Grimly Andreas tried not to allow himself to think about how he had felt when he had kissed her. Initially he had done so purely as an instinctive response to his awareness that Athena was in his apartment—that appalling overpowering scent of hers was instantly recognisable. Quite how she had got hold of a key he had no idea, but he suspected she must have somehow cajoled it from his grandfather. But the kiss he had given Saskia as a means of reinforcing his unavailability to Athena had unexpectedly and unwontedly shown him—forced him to acknowledge—something he was still fighting hard to deny.
He didn’t want to want Saskia. He didn’t want it at all, and he certainly didn’t want to feel his current desire to protect and reassure her.
Athens had been hot, almost stiflingly so, but here on the island the air had a silky balminess to it that was totally blissful, Saskia decided, shading her eyes from the brilliance of the sun as she reached the ground and looked a little uncertainly at the trio of people waiting to greet them.
Andreas’s husky, ‘Here you are, darling, you forgot these,’ as he handed her a pair of sunglasses threw her into even more confusion, but nowhere near as much as the warm weight of his arm around her as he drew her closer to him and whispered quite audibly, ‘Our harsh sunlight is far too strong for those beautiful Celtic eyes of yours.’
Saskia felt her fingers start to tremble as she took the sunglasses from him. They carried a designer logo, she noticed, and were certainly far more expensive than any pair of sunglasses she had ever owned. When Andreas took them back and gently slipped them on for her she discovered that they fitted her perfectly.
‘I remembered that we didn’t get any in London and I knew you’d need a pair,’ he told her quietly, leaning forward to murmur the words into her ear, one arm still around her body and his free hand holding her shoulder as though he would draw her even closer.
To their onlookers they must look very intimate, Saskia recognised, which was no doubt why Andreas had chosen to give them to her in such a manner.
Well, two could play at that game. Without stopping to think about the implications of what she was doing, or to question why she was doing so, Saskia slid her own arm around his neck, turning her face up to his as she murmured back, ‘Thank you, darling. You really are so thoughtful.’
She had, she recognised on a small spurt of defiant pleasure, surprised him. She could see it in his eyes—and she could see something else as well, something very male and dangerous which made her disengage herself from him hastily and step back. Not that he allowed her to go very far. Somehow he was holding her hand and refusing to let go of it, drawing her towards the small waiting group.
‘Mama. This is Saskia...’ he announced, introducing Saskia first to the older of the two women.
Warily Saskia studied her, knowing that if she and Andreas were really in love and engaged her heart would be in her mouth as she waited to see whether or not she and Andreas’s mother could build a true bond. Physically she looked very much like Athena, although, of course, older. But the similarity ended once Saskia looked into her eyes and saw the warmth there that had been so markedly lacking from Athena’s.
There was also a gentleness and sweetness about Andreas’s mother, a timidity almost, and intuitively Saskia sensed that she was a woman who, having loved only one man, would never totally cease mourning his loss.
‘It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs Latimer,’ Saskia began, but immediately Andreas’s mother shook her head chidingly.
‘You are going to be my daughter-in-law, Saskia, you must call me something less formal. Helena is my name, or if you wish you may call me Mama, as ‘Reas and my daughters do.’ As she spoke she leaned forward and placed her hands gently on Saskia’s upper arms.
‘She is lovely, ’Reas,’ she told her son warmly.
‘I certainly think so, Mama,’ Andreas agreed with a smile.
‘I meant inside as well as out,’ his mother told him softly.
‘And so did I,’ Andreas agreed, equally emotionally.
Heavens, but he was a wonderful actor, Saskia acknowledged shakily. If she hadn’t known how he really felt about her that look of tender adoration he had given her just now would have...could have... A man like him should know better than to give a vulnerable woman a look like that, she decided indignantly, forgetting for the moment that so far as Andreas was concerned she was anything but vulnerable.