LITMIR.BIZ

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door thudded closed on his exit and only then did her tension ease a little yet she had never felt so empty. She had not realised that she could love anyone as much as she loved Apollo and she had not realised that losing someone could hurt so much that it hurt to breathe. And it was a lesson she truly wished she had not had to learn. She had lain awake a long time the night before. Apollo had presumably slept in another room and ironically his absence had distressed her as much as his presence would have done. It was as though she were being ripped slowly apart, divided between wanting him and not wanting him.

      Vito and Holly arrived mid-afternoon. As soon as Pixie heard Holly’s bright voice echoing up from the hall she called down to her friend from the upper landing. Apollo and Vito looked up. Pixie reddened and waved to excuse herself for not having gone downstairs to welcome their guests.

      ‘I’m pregnant,’ she told Holly baldly. ‘And, yes, it was planned.’

      ‘Is that why Apollo is looking a little ragged round the edges?’

      ‘No… I think that was caused by the doctor telling us that we’re having twins.’

      ‘Twins?’ Holly squealed in excitement. ‘When are you due?’

      As the friends shared due dates, because Holly was expecting her second child, they went downstairs by a service staircase and settled down with cool drinks in the orangery with its tall shady plants and softly playing indoor fountain.

      ‘Vito told me about the will and that you were planning to have a child with Apollo,’ Holly confided then.

      Pixie sighed heavily.

      ‘And you broke the rules, didn’t you?’ Holly whispered, anxiously searching Pixie’s tense little face and shadowed eyes. ‘You went and fell madly in love with his fancy-ass yacht.’

      Pixie didn’t trust herself to laugh or speak and she jerked her chin down in confirmation.

      Holly groaned out loud.

      ‘I wanted a child and because I wasn’t very good at…er…dating I thought that Apollo could be my best chance of ever having one,’ Pixie admitted very quietly. ‘I should tell you now…we are separating after the party.’

      ‘Is it really that cut and dried? I mean, even Vito, who generally assumes the worst of Apollo when women are involved, thinks that there’s no way that Apollo would have slept with Izzy Jerome. She’s Jeremy’s kid sister and sisters are off-limits between friends. And Apollo has uninvited Izzy from your party,’ Holly completed with satisfaction.

      ‘Izzy Jerome was on the guest list?’ Pixie gasped in dismay.

      ‘She’s not any more,’ Holly emphasised. ‘I don’t think he is involved with her. She’s very young, you know, still a teenager.’

      ‘It doesn’t matter.’ Pixie lifted her head high and sipped at her drink. ‘The best way forward for us now is for us to go our separate ways. That was planned from the start.’

      Holly shook her head. ‘I can’t believe you signed up for that. I thought you hated him.’

      Pixie said nothing because there was a sour taste in her mouth. Only days had passed since she had planned to tell her friend how very different Apollo was from his public image but recent events had proved her wrong in all her assumptions. In truth she supposed that she had stupidly idealised Apollo to justify the reality that she had fallen in love with him.

      ‘Let me see what you’re wearing tonight,’ Holly urged in a welcome change of subject.

      Pixie took her up to the bedroom to show her the long scarlet dress in its garment bag. ‘Apollo had it designed and I don’t like it much…it’s a wee bit slutty, don’t you think? I have no idea what he’s wearing.’

      Holly skimmed a thoughtful fingertip over the black corset lacing round the bust line. ‘Gangster’s moll?’

      ‘Well, at least there’s no fairy wings included,’ Pixie commented flatly. ‘But there is a very ornate piece of valuable jewellery which he brought back from London and he evidently expects me to wear it with the costume.’

      Pixie opened the worn leather box on the dressing table and listened to Holly ooh and ah over the fabulously flamboyant ruby necklace and drop earrings. She turned her head and glanced back at the red dress again. There was something about it, something eerily familiar but she couldn’t pin down what it was.

      Dressing for dinner, she donned the costume. She decided it was fortunate that pregnancy had swelled her boobs because the gathered, dipping neckline positively demanded a glimpse of bosom. She tightened the laces, noting with wry appreciation that she finally had the chest she had long dreamt of having. But like her marriage to Apollo, it was an illusion, she thought morosely, for when she had finally delivered her twins she would probably return to being pretty much flat-chested again.

      Apollo strode in and she stopped dead to stare at him. He was tricked out like a pirate in tall black boots and fitted breeches with a white ruffled shirt and a sword. And being Apollo and fantastically handsome, he looked spectacular and electrifyingly sexy.

      ‘I gather that I’m a pirate’s lady,’ Pixie guessed.

      ‘A pirate’s treasure,’ Apollo quipped. ‘You’re not wearing the rubies.’

      He extracted the necklace from the box and handed her the earrings. ‘This set belonged to my mother. It hasn’t been worn since she died. I had it cleaned and reset for you in London.’

      The eye-catching rubies settled coolly against her skin and she slowly attached the earrings, watching them gleam with inner fire as they swung in the lamp light. ‘Thanks,’ she said stiltedly.

      A very large dinner party awaited them on the ground floor. With surprising formality Apollo brought his relatives forward one by one to meet Pixie. There were innumerable aunties and uncles and cousins. She marvelled at his calm control under stress and his polished manners. He was essentially behaving like a proud new husband. Nobody could ever have guessed that that dream was already dead and buried. It had been a dream, she reminded herself doggedly, a dream that could never have become reality with Apollo Metraxis in a leading role.

      In the ballroom she watched Apollo socialising and frowned. It wasn’t fair that she could barely drag her eyes off his tall, powerful physique; it wasn’t right or decent that she still felt his magnetic pull. And Apollo dressed up like a pirate was pure perfect fantasy. The arrogant tilt of his dark head, the breadth of his shoulders, his narrow waist and lean, tight hips, the long muscular line of his thighs in skin-tight pants. Her mouth ran dry watching him and her weakness filled her with self-loathing.

      Apollo, meanwhile, was in a filthy mood. The planning had gone perfectly but the timing had gone seriously askew. He should have known better; he should have known not to waste his time trying to be something he was not. Since when had he been romantic? What did he even know about being romantic? And in any case, she hadn’t even noticed, which said all that needed to be said. He had taken the cover of her battered romantic paperback and had the outfits copied. Even the costume designer had gazed at him as though he were crazy and he felt like an idiot for going for the pirate theme. Even so, he wasn’t going down without a fight.

      ‘I’m no good at slow dances,’ Pixie protested when Apollo slowly raised her out of her seat and took her away from Holly, whom she had clung to throughout the evening.

      ‘So, stand on my feet,’ Apollo advised, wrapping her slender body into his arms with the kind of strength she couldn’t fight without making a scene.

      Murderously conscious that their guests were watching them, Pixie pressed her face against his chest and breathed in deep. He smelled so good she wanted to bottle him. Her fingers spread across his powerful shoulders and she drifted in a world of inner pain, wavering wildly between hating and craving and loving. She had missed him so much when he was away from her in London and now she had a whole future of missing him ahead of her.

      ‘I won’t agree to a separation,’

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