Читать книгу The Mills & Boon Ultimate Christmas Collection - Мишель Смарт, Kate Hardy - Страница 81

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 with 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.

‘What’s wrong?’ Pixie asked abruptly, watching sharp tension tighten the sculpted lines of Apollo’s lean, hard face.

‘Nothing. I forgot,’ Apollo said equally abruptly, ‘I have a couple of work calls to make. Will you be all right settling in here on your own?’

‘Of course I will be.’

Apollo strode down the stairs like a hungry lion in search of prey. If Pixie was pregnant, there would be no home birth, he reasoned with immediate resolve. No, she was going to a fully equipped hospital regardless of how she felt about that decision. He would also engage a standby medical team. He wouldn’t take any risks with her because he was too conscious that something quite unexpected could happen during a birth. He wouldn’t mention that to Pixie though. He wasn’t that stupid. He didn’t want her worrying and certainly not to the extent he was suddenly worrying.

For a split second he was grudgingly amused by his own attitude. He had married Pixie to have a child and now that there was a chance they might have succeeded at step one, he was suddenly awash with anxiety. She was so small…and the baby could be big as he had been…and now he needed a drink.

By the time Pixie had watched her luggage being unpacked, enjoyed a cup of tea on the shaded terrace alone and even taken Hector for a walk through the meandering gardens with tree-lined paths alone, she had accepted that Apollo was not as excited by the concept of becoming a father as she was excited about becoming a mother. He had vanished like Scotch mist and she felt that they did not have the kind of marriage that empowered her to go looking for him as a normal wife might have done. Looking for Apollo any place struck Pixie as clingy and she refused to act clingy.

Dr Floros arrived, middle-aged and bearded and relentlessly cheerful even in the face of Apollo’s grave demeanour. Yes, Apollo had finally reappeared and Pixie could not help but notice that her husband was as grim as a pall-bearer in comparison to the chirpy medical man. Maybe the actual prospect of a child was a little sobering for a playboy, Pixie reasoned uncertainly as she took the test and vanished into the palatial cloakroom on the ground floor. It would be foolish of her to think that he had lost his original enthusiasm for conception. That wasn’t possible, was it?

‘My wife is very small in size,’ Apollo remarked to the doctor while Pixie was absent.

‘Nature has a wonderful way of taking such differences into account,’ Dr Floros assured him without concern. ‘I’ll take a blood test as well if the result is positive.’

Pixie watched the test wand change colour, but since the packaging and instructions were in Greek she had no idea what was a positive and what was a negative and had to return in continuing ignorance to the two men.

Dr Floros beamed before she even reached them. ‘Congratulations!’ he pronounced in English.

Pixie felt a little dizzy at the confirmation that she was going to be a mother and she sat down hurriedly, her attention locked to Apollo’s lean, strong face. He froze, betraying nothing, neither smiling nor even wincing in reaction and she wanted to slap him for it. Apollo explained about the blood test and Pixie stood up a little nervously because she didn’t like needles. Indeed Dr Floros only got as far as flourishing his syringe before Pixie felt faint, her knees wobbling so obviously that Apollo gripped her to steady her.

‘Are you all right?’

And no, she wasn’t all right because at that point she fainted and resurfaced lying on a sofa.

‘Don’t look at the needle…’ Apollo urged, quick as always to identify the source of her fear, and he crouched down beside her and held her hand as tightly as if she were drowning.

The test was done. She apologised to the doctor and he said it was probably the combination of the good news and stress that had made her pass out. Dr Floros departed and Apollo reappeared with Olympia carrying a pot of tea.

‘You could say something now,’ Pixie prompted when they were finally alone.

Apollo frowned. ‘About what?’

‘Well, it did only take us six weeks…you could look happy, look pleased!’ Pixie emphasised in annoyance.

‘I am pleased,’ Apollo assured her unconvincingly. ‘But not if it makes you ill and you collapse like that. That was scary.’

‘I didn’t exactly enjoy it. I hate needles and injections and I felt so dizzy and then everything went dark,’ Pixie explained rather curtly. ‘I’m not about to be ill. I’m simply pregnant and there are a few symptoms that come with that. Dizziness is one of them. Holly was always getting light-headed.’

‘Luckily we have a lift, so you won’t have to use the stairs.’

Pixie studied him in wonderment. ‘You expect me to use a lift to go up or down one floor? Are you crazy?’

‘You could fall on the stairs,’ Apollo traded with deadly seriousness.

‘Thank you, Mr Cheerful.’ Pixie rested her head back and tried to imagine becoming a mother. She wasn’t about to let Apollo’s strange lack of enthusiasm take the edge off her sense of joy and achievement. A baby, a darling, gorgeous little baby who was hers and his. She couldn’t keep Apollo but she could keep their baby. She was happy, really, really happy about that aspect and suspected it would be something of a comfort in the future when Apollo was no longer a constant part of her life.

There would be a divorce first, she reminded herself doggedly. Then she would have to get accustomed to seeing him with other women in tabloid pictures, knowing he was sharing a bed with them while also knowing exactly what he was doing with them there. Doubtless he would phone her to keep up to date with their child’s development and from time to time he would visit in person until the child was old enough to go and visit him. It would all be very civilised and polite but she was already painfully aware that losing Apollo would smash her heart to smithereens!

Apollo studied the tears rolling down Pixie’s cheeks as she stared up at the ceiling. She wasn’t happy about being pregnant and he wondered why he had expected otherwise. She liked kids, he knew she did, but then they weren’t having a child in the most ideal circumstances, he reminded himself grimly. She was having a child she would pretty much raise alone and possibly she felt trapped because at her age most women were young, single and free as the air.

A chilling shot of rage assailed Apollo at the image of Pixie reclaiming her freedom after a divorce and becoming intimate with another man. He had the strangest possessive feelings where she was concerned, he conceded in bemusement. For some reason too he was feeling as exhausted as if he had climbed a mountain. Somehow Pixie being pregnant was incredibly stressful. No, worse than stressful, frightening, he adjusted in consternation. For the first time it occurred to him that Vito had been saved from such concerns by only entering his son Angelo’s life when the baby was already six months old. Was it normal for a first-time father to feel on the edge of panic? He crushed the reaction and went into denial.

‘By the way, we’re having a big party here in a few weeks,’ Apollo announced in a determined change of subject. ‘I organised it last month.’

‘Thanks for sharing after the event,’ Pixie said sarcastically.

‘I’ve invited friends and family here to celebrate our marriage but I didn’t fancy a wedding-type event,’ Apollo confided with a cynical twist of his mouth. ‘I settled on a fancy-dress party for a theme.’

‘Oh, joy…’ Pixie mumbled sleepily as she turned her face into a cushion, presenting him with her narrow back.

‘I’ve taken care of our outfits,’ Apollo told her with pride, relieved she would not be put to the worry of wondering what she should wear and very much hoping that she would appreciate the amount of trouble he had gone to.

‘Your way or the highway,’ Pixie whispered unappreciatively. ‘Don’t worry. I knew what a control freak you were the day I married you.’

Apollo surveyed Hector, who was seated on the rug, his little face seemingly anxious. You and me too, buddy, Apollo thought wryly while he wondered if it was possible that Pixie could roll off the sofa and hurt herself while she slept. For the first time in his life concern was weighing him down like a big grey cloud closing out the sun. He had never truly had to worry about anyone but his father but now he had a wife and a child on the way. He thought it extraordinary that achieving the pregnancy required to fulfil the terms of his father’s will should suddenly and quite inexplicably feel, not like a prize, but more like a poisoned chalice.

* * *

Apollo came to bed in the early hours. Having persuaded herself that he might not even choose to still share the same room, Pixie was lying sleepless watching the moonlight glimmer through the shadows. She listened to him in the shower, watched him stride naked towards the bed and sensual heat curled low in her body because she could see that he was aroused.

Apollo slid quietly into bed and lay there, thoroughly irritated by the throbbing at his groin. Pixie was pregnant, fragile and definitely off-limits. But it was as if she had lit a fire in him the first time they had had sex. It was a fire only she could seem to cool and that knowledge seriously disturbed him. Throughout his adult life Apollo had viewed sex as a casual diversion from more important activities. Sex had always been easily available and his libido had never homed in on one particular woman. His life had been wonderfully simple, he reflected grimly. He would see a woman he wanted, enjoy her for a while and when he got bored move on to the next. And now, for some peculiar reason, he wasn’t getting bored any more…and he was feeling urges he had no desire to feel.

Pixie shifted across the bed inch by inch, wishing it weren’t quite so big. Her hand settled on the male shoulder furthest from her and slowly drifted down over Apollo’s magnificent torso. She smiled as she felt his hard muscles ripple and tense across his abdomen.

He turned towards her and his eyes glittered in the moonlight. ‘We shouldn’t,’ he breathed with sudden amusement.

‘Don’t be silly,’ Pixie whispered, her tiny hand heading further south to find the long, jutting length of him and stroke. ‘I’m pregnant, not breakable.’

Apollo groaned out loud and arched his lean hips while watching her slide below the sheet to administer an even more potent invitation and that fast his once renowned self-control broke like a dam breaking its banks. He tugged Pixie up to him with shuddering impatience and rolled her under him while his hungry mouth tasted hers with heated urgency.

‘That’s more like it,’ Pixie commented a shade smugly as she gazed up at him, her fingers skimming caressingly through his damp, tousled hair. She felt lighter than air at the ego-boosting confirmation that he still wanted her. Intelligence warned her that he was a young healthy male, who was usually in the mood for sex, but she refused to think about that angle, choosing to concentrate instead on the soothing conviction that pregnancy wasn’t quite the turn-off she had feared.

‘There is only one way this can continue,’ Apollo decreed, resting her back against the pillows. ‘You lie there… I do the work, koukla mou.’

And it was amazing, she thought much later, drifting into an exhausted and gratified sleep, but then it always was amazing with Apollo.

Apollo held her while she slept and marvelled at how natural it had become to hold her close. One large hand splayed across her flat stomach. How had he ever believed that he could walk away untouched after conception occurred? How had he credited that he could bring a child into the world and not want to play a full part in his son or daughter’s life? The unquestioning arrogance of those selfish assumptions belatedly savaged his view of himself. As fond memories of moments with his own father while he was still a little boy drifted through his mind he finally understood Vassilis Metraxis’s almost primitive need to safeguard the continuation of the family line, and he also grasped that walking away at any stage from his own child wasn’t an option he would ever be able to live with.