The Demetrios Virgin

CHAPTER NINE

LESS THAN A third of the way along the path that circumnavigated the island Saskia stopped walking and turned round. She couldn’t go on; she had had enough. Loving Andreas—being so close to him every day in one sense and yet with such an unbridgeable gap between them in all the senses that really mattered—was more than she could cope with. Her love for him, her longing for him, was tearing her apart.

Slowly she started to walk back to the villa. She had no idea what she was going to do—throw herself on Andreas’s mercy and beg him to release her from their ‘agreement’? There was no point in trying to tell him what Athena had done. He was hardly likely to believe her, not with his opinion of her, and besides, she didn’t want him to know. If he did...once he did... Andreas was no fool, he was an astute, sharp-minded businessman, it wouldn’t take him long to guess what had happened, how she felt, and that was something she could not endure.

Once she reached the villa Saskia went straight to ‘her’ room which, thankfully, was empty. The maid had been in and the bed was freshly made. Quickly removing her swimsuit, she went to have a shower.

* * *

‘ANDREAS,’ ATHENA purred seductively as she saw him coming out of his grandfather’s office.

‘Not now, Athena.’ Andreas cut her short. He had spent the best part of the last couple of hours trying to come to terms with feelings he had never expected to have, never mind wanted to have, and now that he had come to a decision he was anxious to act on it without any delay, especially from Athena.

It was no use trying to hide the truth from himself any longer.

He had fallen in love with Saskia. How? Why? When? To his exasperation no amount of analytical self-probing on his part had been able to produce any kind of logical answers to such questions. All his heart, his body, his emotions, his very soul kept insisting over and over again was they wanted her; loved her; craved and needed her. If the logical-thinking part of him that was already fighting a desperate rearguard action should dare to argue, then his emotions would see to it that his life was no longer worth living.

But look at what she is he had tried to remind himself. But his emotions had refused to listen. He loved her as she was, past errors of judgement and all. Errors of judgement? Picking up men in bars...coming as near as dammit to selling herself to them—if not for money then certainly for the pseudo-love they had offered her.

It wasn’t her fault, his heart had protested in loving defence. She had been deprived of her father’s love as a child. She was simply trying to compensate for that. With love, his love, she could be made whole again. She would forget her past and so would he. What mattered was the here and now and the future they would share...a future which meant nothing to him without her in it.

And so it had continued, on and on, when he was supposed to be working. In the end he had had no option other than to give in, and now he was on his way to find Saskia to tell her...ask her...to beg her if necessary.

‘Is Saskia still outside?’ he asked Athena, impatient to tell Saskia how he felt.

Athena’s eyes narrowed. She knew that look in a man’s eyes, and to see it now, in the eyes of the only man she wanted, was not to be tolerated. If Saskia couldn’t be induced to leave Andreas then he must reject her, and Athena knew exactly how to make that happen.

‘Oh...’ Immediately she faked a look of concern, ‘Didn’t you know? She’s gone for a walk...with Ari. I know you won’t like me saying this, Andreas, but—well, we all know how much Ari likes women, and Saskia has been making it rather obvious that she reciprocates... Not whilst you’re around, of course...’

‘Andreas—’ Pia tried to stop him several minutes later but he refused to stop or listen.

‘Not now, Pia, whatever it is...’ he said brusquely, before striding down the corridor towards his suite.

Goodness, but he looked angry, Pia reflected as she watched his departing back. Well, what she had to tell him wasn’t going to lighten his bad mood, but he would have to be told. She knew that.

Andreas could hear the sound of the shower running as he walked into the bedroom and slammed the door behind him.