by Lynne Graham
It probably wasn’t even slightly surprising that she had fallen so hard for Apollo, Pixie reflected ruefully. He was her first lover, her first everything and like any legendary stud he had buckets of charisma when he tried to impress. And that was what she couldn’t afford to forget, Pixie reminded herself doggedly: Apollo was faking it for her benefit and his. Did he think that she was so stupid that she didn’t know that?
Obviously every seemingly concerned or pleasant thing he had done around her was a giant fake!
After all, the stress and strain of a bad relationship could prevent her from getting pregnant while simple strife would keep her out of his bed. So, when she had dived off the top deck of Circe to surprise him because she was a very proficient swimmer and diver and Apollo had gone ballistic at the supposed dangerous risk he had deemed her to have taken, his evident concern for what might have happened to her couldn’t possibly have been genuine. If she killed herself diving it would be inconvenient for him but with his resources and attraction he would quickly replace her, Pixie thought, miserably melodramatic in the mood she was in.
In the same way, the many trips they had shared, stopping off to swim and picnic in secluded coves and explore enchanting little villages on various Greek islands were not to be taken too seriously. Apollo enjoyed showing off the beauties of his homeland and was a great deal better educated than she had initially appreciated. She had discovered that he could give her chapter and verse on every ancient Greek or Roman site they came on. Her fingers fiddled restively with the little gold and diamond tiger pendant she wore. He had given her that a week after that nightclub scene, telling her that she was much more than a kitten with claws. Since she had scored his back in the heat of passion with her nails the night before he had given it to her she had laughed in appreciation. And that had annoyed Apollo, something she seemed to do sometimes without even meaning to, she acknowledged with regret.
But then, undeniably, Apollo was mercurial and volatile, passionate and outspoken and still in many ways a mystery and a contradiction to Pixie. He was a billionaire with every luxury at his command and yet he could picnic on a beach quite happily with a rough bottle of the village vino, home-baked bread and a salad scattered with the salty local cheese. He clearly loved dogs and could have owned a select pack of pedigreed animals without any need of therapy, but he had not owned a dog since childhood and seemed to prefer to spend his time trying to win Hector’s trust. And Hector was the most ordinary of ordinary little terriers with the scrappy stubborn nature of his breed and he was extremely reluctant to change his defensive habits.
The door opened and Pixie scrambled up as her dog trailed after Apollo into the room. Hector wouldn’t go to Apollo but he was quite happy to follow him at a safe distance. Clad in tailored chino pants and an open-necked black shirt, Apollo slanted her a reproving grin. ‘What’s with all this sleeping in every morning? You didn’t join me for breakfast again,’ he complained.
‘Maybe you’re wearing me out,’ Pixie quipped.
His green eyes gleamed like jewels fringed by lush black lashes in his lean, strong face. ‘Am I too demanding?’ he suddenly asked with a frown.
And Pixie went pink, dismay assailing her because she had been teasing. ‘No more than I am,’ she muttered, her eyes veiling as she remembered wakening him up at some time of the night and taking thorough advantage of his lean, hard body to satisfy the need that never entirely receded in his radius.
Apollo wrapped a careless arm round her shoulders. ‘I do like an honest woman,’ he confessed with husky sensual recollection.
‘No, what you like is being my only object of desire,’ Pixie corrected, her body sliding into the lean, hard embrace of his as if it were programmed to do so.
He bent his dark head and claimed her bee-stung mouth with a hungry thoroughness that tightened her nipples and ran like fire to the heart of her and she trembled against his hard, muscular frame, suddenly weak again in a way she hated. She denied herself the desire to put her arms round him. She didn’t want Apollo to know how she felt about him because that would inevitably make their relationship uncomfortable. Hadn’t she promised him that she wouldn’t turn clingy or needy? And that she had no intention of falling for him? Even worse, she thought painfully, she had truly believed she could deliver on those pledges of faith in his undesirability.
Her incredibly tender breasts ached with a mixture of oversensitivity and swelling desire when he crushed her to him with sudden force and for a split second she knew he could have done anything he wanted with her because she had no resistance and no longer any defences to fall back on to support her.
It was disconcerting when Apollo set her back from him in an uncharacteristic move of restraint. ‘No,’ he breathed in a fractured undertone. ‘I came down to bring you up on deck. I want you to see the island for the first time as we come into harbour.’
And Pixie understood why he had backed off even though it did make her feel a little like an overdose of sugar being rejected by someone who had decided to go on a diet. In truth she had always accepted, she thought ruefully, that Apollo could resist her if he chose to do so and naturally that hurt her pride and her heart, but it was also a fact of life she had better learn to live with. After all, if she had already conceived she suspected their actual future as a couple could be measured in days rather than months.
Furthermore, the island of Nexos, the home of the Metraxis family for several generations, was hugely important to Apollo and probably one of the main reasons he had married her. Without a wife and a child he could not securely claim his heritage.
Pixie stood out on deck with the bright blue sky above her and the sun beating down while Circe powered more slowly than usual towards the island spread before them. Apollo slid his arms round her from behind and she leant back against him to be more comfortable, her keen and curious gaze scanning the pine trees edging the sandy beach at one end of the island and the rocky cliffs towering at the other. In the middle there was greenery and silvery olive groves and a fair-sized village climbing the hill behind the harbour—little white cube houses stretching in all directions while a little domed stone church presided over the flat land at the water’s edge.
‘It’s beautiful,’ she murmured dreamily.
‘I didn’t properly appreciate Nexos as my home until I thought about losing it,’ Apollo intoned grimly. ‘If I’d confided more in my father he would not have left that will as his final testament to me.’
‘It doesn’t matter now, not really,’ Pixie reasoned, hopelessly eager to provide comfort when she recognised the emotional undertow of regret in his dark deep drawl. ‘Maybe your father simply knew what bait to put on the hook.’
Apollo burst out laughing without the smallest warning and gazed down at the top of her golden head. ‘I doubt if he appreciated you would be less than five foot tall and a hairdresser. A talented one though, I must admit, koukla mou,’ he added, clearly worried that he had hurt her feelings and that she had interpreted that reminder of her more humble beginnings as a put-down. ‘As bait you have proved as efficient as a torpedo under the water line.’
Destructive? Was that how he saw her? Was that because he had confided in her about his evil stepmothers? Or because he had shown her that he was as vulnerable as any other human being in childhood? And as amazingly loveable, she conceded wretchedly, worry dragging her down again along with the fear of the separation she saw waiting on the horizon.
CHAPTER NINE
‘YOU SHOULD CHANGE before we disembark,’ Apollo urged. ‘The press will be waiting at the harbour.’
‘The press?’ Pixie emphasised, eyes flying wide. ‘Why would they be waiting?’
‘I issued a press release about our marriage last week,’ Apollo admitted. ‘They’ll want a photo since I saw no reason to be that generous.’
‘I thought Nexos was a private island,’ Pixie admitted tautly, disconcerted at the prospect of camera lenses being trained on her for she had
yet to be photographed in Apollo’s company. That was undoubtedly because Apollo hated the paparazzi and knew exactly where to go to avoid attracting that kind of attention.
‘It is but not as private as it was in my grandfather’s day. The islanders need to make a living and my father began letting tourists in twenty years ago. I accelerated that process by building an eco-resort on the other side of the island,’ he revealed calmly. ‘The years of the locals getting by fishing and farming are long gone. Not unnaturally their children want more.’
‘And even if that infringes on your privacy on your island you let them have it,’ Pixie remarked in surprise.
‘It doesn’t infringe. The Metraxis estate is very secure but owning an island with an indigenous population comes with responsibility. The people have to have a future they can count on for their children or the younger generation will leave. My father didn’t really grasp that reality.’
Pixie stepped into the motor launch twenty minutes later, clad in print silk trousers with a toning shirt worn over a camisole and a sunhat that she had to hang onto as the launch sped across the gleaming clear turquoise water into the harbour. She tensed when she saw just how many people seemed to be grouped there ready to greet them. It dawned on her that in her guise as Apollo’s wife she probably seemed a much more important person to the locals than she actually was.
‘Don’t answer any questions whatsoever. Ignore the cameras,’ Apollo urged, lifting her into his arms to carry her off the launch before she could make for the steps under her own steam.
Flushed and uneasy, Pixie regained her feet and Apollo’s bodyguards swung into action to keep the photographers at a careful distance. With the indolent cool of a male accustomed to the press invading his privacy, Apollo dropped an arm round her shoulders and walked her off the marina at an unhurried pace. He exchanged greetings in his own language with several people but he did not once pause in his determined progress towards the four-wheel drive parked in readiness beyond the crush.
Pixie, however, had never been so uneasily conscious of being the centre of attention and she was hopelessly intimidated by the shouted questions and comments in different languages. She felt the wall of stares being directed at her and her tummy gave a sick lurch. She suspected that she had to be a pretty disappointing spectacle for people who had probably expected Apollo to marry an heiress or a model and, at the very least, someone famous, incredibly beautiful and photogenic. Possessing none of those gifts, she felt horribly exposed and all the more aware that she was a fake wife, pregnant or otherwise.
Only when they were inside the car did she breathe again.
‘See…that wasn’t so bad,’ Apollo pointed out with a shrug that perfectly illustrated his indifference to that amount of concentrated interest and speculation.
‘I’ll take your word for it… I found it tough,’ Pixie responded honestly. ‘I’m not used to being looked at like that and knowing I am a totally phony wife doesn’t add to my confidence.’
‘When will you listen to me?’ Apollo shot back at her in exasperation. ‘You’re my legal wife!’
Pixie breathed in slow and deep to calm her racing nerves and turned her head to look out of the car windows. Apollo had taught her that a legal wife still wasn’t a real wife.
‘And you will never leave our estate without bodyguards…is that understood? Not even for a walk down into the village,’ Apollo specified.
‘Is that level of security really necessary?’ ‘Our’ estate, he had said, she noted in surprise, and then wrote it off as either a slip of the tongue or a comment designed to make her feel more relaxed about their living arrangements.
‘There’s always a risk of paparazzi in the village or even a tourist photographing you to make a profit. My security team are trained to handle all that and ensure that nobody gets to bother you.’
The car was travelling up a steep incline and electric gates whirred back while Pixie gazed at the big white rambling villa at the top of the hill. It was certainly large but it wasn’t anywhere near as massive as Vito’s giant palazzo in Tuscany and she was relieved. As she stepped out, one of the bodyguards lifted Hector’s carrier from the four-wheel drive and set it down to release him. Hector raced out and gambolled round Pixie’s ankles, relieved to have escaped his brief imprisonment.
They walked into a grand marble-floored space with staircases sweeping down on either side of the hall and a very opulent chandelier. A housekeeper, dressed in black with a white apron, greeted them and was introduced as Olympia. Apollo spoke to her at length in Greek while Pixie succumbed to curiosity and crossed the hall to peep into rooms. She had never seen so many dead white walls in her life or such bland furnishings. Indeed the interior had the appearance of a house that served as a show home.
Apollo frowned as he examined her expressive face. ‘You don’t like it? Then you can change it. I had it all stripped, painted and refurnished while my father was ill. Every one of his wives had different decorating ideas and favourite rooms and the house was a mess of clashing colours and styles. When he was well enough to come down for dinner I realised that the décor awakened unfortunate memories so I wiped the slate clean for his benefit.’
‘Well, all that white and beige is certainly clean,’ Pixie assured him gently, rather touched by his thoughtfulness on his ailing father’s behalf.
‘I’ll show you round,’ he proffered, walking her from room to room, and there really was very little to look at in the big colourless rooms. There were no photographs, no ornaments, only an occasional vase of beautiful flowers.
‘I thought the house would be much larger,’ she confided as he walked her upstairs. ‘Holly said you had a lot of relatives.’
‘Relatives and friends use the guest cottages behind the house. My grandfather and my father preferred to have only family members lodge in the actual house. Vito and Holly stayed here with me for the funeral because Vito is the closest thing I have to a brother,’ he admitted quietly, his handsome mouth quirking. ‘But don’t go repeating that or he’ll get too big for his boots.’
Pixie laughed as he showed her into a spacious bedroom with a balcony running the entire length. The pale curtains beside the open doors streamed back in the breeze coming in off the ocean. She stepped outside to appreciate the incredible bird’s eye view of Nexos and the sea and understood exactly why Apollo’s grandfather had chosen that spot to build his family home. ‘It is really gorgeous,’ she murmured. ‘But this place could definitely do with some pictures on the walls and other stuff just to take the bare look away.’
‘The canvases are stored in the basement but run it by me before you have anything rehung,’ Apollo countered. ‘There are portraits of the ex-wives, which I have no desire to see again…and certain artworks fall into the same category,’ he completed tight-mouthed.
Pixie rested a tiny hand on his. ‘This is your home. The ex-wives are gone now and won’t be coming back, so forget about them.’
Apollo bit out an embittered laugh. ‘Only if I contrive to produce a child…and who knows whether or not that will be possible?’
Pixie pinned her lips together and stared out to sea and then she couldn’t hold the words bubbling on her tongue back any longer. ‘There may be a slim chance that this month…well, don’t go getting excited yet but I am a little late…’
Apollo stared down at her transfixed by even the slender possibility that she had outlined. ‘And you didn’t even mention it to me until now?’ he demanded in seething disbelief.
‘Because we don’t need to put ourselves through some silly false alarm, do we?’ Pixie appealed.
Apollo shook his head as if he couldn’t identify with that attitude. His black hair blew back from his lean bronzed features as he leant back against the glass barrier, his green eyes jewel bright in the sunlight. He dug out his phone, stabbed buttons with impatience and started talking in fast Greek while she watched, frowning in bewilderment.
‘Dr Floros will come up wit
h a test for us this afternoon.’
‘But I’m only a couple of days late,’ Pixie protested.
‘Even I know that that’s usually soon enough to tell us one way or the other,’ Apollo pronounced. ‘Why sit around wondering any longer?’
Well, you chose to open your big mouth and spill, Pixie censured herself unhappily. He would either be very pleased or very disappointed. It was out of her hands now.
‘You have to learn the habit of sharing these things with me,’ Apollo breathed in an almost raw undertone, green eyes veiled and narrowed as he stared down at her.
‘Didn’t I just do that?’
‘Obviously you’ve been thinking about this on your own for a few days and that’s not how I want you to behave, koukla mou. The minute anything worries you bring it to me.’
But even as Apollo gazed down at Pixie, his big frame was stiffening and he was losing colour because ill-starred memories were being stirred up by their predicament. He had quite deliberately closed out the awareness that sometimes women died in childbirth: his mother had. More than once his father, Vassilis had discussed that tragedy with his son. Vassilis had idolised Apollo’s mother and he had never really come to terms with losing her in such terrible circumstances. At the moment when he should have been happiest with his wife and his newborn child he had been plunged into grief.