‘It doesn’t infringe. The Metraxis estate is very secure but owning an island with an indigenous population comes with responsibility. The people have to have a future they can count on for their children or the younger generation will leave. My father didn’t really grasp that reality.’
Pixie stepped into the motor launch twenty minutes later, clad in print silk trousers with a toning shirt worn over a camisole and a sunhat that she had to hang onto as the launch sped across the gleaming clear turquoise water into the harbour. She tensed when she saw just how many people seemed to be grouped there ready to greet them. It dawned on her that in her guise as Apollo’s wife she probably seemed a much more important person to the locals than she actually was.
‘Don’t answer any questions whatsoever. Ignore the cameras,’ Apollo urged, lifting her into his arms to carry her off the launch before she could make for the steps under her own steam.
Flushed and uneasy, Pixie regained her feet and Apollo’s bodyguards swung into action to keep the photographers at a careful distance. With the indolent cool of a male accustomed to the press invading his privacy, Apollo dropped an arm round her shoulders and walked her off the marina at an unhurried pace. He exchanged greetings in his own language with several people but he did not once pause in his determined progress towards the four-wheel drive parked in readiness beyond the crush.
Pixie, however, had never been so uneasily conscious of being the centre of attention and she was hopelessly intimidated by the shouted questions and comments in different languages. She felt the wall of stares being directed at her and her tummy gave a sick lurch. She suspected that she had to be a pretty disappointing spectacle for people who had probably expected Apollo to marry an heiress or a model and, at the very least, someone famous, incredibly beautiful and photogenic. Possessing none of those gifts, she felt horribly exposed and all the more aware that she was a fake wife, pregnant or otherwise.
Only when they were inside the car did she breathe again.
‘See…that wasn’t so bad,’ Apollo pointed out with a shrug that perfectly illustrated his indifference to that amount of concentrated interest and speculation.
‘I’ll take your word for it… I found it tough,’ Pixie responded honestly. ‘I’m not used to being looked at like that and knowing I am a totally phony wife doesn’t add to my confidence.’
‘When will you listen to me?’ Apollo shot back at her in exasperation. ‘You’re my legal wife!’
Pixie breathed in slow and deep to calm her racing nerves and turned her head to look out of the car windows. Apollo had taught her that a legal wife still wasn’t a real wife.
‘And you will never leave our estate without bodyguards…is that understood? Not even for a walk down into the village,’ Apollo specified.
‘Is that level of security really necessary?’ ‘Our’ estate, he had said, she noted in surprise, and then wrote it off as either a slip of the tongue or a comment designed to make her feel more relaxed about their living arrangements.
‘There’s always a risk of paparazzi in the village or even a tourist photographing you to make a profit. My security team are trained to handle all that and ensure that nobody gets to bother you.’
The car was travelling up a steep incline and electric gates whirred back while Pixie gazed at the big white rambling villa at the top of the hill. It was certainly large but it wasn’t anywhere near as massive as Vito’s giant palazzo in Tuscany and she was relieved. As she stepped out, one of the bodyguards lifted Hector’s carrier from the four-wheel drive and set it down to release him. Hector raced out and gambolled round Pixie’s ankles, relieved to have escaped his brief imprisonment.
They walked into a grand marble-floored space with staircases sweeping down on either side of the hall and a very opulent chandelier. A housekeeper, dressed in black with a white apron, greeted them and was introduced as Olympia. Apollo spoke to her at length in Greek while Pixie succumbed to curiosity and crossed the hall to peep into rooms. She had never seen so many dead white walls in her life or such bland furnishings. Indeed the interior had the appearance of a house that served as a show home.
Apollo frowned as he examined her expressive face. ‘You don’t like it? Then you can change it. I had it all stripped, painted and refurnished while my father was ill. Every one of his wives had different decorating ideas and favourite rooms and the house was a mess of clashing colours and styles. When he was well enough to come down for dinner I realised that the décor awakened unfortunate memories so I wiped the slate clean for his benefit.’
‘Well, all that white and beige is certainly clean,’ Pixie assured him gently, rather touched by his thoughtfulness on his ailing father’s behalf.
‘I’ll show you round,’ he proffered, walking her from room to room, and there really was very little to look at in the big colourless rooms. There were no photographs, no ornaments, only an occasional vase of beautiful flowers.
‘I thought the house would be much larger,’ she confided as he walked her upstairs. ‘Holly said you had a lot of relatives.’
‘Relatives and friends use the guest cottages behind the house. My grandfather and my father preferred to have only family members lodge in the actual house. Vito and Holly stayed here with me for the funeral because Vito is the closest thing I have to a brother,’ he admitted quietly, his handsome mouth quirking. ‘But don’t go repeating that or he’ll get too big for his boots.’
Pixie laughed as he showed her into a spacious bedroom with a balcony running the entire length. The pale curtains beside the open doors streamed back in the breeze coming in off the ocean. She stepped outside to appreciate the incredible bird’s eye view of Nexos and the sea and understood exactly why Apollo’s grandfather had chosen that spot to build his family home. ‘It is really gorgeous,’ she murmured. ‘But this place could definitely do with some pictures on the walls and other stuff just to take the bare look away.’
‘The canvases are stored in the basement but run it by me before you have anything rehung,’ Apollo countered. ‘There are portraits of the ex-wives, which I have no desire to see again…and certain artworks fall into the same category,’ he completed tight-mouthed.
Pixie rested a tiny hand on his. ‘This is your home. The ex-wives are gone now and won’t be coming back, so forget about them.’
Apollo bit out an embittered laugh. ‘Only if I contrive to produce a child…and who knows whether or not that will be possible?’
Pixie pinned her lips together and stared out to sea and then she couldn’t hold the words bubbling on her tongue back any longer. ‘There may be a slim chance that this month…well, don’t go getting excited yet but I am a little late…’
Apollo stared down at her transfixed by even the slender possibility that she had outlined. ‘And you didn’t even mention it to me until now?’ he demanded in seething disbelief.
‘Because we don’t need to put ourselves through some silly false alarm, do we?’ Pixie appealed.
Apollo shook his head as if he couldn’t identify with that attitude. His black hair blew back from his lean bronzed features as he leant back against the glass barrier, his green eyes jewel bright in the sunlight. He dug out his phone, stabbed buttons with impatience and started talking in fast Greek while she watched, frowning in bewilderment.
‘Dr Floros will come up wit
h a test for us this afternoon.’
‘But I’m only a couple of days late,’ Pixie protested.
‘Even I know that that’s usually soon enough to tell us one way or the other,’ Apollo pronounced. ‘Why sit around wondering any longer?’
Well, you chose to open your big mouth and spill, Pixie censured herself unhappily. He would either be very pleased or very disappointed. It was out of her hands now.
‘You have to learn the habit of sharing these things with me,’ Apollo breathed in an almost raw undertone, green eyes veiled and narrowed as he stared down at her.
‘Didn’t I just do that?’
‘Obviously you’ve been thinking about this on your own for a few days and that’s not how I want you to behave, koukla mou. The minute anything worries you bring it to me.’
But even as Apollo gazed down at Pixie, his big frame was stiffening and he was losing colour because ill-starred memories were being stirred up by their predicament. He had quite deliberately closed out the awareness that sometimes women died in childbirth: his mother had. More than once his father, Vassilis had discussed that tragedy with his son. Vassilis had idolised Apollo’s mother and he had never really come to terms with losing her in such terrible circumstances. At the moment when he should have been happiest with his wife and his newborn child he had been plunged into grief.