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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 forgotten 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 should 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.

‘I think that if you’re prepared to marry me, you could be a little more trusting.’

‘How can you say that? When I walked in you looked at me as though you expected me to attack you!’ Apollo grated in condemnation. ‘You don’t trust me either.’

‘It’s nothing personal. I don’t trust men generally.’ Pixie lifted her chin. ‘And why do I have to see a doctor?’

‘Health check. Obviously there’s no point in us marrying if it turns out that you may not be able to conceive.’

‘So, presumably,’ Pixie framed, ‘you’re being tested as well?’

‘No.’

‘Forty per cent of infertility problems are male,’ Pixie pointed out. ‘Not much point getting me tested if you’re not going to get tested too.’

Apollo hadn’t thought of that angle and for some inexplicable reason he realised that the suggestion that he might not be fertile really annoyed him. He opened the door. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow. By the way, wear the outfit I had put in the wardrobe for you.’

‘Outfit?’ she gasped, sliding off the bed and opening the wardrobe to see the blue dress and jacket that hung there in a garment bag and the silvery designer shoes and bag stowed beneath. ‘What gives you the idea that you can tell me what to wear?’

‘It’s another milestone on the road to becoming my wife. Naturally I want you to look your best,’ Apollo fielded, dragging his glittering gaze from his perusal of her slender thighs to jerk open the bedroom door again. Maybe he should’ve taken Lauren to bed, he reflected in annoyance, because he was deeply uneasy about the strength of Pixie’s appeal. Thee mou, what was the matter with him? She wasn’t a beauty but she was exceptionally pretty and there was something remarkably sexy about her as well, something that drew him on a level he didn’t understand. Was it her expressive face? Those interestingly perky breasts? The tight bottom? The so touchable thighs and small, slender feet?

Did he feel sorry for her? Was that the source of her strange appeal? He didn’t require a therapist to tell him that she suffered from low self-esteem. In the act of shutting the door, he turned and caught the filthy look she was shooting him while thinking herself unobserved and he strode down the corridor to his own bedroom laughing and feeling surprisingly upbeat for the first time since his father’s death. No, he didn’t feel sorry for Pixie, he liked that gutsy irreverent streak of hers even though he was out of necessity being forced to ensure that she reined it in. She really wasn’t impressed by him. Or by his wealth. And when had he ever met with that attitude before in a woman? In truth it was a real first for him. The women he was accustomed to would have snatched the outfit out to check that it was designer and would then have praised his generosity with loads of gratitude and flattery to ensure that he did it again.

Pixie? Not impressed. Apollo grinned.

* * *

Pixie woke at seven to be greeted by Manfred drawing back the curtains and setting her breakfast down on a table by the window and stepping out through the patio doors to set down a dog dish for Hector. ‘Mr Metraxis asks that you be ready for nine,’ he told her quietly.

Pixie breakfasted like a king. She loved her food and had always had a healthy appetite. Staying in Apollo’s palatial apartment was even better, she imagined, than staying in an exclusive hotel. After a shower, she dried her hair and took special care with her make-up before getting dressed.

She walked uncertainly into the huge main reception room and Apollo stared.

‘Turn round,’ he told her thickly, turning his fingers to emphasise the order.

Apollo was rapt. She was so incredibly dainty and feminine in that blue dress with the high heels accentuating her delicate ankles that he wanted to lift her off her feet and spin her round, and it was a weird prompting that bewildered him. She had the figure a model would kill for without the height.

‘I like the dress,’ he said, which wasn’t surprising since he had personally selected it.

‘It’s elegant but I’m not used to wearing skirts or heels,’ she complained. ‘I’m more of a tomboy than a fashion queen.’

He took her to see a private gynaecologist. She was questioned, examined and scanned and blood tests were taken. The results would be in by the following morning. As she emerged she saw Apollo standing talking urgently into his phone. ‘Did you have any idea? Well, no, I didn’t think it through either…it’s not funny, Vito. It was gross.’

Apollo finished the call and strode towards her with all the eagerness of a male who could not get out of the plush surgery fast enough. ‘Ready to go?’

Pixie was trying not to laugh because he had honestly sounded so shocked by what being tested had entailed and she thought it served him right after the process she had undergone without complaint. Evidently he did listen occasionally to a voice other than his own and he was playing fair at least.

‘Where to now?’ she prompted.

‘My lawyers, after which you go shopping.’

‘Oh? For what?’

‘For a wedding dress obviously and all the rest of it. I’m putting you in the charge of a professional buyer and fashion stylist. She knows what you need as per my instructions. All you have to do is act like a mannequin.’

‘But you haven’t got the test results back yet.’

‘Think positive…’ Apollo bent down, his stubbled jaw line grazing her cheek a tiny bit, and every nerve in her body tightened like a string pulled taut. ‘And I saw you smiling when you heard me talking to Vito,’ he murmured huskily. ‘No, I didn’t enjoy being handed a porn mag but ne…yes, I had a fantasy and it was about you.’

As Apollo pressed her back into the limo, Pixie twisted her head back to gape at him. ‘Me?’ she repeated in disbelief.

Green eyes roamed over her burning face with dark satisfaction. ‘You, koukla mou.’

Luminous eyes taking on a faint bluish cast from the dress she wore, Pixie stared at him in astonishment. ‘You’re kidding?’

‘Why would I be kidding? If I couldn’t be attracted to you, how could we do this?’

It was a fair point but the idea that Apollo, all rippling male-muscle perfection and stunningly beautiful, could consider her attractive still stupefied Pixie. And while she stared, frozen to her seat, Apollo moved, scooping her off the seat and settling her down into his lap at a speed that thoroughly unnerved her. But then his mouth traced very gently over hers and that instinctive kick of fear that generally made her back away from men was soothed by that subtle approach, which seemed ridiculously unthreatening. Of course, it didn’t dawn on her just at that moment that Apollo had an unequalled sensual skill set that allowed him to read women very easily.

The tip of his tongue traced her upper lip and something deep down inside just melted in Pixie. He followed that tactic up with a nibble at her full lower lip and she shivered, her whole body prickling with awareness to an almost painful degree. No man had ever made her feel anything like that before and she found it wildly seductive not to feel afraid. He teased her lips open and darted his tongue in lightly and a ball of erotic heat exploded in her pelvis and one of her hands flew up into his hair, feathering through the luxuriant strands to cup his well-shaped skull. She felt hot all over and curiously energised, almost as if someone had told her she could fly when all her life she had felt grounded and awkward.

His mouth was hard and yet his lips were soft and she was exploring every sensation with her brain and her body. He tasted so good, like water after a drought, like food after a famine. His mouth claimed hers with increasing pressure and her breasts ached inside her bra, liquid heat pushing between her thighs.

He was so warm she wanted to press into his lean, muscular frame and somehow meld with him. He framed her face with his hands and kissed her with steadily escalating passion and the hungry demand she recognised was thrilling rather than scary. She tipped her head back, allowing him all the access he wanted, jerking at each erotic plunge of his tongue and on fire for the next, which was why it was such a shock when without the smallest warning his hands dropped to her waist and he propelled her back into the seat he had snatched her off.

Blinking with disconcertion and sensual intoxication, Pixie looked at him with a frown of incomprehension as to why he had so abruptly stopped.

‘For such a small woman you pack a hell of a punch!’ Apollo growled accusingly, because he had been within an inch of ripping off her panties and bringing her down on his aching body, satisfying the raw need that had come at him out of nowhere. And he didn’t like it, he didn’t like it one bit because he had never been that close to losing control with a woman since he was a teen, and remembering that time when he had been little more than a boy toy for a mature woman’s gratification brought him out in a cold sweat of revulsion.

‘It was only a kiss,’ she framed shakily between tingling lips, even though her body was telling her different and reacting in all sorts of disappointed ways to that sudden severance from his.

‘I was ready to have you right here, right now!’ Apollo grated through clenched white teeth, his jaw line rigid because he was so furious that for a few wildly exciting moments he had forgotten who he was and who she was and that the very last thing he had been thinking of was the bottom line.

And the bottom line was business, he reminded himself grimly, the business of satisfying his father’s will and making the best he could out of being blackmailed into marriage and fatherhood.

‘Here in the car?’ Pixie gasped, looking ridiculously shocked by the concept. ‘Would you have done that?’

And the very slight widening of his gorgeous green eyes fringed by those outrageously lush black lashes of his told her that he would have and indeed had probably had sex in a limo before. That brought her down to earth again with a timely thump. She was a virgin and he was a man whore and of course he had greater expectations and fewer boundaries than the average person. She wondered how often a first kiss had led into full sex for him and a shudder of distaste rippled through her, chasing off the last of the sexual heat he had evoked.

Aware that he had overreacted and exposed a certain sensitivity he had never ever exposed to anyone before, particularly not a woman, Apollo forced himself to shrug a careless shoulder. ‘I suspect that you’re likely to find living with me rather shocking. I like sex and I like a lot of it. Considering our current situation it’s very positive that we light a fire together.’

Pixie shifted almost imperceptibly away from him to widen the gap between them. I like sex and I like a lot of it. It was quite an intimidating announcement for an inexperienced woman to absorb. Pixie’s biggest secret, kept even from Holly, was that she had never actually wanted a man before. She had always been too wary around men to shake off that inhibition by the time she grew up. Usually the minute a man started touching her she wanted him to stop and feared how far he would try to go. But somehow that instinctive recoil, that fear, had been absent with Apollo and that worried her even while she told herself that it was just as well because there was no way on earth that she could somehow avoid consummating a marriage in which she had to try and conceive a child.

They arrived at a very fancy modern glass office building and, before they got out of the limo, Apollo turned to her to say, ‘To all intents and purposes this has to seem like we’re planning a normal marriage,’ he warned her. ‘You must not mention your brother’s debt or anything of that nature.’

‘OK,’ Pixie muttered uncertainly.

‘All you have to sign is a pre-nuptial agreement with a confidentiality clause included,’ he revealed. ‘You will have your own legal team to advise you.’

‘My…own?’ she whispered shakily, her eyes wide.

‘To advise you of your best interests. You must’ve had access to legal advice to make the agreement stand up in court,’ he explained. ‘I know a lot about the subject because every one of my father’s wives signed one of these agreements and half of them tried to wriggle out of it during the divorce negotiations.’

‘I won’t be wriggling anywhere,’ Pixie mumbled.

‘So, act like a girlfriend, not someone I hired!’ Apollo advised in a warning aside.

‘How would a girlfriend behave?’ she whispered.

‘I don’t know. I’ve never had one, only sexual partners,’ Apollo admitted, grasping her hand to urge her out of the limo.

‘Never?’ Pixie repeated incredulously.

‘Just think about how a real bride-to-be would behave for this and behave accordingly.’

And an hour later, seated at a large conference table where the two sets of lawyers argued, often employing terms she didn’t understand, Pixie took Apollo’s advice and acted accordingly and accidentally brought the table to a standstill of silence.

‘You mean…’ she finally grasped ‘… I get financially punished if I’m unfaithful but Apollo doesn’t? How is that fair? I won’t accept that.’

That was the instant when Apollo appreciated once again that Pixie could take advice too literally and that characteristically she was seizing on something none of his father’s wives had even picked up on. Not only had he underestimated her intelligence, he had also seemingly overlooked what appeared to be a very moral take on infidelity and his heart sank because he had never planned to be faithful during his marriage. He had planned to be very discreet but not faithful because only once in his life had he been faithful to a woman and it brought back appalling memories of betrayal and stupidity.

‘Fidelity isn’t a negotiable concept,’ Pixie declared with even greater clarity.

And every man at the table studied Pixie as though she had landed on it wearing wings and carrying a flaming sword of justice.

‘If Apollo is unfaithful he has to suffer for it,’ Pixie completed with satisfaction, wondering why Apollo wasn’t looking impressed that she had finally spoken up and behaved as a real bride-to-be surely would have done.

Apollo compressed his firm sensual mouth and studied the table. In point of fact billionaires who married penniless women didn’t expect to suffer in any way when they finally got bored, least of all financially. Was this Pixie’s clever way of trying to increase her divorce settlement? It had to be the money she was thinking about, the profit, he reasoned and then he glanced up and Pixie nailed him with grey eyes like volcanic rock and he realised that the issue of actual fidelity was one he had completely forgotten to discuss. Breathing in deep, he suggested a break for coffee.

Shown into an empty office, he studied Pixie. ‘I wasn’t planning to be faithful,’ he admitted bluntly.

‘Then this arrangement dies now. I’m not willing to have sex with a man at the same time as he is having sex with other women!’ Pixie declared in a wrathful undertone of ringing disgust.

‘You’re forgetting that this is a business arrangement.’

‘Business arrangements don’t normally include sex!’ Pixie shot back at him defensively.

A faint line of colour accentuated Apollo’s supermodel cheekbones. ‘We have an extraordinary arrangement.’

‘But you don’t get to sleep with other women and me at the same time!’ Pixie told him doggedly. ‘That’s immoral and I refuse to be part of it.’

It was what was called an impasse and Apollo had very rarely met with anything similar. Just when he was within an ace of making the first move towards his goal of regaining his birthright too! He gritted his teeth. ‘I’ll try to be faithful,’ he framed in a roughened undertone of frustration.

But Pixie was seriously disappointed in Apollo. She hated cheats and had even less time for married men who played away. And Apollo might not love her and she might not love him but it was not unreasonable for her to expect him to treat her with respect.

‘It’s not going to look much like a real marriage if you’re still acting like the biggest man whore in Europe!’ Pixie flashed back at him, watching temper flare like burning flames in Apollo’s green eyes and watching him bite it back. And why had he bitten it back? Because she had only stated the truth, she suspected.

And eventually they signed the pre-nuptial agreement with an addendum that stated that the bridegroom would ‘endeavour’ to remain faithful but relations were strained right round the table, both legal teams well aware that wedding fever was at a low ebb just at that moment. Apollo was merely relieved by the knowledge that he was flying out to Athens that evening. He was also reluctantly recalling that Vito had warned him that Pixie could be hot-headed and difficult and wondering if only his haste had persuaded him to overlook that distinct drawback. What else could it have been?

But how could she be so naïve and unreasonable as to demand fidelity from him? He knew what he was, hell, even she knew what he was! But he had promised to try and he would try because he stuck to his word, even if it choked him. And on some strange level he was conscious that her stance had made him respect her. She had standards and nothing he could offer would sway her from them.