The Demetrios Virgin. Penny Jordan

sorry,’ Saskia apologised to her best friend as she slipped into the spare seat at the table for three in the Italian restaurant where they had arranged to meet.

      ‘There’s been a panic on at work,’ she explained. ‘The new boss arrives tomorrow.’ She pulled a face, wrinkling the elegant length of her dainty nose and screwing up her thick-lashed aquamarine eyes. She paused as she saw that her friend wasn’t really listening, and that her normally happy, gentle face looked strained and unhappy.

      ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked immediately.

      ‘I was just telling Lorraine how upset I am,’ Megan answered, indicating the third member of their trio, Megan’s cousin Lorraine, an older woman with a brisk, businesslike expression and a slightly jaded air.

      ‘Upset?’ Saskia queried, a small frown marring the elegant oval of her face as she pushed her long hair back and reached hungrily for a bread roll. She was starving!

      ‘It’s Mark,’ Megan said, her voice shaking a little and her brown eyes full of quiet despair.

      ‘Mark?’ Saskia repeated, putting down her roll so that she could concentrate on her friend. ‘But I thought the two of you were about to announce your engagement.’

      ‘Yes, we were…we are…At least, Mark wants to…’ Megan began, and then stopped when Lorraine took over.

      ‘Megan thinks he’s involved with someone else…’ she told Saskia grimly. ‘Two-timing her.’

      Older than Megan and Saskia by almost a decade, and with a broken marriage behind her, Lorraine was inclined to be angrily contemptuous of the male sex.

      ‘Oh, surely not, Megan,’ Saskia protested. ‘You told me yourself how much Mark loves you.’

      ‘Well, yes, that’s what I thought,’ Megan agreed, ‘Especially when he said that he wanted us to become engaged. But…he keeps getting these phone calls. And if I answer the phone whoever’s ringing just hangs up. There’ve been three this week and when I ask him who it is he says it’s just a wrong number.’

      ‘Well, perhaps it is,’ Saskia tried to reassure her, but Megan shook her head.

      ‘No, it isn’t. Mark keeps on hanging around by the phone, and last night he was talking on his mobile when I walked in and the moment he saw me he ended the call.’

      ‘Have you asked him what’s going on?’ Saskia questioned her in concern.

      ‘Yes. He says I’m just imagining it,’ Megan told her unhappily.

      ‘A classic male ploy,’ Lorraine announced vigorously with grim satisfaction. ‘My ex did everything to convince me that I was becoming paranoid and then what does he do? He moves in with his secretary, if you please!’

      ‘I just wish that Mark would be honest with me,’ Megan told Saskia, her eyes starting to fill with tears. ‘If there is someone else…I…I just can’t believe he’s doing this…I thought he loved me…’

      ‘I’m sure he does,’ Saskia tried to comfort her. She had not as yet met her friend’s new partner, but from what Megan had told her about him Saskia felt he sounded perfect for her.

      ‘Well, there’s one sure way to find out,’ Lorraine announced. ‘I read an article about it. There’s this agency, and if you’ve got suspicions about your partner’s fidelity you go to them and they send a girl to try to seduce him. That’s what you should do,’ she told Megan crisply.

      ‘Oh, no, I couldn’t,’ Megan protested.

      ‘You must,’ Lorraine insisted forcefully. ‘It’s the only way you’ll ever know whether or not you can trust him. I wish I’d been able to do something like that before I got married. You must do it,’ she repeated. ‘It’s the only way you’ll ever be sure. Mark is struggling to make ends meet since he started up his own business, Megan, and you’ve got that money you inherited from your great-aunt.’

      Saskia’s heart sank a little as she listened. Much as she loved her friend, she knew that Megan was inclined to allow herself to be dominated by her older and more worldly cousin. Saskia had nothing against Lorraine, indeed she liked her, but she knew from past experience that once Lorraine got the bit between her teeth there was no stopping her. She was fiercely determined to do things her own way, which Saskia suspected was at least part of the reason for the breakdown of her marriage. But right now, sympathetic though Saskia was to Megan’s unhappiness, she was hungry…very hungry…She eyed the menu longingly.

      ‘Well, it does sound a sensible idea,’ Megan was agreeing. ‘But I doubt there’s an agency like that in Hilford.’

      ‘Who needs an agency?’ Lorraine responded. ‘What you need is a stunningly gorgeous friend who Mark hasn’t met and who can attempt to seduce him. If he responds…’

      ‘A stunningly gorgeous friend?’ Megan was musing. ‘You mean like Saskia?’

      Two pairs of female eyes studied Saskia whilst she gave in to her hunger and bit into her roll.

      ‘Exactly,’ Lorraine breathed fervently. ‘Saskia would be perfect.’

      ‘What?’ Saskia almost choked on her bread. ‘You can’t be serious,’ she protested. ‘Oh, no, no way…’ She objected when she saw the determination in Lorraine’s eyes and the pleading in Megan’s. ‘No way at all.’

      ‘Meg, this is crazy, you must see that,’ she coaxed, trying to appeal to her friend’s common sense and her conscience as she added winningly, ‘How could you do something like that to Mark? You love him.’

      ‘How can she risk committing herself to him unless she knows she can trust him?’ Lorraine interjected sharply, adding emphatically, ‘Good, that’s settled. What we need to do now is to decide just where Saskia can accidentally run into Mark and put our plan into action.’

      ‘Well, tonight is his boys’ night out,’ Megan ventured. ‘And last night he said that they were planning to go to that new wine bar that’s just opened. A friend of his knows the owner.’

      ‘I can’t do it,’ Saskia protested. ‘It…it’s…it’s immoral,’ she added. She looked apologetically at Megan as she shook her head and told her, ‘Meg, I’m sorry, but…’

      ‘I should have thought you would want to help Megan, Saskia, to protect her happiness. Especially after all she’s done for you…’ Lorraine pointed out sharply.

      Saskia worried guiltily at her bottom lip with her pretty white teeth. Lorraine was right. She did owe Megan a massive favour.

      Six months ago, when they had been trying to fight off the Demetrios takeover bid, she had been working late every evening and at weekends as well. Her grandmother, who had brought her up following the breakdown of her young parents’ marriage, had become seriously ill with a viral infection and Megan, who was a nurse, had given up her spare time and some of her holiday entitlement to care for the old lady.

      Saskia shuddered to think even now of the potentially dangerous outcome of her grandmother’s illness if Megan hadn’t been there to nurse her. It had been on Saskia’s conscience ever since that she owed her friend a debt she could never repay. Saskia adored her grandmother, who had provided her with a loving and stable home background when she had needed it the most. Her mother, who had given birth to Saskia at seventeen was a distant figure in her life, and her father, her grandmother’s son, had become a remote stranger to both of them, living as he now did in China, with his second wife and young family.

      ‘I know you don’t approve, Saskia,’ Megan was saying quietly to her, ‘but I have to know that I can trust Mark.’ Her soft eyes filled with tears. ‘He means so much to me. He’s everything I’ve ever wanted in a man. But…he dated so many girls before he met me, before he moved here, when he lived in London.’ She paused. ‘He swears that none of them ever meant anything serious to him and that he loves me.’