The Mills & Boon Ultimate Christmas Collection - Kate Hardy Mills & Boon e-Book Collections

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against his own volatile inclinations and his innate love of freedom, a struggle against being forced to live with a woman, forced to have sex with her, forced to have a child he didn’t want.

      And how best could he achieve that? Unfortunately, Vito was right: Apollo needed to hire a woman, one who was willing to marry him solely for money. But how could he trust such a woman not to go to the media to spill all or to confide his secrets in the wrong person? He would need a hold on the woman he married, some sort of a hold that meant she needed him as much as he needed her and would have good reason to follow any rules he laid down.

      Although he would never consider her as a possibility, he needed a woman like Pixie Robinson. In her case he could have bought up her brother’s debt and used it to put pressure on her, thereby ensuring that it was in her best interests to keep her mouth shut and give him exactly what he needed to retain his family empire. How was he supposed to find another woman in that kind of situation?

      Of course, had he trusted women generally, he might have been less cautious. But Apollo, his cynical distrust honed over no fewer than six stepmothers and countless lovers, had never trusted a woman in his life. In fact trust was a real issue for him.

      His first stepmother had sent him off to boarding school at the age of four. His second stepmother had beaten him bloody. His third had seduced him. His fourth stepmother had had his beloved dog put down. His fifth stepmother had tried to foist another man’s child on his father.

      Add in the innumerable women whom Apollo had bedded over the years. Beautiful, sexually adventurous women and gold-diggers, who had endeavoured to enrich themselves as much as possible during their brief affairs with him. He had never known any other kind of woman, couldn’t quite believe that any other type existed. Holly was different though, he acknowledged grudgingly. He could see that she adored Vito and their child. So, there was another category out there: women who loved. Not that he would be looking for one of those. Love would trap him, inhibit him and suffocate him with the dos and don’ts he despised. He suppressed a shudder. Life was too short to make such a mistake.

      But in the short term he still needed a wife. A wife he could control was the only sort of wife he would be able to tolerate. He thought about Pixie again. Pixie and her weak, feckless brother’s financial problems. She had to be pretty stupid, he reflected helplessly, to mess up her life by taking on her sibling’s problems. Why would you do that? Never having had a brother or a sister, Apollo was mystified by the concept of such thankless sacrifice. But just how far would Pixie Robinson go to save her brother’s skin?

      It amused Apollo to know so much more than Holly did about her best friend’s problems. It amused him even more that Holly had cheerfully assured him that Pixie couldn’t stand him. Holly had to be blind. Obviously Holly hadn’t noticed that, in spite of the dirty looks, Pixie had covertly watched Apollo’s every move at her friend’s wedding.

      The beginnings of a smile softened the hard line of Apollo’s wide sensual mouth. Maybe he should take a closer look at the miniature blonde and work out whether or not she could be of use to him…what did he have to lose?

       CHAPTER ONE

      ‘MORNING, HECTOR,’ PIXIE mumbled as she woke up with a tousled bundle of terrier plastered to her ribs.

      Smothering a yawn, she steeled herself to get up and out. She got out of bed to head to the bathroom she shared with the other tenants on the same floor before returning washed and dressed to snap a leash on Hector’s faded red collar and take her pet out for his morning walk.

      Hector trotted along the road, little round eyes reflecting anxiety. He flinched when he noticed another dog across the street. Hector was scared of just about everything life threw at him. People, other animals, traffic and loud noises all made the whites of his eyes gleam with an edge of panic. Calm and untroubled the rest of the time, he was very quiet and had never been known to bark.

      ‘Probably learned not to as a puppy,’ the vet next door to the hair salon had opined when Pixie had asked. ‘He’s scared of attracting attention to himself in any way. Abuse does that to an animal. But in spite of his injuries he’s young and healthy and should have a long life ahead of him.’

      Pixie still marvelled at the fact that regardless of her own problems she had chosen to adopt Hector. But then, Pixie had triumphed over adversity many times in life and so had the little terrier. Hector had repaid her generosity a thousand times over. He comforted her and warmed her heart with his shy little ways and eccentricities. He had filled some of the giant hole that had opened up in Pixie’s world when Holly and Angelo had moved to Italy.

      She had lost her best friend to marriage and motherhood but their friendship had been more damaged by the secrets Pixie had been forced to keep. There was no way she could tell Holly about her brother Patrick’s gambling debts without Holly offering to settle those debts for them. Holly was very generous but Patrick was not Holly or Vito’s responsibility, he was Pixie’s and had been since the day of their mother’s death.

      ‘Promise me you’ll look after your little brother,’ Margery Robinson had pleaded. ‘Always do your best for Patrick, Pixie. He’s a gentle soul and he’s the only family you have left.’

      But looking after Patrick had been near impossible when the siblings had invariably ended up living in different foster homes. During the important teenaged years, Pixie had only met up with her brother a handful of times and until she’d finished training and achieved independence her bond with her kid brother had been limited by time, distance and a shortage of money. Once she was working she had tried to change all that by regularly visiting Patrick in London.

      Initially Patrick had done well. He was an electrician working for a big construction firm. He had found a girlfriend and settled down. But he had also got involved in high-stake card games and had lost a lot of money to a very dangerous man. Pixie had duly cut down her own expenses, moving out of the comfortable terraced house she had once shared with Holly into a much cheaper bedsit. Every week she sent as much money as she could afford to Patrick to help him pay off his debts but as interest was added that debt just seemed to be getting bigger and if he missed a payment he would be beaten up…or worse. Pixie genuinely feared that her brother’s debts would get him killed.

      Pixie still came out in a cold sweat remembering the night the debt collectors had arrived when she had been visiting her brother. Two big brutish men had come to the door of Patrick’s flat to demand money. Threatening to kill him, they had beaten him up when he was unable to pay his dues. Attempting to intervene in the ensuing struggle, Pixie had fallen down the stairs and broken both her legs. The consequences of that accident had been horrendous because Pixie had been unable to work and had been forced to claim benefits during her recovery. Now, six months on, she was just beginning to get back to normal but unhappily there seemed to be no light gleaming at the end of the tunnel because Patrick’s debt situation seemed insurmountable and his life was still definitely at risk. The man he owed wasn’t the type to wait indefinitely for settlement. He would want his pound of flesh or he would want to make an example of her brother to intimidate his other debtors.

      Settling Hector into his basket, Pixie set off down the street to the hair salon. She missed her car but selling Clementine had been her first sacrifice because she had no real need for personal transport in the small Devon town where she could walk most places. She would return home to take Hector out for a walk during her lunch break and grab a sandwich at the same time.

      Entering the salon, she exchanged greetings with her co-workers and her boss, Sally. After hurriedly stowing her bag in her staff locker she caught a glimpse of herself in a mirror and winced. It had been a while since she had looked her best. When had she got so boring? She was only twenty-three years old. Unfortunately cutting costs had entailed wearing her clothes for longer and her jeans and black top had seen better days. She had good skin and didn’t wear much make-up but she always wore loads of grey eyeliner because black liner was too stark against the blonde hair that fell simply to just below her shoulders. She had left behind her more adventurous days of playing with different styles and colours

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