In his skin. Saskia hadn’t been able to prevent herself from giving Andreas a brief shocked look which, fortunately, Athena had put down to Saskia’s jealousy at the thought of another woman swimming nude with her fiancée.
Whilst Saskia had been digesting this stomach-churning disclosure she had heard Andreas himself replying brusquely, ‘I can only recall one occasion on which you attempted to join me in my morning lap session, Athena, and I recall too that I told you then how little I appreciate having my morning peace interrupted.’
‘Oh, dear.’ Athena had pouted, unabashed. ‘Are you afraid that I have said something you didn’t want your fiancée to know? But surely, Andreas,’ she had murmured huskily, reaching out to place her hand on his arm, ‘she must realise that a man as attractive as you...as virile as you...will have had other lovers before her...’
Her brazenness had almost taken Saskia’s breath away. She could imagine just how she would be feeling right now if Andreas had indeed been her fiancée. How jealous and insecure Athena’s words would be making her feel. No woman wanted to be reminded of the other women who had shared an intimate relationship with her beloved before her.
But Andreas, it seemed, was completely unfazed by Athena’s revelations. He had simply removed her arm by the expedient of stepping back from her and putting his own arm around Saskia’s shoulders. He had drawn her so close to his body that Saskia had known he must be able to feel the fine tremor of reaction she was unable to suppress. A tremor which had increased to a full-flooded convulsion when his lean fingers had started almost absently to caress the smooth ball of her bare shoulder.
‘Saskia knows that she is the only woman I have ever loved—the woman I want to spend my life with.’
The more she listened to and watched Athena the more Saskia subscribed to Pia’s belief that it wasn’t love that was motivating the other woman. Sometimes she looked at Andreas as though she hated him and wanted to totally destroy him.
Aristotle, or ‘Ari’ as he had told Saskia he preferred to be called, was still trying to engage her attention, but she was deliberately trying to feign a lack of awareness of that fact. There was something about him she found so loathsome that the thought of even the hot damp touch of his hand on her arm made her shudder with distaste. However, good manners forced her to respond to his questions as politely as she could, even when she thought they were intolerable and intrusive. He had already told her that were he Andreas’s accountant he would be insisting she sign a prenuptial contract to make sure that if the marriage ended Andreas’s money would be safe.
Much to Saskia’s surprise Andreas himself had thoroughly confounded her by joining in the conversation and telling Aristotle grimly that he would never ask the woman he loved to sign such an agreement.
‘Money is nothing when compared with love,’ he had told Aristotle firmly in a deep, implacable voice, his words so obviously genuine that Saskia had found she was holding her breath a little as she listened to him.
Then he had looked at her, and Saskia had remembered just how they had met and what he really thought of her, and suddenly she had felt the most bitter taste of despair in her mouth and she had longed to tell him how wrong he was.
At least she had the comfort of knowing that his mother and sister liked her, and Pia had assured her that their elder sister was equally pleased that Andreas had fallen in love, and was looking forward to meeting Saskia when she and her husband and their children came to the island later in the month.
‘Lydia’s husband is a diplomat, and they are in Brussels at the moment, but she is longing to meet you,’ Pia had told her.
She would have hated it if Andreas’s close family had not liked and welcomed her.
Abruptly Saskia felt her face start to burn. What on earth was she thinking? She was only playing the part of Andreas’s fiancée. Their engagement was a fiction, a charade...a lie created simply to help him escape from the trap that Athena was trying to set for him. What she must not forget was that it was a lie he had tricked and blackmailed her into colluding with.
Aristotle was saying something to her about wanting to show her the villa’s gardens. Automatically Saskia shook her head, her face burning with fresh colour as she saw the way Andreas was watching her, a mixture of anger and warning in his eyes. He couldn’t seriously think she would actually accept Aristotle’s invitation?