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.