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.’