Conveniently His Omnibus (21 page)

At twenty-two she had not been a young bride by Greek standards, and she had been carefully stalking her husband-to-be for some time. Older than her by a decade, and immensely wealthy, he had played a cat and mouse game with her for well over a year before he had finally capitulated. There had certainly been no way she was going to give up the marriage she had worked so hard for for the passion she felt for Andreas, a mere boy.

But then fate had stepped in. Her husband had died unexpectedly and she had been left a widow. A very rich widow...a very rich and sexually hungry widow. And Andreas was now a man—and what a man!

The only thing that was keeping them apart was Andreas’s pride. It had to be. What other reason could he possibly have for resisting her advances?

As the limousine pulled up at the address she had given the driver Athena examined her reflection in the neat mirrors fitted into the Rolls’s interior. That discreet nip and tuck she had had last year had been well worth the prince’s ransom she had paid the American plastic surgeon. She could quite easily pass for a woman in her early thirties now.

Her jet-black hair had been cut and styled by one of the world’s top hairdressers, her skin glowed from the expensive creams lavished on it, her make-up was immaculate and emphasised the slanting darkness of her eyes, her toe and fingernails gleamed richly with dark red polish.

A smile of satisfaction curved her mouth. No, there was no way Andreas’s dreary little fiancée—an office girl, someone he had supposedly fallen in love with during the negotiations to buy out the hotel chain—could compete with her. Athena’s eyes hardened. This girl, whoever she was, would soon learn what a mistake she had made in trying to lay claim on the man
Athena
wanted. What a very, very big mistake!

As she left the limousine the perfume she had especially blended for her in Paris moved with her, a heavy, musky cloud of sexuality.

Her teenage daughters loathed it, and were constantly begging her to change it, but she had no intention of doing so. It was her signature, the essence of herself as a woman. Andreas’s English fiancée no doubt wore something dull and insipid such as lavender water!

* * *

‘I’
LL
LEAVE
THE
CAR
here,’ Andreas told Saskia as he swung the Mercedes into a multi-storey car park right in the centre of the city. Saskia’s eyes widened as she saw the tariff pinned up by the barrier. She would never have dreamed of paying so much to park a car, but the rich, as they said, were different.

Just how different she came to realise during the course of the afternoon, as Andreas guided her into a series of shops the like of which Saskia had never imagined existed. And in each one the very aura of his presence seemed to draw from the sales assistants the kind of reverential reaction that made Saskia tighten her lips. She could see the female admiration and speculation in their eyes as a series of outfits was produced for his inspection. For
his
inspection—not
hers
, Saskia recognised and her sense of helpless frustration and resentment grew with each shop they visited.

‘I’m not a doll or a child,’ she exploded outside one of them, when she had flatly refused to even try on the cream trouser suit the salesgirl had gushingly declared would be perfect for her.

‘No? Well, you’re certainly giving a wonderful imitation of behaving like one,’ Andreas responded grimly. ‘That suit was—’

‘That suit was over one thousand pounds,’ Saskia interrupted him grittily. ‘There’s no
way
I would ever pay that kind of money for an outfit...not even my wedding dress!’

When Andreas started to laugh she glared furiously at him, demanding, ‘What’s so funny?’

‘You are,’ he told her uncompromisingly. ‘My dear Saskia, have you really any idea of the kind of wedding dress you would get for under a thousand pounds?’

‘No, I haven’t,’ Saskia admitted. ‘But I do know that I’d never feel comfortable wearing clothes the cost of which would feed a small country, and neither is an expensive wedding dress any guarantee of a good marriage.’

‘Oh, spare me the right-on lectures,’ Andreas broke in in exasperation. ‘Have you ever thought of how many people would be without jobs if everyone went around wearing sackcloth and ashes, as you obviously would have them do?’

‘That’s not fair,’ Saskia defended herself. She was, after all, feminine enough to like good clothes and to want to look her best, and in that trouser suit she
would
undeniably have looked good, she admitted inwardly. But she was acutely conscious of the fact that every penny Andreas spent on her she would have to repay.

‘I don’t know why you’re insisting on doing this,’ she told Andreas rebelliously. ‘I don’t
need
any clothes; I’ve already told you that. And there’s certainly no need for you to throw your money around to impress me.’

‘You or anyone else,’ Andreas cut in sharply, dark bands of colour burning across his cheekbones in a visual warning to her that she had angered him.

‘I am a businessman, Saskia. Throwing money around for
any
reason is not something I do, least of all in an attempt to impress a woman who could easily be bought for less than half the price of that trouser suit. Oh, no, you don’t,’ he cautioned her softly, reaching out to catch hold of the hand she had automatically lifted.

He was holding her wrist in such a tight grip that Saskia could actually see her fingers going white, but her pride wouldn’t allow her to tell him that he was hurting her. It also wouldn’t allow her to acknowledge that she had momentarily let her feelings get out of control, and it was only when she suddenly started to sway, white-faced with pain and shock, that Andreas realised what was happening. He released her wrist with a muffled curse and then started to chafe life back into her hand.

‘Why didn’t you
tell
me I was hurting you so much?’ he grated. ‘You have bones as fragile as a bird’s.’

Even now, with his dark head bent over her tingling hand whilst he massaged it expertly to bring the blood stinging back into her veins, Saskia couldn’t allow herself to weaken and claim his compassion.

‘I didn’t want to spoil your fun,’ she told him sharply. ‘You were obviously
enjoying
hurting me.’

She tensed when she heard the oath he gave as he released her completely, and tensed again at the sternness in his voice, one look of grim determination in his eyes as he said, ‘This has gone far enough. You are behaving like a child. First a harlot and now a child. There is only
one
role I want to see you play from now on, Saskia, and that is the one we have already agreed upon. I’ll warn you now. If you do or say
anything
to make my family suspect that ours is not a true love match I shall make you very sorry for it. Do you understand me?’

‘Yes, I understand you,’ Saskia agreed woodenly.

‘I mean what I say,’ Andreas warned her. ‘And it won’t just be the Demetrios chain you won’t be able to work for. If you flout me, Saskia, I’ll see to it that you will never be able to work
anywhere
again. An accountant who can’t be trusted and who has been dismissed on suspicion of stealing is not one that anyone will want to employ.’

‘You can’t do that,’ Saskia whispered, white-faced, but she knew all too well that he could.

She hated him now...really hated him, and when in the next shop he marched her into she saw the salesgirl’s eyes widening in breathless sexual interest, she reflected mentally that the other girl was welcome to him...more than welcome!

* * *

I
T
WAS
LATE
IN
THE
afternoon before Andreas finally decided that Saskia had a wardrobe suitable for his fiancée.

At their last port of call he had called upon the services of the store’s personal shopper who, with relentless efficiency, had provided Saskia with the kind of clothes that she had previously only ever seen in glossy magazines.

She had tried to reject everything the shopper had produced, but on each occasion apart from one Andreas had overruled her. The only time they had been in accord had been when the shopper had brought out a bikini which she had announced was perfect for Saskia’s colouring and destination. The minuteness of the triangles which were supposed to cover her modesty had made Saskia’s eyes widen in disbelief—and they had widened even more when she had discreetly managed to study the price tag.

‘I couldn’t possibly swim in that,’ she had blurt-ed out.

‘
Swim
in it?’ The other woman had looked stunned. ‘Good heavens, no, of course not. This isn’t for
swimming
in. And, look, this is the wrap that goes with it. Isn’t it divine?’ she had purred, producing a length of silky fragile fabric embellished with sequins.

As she’d seen the four-figure price on the wrap Saskia had thought she might actually faint with disbelief, but to her relief and surprise Andreas had also shaken his head.

‘That is
not
the kind of outfit I would wish my fiancée to wear,’ he had told the shopper bluntly, adding, just in case she had not fully understood him, ‘Saskia’s body is eye-catching enough without her needing to embellish it with an outfit more suitable for a call girl.’

The shopper diplomatically had not pressed the issue, but instead had gone away, returning with several swimsuits.

Saskia had picked the cheapest of them, unwillingly allowing Andreas to add a matching wrap.

Whilst he’d been settling the bill and making arrangements for everything to be delivered to his riverside apartment Saskia had drunk the coffee the personal shopper had organised for her.

Perhaps it was because she hadn’t really eaten anything all day that she was feeling so lightheaded and anxious, she decided. It couldn’t surely be because she and Andreas were now going to go to his apartment, where they would be alone—could it?

‘There’s an excellent restaurant close to the apartment block,’ Andreas informed Saskia, once they were in the car and he was driving her towards the dockland area where his apartment was situated. ‘I’ll arrange to have a meal sent in and...’

‘No,’ Saskia protested immediately. ‘I’d rather eat out.’

She could see that Andreas was frowning.

‘I don’t think that’s a good idea,’ he told her flatly. ‘A woman on her own, especially a woman like you, is bound to attract attention, and besides, you look tired. I have to go out, and I have no idea what time I will be back.’

Andreas was going out. Saskia could feel her anxiety easing. Her feet ached from the unaccustomed pavement-pounding and her brain was exhausted with the effort of keeping a running tab on just how much money Andreas, and therefore she, had spent.

Far more than she had wanted to spend. So much that just thinking about it was making her feel distinctly ill. Wretchedly she acknowledged that there would be precious little left of her hard-earned little nest egg once she had repaid Andreas what he had spent.

Tiredly Saskia followed Andreas through the underground car park and into the foyer of the apartment block. A special key was needed to use the lift, which glided upwards so smoothly that Saskia’s eyes rounded in shock when it came to a standstill. She had not even realised that they were moving.

‘It’s this way,’ Andreas told her, touching her arm and guiding her towards one of the four doorways opening off the entrance lobby. He was carrying her case, which he put down as he unlocked the door, motioning to Saskia to precede him into the elegant space beyond it.

CHAPTER FIVE

T
HE
FIRST
THING
that struck Saskia about Andreas’s apartment was not the very expensive modern art hanging on the hallway’s walls but its smell—a musky, throat-closing, shockingly overpowering scent which stung her nostrils and made her tense.

That Andreas was equally aware of it she was in no doubt. Saskia could see him pause and lift his head, like a hunting panther sniffing the air.

‘Hell... Hell and damnation,’ she heard him mutter ferociously beneath his breath, and then, to her shock, he thrust open the door into the huge-windowed living space that lay beyond the lobby and took hold of her. His fingers bit into the soft flesh of her arms, his breath a warning whisper against her lips as his eyes blazed down into the unguarded shocked softness of hers, dark as obsidian, hard as flint, commanding...warning...

‘Alone at last. How you have enjoyed teasing me today, my loved one, but now I have you to myself and I can exact what punishment on you I wish...’

The soft crooning tone of his voice as much as his words scattered what was left of her senses, leaving Saskia clinging weakly to him as the shock ripped through her in a floodtide. Then his mouth was covering hers, silencing the protest she was trying to make, his lips moulding, shaping, coaxing,
seducing
hers with an expertise that flattened her defences as effectively as an atom bomb.

Incoherently Saskia whispered his name, trying to insist on a cessation of what he was doing and an explanation for it. But her lips, her mouth, her senses, unused to so much sensual stimulation, were defying reason and caution and everything else that Saskia’s bemused brain was trying to tell them. Her frozen shock melted beneath the heat of the pleasure Andreas’s hungry passionate expertise was showing her, and her lips softened and trembled into an unguarded, uninhibited response.

Without being aware of what she was doing Saskia strained to get closer to Andreas, standing on tiptoe so that she could cling ardently to the delicious pleasure of his kiss. Her hands on his arms registered the sheer size and inflexibility of the muscles beneath them whilst her heart pounded in awed inexperienced shock at the intensity of what she was feeling.

Even more than she could smell that musky, overpowering female perfume, she could smell Andreas himself. His heat...his passion...his maleness... And shockingly something in her, something she hadn’t known existed, was responding to it just as her lips were responding to him...just as
she
was responding to him, swaying into his arms compliantly, her body urging him to draw her close, to let her feel the rest of his male strength.

Dizzily Saskia opened the eyes she had closed at the first touch of his mouth on hers, shivering as she saw the sparks of raw sensuality darting like lightning from his eyes as he stared down at her. It was like hanging way above the earth in a dizzying, death-defying place where she could feel her danger and yet at the same time know somehow she would be safe.

‘You love like an innocent...a virgin...’ Andreas was telling her huskily, and as he did so the sparks glittering in his eyes intensified, as though he found something very satisfying about such a notion.

Helplessly Saskia stared back at him. Her heart was thudding frantically fast and her body was filled with an unfamiliar shocking ache that was a physical need to have him touch her, to have his hand run slowly over her skin and reach right through it to that place where her unfamiliar ache began, so that he could surround and soothe it. Somehow just thinking about him doing such a thing
increased
the ache to a pounding throb, a wild, primitive beat that made her moan and sway even closer to him.

‘You like that... You want me...’

As he spoke to her she could hear and feel the urgency in his voice, could feel his arousal. Eagerly she pressed closer to him, only to freeze as she suddenly heard a woman’s voice demanding sharply, ‘Andreas? Aren’t you going to introduce me?’

Immediately she realised what she was doing and shame flooded through her, but as she tried to pull away, desperate to conceal her confusion, Andreas held on to her, forcing her to stay where she was, forcing her even more closely into his body so that somehow she was leaning against him, as though...as though...

She trembled as she felt the powerful thrust of his leg between her own, her face burning hotly with embarrassed colour as she realised the sexual connotation that their pose suggested. But it seemed that the woman who was watching them was not similarly self-conscious.

Saskia caught her breath as Andreas allowed her to turn her head and look at the woman.

She was tall and dark-haired, everything about her immaculately groomed, but despite the warmth of her olive skin and the ripe richness of her painted mouth and nails Saskia shivered as she sensed her innate coldness.

‘Athena,’ Andreas was demanding shortly, ‘how did
you
get in here?’

‘I have a key. Have you forgotten?’ the other woman purred.

The sloe-eyed look she gave Andreas and the way she was managing to totally exclude Saskia both from their conversation and from her line of vision left Saskia ruefully reflecting on her earlier mental picture of a devastated widow being too grief-stricken at the loss of her husband to prevent herself from being bullied into a second marriage.

No one would ever bully
this
woman into anything...and as for her being grief-stricken—there was only one emotion Saskia could see in those dark eyes and it had nothing to do with grief.

She forced down the sudden surge of nausea that burned in her throat as she witnessed the look of pure condensed lust that Athena was giving Andreas. Saskia had never imagined, never mind seen, a woman looking at a man in such a powerfully and openly predatory sexual way.

Now
she could understand why Andreas had felt in need of a mock fiancée to protect himself, but what she could not understand was how on earth Andreas could resist the other woman’s desire for him.

She was blindingly sensually attractive, and obviously wanted Andreas. And surely that was what all men fantasised about—a woman whose sexual appetite for them could never be satiated.

Naively Saskia assumed that only her own sex would be put off by Athena’s intrinsic coldness and by the lack of any real loving emotion in her make-up.

Andreas had obviously kissed Saskia because he had guessed that Athena was in the apartment, and now that the other woman was standing so close to them both Saskia knew how he had known. That perfume of hers was as unmistakable as it was unappealing.

‘Aren’t you going to say how pleased you are to see me?’ Athena was pouting as she moved closer to Andreas. ‘Your grandfather is very upset about your engagement. You know what he was hoping for,’ she added meaningfully, before turning to Saskia and saying dismissively, ‘Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, but I’m sure Andreas must have warned you how difficult it is going to be for all his family, especially for his grandfather, to accept you...’

‘Athena,’ Andreas was saying warningly, and Saskia could well imagine how she
would
have felt to be confronted by such a statement, if she and Andreas were genuinely engaged.

‘But it’s the truth,’ Athena was continuing unrepentantly, and she shrugged her shoulders, the movement drawing attention to the fullness of her breasts. Breasts which Saskia could quite easily see were naked and unfettered beneath the fine cotton shirt she was wearing.

Quickly she averted her gaze from the sight of Athena’s flauntingly erect nipples, not daring to allow herself to look at Andreas. Surely no man could resist the demand that those nipples were making on his attention...his concentration...his admiration for their perfection and sexuality. Her own breasts were well shaped and firm, but her nipples did not have that flamboyant fullness that the other woman’s possessed and, even if they had, Saskia knew that she would have felt embarrassed about making such a public display of them.

But then perhaps Athena’s display was meant
only
for Andreas...perhaps it was meant to be a reminder to him of intimacies they might already have shared. She did, after all, have the key to his apartment, and she certainly seemed to want to make it plain to Saskia that there was a very special intimacy between the two of them.

As though in confirmation of Saskia’s thoughts, Athena suddenly leaned forward, putting one manicured hand against Andreas’s face and effectively coming between them. With a sultry suggestiveness she said softly, ‘Aren’t you going to kiss me? You normally do, and I’m sure your fiancée understands that in Greece family relationships...family
loyalties
are very, very important.’

‘What Saskia understands is that I love her and I want her to be my wife,’ Andreas informed Athena curtly, stepping back from her and taking Saskia with him. As he held her in front of him and closed his arms around her, tucking her head against his shoulder, Saskia reminded herself just
why
he was doing so and just what her role was supposed to be.

‘How sweet!’ Athena pronounced, giving Saskia an icy look before turning back to Andreas and telling him insincerely, ‘I hate to cast a shadow on your happiness, Andreas, but your grandfather really isn’t very pleased with you at all at the moment. He was telling me how concerned he is about the way you’re handling this recent takeover. Of course
I
understand how important it must be to you to establish your own mark on the business, to prove yourself, so to speak, but the acquisition of this hotel chain really was quite foolhardy, as is this decision of yours to keep on all the existing staff.

‘You’ll never make a profit doing that,’ she scolded him mock sweetly. ‘I must say, though, having had the opportunity to look a little deeper into the finances of the chain, I’m glad I pulled out of putting in my own bid. Although of course I
can
afford to lose the odd million or so. What a pity it is, Andreas, that you didn’t accept my offer to run the shipping line for me. That would have given you much more scope than working as your grandfather’s errand boy.’

Saskia felt herself tensing as she absorbed the insult Athena had just delivered, but to her astonishment Andreas seemed completely unmoved by it. Yet
she
only had to make the merest observation and he fired up at her with so much anger.

‘As you already well know, Athena,’ he responded, almost good-humouredly, ‘It was my
grandfather’s
decision to buy the British hotel chain and it was one I endorsed. As for its future profitability... My research confirms that there is an excellent market for a chain of luxurious hotels in Britain, especially when it can boast first-class leisure facilities and a top-notch chef—which is what I am going to ensure that our chain has.

‘And as for the financial implications of keeping on the existing staff—Saskia is an accountant, and I’m sure she’ll be able to tell you—as you should know yourself, being a businesswoman—that in the long run it would cost more in redundancy payments to get rid of the staff than it will cost to continue employing them. Natural wastage and pending retirement will reduce their number quite dramatically over the next few years, and, where appropriate, those who wish to stay on will be given the opportunity to relocate and retrain. The leisure clubs we intend to open in each hotel alone will take up virtually all of the slack in our staffing levels.

‘However, Saskia and I are leaving for Athens tomorrow. We’ve had a busy day today and, if you’ll excuse us, tonight is going to be a very special night for us.’

As Saskia tensed Andreas tightened his hold on her warningly as he repeated, ‘A
very
special night. Which reminds me...’

Still holding on to Saskia with one hand, he reached inside his jacket pocket with the other to remove a small jeweller’s box.

‘I collected this. It should be small enough for you now.’

Before Saskia could say anything he was slipping the box back into his jacket, telling her softly, ‘We’ll find out later...’

In the living area beyond the lobby a telephone had started to ring. Releasing her, Andreas went to answer it, leaving Saskia on her own with Athena.

‘It won’t last,’ Athena told her venomously as she walked past Saskia towards the door. ‘He won’t marry you. He and I were destined to be together. He
knows
that. It’s just his pride that makes him fight his destiny. You might as well give him up now, because I promise you
I
shall never do so.’

She meant it, Saskia could see that, and for the first time she actually felt a small shaft of sympathy for Andreas. Sympathy for a man who was treating her the way Andreas was? For a man who had misjudged her the way he had? She must be crazy, Saskia derided herself grimly.

* * *

A
PPREHENSIVELY
S
ASKIA
watched as the new suitcases, which were now carefully packed with her new clothes, were loaded onto the conveyor belt. The airline representative was checking their passports.

On her finger the ring Andreas had given her the previous evening glittered brilliantly.

‘It’s amazing how good fake diamonds can look these days, isn’t it?’ she had chattered nervously when Andreas had taken it from its box. She’d tried to disguise from him how edgy and unhappy she felt about wearing a ring on the finger that she had imagined would only ever bear a ring given to her by the man she loved, a ring she would wear forever.

‘Is it?’ Andreas had responded almost contemptuously. ‘I wouldn’t know.’

His comment had set all her inner alarm bells ringing and she had demanded anxiously, ‘This... It isn’t real, is it?’

His expression had given her her answer.

‘It
is
!’ She had swallowed, unable to drag her gaze away from the fiery sparkle of the magnificent solitaire.

‘Athena would have spotted a fake diamond immediately,’ Andreas had told her dismissively when she’d tried to protest that she didn’t want the responsibility of wearing something of such obvious value.