‘Saskia has had a long day. I think it’s time we said our goodnights,’ she heard him saying abruptly as he stood up.
Saskia looked quickly round the table. It was obvious from the expressions of everyone else just what interpretation they were putting on Andreas’s decision, and Saskia knew that the heat washing her face and throat could only confirm their suspicions.
‘Andreas...’ she started to protest as he came round to her chair and stood behind her. ‘I don’t...’
‘You’re wasting your breath, Saskia.’ Pia chuckled. ‘Because my dear brother obviously does! Oh, you needn’t put that lordly expression on for me, brother dear.’ She laughed again, before adding mischievously, ‘And I wouldn’t mind betting that you won’t be lapping the pool at dawn...’
‘Pia!’ her mother protested, pink-cheeked, whilst Athena gave Saskia a look of concentrated hatred.
Hastily Saskia stood up, and then froze as Aristotle did the same, insisting in a thick voice, ‘I must claim the privilege of family friend and kiss the new addition to the family goodnight.’
Before Saskia could evade him he was reaching for her, but before he could put his words into action Andreas was standing between them, announcing grimly, ‘There is only one man my fiancée kisses...’
* * *
‘IF YOU’LL TAKE my advice, you’ll keep well away from Aristotle. He has a very unsavoury reputation with women. His ex-wife has accused him of being violent towards her and—’
Saskia turned as she stepped into the bedroom, her anger showing. ‘You can’t mean what I think you mean,’ she demanded whilst Andreas closed the door. How could he possibly imagine that she would even contemplate being interested in a man like the accountant? It was an insult she was simply not prepared to tolerate.
‘Can’t I?’ Andreas countered curtly. ‘You’re here for one reason and one reason only, Saskia. You’re here to act as my fiancée. Whilst I can appreciate that, being the woman you are, the temptation to feather your nest a little and do what you so obviously do best must be a strong one, let me warn you now against giving in to it. If you do, in fact...’
If she did... Why, she would rather die than let a slimeball like Ari come anywhere near her, Saskia reflected furiously. And to think that back there in the dining room she had actually felt sympathetic towards Andreas, had actually wanted to protect him. Now, though, her anger shocked through her in a fierce, dangerous flood of pride.
‘If you want the truth, I find Ari almost as repulsively loathsome as I do you,’ she threw bitterly at him.
‘You dare to speak of me in the same breath as that reptile? How dare you speak so of me...or to me...?’ Andreas demanded, his anger surging to match hers as he reached out to grab hold of her. His eyes smouldered with an intensity of emotion that Saskia could see was threatening to get out of control.
‘That man is an animal—worse than an animal. Only last year he narrowly escaped standing on a criminal charge. I cannot understand why Athena tolerates him and I have told her so.’
‘Perhaps she wants to make you jealous.’
It was an off-the-cuff remark, full of bravado, but Saskia wished immediately she had not said it when she saw the way the smoulder suddenly became a savage flare of fury.
‘She does? Or you do...? Oh, yes, I saw the way he was looking at you over dinner...touching you...’
‘That was nothing to do with me,’ Saskia protested, but she could sense that the words hadn’t touched him, that something else was fuelling his anger and feeding it, something that was hidden from her but which Andreas himself obviously found intolerable.
‘And as for you finding me loathsome,’ Andreas said through gritted teeth. ‘Perhaps it is unchivalrous, ungentlemanly of me to say so, but that wasn’t loathing I could see in your eyes earlier on today. It wasn’t loathing I could hear in your voice, feel in your body...was it? Was it?’ he demanded sharply.
Saskia started to tremble.
‘I don’t know,’ she fibbed wildly. ‘I can’t remember.’
It was, she recognised a few seconds later, the worst possible thing she could have said. Because immediately Andreas pounced, whispering with soft savagery, ‘No? Then perhaps I should help you to remember...’