The Demetrios Virgin (8 page)

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.

‘If she can spot a fake
diamond
so easily,' she had felt driven to ask him warily, ‘then surely she will be able to spot a fake fiancée.'

‘Athena deals in hard facts, not emotions,' had been Andreas's answer.

Hard facts, Saskia reflected now, remembering that brief conversation. Like the kiss Andreas had given her last night, knowing Athena would witness it. Andreas himself had made no mention of what he had done, but Saskia had known that her guess as to why he had done it was correct when, immediately after he had ended his telephone call, he had switched on the apartment's air conditioning with the grim comment, ‘We need some fresh air in here.'

Later, Andreas had gone out, as promised, and, after picking at the meal he had ordered her, Saskia had gone to bed—alone.

 

‘How long will it take us to reach Aphrodite?' Saskia asked Andreas as they boarded their flight.

‘On this occasion it will take longer than normal,'
Andreas answered as the stewardess showed them to their seats—first-class seats, Saskia noted with a small frisson of nervous awe. She had never flown first class before, never really done anything that might have equipped her to feel at home in the rarefied stratosphere of the mega-wealthy that Andreas and his family obviously inhabited.

‘Once we arrive in Athens I'm afraid I shall have to leave you to occupy yourself for a few hours before we continue with our journey. That was my grandfather who rang last night. He wants to see me.'

‘He won't be at the island?' Saskia asked.

‘Not immediately. His heart condition means that he has to undergo regular check-ups—a precautionary measure only, thank goodness—and they will keep him in Athens for the next day or so.'

‘Athena told me she doesn't believe that our relationship will last. She believes that the two of you are destined to be together,' Saskia said.

‘She's trying to intimidate you,' Andreas responded, the smile he had given the attentive stewardess replaced by a harsh frown.

Impulsively Saskia allowed the sympathy she had unexpectedly felt for him the previous evening to take precedence over her own feelings. Turning towards him, she said softly, ‘But surely if you explained to your grandfather how you feel he would understand and accept that you can't be expected to marry a woman you don't…you don't want to marry…'

‘My grandfather is as stubborn as a mule. He's also one hell of a lot more vulnerable than he thinks…than any of us want him to think. His heart
condition…' He gave a small sigh. ‘At the moment it's stable, but it is important that he—and we—keep his stress levels down. If I told him that I didn't want to marry Athena without producing you as a substitute he would immediately become very stressed indeed. It isn't just that by marrying Athena as he wishes I would attach her fortune and assets to our own, my grandfather is also a man to whom male descendants are of paramount importance.

‘My elder sister already has two daughters, and Athena also has two. My grandfather is desperate for me, as his direct male descendent, to produce the next male generation…a great-grandson.'

‘But even if you did marry Athena there would be no guarantee that you would even have children, never mind sons,' Saskia protested.

‘Why are you laughing at me?' she demanded in chagrin as she saw the mirth crinkling Andreas's eyes and a gust of warmly amused male laughter filled the small space between them.

‘Saskia, for a woman of your experience you can be very, very naive. You should
never
suggest to any man, and most
especially
not a Greek one, that he may not be able to father a son!'

As the plane suddenly started to lift into the sky Saskia automatically clutched at her arm-rests, and then tensed in shock as she felt the hard male warmth of Andreas's hand wrapping around her own.

‘Scared of flying?' he asked her in amusement. ‘You shouldn't be. It's the safest form of transport there is.'

‘I know that,' Saskia responded waspishly. ‘It's
just…well, it's just that flying seems so…so unnatural, and if…'

‘If God had intended man to fly he'd have given him wings,' Andreas offered her wryly. ‘Well, Icarus tried that option.'

‘I always think that's such a sad story.' Saskia shivered, her eyes shadowing. ‘Especially for his poor father.'

‘Mmm…' Andreas agreed, before asking her, ‘Am I to take it from that comment that you're a student of Greek mythology?'

‘Well, not precisely a student,' Saskia admitted, ‘but my grandmother used to read me stories from a book on Greek mythology when I was little and I always found the stories fascinating…even though they nearly always made me cry.'

Abruptly she stopped speaking as she realised two things. The first was that they were now completely airborne, and the second was…her own bemused awareness of how good it felt actually to have Andreas's large hand clasping her own. It was enough to make her face sting with self-conscious colour and she hastily wriggled her hand free, just as the stewardess came up to offer them a glass of champagne.

‘Champagne!' Saskia's eyes widened as she took a sip from the glass Andreas was holding out to her and she gasped as the delicious bubbles exploded against her taste buds.

It had to be the champagne that was making her feel so relaxed and so…so…laid-back, Saskia decided hazily a little later, and when the captain announced that they were coming in to land she was
surprised to realise how quickly the time had flown—and how much she had enjoyed the conversation she and Andreas had shared. She was even more surprised to discover how easy it was to slip her hand into the reassuring hold of Andreas's as the plane's wheels hit the tarmac and the pilot applied reverse thrust to slow them down.

‘I can either have our driver take you to the family apartment in Athens, where you can rest whilst I see my grandfather, or, if you prefer, I can arrange for him to drive you on a sightseeing tour,' Andreas offered, casually lifting their cases off the luggage carousel.

He was wearing a pair of plain light-coloured trousers and a cool, very fine white cotton short-sleeved shirt, and for some indefinable reason it did odd things to Saskia's normally very sensible female senses to witness the way the muscles hardened in his arms as he swung their cases on to the ground. Very odd things, she acknowledged giddily as the discreet smile of flirtatious invitation she intercepted from a solitary woman traveller caused her instinctively to move possessively closer to him.

What on earth was happening to her? It
must
be the champagne…or the heat…or perhaps both! Yes, that was it, she decided feverishly, grateful to have found a sensible explanation for her unfamiliar behaviour. After all, there was no reason why she should feel possessive about Andreas. Yesterday morning she had hated him…loathed him…In fact she had been dreading her enforced time as his ‘fiancée'—and she still was, of course. Of course! It was just that…

Well, having met Athena it was only natural that she should feel
some
sympathy for him. And she had been fascinated by the stories he had told her during the flight—stories which had been told to him by older members of his Greek family and which were a wonderful mix of myth and folklore. And it was a very pleasant experience not to have to struggle with heavy luggage. Normally when she went away she was either with a group of friends or with her grandmother, and…

‘Saskia…?'

Guiltily Saskia realised that Andreas was still waiting for an answer to his question.

‘Oh, I'd much prefer to see something of the city,' she answered.

‘Well, you won't have a lot of time,' Andreas warned her. ‘Our pilot will already have filed his flight plan.'

Saskia already knew that they would be flying out to the island in a small plane privately owned by Andreas's grandfather, and what had impressed her far more than Andreas's casual reference to the plane had been his mention of the fact that he himself was qualified to fly.

‘Unfortunately I had to give it up. I can't spare the amount of hours now that I believe are needed to keep myself up to speed and in practice, and besides, my insurance company were extremely wary about insuring me,' he'd added ruefully.

‘It's this way,' he told her now, placing his hand on her shoulder as he turned her in the right direction.

Out of the corner of her eye Saskia caught a
glimpse of their reflections in a mirrored column and immediately tensed. What was she
doing
leaning against Andreas like that? As though…as though she
liked
being there…as though she was enjoying playing the helpless fragile female to his strong muscular male.

Immediately she pulled away from him and squared her shoulders.

‘Athena would have loved to have seen you do that,' he told her sharply, the disapproval clear in his voice.

‘We're supposed to be in love, Saskia…remember?'

‘Athena isn't here,' she responded quickly.

‘No, thank God,' he agreed. ‘But we don't know who might accidentally observe us. We're a
couple
—very much in love—newly engaged…and you're about to fly to my home to meet my family. Don't you think it's natural that—?'

‘That I should feel nervous and intimidated…worried about whether or not they'll think I'm good enough for you.' Saskia interrupted him angrily, her pride stung by what he was suggesting. ‘And what am I supposed to do? Cling desperately and despairingly to you…afraid of their rejection…afraid of
losing
you…just because—'

She stopped as she saw the blank impatient look Andreas was giving her.

‘What I was about to say,' he told her grimly, ‘was don't you think it's only natural that I should want to hold you close to me and equally that
you
should want that same intimacy? That as lovers we
should
want always to be physically in touch with one an
other?' He paused. ‘And as for what you have just said, I'm a man of thirty-five, long past the age of needing
anyone's
approval of what I do or who I love.'

‘But you don't…' Saskia began, and then stopped as she realised what she had been about to say. Andreas hardly needed
her
to tell him that he didn't love her.

‘I don't what?' he prompted her, but she shook her head, refusing to answer him.

 

‘So you want to see the Acropolis first?' Andreas checked with Saskia before getting out of the limousine, having first given the driver some instructions in Greek.

‘Yes,' Saskia confirmed.

‘I have told Spiros to make sure you are at the airport in time for our flight. He will take care of you. I am sorry to have to leave you to your own devices,' Andreas apologised formally, suddenly making Saskia sharply aware of his mixed cultural heritage.

She recognised how at home he looked here, and yet, at the same time, how much he stood out from the other men she could see. He was taller, for one thing, and his skin, whilst tanned, was not as dark, and of course his eyes would always give away his Northern European blood.

 

Saskia gave a small emotional sigh as she finally turned her back on the Acropolis and started to walk away. She had managed to persuade the driver that she would be perfectly safe on her own, but only
after a good deal of insistence, and she had enjoyed her solitude as she had absorbed the aura of the ancient building in awed appreciation.

Now, though, it was time for her to go. She could see the limousine waiting where she had expected, but to her consternation there was no sign of its driver.

There
was
a man standing close to the vehicle, though, white-haired and elderly. Saskia frowned as she recognised that he seemed to be in some distress, one hand pressed against his side as though he was in pain. A brief examination of the street confirmed that it was empty, apart from the old man and herself. Saskia automatically hurried towards him, anxious for his well-being.