The Demetrios Virgin. PENNY JORDAN
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agreed, adding smoothly, ‘For you at least. I appreciate that the salary you are paid is relatively small, but my grandfather would be extremely unhappy to learn that a member of our staff is having to boost her income in a way that can only reflect extremely badly on our company.’ Giving her a thin smile he went on with deceptive amiability, ‘How very fortunate for you that it wasn’t in one of our hotels that you were…er…plying your trade and—’
‘How dare you?’ Saskia interrupted him furiously, her cheeks bright scarlet and her mouth a mutinous soft bow. Pride burned rebelliously in her eyes.
‘How dare I? Rather I should say to you, how dare you,’ Andreas contradicted her sharply, his earlier air of pleasantness instantly replaced by a hard look of contemptuous anger as he told her grimly, ‘Apart from the unedifying moral implications of what you were doing, or rather attempting to do, has it ever occurred to you to consider the physical danger you could be putting yourself in? Women like you…’
He paused and changed tack, catching her off guard as he went on in a much gentler tone, ‘I understand from your boss that you are very anxious to maintain your employment with us.’
‘Yes. Yes, I am,’ Saskia admitted huskily. There was no use denying what he was saying. She had already discussed her feelings and fears about the prospect of being made redundant with Gordon Jarman, and he had obviously recorded them and passed them on to Andreas. To deny them now would only convince him she was a liar—as well as everything else!
‘Look…Please, I can explain about last night,’ she told him desperately, pride giving way to panic. ‘I know how it must have looked, but it wasn’t…I didn’t…’ She stopped as she saw from his expression that he wasn’t prepared even to listen to her, never mind believe her.
A part of her was forced to acknowledge that she could hardly blame him…nor convince him either, unless she dragged Lorraine and Megan into his office to support her and she had far too much pride to do that. Besides, Megan wasn’t capable of thinking of anything or anyone right now other than Mark and her upcoming Caribbean holiday, and as for Lorraine…Well, Saskia could guess how the older woman would revel in the situation Saskia now found herself in.
‘A wise decision,’ Andreas told her gently when she stopped speaking. ‘You see, I despise a liar even more than I do a woman who…’ Now it was his turn to stop, but Saskia knew what he was thinking.
Her face burned even more hotly, which made it disconcerting for her when he suddenly said abruptly, ‘I’ve got a proposition I want to put to you.’
As she made a strangled sound of shock in her throat he steepled his fingers together and looked at her over them, like a sleek, well-fed predator watching a small piece of prey it was enjoying tormenting.
‘What kind of proposition?’ she asked him warily, but the heavy sledgehammer strokes of her heart against her ribs warned her that she probably already knew the answer—just as she knew why she was filled with such a shocking mixture of excitement and revulsion.
‘Oh, not the kind you are probably most familiar with,’ Andreas was telling her softly. ‘I’ve read that some professional young women get a kick out of acting the part of harlots…’
‘I was doing no such thing,’ Saskia began heatedly, but he stopped her.
‘I was there—remember?’ he said sharply. ‘If my grandfather knew how you had behaved he would demand your instant dismissal.’ His grandfather might have ceded most of the control of the business to Andreas, but Andreas could see from Saskia’s expression that she still believed him.
‘You don’t have to tell him.’ He could see the effort it cost her to swallow her pride and add a reluctant tremulous, ‘Please…’
‘I don’t have to,’ he agreed ‘But whether or not I do depends on your response to my proposition.’
‘That’s blackmail,’ Saskia protested.
‘Almost as old a profession as the one you were engaging in last night,’ Andreas agreed silkily.
Saskia began to panic. Against all the odds there was only one thing he could possibly want from her, unlikely though that was. After all, last night she had given him every reason to assume…to believe…But that had been when she had thought he was Mark, and if he would just allow her to explain…
Fear kicked through her, fuelling a panic that rushed her headlong into telling him aggressively, ‘I’m surprised that a man like you needs to blackmail a woman into having sex with him. And there’s no way that I…’
‘Sex?’ he questioned, completely astounding her by throwing back his head and laughing out loud. When he had stopped, he repeated, ‘Sex?’ adding disparagingly, ‘With you? No way! It isn’t sex I want from you,’ he told her coolly.
‘Not sex? Then…then what is it?’ Saskia demanded shakily.
‘What I want from you,’ Andreas informed her calmly, ‘is your time and your agreement to pose as my fiancée.’
‘What?’ Saskia stared at him. ‘You’re mad,’ she told him in disbelief.
‘No, not mad,’ Andreas corrected her sternly. ‘But I am very determined not to be coerced into the marriage my grandfather wants to arrange for me. And, as my dear mother has so rightly reminded me, the best way to do that is to convince him that I am in love with someone else. That is the only way I can stop this ridiculous campaign of his.’
‘You want me…to pose…as your…fiancée?’ Saskia spaced the words out carefully, as though she wasn’t sure she had heard them correctly, and then, when she saw the confirmation in his face, she denied fiercely, ‘No. No way. No way at all!’
‘No?’ Andreas questioned with remarkable amiability. ‘Then I’m afraid you leave me with no alternative but to inform you that there is a strong—a very strong possibility that we shall have to let you go as part of our regrettable but necessary cutbacks. I hope I make myself clear.’
‘No! You can’t do that…’ Saskia began, and then stopped as she saw the cynical way he was looking at her.
She was wasting her time. There was no way he was even going to listen to her, never mind believe her. He didn’t want to believe her. It didn’t suit his plans to believe her…she could see that. And if she refused to accede to his commands then she knew that he was fully capable of carrying out his threat against her. Saskia swallowed. She was well and truly trapped, with no way whatsoever of escaping.
‘Well?’ Andreas mocked her. ‘You still haven’t given me your reply. Do you agree to my proposition, or…?’
Saskia swallowed the bitter taste of bile and defeat lodged in her throat. Her voice sounded raw, rasping…it hurt her to speak but she tried to hold up her head as she told him miserably, ‘I agree.’
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