The Demetrios Virgin

Numbly she shook her head, ignoring the sour look the man who had approached was giving her as she stared at the door. There was no sign of Megan’s man. He had gone—and she was glad. Of course she was. How could she not be? And she would be delighted to be able to report to Megan and Lorraine that Mark had not succumbed to her.

She glanced at her watch, her heart sinking. She still had over an hour to go before she met Lorraine. There was no way she could stay here in the bar on her own, attracting attention. Quickly she headed for the ladies. There was something she had to do.

In the cloakroom she fastened her cardigan and wiped her face clean of the last of the red lipstick and the kohl eye-liner, replacing them both with her normal choice of make-up—a discreet application of taupe eye-shadow and a soft berry-coloured lipstick—and coiling up her long hair into a neat chignon. Then she waited in the ladies’ room until an inspection of her watch told her she could finally leave.

This time as she made her way through the crowded bar it was a very different type of look that Saskia collected from the men who watched her admiringly.

To her relief Lorraine was parked outside, waiting for her.

‘Well?’ she demanded eagerly as Saskia opened the car door and got in.

‘Nothing,’ Saskia told her, shaking her head. ‘He turned me down flat.’

‘What?’

‘Lorraine, careful…’ Saskia cried out warningly as the other woman almost backed into the car behind her in shock.

‘You mustn’t have tried hard enough,’ Lorraine told her bossily.

‘I can assure you that I tried as hard as anyone could,’ Saskia corrected her wryly.

‘Did he mention Megan…tell you that he was spoken for?’ Lorraine questioned her.

‘No!’ Saskia shook her head. ‘But I promise you he made it plain that he wasn’t interested. He looked at me…’ She stopped and swallowed, unwilling to think about, never mind tell anyone else, just how Megan’s beloved had looked at her. For some odd reason she refused to define just to remember the icy contempt she had seen in his eyes made her tremble between anger and pain.

‘Where is Megan?’ she asked Lorraine.

‘She was called in unexpectedly to work an extra shift. She rang to let me know and I said we’d drive straight over to her place and meet up with her there.’

Saskia smiled wanly. By rights she knew she ought to be feeling far happier than she actually was. Though out of the three of them she suspected that Megan would be the only one who would actually be pleased to learn that her Mark had determinedly refused to be tempted.

Her Mark. Megan’s Mark. There was a bitter taste in Saskia’s mouth and her heart felt like a heavy lump of lead inside her chest.

What on earth was the matter with her? She couldn’t possibly be jealous of Megan, could she? No! She couldn’t be…she must not be!

‘Are you sure you tried hard enough?’ Lorraine was asking her sternly.

‘I said everything you told me to say,’ Saskia told her truthfully.

‘And he didn’t make any kind of response?’

Saskia could tell that Lorraine didn’t believe her.

‘Oh, he made a response,’ she admitted grimly. ‘It just wasn’t the kind…’ She stopped and then told her flatly, ‘He wasn’t interested, Lorraine. He must really love Megan.’

‘Yes, if he prefers her to you he must,’ Lorraine agreed bluntly. ‘She’s a dear, and I love her, but there’s no way…You don’t think he could have guessed what you were doing do you? No way he could have known…?’

‘No, I don’t,’ Saskia denied. She was beginning to feel tired, almost aching with a sharp, painful need to be on her own. The last thing she wanted right now was to deal with someone like Lorraine, but she owed it to Megan to reassure her that she could trust Mark.

As they pulled up outside Megan’s house Saskia saw that her car was parked outside. Her stomach muscles started to clench as she got out of Lorraine’s car and walked up the garden path. Megan and Mark. Even their names sounded cosy together, redolent of domesticity…of marital comfort. And yet…if ever she’d met a man who was neither domesticated nor cosy it had been Megan’s Mark. There had been an air of primitive raw maleness about him, an aura of power and sexuality, a sense that in his arms a woman could…would…touch such sensual heights of delight and pleasure that she would never be quite the same person again.

Saskia tensed. What on earth was she thinking? Mark belonged to Megan—her best friend, the friend to whom she owed her grandmother’s life and good health.

Megan had obviously seen them arrive and was opening the door before they reached it, her face wreathed in smiles.

‘It’s all right,’ Saskia told her hollowly. ‘Mark didn’t…’

‘I know…I know…’ Megan beamed as she ushered them inside. ‘He came to see me at work and explained everything. Oh, I’ve been such an idiot…Why on earth I didn’t guess what he was planning I just don’t know. We leave next week. He’d even told them at work what he was planning…that was the reason for all those calls. Plus the girl at the travel agency kept phoning. Oh, Saskia, I can’t believe it. I’ve always longed to go to the Caribbean, and for Mark to have booked us such a wonderful holiday…The place we’re going to specialises in holidays for couples. I’m so sorry you had a wasted evening. I tried to ring you but you’d already left. I thought you might have got here sooner. After all, once you’d realised that Mark wasn’t at the wine bar…’ She stopped as she saw the look on both her cousin’s and Saskia’s faces.

‘What is it?’ she asked them uncertainly.

‘You said that you’d spoken to Mark,’ Lorraine was saying tersely to Saskia.

‘I did…’ Saskia insisted. ‘He was just as you described him to us, Megan…’

She stopped as Megan shook her head firmly.

‘Mark wasn’t there, Sas,’ she repeated. ‘He was with me at work. He arrived at half past eight and Sister gave me some time off so that we could talk. He’d guessed how upset I was and he’d decided that he would have to tell me what he was planning. He said he knew he couldn’t have kept the secret for very much longer anyway,’ she added fondly.

‘And before you say a word,’ she said firmly to her cousin, ‘Mark is paying for everything himself.’

Saskia leaned weakly against the wall. If the man she had come on to hadn’t been Megan’s Mark, then just who on earth had he been? Her face became even paler. She had come on to a man she didn’t know…a total and complete stranger…a man who…She swallowed nauseously, remembering the way she had looked, the way she had behaved…the things she had said. Thank God he was a stranger. Thank God she would never have to see him again.

‘Sas, you don’t look well,’ she could hear Megan saying solicitously. ‘What is it?’

‘Nothing,’ she fibbed, but Lorraine had already guessed what she was thinking.

‘Well, if the man in the wine bar wasn’t Mark then who on earth was he?’ She demanded sharply.

‘Who indeed?’ Saskia echoed hollowly.

CHAPTER THREE

TO SASKIA’S dismay she heard the town hall clock striking eight a.m. as she hurried to work. She had intended to be in extra early this morning but unfortunately she had overslept—a direct result of the previous evening’s events and the fact that initially she had been mentally agonising so much over what she had done that she had been unable to get to sleep.

Officially she might not be due to be at her desk until nine a.m., but in this modern age that was not the way things worked, especially when one’s hold on one’s job was already dangerously precarious.

‘There are bound to be cutbacks…redundancies,’ the head of Saskia’s department had warned them all, and Saskia, as she’d listened to him, had been sharply conscious that as the newest member of the team she was the one whose job was most in line to be cut back. It would be virtually impossible for her to get another job with the same kind of prospects in Hilford, and if she moved away to London that would mean her grandmother would be left on her own. At sixty-five her grandmother was not precisely old—far from it—and she had a large circle of friends, but the illness had left Saskia feeling afraid for her. Saskia felt she owed her such a huge debt, not only for bringing her up but for giving her so much love.

As she hurried into the foyer she asked Emma, the receptionist, anxiously, ‘Has he arrived yet?’

There was no need to qualify who she meant by ‘he’, and Emma gave her a slightly superior smile as she replied, ‘Actually he arrived yesterday. He’s upstairs now,’ she added smugly, ‘interviewing everyone.’ Her smugness and superiority gave way to a smile of pure feminine appreciation as she sighed. ‘Just wait until you see him. He’s gorgeous…with a great big capital G.’

She rolled her eyes expressively whilst Saskia gave her a wan smile.

She now had her own special and private—very private—blueprint of what a gorgeous man looked like, and she doubted that their new Greek boss came anywhere near to matching it.

‘Typically, though, mind you,’ the receptionist continued, oblivious to Saskia’s desire to hurry to her office, ‘he’s already spoken for. Or at least he soon will be. I was talking to the receptionist at their group’s head office and she told me that his grandfather wants him to marry his cousin. She’s mega-wealthy and—’