‘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 time-keeping...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.’