AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘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.’
‘Excellent. For form’s sake I suggest that we invent a previously secret accidental meeting between us—perhaps when I visited Hilford prior to our takeover. Because of the negotiations for the takeover we have kept our relationship...our love for one another...a secret. But now...now there is no need for secrecy any more, and to prove it, and to celebrate our freedom today I shall take you out for lunch.’
He frowned and paused. ‘We shall be flying out to the Aegean at the end of next week and there are things we shall be expected to know about one another’s background!’
‘Flying out to where?’ Saskia gasped. ‘No, I can’t. My grandmother...’
Andreas had heard from Gordon Jarman that she lived with her grandmother, and now one eyebrow rose as he questioned silkily, ‘You are engaged to me now, my beloved, surely I am of more importance than your grandmother? She will, I know, be surprised about our relationship, but I am sure she will appreciate just why we had to keep our love for one another to ourselves. If you wish I am perfectly prepared to come with you when you explain...everything to her...’
