look…How dare he look at her like that? Suddenly all the doubts she had been harbouring about what she had agreed to do were vanquished.
Lorraine was right to be suspicious of such a man’s motives, especially where a naive, gentle, unworldly girl like Megan was concerned. Saskia didn’t trust him one little bit. Megan needed a man who would appreciate her gentleness and treat her correspondingly. This man was powerful, daunting, awesome—and looking at him was, as Saskia was beginning to discover, something of a physical compulsion. She couldn’t take her eyes off him. But that was just because she disliked him so much, she assured herself quickly, because she was so intensely aware of how very right Lorraine had been to want to test his loyalty to Megan.
Determinedly quelling the butterflies fluttering in her stomach, Saskia took a deep breath, mentally reminding herself of what she had read in the article Lorraine had thrust under her nose. Then she had been horrified, repulsed by the lengths the girls hired by the agency were prepared to go to in order to entice and entrap their quarry into self-betrayal. It had even crossed her mind that no mere man could possibly find the strength to resist the kind of deliberate temptation those girls offered—everything from the most intense type of verbal flattery right up to outright offers of sex itself, although thankfully offers had been all they were.
A man like this one, though, must be used to women—attractive women—throwing themselves at him. ‘He dated so many girls before he met me,’ Megan had said innocently.
Saskia would just bet that he had. Megan was a honey, and Saskia loved her with a fierce loyalty, but even she had to admit that her friend did not possess the kind of glamorous instant eye appeal she suspected a man like this one would look for. But perhaps that was what he loved about her—the fact that she was so shy and homely. If he loved her…Well, that was up to Saskia to prove…or disprove…wasn’t it?
With the light of battle shining in her eyes, Saskia made her way towards him.
Andreas watched her progress with a mixture of curiosity and disappointment. She was heading for him. He knew that, but the cool hauteur with which she not only ignored the interested looks she was collecting from other men as she did so but almost seemed not to notice them, was every bit as contrived as the unfastened buttons of the top she was wearing. It had to be! Andreas knew the type. He should do. After all, Athena…
‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ Saskia apologised as she reached Andreas’s side and ‘accidentally’ stumbled against him. Straightening up, she stood next to him at the bar, giving him a winsomely apologetic smile as she moved so close to him that he could smell her scent…Not her perfume, which was light and floral, unexpectedly, but her scent,…the soft, honey-sweet headily sensual and erotic scent that was her. And like a fool he was actually breathing it in, getting almost drunk on it…letting his senses react to it…to her…
Lorraine had coached her on her best approach and Saskia had memorised it, grimacing with loathing and distaste as she did so.
Andreas forced himself to step back from her and put some distance between them, but the bar was crowded and it was impossible for him to move away altogether, so instead he asked her coldly, ‘I’m sorry…do I know you?’
His voice and demeanour were, he knew, cutting enough to make it plain that he knew what she was up to. Although why on earth a woman who looked like this one needed to trawl bars looking for men to pick up he had no idea. Or rather he did, but he preferred not to examine it too closely. There were women, as he already knew to his cost, who would do anything for money…anything…with anyone…
But Saskia was facing him now, her lipstick-glossed mouth parting in a smile he could see was forced as she purred, ‘Er, no, actually, you don’t…but I’m hoping that soon you will.’
Saskia was relieved that the bar was so dimly lit. She could feel the heat of her burning face. She had never in her most private thoughts even contemplated coming on to a man like this, never mind envisaged that she might actually do so. Quickly she hurried on to the next part of her prepared speech, parting her lips in what she hoped was a temptingly provocative smile whilst carefully running her tongue-tip over them.
Yuck! But all that lipstick felt repulsive.
‘Aren’t you going to ask me if I’d like a drink?’ she invited coyly, batting her eyelashes in what she hoped was an appropriately enticing manner. ‘I love the colour of your shirt,’ she added huskily as she leaned closer. ‘It matches your eyes…’
‘If you think that you must be colour blind; my eyes are grey,’ Andreas told her tersely. She was beginning to make him feel very angry. Her obviousness was nothing short of contemptible. But nothing like as contemptible as his own ridiculous reaction to her. What was he? A boy of eighteen? He was supposed to be a man…a mature, sophisticated, experienced, worldly man of thirty-odd—and yet here he was, reacting, responding, to the pathetically tired and jaded sexual tricks she was playing on him as eagerly as though…As though what? As though there was nothing he wanted to do right now more than take her to bed, to feel the hot urgency of her body beneath his, to hear her cry out his name through lips swollen with the mutual passion of their shared kisses whilst he…
‘Look,’ he told her sharply, cutting off the supply of lifeblood to his unwanted fantasies by the simple act of refusing to allow himself to think about them, ‘you’re making a big mistake.’
‘Oh, no,’ Saskia protested anxiously as he started to turn away from her. By rights she should simply accept what he was saying and go back to Megan and tell her that her beloved Mark was everything he was supposed to be. But an instinct she couldn’t analyse was telling her that despite all the evidence to the contrary he was tempted. Any man could be tempted, she tried to tell herself fairly, but something inside her refused to allow her to listen.
‘You could never be a mistake,’ she purred suggestively. ‘To any woman…’
Fatuously Andreas wondered if he had gone completely mad. To even think of desiring a woman who was openly propositioning him was anathema to everything he believed in. How could he possibly be even remotely attracted to her? He wasn’t, of course. It was impossible. And as for that sudden inexplicable urge he had had to take her home with him, where she would be safe from the kind of attention her make-up and behaviour were bound to attract. Well, now he knew he must be seriously losing it.
If there was one thing he despised it was women like this one. Not that he preferred them to be demure or virginal. No. What he found most attractive was a woman who was proud to be herself and who expected his sex to respect her right to be what she was. The kind of woman who would automatically eschew any act that involved her presenting herself as some kind of sexual plaything and who would just as determinedly turn her back on any man who wanted her to behave that way. This woman…
‘I’m sorry,’ he told her, making it verbally plain that he was no such thing by the cold tone of his voice, ‘but you’re wasting your time. And time, as I can see,’ he continued in a deceptively gentle voice, ‘has to be money for a woman like you. So why don’t you go away and find someone else who will be…er…more receptive to what you’ve got on offer than I am?’
White-faced, Saskia watched as he turned away from her and thrust his way towards the door. He had rejected her…refused her. He had…He had…Painfully she swallowed. He had proved that he was faithful to Megan and he had…He had looked at her as though…as though…Like a little girl, Saskia wiped the back of her hand across her lipsticked mouth, grimacing as she saw the stain the high-coloured gloss had left there.
‘Hi there, gorgeous. Can I buy you a drink?’
