The Demetrios Virgin. PENNY JORDAN

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—’

      ‘I’m sorry, Emma, but I must go,’ Saskia interrupted her firmly. Office gossip, like office politics, was something Saskia had no wish to involve herself in, and besides…If their new boss was already interviewing people she didn’t want to earn herself any black marks by not being at her desk when he sent for her.

      Her office was on the third floor, an open plan space where she worked with five other people. Their boss had his own glass-walled section, but right now both it and the general office itself were empty.

      Just as she was wondering what to do the outer door swung open and her boss, followed by the rest of her colleagues, came into the room.

      ‘Ah, Saskia, there you are,’ her boss greeted her.

      ‘Yes. I had intended to be here earlier…’ Saskia began, but Gordon Jarman was shaking his head.

      ‘Don’t explain now,’ he told her sharply. ‘You’d better get upstairs to the executive suite. Mr Latimer’s secretary will be expecting you. Apparently he wants to interview everyone, both individually and with their co-department members, and he wasn’t too pleased that you weren’t here…’

      Without allowing Saskia to say anything, Gordon turned on his heel and went into his office, leaving her with no option but to head for the lift. It was unlike Gordon to be so sharp. He was normally a very laid back sort of person. Saskia could feel the nervous feeling in her tummy increasing as she contemplated the kind of attitude Andreas Latimer must have adopted towards his new employees to cause such a reaction in her normally unflappable boss.

      The executive suite was unfamiliar territory to Saskia. The only previous occasions on which she had entered it had been when she had gone for her initial interview and then, more recently, when the whole staff had been informed of the success of the Demetrios takeover bid.

      A little uncertainly she got out of the lift and walked towards the door marked ‘Personal Assistant to the Chief Executive’.

      Madge Fielding, the previous owner’s secretary, had retired when the takeover bid’s success had been announced, and when Saskia saw the elegantly groomed dark-haired woman seated behind Madge’s desk she assumed that the new owner must