweet trusting Megan, who still worked as a nurse despite her inheritance, deserved to find a man, a partner, who was truly worthy of her. And if this Mark wasn’t…Well, perhaps then it would be for the best if her friend found out sooner rather than later.

‘Perhaps if you took off the jacket of your suit,’ Lorraine was saying now. ‘You must have some kind of sexy summer top you could wear…or even just…’

She stopped as she saw Saskia’s expression.

‘Summer top, yes,’ Saskia agreed. ‘Sexy…no!’

As she saw the look on Lorraine’s face Saskia suppressed a small sigh. It was pointless trying to explain to a woman like Lorraine that when nature had given one the kind of assets it had given Saskia, one learned very young that they could be something of a double-edged sword. To put it more bluntly, men—in Saskia’s experience—did not need the double overload of seeing her body clad in ‘sexy’ clothes to encourage them to look twice at her. And in most cases to want to do much more than merely look!

‘You must have something,’ Lorraine urged, refusing to be defeated. ‘A cardigan. You must have a cardigan—you could wear it sort of unbuttoned…’

‘A cardigan? Yes, I have a cardigan,’ Saskia agreed. She had bought it halfway through their cold spring when they had been on an economy drive at work and the heating had been turned off. But as for wearing it unbuttoned…!

‘And red lipstick,’ Lorraine was insisting, ‘and more eye make-up. You’ll have to let him know that you find him attractive…’ She paused as Saskia lifted her eyebrows. ‘It’s for Megan’s sake.’

In the end it was almost nine o’clock before they left the house, due to Lorraine’s insistence that Saskia had to reapply her make-up with a far heavier hand than she would normally have used.

Uncomfortably Saskia refused to look at her reflection in the hall mirror. All that lipstick! It felt sticky, gooey, and as Lorraine drove her towards Hilford she had to force herself to resist the temptation to wipe it off. As for the unbuttoned cardigan she was wearing beneath her suit jacket—well, the moment she was inside the wine bar and out of Lorraine’s sight she was going to refasten every single one of the top three buttons Lorraine had demanded that she left undone. True, they did nothing more than merely hint at a cleavage, but even that was far more of a provocation than Saskia would normally have allowed.

‘We’re here,’ Lorraine announced as she pulled up outside the wine bar. ‘I’ll pick you up at eleven—that should give you plenty of time. Remember,’ Lorraine hissed determinedly as Saskia got out of the car, ‘We’re doing this for Megan.’

We? But before Saskia could say anything Lorraine was driving off.

A man walking in the opposite direction paused on the pavement to give her an admiring glance. Automatically Saskia distanced herself from him and turned away, mentally squaring her shoulders as she headed for the entrance to the wine bar.

Lorraine had given her a long list of instructions, most of which had made Saskia cringe inwardly, and already her courage was beginning to desert her. There was no way she could go in there and pout and flirt in the enticing way that Lorraine had informed her she had to do. But if she didn’t poor Megan could end up having her heart broken and her inheritance cheated away from her.

Taking a deep breath, Saskia pulled open the wine bar door.

CHAPTER TWO

ANDREAS saw Saskia the moment she walked in. He was seated at the bar, which was now being besieged by a crowd of young men who had come in just ahead of her. He could have stayed in and eaten in the office block’s penthouse apartment—or even driven to the closest of their new acquisitions—but he had already endured two lengthy phone calls he would rather not have had this evening: one from his grandfather and another from Athena. So he had decided to go somewhere where neither of them could get in touch with him, having deliberately ‘forgotten’ to bring his mobile with him.

He hadn’t been in a particularly good mood when he had arrived at the wine bar. Such places were not to his taste.

He liked good food served in comfortable surroundings where one could talk and think with ease, and there was also enough Greek in him for him to prefer somewhere more family centred and less of an obvious trawling ground for members of the opposite sex.

Thinking of the opposite sex made his mouth harden. Athena was becoming more and more brazen in her attempts to convince him that they should be together. He had been fifteen the first time he had been exposed to Athena’s sexual aggression, and she had been twenty-two and about to be married.

He frowned as he watched Saskia. She was standing just inside the doorway, studying the room as though she was looking for someone. She turned her head and the light fell on her smoothly glossed lips.

Andreas sucked in his breath as he fought to control his unwanted reaction to her. What the hell was he doing? She was so damned obvious with that almost but not quite scarlet lipstick that he ought to be laughing, not…Not what? he asked himself caustically. Not wanting…lusting…

A strong surge of self-disgust lashed him. He had recognised her, of course. It was the girl from this afternoon, the one the receptionist had congratulated on her early departure from work. Then she had been wearing a minimum of make-up. Now…He eyed her lipsticked mouth and kohl-enhanced eyes grimly. She was wearing a suit with a short skirt…a very short skirt, he observed as she moved and he caught sight of the length of her sheer black tights-clad legs. A very, very short skirt!

As the turned-over waistband of her once respectably knee-length skirt made its presence felt, Saskia grimaced. Once she had found Mark she fully intended to make her way to the cloakroom and return her skirt to its normal length. It had been Lorraine, of course, who had insisted on shortening it.

‘I can’t go out like that,’ Saskia had yelped.

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Lorraine had derided her. ‘That’s nothing. Haven’t you seen pictures from the sixties?’

‘That was then,’ Saskia had informed her firmly without letting her finish, but Lorraine had refused to give in and in the end Saskia had shrugged her shoulders and comforted herself with the knowledge that once Lorraine was out of sight she could do what she liked with her skirt. The cardigan too was making her feel uncomfortable, and unwittingly she started to toy with the first of its unfastened buttons.

As he watched her Andreas’s eyes narrowed. God, but she was obvious, drawing attention to her breasts like that…And what breasts! Andreas discovered that he was starting to grind his teeth and, more importantly, that he was totally unable to take his eyes off Saskia…

Sensing that she was being watched, Saskia turned round and then froze as her searching gaze clashed head-on with Andreas’s hard-eyed stare.

For a breath of time Saskia was totally dazed, such was the effect of Andreas’s raw masculinity on her. Her heart was pounding, her mouth dry, her body…Helplessly transfixed, she fought desperately against what she was feeling—against what she was not allowed to feel. For this was Megan’s Mark—it had to be. She could not really be experiencing what her emotions were telling her she was experiencing, she denied in panic. Not a woman like her, and not for this man, Megan’s man!

No other man in the place came anywhere near matching the description Megan had given her as closely as this one did. Mentally she ticked off Megan’s euphoric description of him—one Saskia had previously put down to the near ravings of a woman besottedly in love. Gorgeous, fantastically good-looking, sexy…Oh, and he would be wearing a blue shirt, Megan had told her, to match his eyes. Well, Saskia couldn’t make out the colour of his eyes across the dimly lit distance that separated them, but she could certainly see that Megan had been right on every other count and her heart sank. So this was Megan’s Mark. No wonder she was worrying so anxiously that he might be being unfaithful to her…A man who looked like this one did would have women pursuing him in droves.

Funny, but Megan hadn’t mentioned the most important thing of all about him, which wasn’t just that he was so spectacularly and sexually male but that he emanated a profound and intense air of authority that bordered almost on arrogance; it had struck Saskia the moment she had looked at him. That and the look of discreet male inspection quickly followed by a reactive resultant look of contemptuous disapproval.

That look…How dare he look at her like that? Suddenly all the doubts she had been harbouring about what she had agreed to do were vanquished.

Lorraine was right to be suspicious of such a man’s motives, especially where a naive, gentle, unworldly girl like Megan was concerned. Saskia didn’t trust him one little bit. Megan needed a man who would appreciate her gentleness and treat her correspondingly. This man was powerful, daunting, awesome—and looking at him was, as Saskia was beginning to discover, something of a physical compulsion. She couldn’t take her eyes off him. But that was just because she disliked him so much, she assured herself quickly, because she was so intensely aware of how very right Lorraine had been to want to test his loyalty to Megan.

Determinedly quelling the butterflies fluttering in her stomach, Saskia took a deep breath, mentally reminding herself of what she had read in the article Lorraine had thrust under her nose. Then she had been horrified, repulsed by the lengths the girls hired by the agency were prepared to go to in order to entice and entrap their quarry into self-betrayal. It had even crossed her mind that no mere man could possibly find the strength to resist the kind of deliberate temptation those girls offered—everything from the most intense type of verbal flattery right up to outright offers of sex itself, although thankfully offers had been all they were.

A man like this one, though, must be used to women—attractive women—throwing themselves at him. ‘He dated so many girls before he met me,’ Megan had said innocently.

Saskia would just bet that he had. Megan was a honey, and Saskia loved her with a fierce loyalty, but even she had to admit that her friend did not possess the kind of glamorous instant eye appeal she suspected a man like this one would look for. But perhaps that was what he loved about her—the fact that she was so shy and homely. If he loved her…Well, that was up to Saskia to prove…or disprove…wasn’t it?

With the light of battle shining in her eyes, Saskia made her way towards him.

Andreas watched her progress with a mixture of curiosity and disappointment. She was heading for him. He knew that, but the cool hauteur with which she not only ignored the interested looks she was collecting from other men as she did so but almost seemed not to notice them, was every bit as contrived as the unfastened buttons of the top she was wearing. It had to be! Andreas knew the type. He should do. After all, Athena…

‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ Saskia apologised as she reached Andreas’s side and ‘accidentally’ stumbled against him. Straightening up, she stood next to him at the bar, giving him a winsomely apologetic smile as she moved so close to him that he could smell her scent…Not her perfume, which was light and floral, unexpectedly, but her scent,…the soft, honey-sweet headily sensual and erotic scent that was her. And like a fool he was actually breathing it in, getting almost drunk on it…letting his senses react to it…to her…

Lorraine had coached her on her best approach and Saskia had memorised it, grimacing with loathing and distaste as she did so.

Andreas forced himself to step back from her and put some distance between them, but the bar was crowded and it was impossible for him to move away altogether, so instead he asked her coldly, ‘I’m sorry…do I know you?’

His voice and demeanour were, he knew, cutting enough to make it plain that he knew what she was up to. Although why on earth a woman who looked like this one needed to trawl bars looking for men to pick up he had no idea. Or rather he did, but he preferred not to examine it too closely. There were women, as he already knew to his cost, who would do anything for money…anything…with anyone…

But Saskia was facing him now, her lipstick-glossed mouth parting in a smile he could see was forced as she purred, ‘Er, no, actually, you don’t…but I’m hoping that soon you will.’

Saskia was relieved that the bar was so dimly lit. She could feel the heat of her burning face. She had never in her most private thoughts even contemplated coming on to a man like this, never mind envisaged that she might actually do so. Quickly she hurried on to the next part of her prepared speech, parting her lips in what she hoped was a temptingly provocative smile whilst carefully running her tongue-tip over them.

Yuck! But all that lipstick felt repulsive.

‘Aren’t you going to ask me if I’d like a drink?’ she invited coyly, batting her eyelashes in what she hoped was an appropriately enticing manner. ‘I love the colour of your shirt,’ she added huskily as she leaned closer. ‘It matches your eyes…’

‘If you think that you must be colour blind; my eyes are grey,’ Andreas told her tersely. She was beginning to make him feel very angry. Her obviousness was nothing short of contemptible. But nothing like as contemptible as his own ridiculous reaction to her. What was he? A boy of eighteen? He was supposed to be a man…a mature, sophisticated, experienced, worldly man of thirty-odd—and yet here he was, reacting, responding, to the pathetically tired and jaded sexual tricks she was playing on him as eagerly as though…As though what? As though there was nothing he wanted to do right now more than take her to bed, to feel the hot urgency of her body beneath his, to hear her cry out his name through lips swollen with the mutual passion of their shared kisses whilst he…

‘Look,’ he told her sharply, cutting off the supply of lifeblood to his unwanted fantasies by the simple act of refusing to allow himself to think about them, ‘you’re making a big mistake.’

‘Oh, no,’ Saskia protested anxiously as he started to turn away from her. By rights she should simply accept what he was saying and go back to Megan and tell her that her beloved Mark was everything he was supposed to be. But an instinct she couldn’t analyse was telling her that despite all the evidence to the contrary he was tempted. Any man could be tempted, she tried to tell herself fairly, but something inside her refused to allow her to listen.

‘You could never be a mistake,’ she purred suggestively. ‘To any woman…’

Fatuously Andreas wondered if he had gone completely mad. To even think of desiring a woman who was openly propositioning him was anathema to everything he believed in. How could he possibly be even remotely attracted to her? He wasn’t, of course. It was impossible. And as for that sudden inexplicable urge he had had to take her home with him, where she would be safe from the kind of attention her make-up and behaviour were bound to attract. Well, now he knew he must be seriously losing it.

If there was one thing he despised it was women like this one. Not that he preferred them to be demure or virginal. No. What he found most attractive was a woman who was proud to be herself and who expected his sex to respect her right to be what she was. The kind of woman who would automatically eschew any act that involved her presenting herself as some kind of sexual plaything and who would just as determinedly turn her back on any man who wanted her to behave that way. This woman…

‘I’m sorry,’ he told her, making it verbally plain that he was no such thing by the cold tone of his voice, ‘but you’re wasting your time. And time, as I can see,’ he continued in a deceptively gentle voice, ‘has to be money for a woman like you. So why don’t you go away and find someone else who will be…er…more receptive to what you’ve got on offer than I am?’

White-faced, Saskia watched as he turned away from her and thrust his way towards the door. He had rejected her…refused her. He had…He had…Painfully she swallowed. He had proved that he was faithful to Megan and he had…He had looked at her as though…as though…Like a little girl, Saskia wiped the back of her hand across her lipsticked mouth, grimacing as she saw the stain the high-coloured gloss had left there.

‘Hi there, gorgeous. Can I buy you a drink?’

Numbly she shook her head, ignoring the sour look the man who had approached was giving her as she stared at the door. There was no sign of Megan’s man. He had gone—and she was glad. Of course she was. How could she not be? And she would be delighted to be able to report to Megan and Lorraine that Mark had not succumbed to her.

She glanced at her watch, her heart sinking. She still had over an hour to go before she met Lorraine. There was no way she could stay here in the bar on her own, attracting attention. Quickly she headed for the ladies. There was something she had to do.

In the cloakroom she fastened her cardigan and wiped her face clean of the last of the red lipstick and the kohl eye-liner, replacing them both with her normal choice of make-up—a discreet application of taupe eye-shadow and a soft berry-coloured lipstick—and coiling up her long hair into a neat chignon. Then she waited in the ladies’ room until an inspection of her watch told her she could finally leave.

This time as she made her way through the crowded bar it was a very different type of look that Saskia collected from the men who watched her admiringly.

To her relief Lorraine was parked outside, waiting for her.

‘Well?’ she demanded eagerly as Saskia opened the car door and got in.

‘Nothing,’ Saskia told her, shaking her head. ‘He turned me down flat.’

‘What?’

‘Lorraine, careful…’ Saskia cried out warningly as the other woman almost backed into the car behind her in shock.

‘You mustn’t have tried hard enough,’ Lorraine told her bossily.

‘I can assure you that I tried as hard as anyone could,’ Saskia corrected her wryly.

‘Did he mention Megan…tell you that he was spoken for?’ Lorraine questioned her.

‘No!’ Saskia shook her head. ‘But I promise you he made it plain that he wasn’t interested. He looked at me…’ She stopped and swallowed, unwilling to think about, never mind tell anyone else, just how Megan’s beloved had looked at her. For some odd reason she refused to define just to remember the icy contempt she had seen in his eyes made her tremble between anger and pain.

‘Where is Megan?’ she asked Lorraine.

‘She was called in unexpectedly to work an extra shift. She rang to let me know and I said we’d drive straight over to her place and meet up with her there.’

Saskia smiled wanly. By rights she knew she ought to be feeling far happier than she actually was. Though out of the three of them she suspected that Megan would be the only one who would actually be pleased to learn that her Mark had determinedly refused to be tempted.

Her Mark. Megan’s Mark. There was a bitter taste in Saskia’s mouth and her heart felt like a heavy lump of lead inside her chest.

What on earth was the matter with her? She couldn’t possibly be jealous of Megan, could she? No! She couldn’t be…she must not be!

‘Are you sure you tried hard enough?’ Lorraine was asking her sternly.

‘I said everything you told me to say,’ Saskia told her truthfully.

‘And he didn’t make any kind of response?’

Saskia could tell that Lorraine didn’t believe her.

‘Oh, he made a response,’ she admitted grimly. ‘It just wasn’t the kind…’ She stopped and then told her flatly, ‘He wasn’t interested, Lorraine. He must really love Megan.’

‘Yes, if he prefers her to you he must,’ Lorraine agreed bluntly. ‘She’s a dear, and I love her, but there’s no way…You don’t think he could have guessed what you were doing do you? No way he could have known…?’

‘No, I don’t,’ Saskia denied. She was beginning to feel tired, almost aching with a sharp, painful need to be on her own. The last thing she wanted right now was to deal with someone like Lorraine, but she owed it to Megan to reassure her that she could trust Mark.

As they pulled up outside Megan’s house Saskia saw that her car was parked outside. Her stomach muscles started to clench as she got out of Lorraine’s car and walked up the garden path. Megan and Mark. Even their names sounded cosy together, redolent of domesticity…of marital comfort. And yet…if ever she’d met a man who was neither domesticated nor cosy it had been Megan’s Mark. There had been an air of primitive raw maleness about him, an aura of power and sexuality, a sense that in his arms a woman could…would…touch such sensual heights of delight and pleasure that she would never be quite the same person again.

Saskia tensed. What on earth was she thinking? Mark belonged to Megan—her best friend, the friend to whom she owed her grandmother’s life and good health.

Megan had obviously seen them arrive and was opening the door before they reached it, her face wreathed in smiles.

‘It’s all right,’ Saskia told her hollowly. ‘Mark didn’t…’

‘I know…I know…’ Megan beamed as she ushered them inside. ‘He came to see me at work and explained everything. Oh, I’ve been such an idiot…Why on earth I didn’t guess what he was planning I just don’t know. We leave next week. He’d even told them at work what he was planning…that was the reason for all those calls. Plus the girl at the travel agency kept phoning. Oh, Saskia, I can’t believe it. I’ve always longed to go to the Caribbean, and for Mark to have booked us such a wonderful holiday…The place we’re going to specialises in holidays for couples. I’m so sorry you had a wasted evening. I tried to ring you but you’d already left. I thought you might have got here sooner. After all, once you’d realised that Mark wasn’t at the wine bar…’ She stopped as she saw the look on both her cousin’s and Saskia’s faces.

‘What is it?’ she asked them uncertainly.

‘You said that you’d spoken to Mark,’ Lorraine was saying tersely to Saskia.

‘I did…’ Saskia insisted. ‘He was just as you described him to us, Megan…’

She stopped as Megan shook her head firmly.

‘Mark wasn’t there, Sas,’ she repeated. ‘He was with me at work. He arrived at half past eight and Sister gave me some time off so that we could talk. He’d guessed how upset I was and he’d decided that he would have to tell me what he was planning. He said he knew he couldn’t have kept the secret for very much longer anyway,’ she added fondly.

‘And before you say a word,’ she said firmly to her cousin, ‘Mark is paying for everything himself.’

Saskia leaned weakly against the wall. If the man she had come on to hadn’t been Megan’s Mark, then just who on earth had he been? Her face became even paler. She had come on to a man she didn’t know…a total and complete stranger…a man who…She swallowed nauseously, remembering the way she had looked, the way she had behaved…the things she had said. Thank God he was a stranger. Thank God she would never have to see him again.

‘Sas, you don’t look well,’ she could hear Megan saying solicitously. ‘What is it?’

‘Nothing,’ she fibbed, but Lorraine had already guessed what she was thinking.

‘Well, if the man in the wine bar wasn’t Mark then who on earth was he?’ She demanded sharply.

‘Who indeed?’ Saskia echoed hollowly.

CHAPTER THREE

TO SASKIA’S dismay she heard the town hall clock striking eight a.m. as she hurried to work. She had intended to be in extra early this morning but unfortunately she had overslept—a direct result of the previous evening’s events and the fact that initially she had been mentally agonising so much over what she had done that she had been unable to get to sleep.

Officially she might not be due to be at her desk until nine a.m., but in this modern age that was not the way things worked, especially when one’s hold on one’s job was already dangerously precarious.

‘There are bound to be cutbacks…redundancies,’ the head of Saskia’s department had warned them all, and Saskia, as she’d listened to him, had been sharply conscious that as the newest member of the team she was the one whose job was most in line to be cut back. It would be virtually impossible for her to get another job with the same kind of prospects in Hilford, and if she moved away to London that would mean her grandmother would be left on her own. At sixty-five her grandmother was not precisely old—far from it—and she had a large circle of friends, but the illness had left Saskia feeling afraid for her. Saskia felt she owed her such a huge debt, not only for bringing her up but for giving her so much love.

As she hurried into the foyer she asked Emma, the receptionist, anxiously, ‘Has he arrived yet?’

There was no need to qualify who she meant by ‘he’, and Emma gave her a slightly superior smile as she replied, ‘Actually he arrived yesterday. He’s upstairs now,’ she added smugly, ‘interviewing everyone.’ Her smugness and superiority gave way to a smile of pure feminine appreciation as she sighed. ‘Just wait until you see him. He’s gorgeous…with a great big capital G.’

She rolled her eyes expressively whilst Saskia gave her a wan smile.

She now had her own special and private—very private—blueprint of what a gorgeous man looked like, and she doubted that their new Greek boss came anywhere near to matching it.

‘Typically, though, mind you,’ the receptionist continued, oblivious to Saskia’s desire to hurry to her office, ‘he’s already spoken for. Or at least he soon will be. I was talking to the receptionist at their group’s head office and she told me that his grandfather wants him to marry his cousin. She’s mega-wealthy and—’

‘I’m sorry, Emma, but I must go,’ Saskia interrupted her firmly. Office gossip, like office politics, was something Saskia had no wish to involve herself in, and besides…If their new boss was already interviewing people she didn’t want to earn herself any black marks by not being at her desk when he sent for her.

Her office was on the third floor, an open plan space where she worked with five other people. Their boss had his own glass-walled section, but right now both it and the general office itself were empty.

Just as she was wondering what to do the outer door swung open and her boss, followed by the rest of her colleagues, came into the room.

‘Ah, Saskia, there you are,’ her boss greeted her.

‘Yes. I had intended to be here earlier…’ Saskia began, but Gordon Jarman was shaking his head.

‘Don’t explain now,’ he told her sharply. ‘You’d better get upstairs to the executive suite. Mr Latimer’s secretary will be expecting you. Apparently he wants to interview everyone, both individually and with their co-department members, and he wasn’t too pleased that you weren’t here…’

Without allowing Saskia to say anything, Gordon turned on his heel and went into his office, leaving her with no option but to head for the lift. It was unlike Gordon to be so sharp. He was normally a very laid back sort of person. Saskia could feel the nervous feeling in her tummy increasing as she contemplated the kind of attitude Andreas Latimer must have adopted towards his new employees to cause such a reaction in her normally unflappable boss.

The executive suite was unfamiliar territory to Saskia. The only previous occasions on which she had entered it had been when she had gone for her initial interview and then, more recently, when the whole staff had been informed of the success of the Demetrios takeover bid.

A little uncertainly she got out of the lift and walked towards the door marked ‘Personal Assistant to the Chief Executive’.

Madge Fielding, the previous owner’s secretary, had retired when the takeover bid’s success had been announced, and when Saskia saw the elegantly groomed dark-haired woman seated behind Madge’s desk she assumed that the new owner must have brought his PA with him from Demetrios head office.

Nervously Saskia gave her name, and started to explain that she worked for Gordon Jarman, but the PA waved her explanation aside, consulting a list in front of her instead and then saying coldly, without lifting her head from it, ‘Saskia? Yes. You’re late. Mr Latimer does not like…In fact I’m not sure…’ She stopped and eyed Saskia with a disapproving frown. ‘He may not have time to interview you now,’ she warned, before picking up the phone and announcing in a very different tone of voice from the one she had used to address Saskia, ‘Ms. Rodgers is here now, Andreas. Do you still want to see her?

‘You can go in,’ she informed Saskia. ‘It’s the door over there…’

Feeling like a naughty child, Saskia forced herself not to react, heading instead for the door the PA had indicated and knocking briefly on it before turning the handle and walking in.

As she stepped into the office the bright sunlight streaming in through the large windows momentarily dazzled her. All she could make out was the hazy outline of a man standing in front of the glass with his back to her, the brilliance of the sunlight making it impossible for her to see any more.

But Andreas could see Saskia. It hadn’t surprised him that she should choose to arrive at work later than her colleagues; after all, he knew how she spent her evenings. What had surprised him had been the genuinely high esteem in which he had discovered she was held both by her immediate boss and her co-workers. It seemed that when it came to giving that extra metre, going that extra distance, Saskia was always the first to do so and the first to do whatever she could to help out her colleagues.

‘Yes, it is perhaps unusual in a young graduate,’ her boss had agreed when Andreas had questioned his praise of Saskia. ‘But then she has been brought up by her grandmother and perhaps because of that her values and sense of obligation towards others are those of an older generation. As you can see from my report on her, her work is excellent and so are her qualifications.’

And she’s a stunningly attractive young woman who seems to know how to use her undeniable ‘assets’ to her own advantage, Andreas had reflected inwardly, but Gordon Jarman had continued to enthuse about Saskia’s dedication to her work, her kindness to her fellow employees, her ability to integrate herself into a team and work diligently at whatever task she was given, and her popularity with other members of the workforce.

After studying the progress reports her team leader and Gordon himself had made on her, and the photograph in her file, Andreas had been forced to concede that if he hadn’t seen for himself last night the way Saskia could look and behave he would probably have accepted Gordon’s glowing report at face value.

She was quite plainly a woman who knew how to handle his sex, even if with him she had made an error of judgement.

This morning, for instance, she had completely metamorphosed back into the dedicated young woman forging a career for herself—neatly suited, her hair elegantly sleeked back, her face free of all but the lightest touch of make-up. Andreas started to frown as his body suddenly and very urgently and unwontedly reminded him of the female allure of the body that was today concealed discreetly beneath a prim navy business suit.

Didn’t he already have enough problems to contend with? Last night after returning from the wine bar he had received a telephone call from his mother, anxiously warning him that his grandfather was on the warpath.

‘He had dinner with some of his old cronies last night and apparently they were all boasting about the deals they had recently pulled off. You know what they’re like.’ She had sighed. ‘And your grandfather was told by one of them that he had high hopes of his son winning Athena’s hand…’

‘Good luck to him,’ Andreas had told his mother uncompromisingly. ‘I hope he does. That at least will get her and Grandfather off my back.’

‘Well, yes,’ his mother had agreed doubtfully. ‘But at the moment it seems to have made him even more determined to promote a marriage between the two of you. And, of course, now that he’s half retired he’s got more time on his hands to plan and fret…It’s such a pity that there isn’t already someone in your life.’ She had sighed again, adding with a chuckle, ‘I honestly believe that the hope of a great-grandchild would thrill him so much that he’d quickly forget he’d ever wanted you to marry Athena!’

Someone else in his life? Had it really been exasperation and the headache he knew lay ahead of him with their new acquisition that had prompted him into making the rashest statement of his life in telling his mother, ‘What makes you think there isn’t someone?’

There had been a startled pause, just long enough for him to curse himself mentally but not for him to recall his impetuous words, before his mother had demanded in excitement, ‘You mean there is? Oh, Andreas! Who? When are we going to meet her? Who is she? How did you…? Oh, darling, how wonderful. Your grandfather will be thrilled. Olympia, guess what…’

He had then heard her telling his sister.

He had tried to put a brake on their excitement, to warn them that he was only talking in ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’, but neither of them had been prepared to listen. Neither had his grandfather this morning, when he had rung at the ungodly hour of five o’clock to demand to know when he was to meet his grandson’s fiancée.

Fiancée…How the hell his mother and sister had managed to translate an off the cuff remark made in irritation into a real live fiancée Andreas had no idea, but he did know that unless he produced this mythical creature he was going to be in very big trouble.

‘You’ll be bringing her to the island with you, of course,’ his grandfather had announced, and his words had been a command and not a question.

What the hell was he going to do? He had eight days in which to find a prospective fiancée and make it clear to her that their ‘engagement’ was nothing more than a convenient fiction. Eight days and she would have to be a good enough actress to fool not just his grandfather but his mother and sisters as well.

Irritably he moved out of the sunlight’s direct beam, turning round so that Saskia saw him properly for the first time.

There was no opportunity for her to conceal her shock, or the soft winded gasp of dismay that escaped her discreetly glossed lips as her face paled and then flooded with burning hot colour.

‘You!’ she choked as she backed instinctively towards the door, her memories of the previous night flooding her brain and with them the sure knowledge that she was about to lose her job.

She certainly was an excellent actress, Andreas acknowledged as he observed her reaction—and in more ways than one. Her demeanour this morning was totally different from the way she had presented herself last night. But then no doubt she was horrified to discover that he was the man she had so blatantly propositioned. Even so, that look of sick dismay darkening her eyes and the way her soft bottom lip was trembling despite her attempts to stop it…Oh, yes, she was a first-rate actress—a first-rate actress!

Suddenly Andreas could see a welcome gleam of light at the end of the dark tunnel of his current problem. Oh, yes, indeed, a very definite beam of light.

‘So Ms Rodgers.’ Andreas began flaying into Saskia’s already shredded self-confidence with all the delicacy of a surgeon expertly slicing through layer after layer of skin, muscle and bone. ‘I have read the report Gordon Jarman has written on you and I must congratulate you. It seems that you’ve persuaded him to think very highly of you. That’s quite an accomplishment for an employee so new and young. Especially one who adopts such an unconventional and, shall we say, elastic attitude towards timekeeping…leaving earlier than her colleagues in the evening and arriving later than them in the morning.’

‘Leaving early?’ Saskia stared at him, fighting to recover her composure. How had he known about that?

As though he had read her mind, he told her softly, ‘I was in the foyer when you left…quite some time before your official finishing time.’

‘But that was…’ Saskia began indignantly.

However, Andreas did not allow her to finish, shaking his head and telling her coolly, ‘No excuses, please. They might work on Gordon Jarman, but unfortunately for you they will not work with me. After all, I have seen how you comport yourself when you are not at work. Unless…’ He frowned, his mouth hardening as he studied her with icy derision. ‘Unless, of course, that is the reason he has given you such an unusually excellent report…’

‘No!’ Saskia denied straight away. ‘No! I don’t…Last night was a mistake,’ she protested. ‘I…’

‘Yes, I’m afraid it was,’ Andreas agreed, adding smoothly, ‘For you at least. I appreciate that the salary you are paid is relatively small, but my grandfather would be extremely unhappy to learn that a member of our staff is having to boost her income in a way that can only reflect extremely badly on our company.’ Giving her a thin smile he went on with deceptive amiability, ‘How very fortunate for you that it wasn’t in one of our hotels that you were…er…plying your trade and—’

‘How dare you?’ Saskia interrupted him furiously, her cheeks bright scarlet and her mouth a mutinous soft bow. Pride burned rebelliously in her eyes.

‘How dare I? Rather I should say to you, how dare you,’ Andreas contradicted her sharply, his earlier air of pleasantness instantly replaced by a hard look of contemptuous anger as he told her grimly, ‘Apart from the unedifying moral implications of what you were doing, or rather attempting to do, has it ever occurred to you to consider the physical danger you could be putting yourself in? Women like you…’

He paused and changed tack, catching her off guard as he went on in a much gentler tone, ‘I understand from your boss that you are very anxious to maintain your employment with us.’

‘Yes. Yes, I am,’ Saskia admitted huskily. There was no use denying what he was saying. She had already discussed her feelings and fears about the prospect of being made redundant with Gordon Jarman, and he had obviously recorded them and passed them on to Andreas. To deny them now would only convince him she was a liar—as well as everything else!

‘Look…Please, I can explain about last night,’ she told him desperately, pride giving way to panic. ‘I know how it must have looked, but it wasn’t…I didn’t…’ She stopped as she saw from his expression that he wasn’t prepared even to listen to her, never mind believe her.

A part of her was forced to acknowledge that she could hardly blame him…nor convince him either, unless she dragged Lorraine and Megan into his office to support her and she had far too much pride to do that. Besides, Megan wasn’t capable of thinking of anything or anyone right now other than Mark and her upcoming Caribbean holiday, and as for Lorraine…Well, Saskia could guess how the older woman would revel in the situation Saskia now found herself in.

‘A wise decision,’ Andreas told her gently when she stopped speaking. ‘You see, I despise a liar even more than I do a woman who…’ Now it was his turn to stop, but Saskia knew what he was thinking.

Her face burned even more hotly, which made it disconcerting for her when he suddenly said abruptly, ‘I’ve got a proposition I want to put to you.’

As she made a strangled sound of shock in her throat he steepled his fingers together and looked at her over them, like a sleek, well-fed predator watching a small piece of prey it was enjoying tormenting.

‘What kind of proposition?’ she asked him warily, but the heavy sledgehammer strokes of her heart against her ribs warned her that she probably already knew the answer—just as she knew why she was filled with such a shocking mixture of excitement and revulsion.

‘Oh, not the kind you are probably most familiar with,’ Andreas was telling her softly. ‘I’ve read that some professional young women get a kick out of acting the part of harlots…’

‘I was doing no such thing,’ Saskia began heatedly, but he stopped her.

‘I was there—remember?’ he said sharply. ‘If my grandfather knew how you had behaved he would demand your instant dismissal.’ His grandfather might have ceded most of the control of the business to Andreas, but Andreas could see from Saskia’s expression that she still believed him.

‘You don’t have to tell him.’ He could see the effort it cost her to swallow her pride and add a reluctant tremulous, ‘Please…’

‘I don’t have to,’ he agreed ‘But whether or not I do depends on your response to my proposition.’

‘That’s blackmail,’ Saskia protested.

‘Almost as old a profession as the one you were engaging in last night,’ Andreas agreed silkily.

Saskia began to panic. Against all the odds there was only one thing he could possibly want from her, unlikely though that was. After all, last night she had given him every reason to assume…to believe…But that had been when she had thought he was Mark, and if he would just allow her to explain…

Fear kicked through her, fuelling a panic that rushed her headlong into telling him aggressively, ‘I’m surprised that a man like you needs to blackmail a woman into having sex with him. And there’s no way that I…’

‘Sex?’ he questioned, completely astounding her by throwing back his head and laughing out loud. When he had stopped, he repeated, ‘Sex?’ adding disparagingly, ‘With you? No way! It isn’t sex I want from you,’ he told her coolly.

‘Not sex? Then…then what is it?’ Saskia demanded shakily.

‘What I want from you,’ Andreas informed her calmly, ‘is your time and your agreement to pose as my fiancée.’

‘What?’ Saskia stared at him. ‘You’re mad,’ she told him in disbelief.

‘No, not mad,’ Andreas corrected her sternly. ‘But I am very determined not to be coerced into the marriage my grandfather wants to arrange for me. And, as my dear mother has so rightly reminded me, the best way to do that is to convince him that I am in love with someone else. That is the only way I can stop this ridiculous campaign of his.’

‘You want me…to pose…as your…fiancée?’ Saskia spaced the words out carefully, as though she wasn’t sure she had heard them correctly, and then, when she saw the confirmation in his face, she denied fiercely, ‘No. No way. No way at all!’

‘No?’ Andreas questioned with remarkable amiability. ‘Then I’m afraid you leave me with no alternative but to inform you that there is a strong—a very strong possibility that we shall have to let you go as part of our regrettable but necessary cutbacks. I hope I make myself clear.’

‘No! You can’t do that…’ Saskia began, and then stopped as she saw the cynical way he was looking at her.

She was wasting her time. There was no way he was even going to listen to her, never mind believe her. He didn’t want to believe her. It didn’t suit his plans to believe her…she could see that. And if she refused to accede to his commands then she knew that he was fully capable of carrying out his threat against her. Saskia swallowed. She was well and truly trapped, with no way whatsoever of escaping.

‘Well?’ Andreas mocked her. ‘You still haven’t given me your reply. Do you agree to my proposition, or…?’

Saskia swallowed the bitter taste of bile and defeat lodged in her throat. Her voice sounded raw, rasping…it hurt her to speak but she tried to hold up her head as she told him miserably, ‘I agree.’

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