The Demetrios Virgin. PENNY JORDAN
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but the PA waved her explanation aside, consulting a list in front of her instead and then saying coldly, without lifting her head from it, ‘Saskia? Yes. You’re late. Mr Latimer does not like…In fact I’m not sure…’ She stopped and eyed Saskia with a disapproving frown. ‘He may not have time to interview you now,’ she warned, before picking up the phone and announcing in a very different tone of voice from the one she had used to address Saskia, ‘Ms. Rodgers is here now, Andreas. Do you still want to see her?
‘You can go in,’ she informed Saskia. ‘It’s the door over there…’
Feeling like a naughty child, Saskia forced herself not to react, heading instead for the door the PA had indicated and knocking briefly on it before turning the handle and walking in.
As she stepped into the office the bright sunlight streaming in through the large windows momentarily dazzled her. All she could make out was the hazy outline of a man standing in front of the glass with his back to her, the brilliance of the sunlight making it impossible for her to see any more.
But Andreas could see Saskia. It hadn’t surprised him that she should choose to arrive at work later than her colleagues; after all, he knew how she spent her evenings. What had surprised him had been the genuinely high esteem in which he had discovered she was held both by her immediate boss and her co-workers. It seemed that when it came to giving that extra metre, going that extra distance, Saskia was always the first to do so and the first to do whatever she could to help out her colleagues.
‘Yes, it is perhaps unusual in a young graduate,’ her boss had agreed when Andreas had questioned his praise of Saskia. ‘But then she has been brought up by her grandmother and perhaps because of that her values and sense of obligation towards others are those of an older generation. As you can see from my report on her, her work is excellent and so are her qualifications.’
And she’s a stunningly attractive young woman who seems to know how to use her undeniable ‘assets’ to her own advantage, Andreas had reflected inwardly, but Gordon Jarman had continued to enthuse about Saskia’s dedication to her work, her kindness to her fellow employees, her ability to integrate herself into a team and work diligently at whatever task she was given, and her popularity with other members of the workforce.
After studying the progress reports her team leader and Gordon himself had made on her, and the photograph in her file, Andreas had been forced to concede that if he hadn’t seen for himself last night the way Saskia could look and behave he would probably have accepted Gordon’s glowing report at face value.
She was quite plainly a woman who knew how to handle his sex, even if with him she had made an error of judgement.
This morning, for instance, she had completely metamorphosed back into the dedicated young woman forging a career for herself—neatly suited, her hair elegantly sleeked back, her face free of all but the lightest touch of make-up. Andreas started to frown as his body suddenly and very urgently and unwontedly reminded him of the female allure of the body that was today concealed discreetly beneath a prim navy business suit.
Didn’t he already have enough problems to contend with? Last night after returning from the wine bar he had received a telephone call from his mother, anxiously warning him that his grandfather was on the warpath.
‘He had dinner with some of his old cronies last night and apparently they were all boasting about the deals they had recently pulled off. You know what they’re like.’ She had sighed. ‘And your grandfather was told by one of them that he had high hopes of his son winning Athena’s hand…’
‘Good luck to him,’ Andreas had told his mother uncompromisingly. ‘I hope he does. That at least will get her and Grandfather off my back.’
‘Well, yes,’ his mother had agreed doubtfully. ‘But at the moment it seems to have made him even more determined to promote a marriage between the two of you. And, of course, now that he’s half retired he’s got more time on his hands to plan and fret…It’s such a pity that there isn’t already someone in your life.’ She had sighed again, adding with a chuckle, ‘I honestly believe that the hope of a great-grandchild would thrill him so much that he’d quickly forget he’d ever wanted you to marry Athena!’
Someone else in his life? Had it really been exasperation and the headache he knew lay ahead of him with their new acquisition that had prompted him into making the rashest statement of his life in telling his mother, ‘What makes you think there isn’t someone?’
There had been a startled pause, just long enough for him to curse himself mentally but not for him to recall his impetuous words, before his mother had demanded in excitement, ‘You mean there is? Oh, Andreas! Who? When are we going to meet her? Who is she? How did you…? Oh, darling, how wonderful. Your grandfather will be thrilled. Olympia, guess what…’
He had then heard her telling his sister.
He had tried to put a brake on their excitement, to warn them that he was only talking in ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’, but neither of them had been prepared to listen. Neither had his grandfather this morning, when he had rung at the ungodly hour of five o’clock to demand to know when he was to meet his grandson’s fiancée.
Fiancée…How the hell his mother and sister had managed to translate an off the cuff remark made in irritation into a real live fiancée Andreas had no idea, but he did know that unless he produced this mythical creature he was going to be in very big trouble.
‘You’ll be bringing her to the island with you, of course,’ his grandfather had announced, and his words had been a command and not a question.
What the hell was he going to do? He had eight days in which to find a prospective fiancée and make it clear to her that their ‘engagement’ was nothing more than a convenient fiction. Eight days and she would have to be a good enough actress to fool not just his grandfather but his mother and sisters as well.
Irritably he moved out of the sunlight’s direct beam, turning round so that Saskia saw him properly for the first time.
There was no opportunity for her to conceal her shock, or the soft winded gasp of dismay that escaped her discreetly glossed lips as her face paled and then flooded with burning hot colour.
‘You!’ she choked as she backed instinctively towards the door, her memories of the previous night flooding her brain and with them the sure knowledge that she was about to lose her job.
She certainly was an excellent actress, Andreas acknowledged as he observed her reaction—and in more ways than one. Her demeanour this morning was totally different from the way she had presented herself last night. But then no doubt she was horrified to discover that he was the man she had so blatantly propositioned. Even so, that look of sick dismay darkening her eyes and the way her soft bottom lip was trembling despite her attempts to stop it…Oh, yes, she was a first-rate actress—a first-rate actress!
Suddenly Andreas could see a welcome gleam of light at the end of the dark tunnel of his current problem. Oh, yes, indeed, a very definite beam of light.
‘So Ms Rodgers.’ Andreas began flaying into Saskia’s already shredded self-confidence with all the delicacy of a surgeon expertly slicing through layer after layer of skin, muscle and bone. ‘I have read the report Gordon Jarman has written on you and I must congratulate you. It seems that you’ve persuaded him to think very highly of you. That’s quite an accomplishment for an employee so new and young. Especially one who adopts such an unconventional and, shall we say, elastic attitude towards timekeeping…leaving earlier than her colleagues in the evening and arriving later than them in the morning.’
‘Leaving early?’ Saskia stared at him, fighting to recover her composure. How had he known about that?
As though he had read her mind, he told her softly, ‘I was in the foyer when you left…quite some time before your official finishing time.’
‘But that was…’ Saskia began indignantly.
However, Andreas did not allow her to finish, shaking his head and telling her coolly, ‘No excuses,