LYNNE GRAHAM - The Greek's Christmas Bride

A faint little pleading whine emanated from the shadows and recalled Pixie to rationality. As she realised she had been standing dumbly gaping at Apollo while she thought about him an angry flush crept up her face. In a sudden move, she reached for Hector’s leash. ‘Look, I don’t know what you’re doing here but right now I have to take my dog out for a walk.’

Apollo watched her drag...literally drag...a tattered-looking and clearly terrified little dog out of the corner to clip it onto a leash and lift it into her arms, where she rubbed her chin over the crown of its head and muttered soothingly to it as if it were a baby.

‘I have to talk to you. I’ll come with you.’

‘I don’t want you with me and if you have to talk to me about anything I have to say that accusing me of theft and utterly humiliating me where I work wasn’t a good opening.’

‘I know how desperate you must be for money. That’s why I assumed—’

Pixie spun angrily, her little pearly teeth gripped tightly together. ‘That’s why it doesn’t pay to assume anything about someone you don’t know!’

‘Are you always this argumentative? This ready to take offence?’

‘Only around you,’ Pixie told him truthfully. ‘Look, you can wait here while I’m out. I’ll be about fifteen minutes,’ she said briskly and walked out of the door.

Two steps along the pavement she couldn’t quite believe she had had the nerve. After all, the way he talked he knew about Patrick’s gambling debts and the threat against his continuing health. She broke out in a cold sweat just thinking about that reality because she really did love her little brother. Patrick didn’t have a bad bone in his body. He had made a mistake. He had tried too hard to be one of the boys when he took up playing cards and instead of stopping the habit when he lost money he had gone on gambling in the foolish belief that he could not continue on a losing streak for ever. By the time he had realised his mistake, he had built up a huge debt. But Patrick was working very hard to try and stay on top of that debt. He was an electrician during the day and a bartender at night.

Apollo had dangled a carrot and that she could have walked away even temporarily from the vaguest possibility of help for Patrick shook Pixie. But was Apollo offering to help them? No, that was highly unlikely. Why would he help them? He wasn’t the benevolent, sympathetic type. Yet why had he come to the salon in the first place and sought her out personally? And then accused her of theft? Her head aching with pointless conjecture, she sighed. Apollo was very complicated. He was also unreadable and impulsive. There was no way she could guess what he had in mind before he chose to tell her.

* * *

Apollo examined the grim little room and vented a curse. Women did not as a rule walk out on him, no, not even briefly. But Pixie was headstrong and defiant. Not exactly submissive wife material, a little voice pointed out in his head but he ignored it. He trailed a finger along the worn paperback books on the shelf above the bed and pulled out one to see what she liked to read. It was informative: a pirate in top boots wielding a sword. A reluctant grin of amusement slashed Apollo’s lean, darkly handsome features. Just as a book should never be judged by its cover, neither apparently should Pixie be. She was a closet romantic with a taste for the colourful.

Registering that he was hungry, he dug out his cell phone to order lunch for the two of them.

Walking back into her room, Pixie unclipped Hector’s leash and watched her pet race under the bed to hide.

Apollo was sprawled in the room’s single armchair, long, muscular, jeans-clad legs spread apart, his black hair feathering round his lean strong face, accentuating the brilliance of eyes that burned like emerald fire. ‘Does your dog always behave like that?’ he demanded, frowning.

‘Yes. He’s scared of everything but he’s most afraid of men. He was ill-treated,’ she murmured wryly. ‘So, tell me why you’re here.’

‘You’re in a bind and I am as well. I think it’s possible that we could work out something that settles both our problems,’ Apollo advanced guardedly.

Her smooth brow indented. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘For starters, I will pay you if necessary to keep quiet about what I am about to tell you because it’s highly confidential information,’ Apollo volunteered.

Faint colour rose over Pixie’s cheekbones. ‘I don’t need to be paid to keep your secrets. In spite of what you appear to think, I’m not that malicious or grasping.’

‘No, but you are in need of money and the press put a high value on stories about me,’ Apollo pointed out, compressing his lips. ‘You could sell the story.’

‘Has that happened to you before? Someone selling a story about you?’ she shot at him with sudden curiosity.

‘At least half a dozen times. Employees, exes...’ Apollo leant back into the chair, his strong jaw line taut, dark stubble highlighting his full sculptured mouth. ‘That’s the world I live in. That’s why I have a carload of bodyguards 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.’