The Mills & Boon Christmas Wishes Collection. Maisey Yates
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follow me everywhere I go.’
Pixie had noticed the sleek and expensive car parked across the street and a man in a suit leaning against the bonnet while he talked into an earpiece and her grey eyes widened in wonderment. ‘You don’t trust anybody, do you?’
‘I trust Vito. I trusted my father as well but he let me down many times over the years and not least with the terms of his will.’
Belatedly, Pixie recalled the recent death of his parent and the reference to the older man’s will made her suspect that they were finally approaching the crux of the matter that had put Apollo ‘in a bind’. It was, however, hard for her to credit that anything could trap Apollo Metraxis in a tight corner. He was a force of nature and very rich. He had choices most people never even got to dream of having and he had always had them.
‘I have no idea where you’re going with this,’ she muttered uncomfortably. ‘I can’t even begin to imagine any set of circumstances where you and I could somehow settle our…er…problems. Are you asking me for some sort of favour or something?’
‘I don’t ask people for favours. I pay them to do things for me.’
‘So there’s something that you think I could do for you that you’d be willing to pay for…is that right?’ Pixie pressed in frustration as a knock sounded on the door.
Apollo sprang upright, all leaping energy and strength, startling her into backing away several steps. He didn’t want to get to the point, she registered in wonderment. He was skating along the edge of what he wanted to ask her, reluctant to give her that much information.
And Pixie understood that feeling very well. Trust had never come easily to her either. She loved Holly and her brother and Holly’s baby and would have done anything for them. Once won, her loyalty was unshakeable and it had caused her a great deal of pain in recent months that she had had to step back from her friendship with Holly because it was simply impossible to be honest about the reasons why she had been more distant and why she had yet to visit Holly and Vito in Italy. Holly would be determined to help and there was no way Pixie could allow herself to take advantage of Holly’s newfound wealth and still look herself in the face. Instead she was dealing with her problems as she always did…alone.
She stared in disbelief as a procession of covered dishes were brought in by suited men and piled up on her battered coffee table along with cutlery and napkins and even wine and glasses. ‘For goodness’ sake, what on earth is all this?’ she framed, wide-eyed.
‘Lunch,’ Apollo explained, whipping off covers as his men trooped back out again. ‘I’m starving. Help yourself.’
He whipped off the final cover. ‘That’s for the dog.’
‘The dog?’ Pixie gasped.
‘I like animals, probably more than I like people,’ Apollo admitted truthfully.
Pixie lifted the plate of meat and biscuit and sniffed it. It smelled a great deal better than Hector’s usual food did and she slid it under the side of the bed. Hector was no slowcoach when it came to tucking in and he began chomping on the offering almost immediately.
‘Where did you get the food from?’ she asked.
‘I think it’s from the hotel round the corner. There’s not much choice round here.’
Pixie nodded slowly and reached for a plate. Apollo did not live like an ordinary person. He got hungry, he phoned his bodyguards and they fetched a choice of foods at an undoubtedly very stiff price. She helped herself to the fish dish.
‘Are you going to tell me what’s put you in a bind yet?’ she enquired ruefully.
‘I can’t inherit my father’s estate without first getting married,’ Apollo breathed in a driven undertone. ‘He knew how I felt about marriage. After all, it didn’t make him very happy. He was married six times in total. My mother died in childbirth but he had to divorce the five wives that followed her.’
Pixie listened with huge eyes. ‘A bit like Henry VIII with his six wives,’ she mumbled helplessly.
‘My father didn’t execute any of his, although had he had the power I suspect he would have exercised the right with at least two of them,’ Apollo derided.
‘And you’re still an only child? Why would he try to force you to marry?’
‘He didn’t want the family name to die out.’
‘But to prevent that from happening…you’d have to have a child,’ Pixie pointed out with a frown.
‘Yes. He stitched me up every way there is. My legal team say the will is valid as he was in sound mind when he had it drawn up. I also have a five-year window of opportunity to carry out his wishes and inherit, which is deemed reasonable,’ Apollo ground out between gritted white teeth. ‘Thee mou…how can anyone call any of it reasonable? It’s insane!’
‘It’s…it’s…er…unusual,’ Pixie selected uncertainly. ‘But I suppose a rich, powerful man like your father thought he had the right to do whatever he liked with his own estate.’
‘Ne…yes,’ Apollo conceded gruffly in Greek. ‘But I have been running my father’s business empire for many years now and his will feels like a betrayal.’
‘I can understand that,’ Pixie said thoughtfully. ‘You trusted him. I used to believe my father when he told me he’d never go back into prison but he didn’t even try to go straight and keep his promise. My mother was the same. She said she would stop stealing and she didn’t. The only thing that finally stopped her was ill health.’
Apollo studied her in astonishment, not knowing whether or not to be offended that she had compared his much-respected and law-abiding father to a couple of career criminals.
Enjoying her delicious fish, Pixie was deep in thought and surprised that she could relax to that extent in Apollo’s volatile radius. ‘I get your predicament,’ she confided. ‘But the terms of the will must be public property, and they aren’t confidential, so what—?’
‘I have decided that I must meet the terms,’ Apollo incised grimly. ‘I am not prepared to lose the home and the business empire that three generations of my family built up from nothing.’
‘Attachment meets practicality,’ Pixie quipped. ‘I still don’t understand what any of this has to do with me.’
Apollo set down his plate and lifted his wine glass. ‘I intend to meet the demands of the will on my own terms,’ he told her with emphasis, his remarkable green eyes glittering below black curling lashes. ‘I don’t want a wife. I will hire a woman to marry me and have my child. We will then separate and divorce and my life will return to normal again.’
‘And what about the child?’ Pixie prompted with a frown of dismay. ‘What will happen to the child in all this?’
‘The child will remain with its mother and I will attempt to be an occasional father to the best of my ability. My goal is to negotiate a civilised and workable arrangement with the woman of my choice.’
‘Well, good luck with that ambition,’ Pixie muttered, tucking into her meal with appetite while sitting cross-legged on the floor beside the coffee table because there was only one chair and predictably Apollo had not offered it to her. ‘It sounds like a very tall order to me…and anything but practical. What woman wants to marry and have a child and then be divorced?’
‘A woman I have paid well to marry and divorce me,’ Apollo said drily. ‘I don’t want to end up with one who will cling.’
Pixie rolled her eyes and laughed. ‘When a woman knows she’s not wanted, she’s rarely clingy.’
‘Then you’d be surprised to learn how hard I find it to prise myself free of even the shortest liaison. Women who become accustomed to my lifestyle don’t want to give it up.’
Pixie set down