The Mills & Boon Ultimate Christmas Collection. Kate Hardy

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       CHAPTER FOUR

      ‘IT’S QUITE SIMPLE,’ Apollo murmured in a cold, dangerous tone. ‘You pack up you and your dog and you’ll be picked up this evening.’

      ‘I can’t just walk out on my job, and I’m supposed to give notice when I move out.’

      ‘My staff will organise everything of that nature for you. You don’t need to worry. I want you in London with me tonight, so that we can get on with the preparations.’

      ‘What preparations?’

      ‘You’ll have to sign legal papers, see a doctor, buy clothes. There must be a dozen entries on the to-do list I’ve had drawn up for you. You’re going to be very busy.’

      Pixie thought about her brother and briefly closed her eyes, digging deep for composure. She had just put her life and her free will in Apollo’s hands and the pressure was on her now. ‘Where will I be staying?’

      ‘At my apartment. It’ll be more discreet than a hotel would be and I won’t be there for most of the week. I’ll be working in Athens.’

      ‘OK.’ Pixie forced herself to agree because she knew it was only the first step in another hundred or more steps when she would have to obediently fall in with Apollo’s wishes. Dear heaven, had she ever hated a man so much?

      Vito was one of the very few men Pixie had learned to trust. She could see his love for her friend, Holly, every time he looked at his wife and his feelings for his son were equally obvious. But Pixie had had few such role models while she was growing up. Her own father had frequently resorted to domestic violence when he was drunk. He had beaten her mother and Pixie as well, calling her ‘a mouthy little cow’ for trying to interfere. When he wasn’t in prison serving time for his burglaries, he had often taken his bad moods out on his family. Pixie had never had Holly’s cosy, idealistic images of family life because she had experienced family life in the raw. Her father had married her mother when she fell pregnant but she had never seen any love or affection between them. Patrick had been born within a year of his sister’s birth and her mother had found it a challenge to cope with two young kids.

      By the time Pixie was eight years old, both children had been placed in a council run children’s home because her mother had finally been imprisoned for her incessant shoplifting. Social workers had taken a very dim view of a mother trying to teach her children to steal. The council home and the various foster homes that followed had occasionally contained men with sexual designs on their charges. Pixie had been very young when she first learned to fear the opposite sex and the fact that she went on looking like a much younger child due to her lack of adolescent development had ensured that she had to remain on her guard around such men for years longer than most.

      The foster home that had become the first real home for Pixie had been Sylvia and Maurice Ware’s and she had gone to them when she was twelve. The semi-retired farmer and his wife had had a spacious farmhouse in the Devonshire countryside and they had been devoted guardians to the often traumatised children who had come to live with them. Now Maurice was dead, the farmhouse sold and Sylvia lived in sheltered accommodation but Pixie had never forgotten the debt she owed to the older couple for the love, kindness and understanding they had shown her. And it was in their home that she had met Holly and their friendship had been forged, even though Pixie was eighteen months younger.

      Her possessions fitted into her one suitcase and a box she begged off the local corner shop. She left an apologetic message on her employer Sally’s answering machine. What else could she do with Apollo calling all the shots? But being forced into such dangerous life changes genuinely frightened her. What would she do if Apollo decided that she wasn’t suitable to be his wife after all? Where would she go? How would she find another job? She didn’t trust Apollo and she didn’t want to end up on the street, homeless and unemployed, particularly not with Hector to worry about.

      A limousine arrived to collect her. The driver came to the door and carried out her luggage and then produced a pet carrier, which Hector refused to enter. Pixie protested and promised that the little dog would be quiet and well-behaved if he was allowed to travel on her lap. She climbed into the opulent car with an engulfing sense of detached disbelief. She’d had glimpses of Holly and Vito’s wealth, had attended their wedding, had seen impressive photos of their Italian home, but Holly didn’t wear much jewellery or particularly fancy clothes and, essentially, she hadn’t changed. It was surprisingly easy to meet up with Holly and forget that she was the wife of a very rich man.

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