The Mills & Boon Ultimate Christmas Collection. Kate HardyЧитать онлайн книгу.
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