by Lynne Graham
Apollo bit out a laugh, perceptive eyes mocking her. ‘Stubborn and proud. That’s dangerous in my vicinity because I’m stubborn and proud as hell too. We’d clash but we’d also have fireworks, not something I usually look for with a woman but I’d make an exception for you, koukla mou. I would enjoy making you eat every word of your defiance and your denial…’
Her blood ran cold in her veins because she believed him. Below the bed Hector uttered a soft little growl that she had never heard from him before.
Apollo laughed again with genuine appreciation. ‘Aw, stop kidding yourself, dog! You’re not going to attack. You’re too scared even to come out from under the bed. What do you call him?’ he asked, disconcerting her with that sudden change of subject.
‘Hector.’
‘Hector was a Trojan prince and a great army commander in Greek mythology. Did you know that?’ he enquired lazily as he strolled out of the door.
‘No, I didn’t. I just thought the name suited him,’ she mumbled weakly.
She didn’t breathe again until she had closed the door and she rested back against it with eyes shut and the strangest sense of disappointment filtering through her. In the most disturbing way Apollo Metraxis had energised her. The threat gone, Hector scampered joyously out from below the bed and danced at her feet. She lifted him up, stroking what remained of his ragged little ears, and cuddled him. ‘A Trojan prince, not just an ordinary dog, Hector. I named you well,’ she whispered, burying her face in his tousled fur, feeling her lips tingle as she thought of that almost-but-not-quite kiss that had left her foolishly, mindlessly craving more.
Patrick Skyped her that evening, his thin face worn, eyes shadowed. ‘I’ve got bad news,’ he told her heavily. ‘Maria’s pregnant and she’s not well.’
‘Pregnant?’ Pixie gasped in dismay.
Patrick grimaced. ‘It wasn’t planned but we want the baby. We’ve been together three years now,’ he reminded his sister with a weak attempt at a smile. ‘I just wish the pregnancy wasn’t making her so ill because she can’t stand on her feet all day in a shop in her current condition. I’m never here, I’m always working…who’s going to look after her?’
‘Give her my congratulations,’ Pixie urged, concealing her feelings because she very well knew that her brother’s pregnant partner could bring his entire debt repayment scheme tumbling down round their ears because it was a struggle for him to make his monthly payment as it was.
Her brother’s blue eyes glittered. ‘I hate asking but could you manage anything extra this month?’
‘I’ll see what I can do,’ Pixie said thickly, not wanting him to realise that she could see the tears in his eyes.
A few minutes later the call was complete and Pixie felt as though she had received a punch in the stomach. Patrick and Maria’s financial situation was as fragile as a house built of cards. If one card fell, they would all fall. She groaned out loud. She couldn’t afford to give Patrick any more money and she should have admitted that upfront. Unfortunately her panic-induced thoughts had flown straight to Apollo because she wanted her little brother to stay alive and in one piece and if he couldn’t keep up those payments, he could well pay with his life.
Patrick was under threat and now there was Maria and a new baby on the way to consider as well, Pixie reflected wretchedly. How could she ignore their plight? How could she turn her back on them when Apollo had made it clear that if she did as he asked he would make all the bad things go away? And suddenly she was just desperate for those bad things to go away and for life to return to normal again.
Apollo as saviour? That concept didn’t work. Apollo was more into helping himself than other people. In fact Pixie and her brother were more like chess pieces to be moved strategically on Apollo’s master board. The human cost, the rights and wrongs and emotions didn’t come into it for Apollo and how much simpler that must make his life, she thought enviously. She lifted the card and snatched up her phone.
I will be your Baby Mama if you settle my brother’s debts, she texted with a sinking heart.
Ideals, she was learning, wouldn’t be any comfort if her brother or Maria or the baby got hurt or were left alone in the world. Apollo had found her price and she felt humiliated, and even worse manipulated, for he had made her crave his mouth that afternoon and the memory of that unnerved her. It was one thing to defy Apollo, another thing entirely to contemplate being married to him and wholly within his power.
You won’t regret it. We’ll talk business the next time we meet.
Business, not marriage, she reflected uneasily, but maybe that was the right way to look at it, as an arrangement rather than a relationship. As a deal between two people rather than the intimacy normal between a married couple. He wouldn’t really be her husband and she wouldn’t really be his wife. Mostly they would be faking it…wouldn’t they? Would that make it easier to bear?
CHAPTER FOUR
‘IT’S QUITE SIMPLE,’ Apollo murmured in a cold, dangerous tone. ‘You pack up you and your dog and you’ll be picked up this evening.’
‘I can’t just walk out on my job, and I’m supposed to give notice when I move out.’
‘My staff will organise everything of that nature for you. You don’t need to worry. I want you in London with me tonight, so that we can get on with the preparations.’
‘What preparations?’
‘You’ll have to sign legal papers, see a doctor, buy clothes. There must be a dozen entries on the to-do list I’ve had drawn up for you. You’re going to be very busy.’
Pixie thought about her brother and briefly closed her eyes, digging deep for composure. She had just put her life and her free will in Apollo’s hands and the pressure was on her now. ‘Where will I be staying?’
‘At my apartment. It’ll be more discreet than a hotel would be and I won’t be there for most of the week. I’ll be working in Athens.’
‘OK.’ Pixie forced herself to agree because she knew it was only the first step in another hundred or more steps when she would have to obediently fall in with Apollo’s wishes. Dear heaven, had she ever hated a man so much?
Vito was one of the very few men Pixie had learned to trust. She could see his love for her friend, Holly, every time he looked at his wife and his feelings for his son were equally obvious. But Pixie had had few such role models while she was growing up. Her own father had frequently resorted to domestic violence when he was drunk. He had beaten her mother and Pixie as well, calling her ‘a mouthy little cow’ for trying to interfere. When he wasn’t in prison serving time for his burglaries, he had often taken his bad moods out on his family. Pixie had never had Holly’s cosy, idealistic images of family life because she had experienced family life in the raw. Her father had married her mother when she fell pregnant but she had never seen any love or affection between them. Patrick had been born within a year of his sister’s birth and her mother had found it a challenge to cope with two young kids.
By the time Pixie was eight years old, both children had been placed in a council run children’s home because her mother had finally been imprisoned for her incessant shoplifting. Social workers had taken a very dim view of a mother trying to teach her children to steal. The council home and the various foster homes that followed had occasionally contained men with sexual designs on their charges. Pixie had been very young when she first learned to fear the opposite sex and the fact that she went on looking like a much younger child due to her lack of adolescent development had ensured that she had to remain on her guard around such men for years longer than most.
The foster home that had become the first real home for Pixie had been Sylvia and Maurice Ware’s and she had gone to them when she was twelve. The semi-retired farmer and his wife had had a spacious farmhouse in the Devonshire countryside and they had been devoted guardians to the often traumatised children who had come to live with them. Now Maurice was dead, the farmhouse sold and Sylvia lived in sheltered accommodation but Pixie had never f
orgotten the debt she owed to the older couple for the love, kindness and understanding they had shown her. And it was in their home that she had met Holly and their friendship had been forged, even though Pixie was eighteen months younger.
Her possessions fitted into her one suitcase and a box she begged off the local corner shop. She left an apologetic message on her employer Sally’s answering machine. What else could she do with Apollo calling all the shots? But being forced into such dangerous life changes genuinely frightened her. What would she do if Apollo decided that she wasn’t suitable to be his wife after all? Where would she go? How would she find another job? She didn’t trust Apollo and she didn’t want to end up on the street, homeless and unemployed, particularly not with Hector to worry about.
A limousine arrived to collect her. The driver came to the door and carried out her luggage and then produced a pet carrier, which Hector refused to enter. Pixie protested and promised that the little dog would be quiet and well-behaved if he was allowed to travel on her lap. She climbed into the opulent car with an engulfing sense of detached disbelief. She’d had glimpses of Holly and Vito’s wealth, had attended their wedding, had seen impressive photos of their Italian home, but Holly didn’t wear much jewellery or particularly fancy clothes and, essentially, she hadn’t changed. It was surprisingly easy to meet up with Holly and forget that she was the wife of a very rich man.
The luxurious interior of the limousine fascinated Pixie. It had a television and a phone and a bar. It was a long drive but there were regular stops to exercise Hector and an evening meal stop for Pixie at a very swanky hotel. It was only there that she noticed another car was accompanying them because it was one of the men in it who escorted her into the fancy dining room and urged her to choose whatever she liked from the menu. Pixie was so horrified by the prices on the menu and so scared that the bill would be handed to her at the end of the meal that even though she was starving she only dared to have soup, which came with a roll. Of course no one presented her with a bill. The big beefy bodyguard or whatever he was appeared to be there to take care of such necessities while Hector waited in the car.
By the time they finally arrived in London, Pixie was exhausted and living on her nerves. It was after ten in the evening and it was dark and, with Hector cradled in her arms, she left the limo in the underground car park and walked into a lift with the big beefy guy and his mate towering over her.
‘What’re your names?’ she asked nervously.
‘Theo and Dmitri, Miss Robinson. You’re not really supposed to notice us,’ Theo told her gently. ‘We’re here to take care of you but we’re staff.’
It was yet another strong message that Apollo lived in a different world because Pixie could not imagine ever ignoring anyone in such a way. But at that moment she reminded herself that she had more pressing concerns. Would she see Apollo this evening? The lift stopped directly into a massive apartment foyer and she realised that it had to be a private lift only used by him and his employees.
A small, portly older man in a jacket approached her. ‘I’m Manfred, Miss Robinson. I look after the apartment. Let me show you to your room.’
Pixie followed him across the foyer towards a corridor and on the way past saw into a large reception room where she glimpsed a lithe blonde beauty standing talking with a drink in her hand. One of Apollo’s women? Probably, she thought. He always seemed to have a woman on the go. She would have to ask him what he planned to do after their marriage if they got that far because no way was she prepared to sleep with a man sleeping with other women at the same time. That wasn’t negotiable yet the picture of a quiet, clean-living version of Apollo married refused to gel.
‘This is the garden room,’ Manfred announced grandly, walking across a big, lushly appointed bedroom to indicate the patio doors. He buzzed them open to show her the outside space. ‘Perfect for the little dog…’
‘Yes,’ Pixie agreed in wonderment. Stepping out, she noticed that part of the roof garden was neatly and clearly temporarily fenced off, presumably to prevent Hector straying into the glimmering blue pool that lay beyond it.
‘Can I get you any refreshments?’ he asked cheerfully.
‘I wouldn’t say no to some sandwiches,’ Pixie muttered apologetically.
Pixie unpacked while Hector explored the new environment and his own first private outside space. In one corner of the room sat a fur-lined pet bed with a roof. Hector sniffed all round it, finally decided it wasn’t actively unfriendly and got into it. Manfred brought tea and sandwiches on a tray. Pixie went for a shower in the lovely bathroom, bemused to find herself dropped in the midst of such extreme comfort and luxury. Comfy in her shortie pyjamas, she curled up on the bed with her supper and ate.
*
Apollo had already told Lauren that he had an early start in the morning and that her uninvited visit was inconvenient. He had given her wine, made the kind of meaningless chit-chat that bored him and sidestepped a blatantly obvious invitation to have sex. He never brought his lovers back to his various properties. He took them to a hotel or went to their place because that meant that he could leave whenever he liked.
‘You want me to leave, don’t you?’ Lauren said in a whiny little-girl voice that set his teeth on edge.
‘Tonight doesn’t suit me,’ Apollo pointed out without apology. ‘I have a busy schedule and I also have a guest staying.’
‘Another woman?’ she gasped.
And that was it for Apollo. Lauren had been in his life exactly two days. He hadn’t yet slept with her and now he knew he never would because her attitude turned him off. Lauren stalked out in a snit, leaving Apollo free to indulge in his desire to see Pixie. Of course he wanted to see her, he reasoned with himself while his brain questioned why he would want to see her. But Pixie was very probably the woman he was going to marry and therefore infinitely more important than a casual hook-up like Lauren. And in any case he wanted to see if Hector liked his new hideaway bed.
With a brief knock on Pixie’s bedroom door, Apollo opened it.
He was just in time to catch the look of fear on Pixie’s face and the way she slammed back apprehensively against the headboard. ‘Sorry, did I startle you?’ he said, knowing that ‘startled’ didn’t come near to covering her excessive reaction and wondering what had caused it.
Pale, Pixie suddenly reddened and unglued her spine from the headboard to straighten her narrow shoulders. ‘It’s all right,’ she said with forced casualness. ‘I thought you were entertaining?’
‘No.’ Apollo stared at her. She was wearing pyjamas and there was nothing elegant or alluring about them but, while his rational mind was telling him that, his body was reacting as if she were half naked. The nipples of her small breasts pushed against the thin cotton and her slender crossed legs were exposed yet he only had to look into her flushed and ridiculously appealing face and that bee-stung mouth and he was throbbing, grateful for the suit jacket he still wore as a cover.
‘Well, I’m here,’ Pixie pointed out nervously. ‘Thanks for the bed for Hector.’
Apollo glanced at Hector, who had made himself as small and unnoticeable as possible at the back of the big bed, and a slanting, almost boyish grin flashed across his lean, strong face without warning. ‘I thought he might as well hide in comfort.’
He looked amazing when he smiled like that, Pixie ruminated. She hadn’t known he could smile like that or that he was a soft touch when it came to dogs, but he so obviously had not been joking when he said he often preferred animals to people. It gave him a more human side, made her a touch less unnerved by him. As for those dazzling, unexpectedly green eyes illuminating his hard dark features, it was a challenge to look away from them. But then of course he had appeal. He was a real player. Young, hot and rich, he was a target for hungry, ambitious and designing women, which was probably why he didn’t like women very much. At least that was what she had privately decided about him even though she didn’t know if it was true. And why sho
uld she care? Why was she even thinking about him in such a way? What Apollo Metraxis was really like shouldn’t matter to her, should it?
And the need to stick to business belatedly impressed her as a very good attitude to take because she did not want to be getting curious about Apollo and wondering what made him tick. Nor did she want to be admiring his stunning male beauty. None of that should matter to her, she told herself urgently.
‘Do you mind telling me what you intend to do about my brother’s debt?’ she pressed tightly.
‘If we go ahead and marry he can forget about it because I’ll take care of it. If we stay married and you meet my conditions—’
‘Getting pregnant?’ she interrupted in dismay.
‘No, that won’t be on the table because it would be unreasonable. You may not conceive and if you don’t I can hardly punish you for not doing so,’ he conceded. ‘As long as you try. That and confidentiality are really all I’m expecting from you. Whether we’re successful or otherwise that debt will not come back to haunt your brother.’
‘You’re paying it off?’
‘No, I’m taking over the payments,’ Apollo lied without skipping a beat. ‘Look on it as my method of ensuring you keep to your side of the bargain throughout our association.’
‘It’s not necessary to put that kind of pressure on me. I keep my promises,’ Pixie argued, unhappy with what he was telling her.
‘My tactics work,’ Apollo countered levelly, feeling an unexpected stab of discomfiture for not telling her the truth, and the truth was that he already owned the debt in its entirety. After all, there was no way he could have entertained any kind of ongoing arrangement with a thug running an illegal gambling den.
Pixie swallowed hard on the angry, defiant response she wanted to make. When it came to the gambling debt, what he was offering was still much better than anything she could have hoped to achieve on her own. It would take the financial stress off Patrick and his partner and allow them to get on with their lives and concentrate on their coming baby. On the other hand Apollo’s decision to maintain the ‘carrot and stick’ approach towards their marriage would put the weight of expectation squarely on Pixie’s shoulders instead and it would worry her constantly that in some field she would fail to please and her loss of freedom and self-will would end up being worthless.