LITMIR.BIZ

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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.

      The luxurious interior of the limousine fascinated Pixie. It had a television and a phone and a bar. It was a long drive but there were regular stops to exercise Hector and an evening meal stop for Pixie at a very swanky hotel. It was only there that she noticed another car was accompanying them because it was one of the men in it who escorted her into the fancy dining room and urged her to choose whatever she liked from the menu. Pixie was so horrified by the prices on the menu and so scared that the bill would be handed to her at the end of the meal that even though she was starving she only dared to have soup, which came with a roll. Of course no one presented her with a bill. The big beefy bodyguard or whatever he was appeared to be there to take care of such necessities while Hector waited in the car.

      By the time they finally arrived in London, Pixie was exhausted and living on her nerves. It was after ten in the evening and it was dark and, with Hector cradled in her arms, she left the limo in the underground car park and walked into a lift with the big beefy guy and his mate towering over her.

      ‘What’re your names?’ she asked nervously.

      ‘Theo and Dmitri, Miss Robinson. You’re not really supposed to notice us,’ Theo told her gently. ‘We’re here to take care of you but we’re staff.’

      It was yet another strong message that Apollo lived in a different world because Pixie could not imagine ever ignoring anyone in such a way. But at that moment she reminded herself that she had more pressing concerns. Would she see Apollo this evening? The lift stopped directly into a massive apartment foyer and she realised that it had to be a private lift only used by him and his employees.

      A small, portly older man in a jacket approached her. ‘I’m Manfred, Miss Robinson. I look after the apartment. Let me show you to your room.’

      Pixie followed him across the foyer towards a corridor and on the way past saw into a large reception room where she glimpsed a lithe blonde beauty standing talking with a drink in her hand. One of Apollo’s women? Probably, she thought. He always seemed to have a woman on the go. She would have to ask him what he planned to do after their marriage if they got that far because no way was she prepared to sleep with a man sleeping with other women at the same time. That wasn’t negotiable yet the picture of a quiet, clean-living version of Apollo married refused to gel.

      ‘This is the garden room,’ Manfred announced grandly, walking across a big, lushly appointed bedroom to indicate the patio doors. He buzzed them open to show her the outside space. ‘Perfect for the little dog…’

      ‘Yes,’ Pixie agreed in wonderment. Stepping out, she noticed that part of the roof garden was neatly and clearly temporarily fenced off, presumably to prevent Hector straying into the glimmering blue pool that lay beyond it.

      ‘Can I get you any refreshments?’ he asked cheerfully.

      ‘I wouldn’t say no to some sandwiches,’ Pixie muttered apologetically.

      Pixie unpacked while Hector explored the new environment and his own first private outside space. In one corner of the room sat a fur-lined pet bed with a roof. Hector sniffed all round it, finally decided it wasn’t actively unfriendly and got into it. Manfred brought tea and sandwiches on a tray. Pixie went for a shower in the lovely bathroom, bemused to find herself dropped in the midst of such extreme comfort and luxury. Comfy in her shortie pyjamas, she curled up on the bed with her supper and ate.

      * * *

      Apollo had already told Lauren that he had an early start in the morning and that her uninvited visit was inconvenient. He had given her wine, made the kind of meaningless chit-chat that bored him and sidestepped a blatantly obvious invitation to have sex. He never brought his lovers back to his various properties. He took them to a hotel or went to their place because that meant that he could leave whenever he liked.

      ‘You want me to leave, don’t you?’

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