She hadn’t seen Andreas since he had taken her out for lunch—not that she had minded that! No indeed! He had been attending a gruelling schedule of business meetings—dealing, if the trickles of gossip that had filtered through the grapevine were anything to go by, heroically with the problems posed by the challenging situation the hotels had fallen into prior to the takeover.
‘He’s visited every single one of our hotels,’ Saskia had heard from one admiring source. ‘And he’s been through every single aspect of the way they’re being run—and guess what?’
Saskia, who had been on the edge of the group who’d been listening eagerly to this story, had swallowed uncomfortably, expecting to hear that Andreas had instituted a programme of mass sackings in order to halt the flood of unprofitable expenses, but to her astonishment instead she had heard, ‘He’s told everyone that their job is safe, provided they can meet the targets he’s going to be setting. Everywhere he’s been he’s given the staff a pep talk, told them how much he values the acquisition his group has made and how he personally is going to be held responsible by the board of directors if he can’t turn it into a profit-making asset.’
The gossip was that Andreas had a way with him that had his new employees not only swearing allegiance, but apparently praising him to the skies as well.
Well, they obviously hadn’t witnessed the side to his character she had done, was all that Saskia had been able to think as she listened a little bitterly to everyone’s almost euphoric praise of him.
It was ten-thirty now, and he wasn’t... Saskia tensed as she suddenly saw the large Mercedes pulling up outside her grandmother’s house. Right on time! But of course Andreas would not waste a precious second of his time unless he had to, especially not on her!
By the time he had reached the front door she had opened it and was standing waiting for him, her suitcase in one hand and her door key in the other.
‘What’s that?’
She could see the way he was frowning as he looked down at her inexpensive case and immediately pride flared through her sharpening her own voice as she answered him with a curt, ‘My suitcase.’
‘Give it to me,’ he instructed her briefly.
‘I can carry it myself,’ Saskia informed him grittily.
‘I’m sure you can,’ Andreas agreed, equally grimly. ‘But...’
‘But what?’ Saskia challenged him angrily. ‘But Greek men do not allow women to carry their own luggage nor to be independent from them in any way?’
Saskia could see from the way Andreas’s mouth tightened that he did not like what she had said. For some perverse reason she felt driven to challenge him, even though a part of her shrank from the storm signals she could see flashing in his eyes.
‘I’m afraid in this instance you should perhaps blame my English father rather than my Greek mother,’ he told her icily. ‘The English public school he insisted I was sent to believed in what is now considered to be an outdated code of good manners for its pupils.’ He gave her a thin, unfriendly look. ‘One word of warning to you. My grandfather is inclined to be old-fashioned about such things. He will not understand your modern insistence on politically correct behaviour, and whilst you are on the island...’
‘I have to do as you tell me,’ Saskia finished bitterly for him.
If this was a taste of what the next few weeks were going to be like she didn’t know how she was going to survive them. Still, at least there would be one benefit of their obvious hostility to one another. No one who would be observing them together would be surprised when they decided to end their ‘engagement’.
‘Our flight leaves Heathrow at nine tomorrow morning, so we will need to leave the apartment early,’ Andreas informed Saskia once they were in the car.
‘The apartment?’ Saskia questioned him warily immediately.
‘Yes,’ Andreas confirmed. ‘I have an apartment in London. We shall be staying there tonight. This afternoon we shall spend shopping.’
‘Shopping...?’ Saskia began to interrupt, but Andreas overruled her.
‘Yes, shopping,’ he told her cautiously. ‘You will need an engagement ring, and...’ He paused and gave her a brief skimming look of assessment and dismissal that made her itch to demand that he stop the car immediately. Oh, how she would love to be able to tell him that she had changed her mind...that there was no way she was going to give in to his blackmail. But she knew there was no way she could.