Читать книгу The Mills & Boon Ultimate Christmas Collection - Мишель Смарт, Kate Hardy - Страница 79

CHAPTER SEVEN

WHAT WERE THE ODDS? Apollo asked himself as he sat on deck swigging from a bottle of Russian vodka, his black hair blowing back from his lean darkly attractive features, his green eyes very bright. What were the odds that he would end up with a woman who had also been abused? Whose attitude to sex had been inexorably twisted and spoiled by experiences that had happened when she was too young to handle them?

Not only had he hurt her physically, he had also shouted at her. Half a bottle further on, Apollo padded barefoot over to the rail. His wife was a virgin and he had acted like an idiot. Why? He was an arrogant jerk proud of his sexual skill and finesse…why not just admit that? He had been so determined to give her the fantasy and it had gone pear-shaped because she hadn’t trusted him enough to tell him the truth. And how could he hold that against her when throughout his whole thirty years of life he had never told anyone but his father what had happened to him? He knew about that kind of secret; he knew about the shame and the self-doubt and the whole blame game. And even though he had seen slivers of low self-esteem and insecurity and anxiety in Pixie it had not once occurred to him that she too could be something of a victim, just like him.

She had deserved better, much better than he had given her. He had treated her like one of the good-time girls he normally enjoyed, confident and experienced women who wanted fun and thrills in and out of bed and as much luxury and cash as they could wheedle out of him. That had suited him because it left him in complete control at all times. But he wasn’t in control with Pixie and that seriously disturbed him. He was clever, he was normally cool and logical and yet instead of being delighted that his wife had never been with another man he had shouted at her.

And paradoxically he was delighted because something about Pixie brought out a possessive vibe in him and that vibe of possessiveness had lit up and burned like a naked flame the instant he’d married her. Furthermore, since she had had the courage to tell him something as personal as what she had spilled out in her distress in the bathroom, he really did owe her, didn’t he?

Apollo wove his path rather drunkenly back to his stateroom where he tripped over the clothes Pixie had gathered up and left in a heap directly in line with the door. The racket he made hitting the floor and his yell of surprise yanked her out of her miserable thoughts with a vengeance.

Fumbling for the bedside light, Pixie switched it on and stared in wonderment at Apollo sprawled in a heap on the floor. ‘What happened to you?’

‘I got drunk, ‘Apollo informed her with very deliberate diction.

‘After a…a crummy night that makes sense.’

‘Don’t be all English and polite and nice,’ Apollo groaned, raking a hand through his tousled black hair. ‘I wasn’t.’

‘But then you’re not English,’ Pixie parried, marvelling at the vision of her very controlled new husband in such a condition. His green eyes had a reckless glitter that unnerved her a little. Sober, he was a lot to handle. Drunk, he could well be more than she could manage.

‘Never been with a virgin before,’ he confided. ‘I wanted it to be perfect and then it went wrong and I was furious. My ego, my pride, nothing to do with you. I was a…’ He uttered a four-letter swear word.

‘Pretty much,’ she agreed more cheerfully after hearing that he had wanted their wedding night to be perfect, which was a hearteningly unexpected admission when deep down in advance of the bed business she had feared that he would not care a jot. She relaxed her stiff shoulders into the pillows while she studied him and decided that even drunk he was heartbreakingly gorgeous.

‘My second stepmother beat me with a belt and left me covered with blood,’ Apollo announced out of the blue.

Her jaw dropped. ‘How old were you?’

‘Six. I hated her.’

‘I’m not surprised. What did your dad do?’

‘He divorced her because of it. He was very shocked…but then he was sort of naïve about how cruel women can be,’ Apollo told her as he drank out of the bottle still clutched in one big bronzed hand, lean muscles rippling to draw her attention to the intricate dragon tattoo adorning his arm. ‘He didn’t appreciate that I was the biggest problem in his remarriages.’

‘How?’ Pixie asked, wondering if she should try to get the bottle off him or just close her eyes to it. He wasn’t acting like himself. He might hate her tomorrow for having seen him in such a vulnerable mood.

‘When a woman marries a very rich man she wants to be the one who produces his son and heir but I was already there and the apple of my father’s eye.’

‘By the sound of that beating you got, he wasn’t looking after his apple very well.’

Apollo closed his eyes, black lashes almost hitting his cheekbones. ‘He married my third stepmother when I was eleven. She was a very beautiful Scandinavian and the only one who seemed to take a genuine interest in me. Never having had a mother, I was probably starved of affection.’ His shapely mouth quirked. ‘She would come and visit me at school and stuff. My father was very pleased and encouraged her every step of the way.’

‘So?’ Pixie prodded, sensing the tripwire coming in the savage tension bracketing his beautiful mouth, the warning that all could not have been as cosy as he was making it sound.

‘Basically she was grooming me for sex. She liked adolescent boys…’

‘You were eleven!’ Pixie condemned. ‘Surely you weren’t capable.’

‘By the time she took me to bed I was thirteen. It went on for two years. She took me out of school to city hotels. It was sordid and deviant and I was betraying my own father but…but she was my first love and I was fool enough to worship the ground she walked on. I was her pet,’ he completed in disgust.

Pixie leapt out of bed and darted across the floor to kneel down in front of him. ‘You were…what age?’

‘Fifteen when I got caught with her.’

‘For two years a perverted woman preyed on you.’

‘I wasn’t even her only one,’ Apollo bit out in a slurring undertone. ‘She’d been meeting up with the son of a local fisherman on the beach. It was his father who went to mine and tipped him off about what she was like.’

Pixie shifted until she was behind him and wrapped her arms round his rigid shoulders. ‘You were just a kid. You didn’t know any better.’

‘I definitely knew it was wrong to have sex with my father’s wife,’ Apollo broke in curtly. ‘I don’t deserve forgiveness for that but he still forgave me.’

‘Because he loved you,’ Pixie reasoned. ‘And he knew his wife was using you for her own warped reasons. I’m so sorry I called you a man whore. You had a really screwed-up adolescence and of course it affected you.’

Apollo reached behind himself to yank her round and tumble her down into his lap. ‘I never told anyone about that before…until you told me tonight about growing up in care with men trying to hit on you or spy on you or whatever,’ he mumbled into her hair, the words slurring. ‘Now I think I need to go to bed before I fall asleep on top of you, koukla mou.’

Pixie got up and removed the bottle while he stripped where he stood and, only staggering very slightly, fell like a tree into the bed. He slept almost immediately and she watched him in the half-light for long minutes, thinking how wrong she had been about him once and how much better she now knew him. Yet with what he had revealed he seemed more maddeningly complex than ever and without a doubt the man she had married in a business arrangement absolutely fascinated her. She brushed his tumbled black hair back from his brow and slid into the other side of the bed, hesitating only a moment before edging closer to take advantage of Apollo, whose natural temperature seemed to be the equivalent of a furnace.

She surfaced to dawn very, very slowly, the insistence of her body awakening her to a sweet flood of sensations. It was still so novel for her to feel such things that she knew instantly it was Apollo touching her and just as quickly she relaxed. Her nipples had tightened into needy little buds and the delicate place where his clever fingers were playing was embarrassingly sensitive and wet.

‘You awake now?’ he prompted gruffly in her ear.

‘Yeah…’ she framed weakly, her hips moving all on their own because the magical way he touched her made her ache, need and want all over again.

Apollo shifted over her, all rippling muscle and ferocious control. Green eyes glittered down at her, his lean, strong face taut and dark with stubble. She felt him at the heart of her and anxiety screamed that there was too much of him for what little there was of her so it was a struggle to force herself not to stiffen. Fortunately, he went slow—achingly slow—and she gradually stretched around his fullness, tender tissue reacting with unexpected pleasure to the source of that amazing friction. He shifted his hips, moved and a rush of exhilarating feelings engulfed her and her head fell back, eyes wide with surprise.

‘Didn’t want to give you the chance to get all nervous again,’ Apollo admitted. ‘Like it was likely to be some sort of punishment.’

‘Definitely…not…punishment,’ she gasped breathlessly, her body rising to meet the gathering power of his, excitement pooling like liquid fire in her pelvis.

‘Just sex,’ he told her.

And had she still had breath to disagree she would have done but she couldn’t breathe against the rising tide of intoxicating excitement. Little undulating tingles of intense arousal were travelling in tightening bands through her trembling length. He was inside her and over her and nothing had ever felt that good or that powerful. Apollo smiled down at her, a smile ablaze with male satisfaction and, for once, she didn’t mind his assurance. He gathered up her legs and angled her back, rising higher, thrusting faster, deeper, forcing little moans and cries from her parted lips that she couldn’t hold back. The excitement intensified, sensation tumbling on sensation until a sensual explosion detonated deep within her and she went flying high and free on an electrifying surge of pleasure.

Apollo groaned his appreciation into her hair and she wrapped her arms round him. It was automatic, instinctive, something of a shock when he broke immediately free and imposed space between them. His lean, darkly handsome face had shuttered. ‘I can’t do that stuff,’ he muttered semi-apologetically, his beautifully shaped mouth momentarily rigid with tension.

And Pixie forced a smile she didn’t feel and shifted back in turn because she got it, she really did get it after what he had explained the night before. A child crying out for maternal affection, initially given it only to discover that it was an evil deception being utilised to gain his trust and love.

She swallowed the thickness in her throat and fought a very strong urge to hug him. He was the only man who had ever had that much power over her and momentarily it scared her. Sometimes Apollo made her want to kick him very hard and then equally suddenly she wanted to put her arms round him instead, even though she knew he didn’t want that, couldn’t handle that… It wasn’t only her body he could make fly out of control: somehow he was reaching her emotions as well, and she knew that was dangerous and she tensed.

Apollo was intensely uncomfortable for a male accustomed to feeling at home in virtually every situation. He very rarely drank to excess and when he did he could still control his tongue, yet inexplicably he had lost control the night before and confided his deepest secrets. He understood that her experiences had reanimated memories he had suppressed and that that had destabilised him but that didn’t mean he had to like his own weakness. He really didn’t like that sudden feeling of being exposed and vulnerable because it reminded him too much of his lost childhood. For that reason it felt good to have a distraction available.

‘I’ve got something for you,’ he told her, reaching into the drawer by the bed to produce the jewellery case he had stashed there several days before. Apollo always thought out everything well in advance, preparing for every eventuality if he could. And she deserved a gift much more than the women who usually shared his bed.

The wedding night, after all, had been pretty much disastrous and his getting drunk and telling all in such a girly fashion, Apollo reflected grimly, had crowned the disaster. She had tolerated it all and in spite of everything that had gone wrong she had still lain back trustingly for him to claim her body even though she had feared that consummation.

Taken aback, Pixie stared down in astonishment at the case and then carefully opened it. A breathtaking bracelet ran in a river of glittering diamonds across the velvet inset. ‘For me?’

‘Wedding present,’ Apollo pronounced with relief as he leapt out of bed with alacrity and headed for the shower, convinced that he had done the very best that he could to be thoughtful and decent.

‘It’s gorgeous and I suppose I need some jewellery to make me look like a proper rich wife,’ Pixie murmured uncertainly, battling to rise above hurt feelings she knew she had no right to experience. ‘But this was a bad time to give it to me.’

Apollo’s long lashes fanned down in disbelief and he gritted his white teeth before he swung back to her. ‘How so?’

Pixie contemplated him as he stood there, buck naked, bronzed and very Greek godlike in his physique. He was without a doubt the most physically beautiful male she would ever be with but, time and time again, he confounded her and wounded her. ‘I’m not some whore you have to pay for a one-night stand.’

‘I’ve never been with a professional,’ Apollo said icily. ‘I gave you a gift. Thanks would have been the appropriate response.’

‘It’s just the way this makes me feel,’ Pixie began, struggling to verbalise what she didn’t quite understand herself.

‘We have a business arrangement,’ Apollo shot back at her unapologetically. ‘Think of it as business.’

‘I can’t think of my body as business. I’m not sure what that would make me,’ Pixie admitted unhappily. ‘But I need more respect than you’re giving me if we’re going to be stuck together like this for months. I don’t think that’s too much to ask. Obviously you can’t even bring yourself to put your arms round me after sex. I’m not going to turn clingy or needy, Apollo. I’m not about to fall in love with you or the things you can buy me either. I know this marriage isn’t real.’

A whine sounded from below the bed.

‘Shush, dog,’ Apollo groaned in raw frustration. ‘You’ve been walked, you’ve been fed and watered. Stay out of this…she’s enough to handle without your input.’

Pixie had to bite her tongue not to comment on the reality that she had overlooked her beloved pet’s needs and Apollo had not. Instead she forced herself to continue. ‘Couldn’t we try friendship if we can’t have anything else that might make you feel threatened?’

Apollo flung back his arrogant dark head and green eyes radiated emerald fire in the sunlight. ‘You do not make me feel threatened.’

Pixie surrendered and said exactly what was on her mind. ‘Don’t punish me because you talked too much for your own comfort last night.’

And there it was in a nutshell, what Apollo Metraxis absolutely couldn’t stand about Pixie. Somehow, Thee mou, she saw beyond the surface and saw right through him and it was the most unnerving experience he had had in many years. Without another word, Apollo strode into the shower, hit every dial, turned up the pressure and refused to think by blanking out everything, a trick he had learned as a child to stay in control. He held himself straight and taut until the confusion and bewilderment and seething frustration drained fully away with the swirling water.

Suppressing a groan of equal frustration, Pixie tunnelled back down into the bed and made no objection when Hector jumped up to tuck himself in next to her body. Hopefully Apollo would think she was sleeping in. Instead of sleeping, however, she was counting pluses, a habit she had formed as a child to make a grey day look sunnier. Number one, she enumerated, they had done the sex thing and it had been…amazing. Number two, Apollo was damaged but at least he had explained why, even if he did regret it. Number three, he was trying to make the marriage work but he hadn’t a clue how to meet such a challenge. Female partners who whooped over his financial generosity and who only lasted for a two-week session of nightly sex didn’t provide a man with much of an education on how to make a woman feel happy, respected and secure. Was she expecting too much from him? This was supposed to be a business arrangement, she reminded herself ruefully. Maybe she was being unreasonable…

Pixie breakfasted alone on the polished deck with Hector at her feet: Apollo was working. He had phoned her to make that announcement in a very detached voice that suggested he suspected he could be dealing with a potential screaming shrew. As far as avoidance techniques went, Apollo had nothing whatsoever to learn. When her phone went off again she answered it unhurriedly, assuming there was something he wished to tell her, but this time it wasn’t Apollo, it was Holly.

‘Vito and I are flying out to join you this afternoon!’ Holly exclaimed excitedly. ‘What do you think?’

Pixie rolled her eyes. ‘The more the merrier,’ she quipped, oddly hurt that Apollo had to bring in other people to create yet another barrier between them within a day of the wedding. Was she really that unbearable? She flexed her fingers against her flat stomach and prayed to get pregnant fast. The sooner she and Apollo escaped the situation they were in and separated, the better it would be. If they weren’t living together and sharing a bed, it would be easier to stick to a businesslike attitude, she reasoned, wondering why her heart now felt as heavy as lead.

‘We’re all heading to some nightclub on Corfu tonight,’ Holly told her. ‘Of course, you’ll already know that…sorry, I’m talking a mile a minute here.’

Quite unaware that yet another attempt to please Pixie had bombed dismally, Apollo stayed in his office on board until he got word that their guests were arriving.

* * *

‘I promise not to ask any awkward questions,’ Holly whispered as she settled on the end of the bed in Apollo and Pixie’s stateroom. ‘But you don’t look happy and I can’t imagine we’d be getting hauled in last minute if you were. Am I allowed to ask about that?’

Pixie grimaced. ‘No. I’m sorry.’

‘No need to be sorry but you sound attached…and the weird thing is Apollo is sounding attached too—’

‘No, that’s definitely not happening,’ Pixie cut in with confidence.

‘Apollo told Vito he wanted us here because he thought it would please you. Vito’s never known him to make that much effort for a woman.’

Unimpressed, Pixie shrugged and watched Holly pet Hector while Angelo explored the room in the vain hope of finding something to play with. Bending down, she scooped her godson up intending to get reacquainted with the adorable toddler.

‘So, what are you wearing tonight?’ Holly prompted, taking the hint.

Relieved by the change of subject, Pixie showed off her outfit.

‘My goodness, I’ll look so old-fashioned next to you. What time are you getting your hair done?’

‘I’m doing my own hair,’ Pixie countered in surprise.

‘You’ve got a beauty salon on board and you’re still going to do it yourself?’

As soon as Holly had realised that Pixie hadn’t even known the Circe had a full-time grooming parlour for guests and had commented bluntly on Apollo’s deficiencies as a husband and a host, the two women set off on an exploration tour designed to satisfy both and entertain Angelo.

Hours later, after a convivial dinner during which Apollo contrived to ignore the reality that he had a wife seated at the same table, which resulted in Pixie going to even more extreme lengths to ignore him, Pixie emerged on the lower deck, fully dressed and ready to board the motor boat waiting to whisk them out to the island of Corfu.

Apollo studied his wife in consternation, his lean dark face taut and cool. ‘I don’t like the clothing,’ he said baldly.

Vito actually flinched and walked Holly over to the deck rail several yards away.

Pixie jerked a narrow bare shoulder in dismissal of the comment. She wore a skintight cerise-pink leather corset and a fitted black pencil skirt with very high heels. It was young and hip and she didn’t much care what he thought about it. ‘You can command everything else, Apollo, but not what I wear. What’s your objection anyway?’

His strong jaw line squared. ‘You’re showing too much of your body.’

‘I’ve heard you’ve been seen with women who don’t even bother with underwear.’

‘You’re different…you’re my wife,’ Apollo declared grimly. ‘I don’t want other men looking at my wife.’

‘Tough,’ Pixie commented with a combative glint in her grey eyes. ‘You’re a Neanderthal in a suit.’

‘If we didn’t have guests, I wouldn’t allow you off the boat!’ he growled half under his breath.

What a complete hypocrite he was! Pixie thought in wonderment, helpless amusement lacing her defiance. Apollo was a living legend for entertaining women who looked as though they had left half their outfit at home to maximise the exposure of their perfect bodies.

A couple of hours later, amusement had become the last thing on Pixie’s mind. She was huddled in the luxury VIP cloakroom of the club with Holly. ‘I’m sorry you’ve been dragged into this,’ she muttered apologetically.

‘What? Watching Apollo behave badly? I shouldn’t say it but it’s his favourite pastime.’

Pixie tossed her head, golden blonde hair dancing round her shoulders, her piquant little face vivid with anger and mortification. ‘I can behave badly too…’

Holly pulled a face. ‘But provocation is not the road I would take with Apollo.’

Pixie, however, was past being polite and low-key and sensible. Since their arrival at the nightclub Apollo had been swamped by women. He was extremely well-known on the club circuit and he had not made a single attempt to deter the rapacious females trying to pick him up. Pixie had watched in wooden silence while other women pitched themselves onto her husband’s lap, danced in front of him in very suggestive ways and squeezed up close to him. He had bought them drinks and chatted to them as if Pixie were the invisible woman and she had had enough of his treatment. She had also learned why he made no effort with her. From what she could see by the over-eager girls surrounding him, Apollo had never had to make an effort. He was very hot and very rich and acting like a kid let loose in a candy shop was the norm for him.

Pixie took her cocktail over to the VIP rail and watched the dancers because she loved to dance. Much good it was doing her though, she reflected moodily, wincing at the high-pitched giggling travelling from their crowded table. She wanted to empty entire ice buckets over Apollo and then kick him from one end of Circe to the other. Friends, she had suggested mildly, and this was the answer he was giving her? And why did she care? Why on earth did she care? She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye and watched a woman run her fingers down his broad chest and her teeth clenched with something that felt very like rage.

‘Would you like to dance?’ a faintly accented and unfamiliar voice said from behind her.

Pixie spun round and found herself virtually eye to eye with a black-haired good-looking young man with very dark eyes and an Eastern cast of feature and she smiled. Vito had asked her to dance and she had said no, recognising pity when she saw it, and she had said no to Holly too, but a total stranger was a perfectly acceptable substitute for a husband who was ignoring her while simultaneously outraging her sense of decency.

‘Yes, thank you…’ Pixie acquiesced, noticing how all four of the bodyguards who had accompanied their party from the yacht all rose as one at a nearby table. With determination she smiled to let them know that she was pleased to have company and not in need of rescue.

‘I am Saeed,’ her companion informed her.

‘I’m Pixie,’ she said cheerfully, preceding him down the stairs, noting that two of Apollo’s bodyguards were now taking up position at the edge of the dance floor alongside two large men of a similar look.

* * *

‘Where’s Pixie?’ Apollo asked Holly abruptly.

‘Dancing,’ Holly announced somewhat smugly.

‘With another man?’ Apollo demanded with savage incredulity and he flew upright.

Vito sprang up as well and accompanied his friend to the rail that overlooked the floor below. ‘You can’t thump him. He holds diplomatic status and he’s half your size. It would make you look bad.’

At his elbow, Apollo swore wrathfully in four different languages as he finally picked out his wife and her partner from the crowd. He watched Pixie wriggle her diminutive behind while her partner gripped her hips and drew her close. Blinding rage filled him as the other man bent his wife back in a dip that brought their bodies into intimate contact and he strode down the stairs with Vito flying to keep pace with him.

‘He’s an Arab prince…don’t hit him and cause a scene!’ Vito warned.

Apollo’s powerful hands coiled into fists of fury. What the hell did Pixie think she was playing at? She was his wife and she wasn’t allowed to let any other man touch her body! He never ever lost his temper, he reminded himself fiercely, but there she was, twitching every inch of that lithe, dainty little body and the Arab Prince wasn’t the only one noticing that tight skirt and that fitted little top that showed the slope of her gorgeous breasts. In an almighty storm of rage Apollo acted in what for him was a very diplomatic manner. He stepped up behind Pixie and hauled her off her feet and threw her over his shoulder.

‘She’s my wife!’ he grated down at the startled Prince, who was the same size as Pixie in her heels, which wasn’t very tall, and with that clear announcement of his God-given right to interfere Apollo strode off for the exit.

It took several annoying seconds for Pixie to realise what was happening but she instantly recognised Apollo’s scent. She pounded his back with clenched fists and screamed at him full volume, ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing? Put me down right this minute!’

His bodyguards studiously not looking near either of them, Apollo stuffed his wife in the limo that would take them back to the harbour. Like a spitting cat, Pixie launched herself at him to try and get back out of the car again. ‘I want to go back and join Vito and Holly!’ she yelled.

Apollo drew in a deep shuddering breath and said as mildly as he could, ‘You’re going back to the yacht and if that’s how you intend to behave when I take you out it’ll be a long time before you get out again.’

‘You can forget that option!’ Pixie railed at him, frantically trying to get out of the other side of the car only to be foiled by the automatic locks. ‘Let me out!’

‘No,’ Apollo decreed, temper moderated by the simple fact that he had her back again where she should be. ‘You shouldn’t have let him touch you like that.’

‘Are you for real?’ Pixie screamed at him. ‘You’ve had women throwing themselves at you and pawing you all evening!’

Apollo shot her a riveting green glance of near wonderment. ‘That approach works on other women…what’s wrong with you?’

‘What’s right with me is that I’m not about to let you walk all over me!’ Pixie hissed back. ‘Anything you can do I can do too and I will. I’ll throw myself at every man in my radius if it annoys you enough… I hate you, Apollo… I hate you!’

Apollo watched her stalk like a miniature warrior onto the motorboat and sit down as far as she could get from him. Marriage promised to be a great deal more challenging than he had ever appreciated, he conceded, still light-headed from the sheer amount of rage that had flooded him when he’d seen the Prince put his hands on her. How dared he? He gritted his even white teeth while he fought the lingering pulses of fury.

With a flourish intended to convey sarcasm, Pixie whipped off her shoes before she boarded the yacht. ‘And we abandoned our guests on our night out,’ she remarked in a stinging tone. ‘Some hosts we make.’

‘If you think Holly and Vito want to come back and find themselves in the middle of a marital spat, you’re mental. They’ll stay out until dawn,’ Apollo forecast, grim-mouthed.