The Best Of The Year - Modern Romance

‘Gio only found out that Theo existed very recently,’ Billie cut in hastily. ‘We hadn’t been in contact for a couple of years—’

Gio gritted his teeth. ‘There is absolutely no need for you to talk about that.’

‘Of course there is. I don’t want anyone thinking that I had an on-going affair with a married man,’ Billie declared without hesitation, marvelling at how slow on the uptake Gio could sometimes be because he was totally indifferent to what other people thought of him. But she didn’t want that stigma within the family circle. She might not have liked Calisto, nonetheless she would not have engaged in a relationship with Gio with or without his wife’s knowledge.

‘A great-grandson named for me...’ Theon was keen to concentrate on the positive and politely ignore Gio’s brooding protective stance beside Billie’s chair. ‘A fine boy...not shy either!’ he remarked with an appreciative laugh as Theo made his way over to another toddler with a small heap of toys in front of him and snatched at the first colourful item he could reach.

‘So, tell me about yourself,’ the older man invited.

‘Billie’s not here for an interview,’ Gio incised coolly.

‘My goodness, I’m so thirsty. I would really love a drink,’ Billie informed Gio, shooting him an expectant look.

Of course, Gio simply snapped his fingers like some desert potentate and a uniformed maid materialised.

Billie met Theon’s amused eyes and her own mouth twitched because her strategy had been lame but she really could have done without Gio standing over her in warrior mode as if she were defenceless in enemy territory. He had never acted that way around her before and the discovery that his reserve was as great within his own family as it had once been with her was a major shock to her expectations. Yet that insight saddened her as well. Gio was such a lone wolf. How had he contrived to become the guarded, unemotional male he was with such a large and, she sensed, loving family?

Theo crawled back and hauled himself up against Billie’s knees and then clutched at his father’s legs until Gio abandoned his rigid stance, smiled with a sudden brilliance that lit up his lean, strong face and swept his son up in his arms to carry him back to the toys.

‘It’s been a long time since I saw Gio smile,’ Theon remarked.

‘I don’t have a fancy background or any money. I owned and ran a shop. I’m just an ordinary working woman,’ Billie volunteered before Gio could return to censor the conversation. ‘You might as well know that upfront.’

‘In recent years, very recent years, I have learned the unimportance of such distinctions.’ Theon gave an emphatic shrug and relaxed back into his armchair. ‘And I’m afraid I must disagree with you on one point. No ordinary woman could handle Gio and the Letsos family with so much tolerance and common sense.’

That was Billie’s last private moment with Theon. One by one she received introductions to Gio’s uncles, aunts and sisters, including, to her surprise, his half-sister, Melissa, who had passed half a lifetime being royally ignored by her father’s family because she was the result of Dmitri Letsos’ illicit teenaged romance.

‘They’re not a bad bunch when you get to know them,’ Melissa, a collected blonde teacher in her forties, pronounced with a wry smile. ‘Oh, there’s the usual sibling rivalry, but they are, one and all—I assure you—devoted to Gio. He brought me into this family and he’s the first port of call for all of us when there’s a crisis. I hope you can handle that. Calisto couldn’t.’

From stray comments made and generally quickly leading to a subject change rather than risk causing offence, Billie began to suspect that Gio’s first wife had not been well liked. She cursed her own curiosity about her predecessor: it was pointless and the gratification of that curiosity was more likely to lead to hurt. Gio had married another woman. Get over it, she urged herself impatiently, determined not to be haunted by the shadows of the past.

‘If your wife is the woman she appears to be, she’s solid gold,’ Gio’s grandfather told him disconcertingly.

Tight-mouthed, Gio breathed, ‘When it comes to Billie, I have no need of anyone’s approval.’

‘But an invitation to the wedding would have been very much appreciated,’ Theon countered drily.

Once Irene had taken Theo up for his bath and guests had begun to disperse to their own corners of the rambling villa, Billie slipped away to explore the wonderful gardens, finally sitting down in the shade of an ancient chestnut tree to appreciate the glorious bird’s-eye view of the island and the ocean. Although she was exhausted she was quietly pleased that her meeting with Gio’s family had ultimately gone well when it had so very nearly gone badly wrong.

When had Gio become so hot-tempered? He had been like a stick of dynamite with a smouldering string attached, aggressively ready to attack anyone who attacked her, over-sensitive to every comment and question that came in her direction. Billie sighed over that mystery and slowly relaxed, letting the tension drain out of her.

‘I’ve been looking everywhere for you,’ Gio delivered in a minatory tone, striding down the gravelled path towards her. ‘Downstairs, upstairs...’

‘Maybe you should microchip me and then you would know where I am at all times,’ Billie told him deadpan.

Struggling to master his exasperation, Gio released his breath in a rush. There she was, curls foaming round her lovely face, eyes contemplative, clearly happy and content. He could not explain to her his personal fear that she had put on a fantastic sociable act all day for the benefit of his family while secretly masking her hurt at her less than welcoming reception. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Tired,’ she admitted, sleepy green eyes locked to him while a wicked little current of remembered pleasure travelled through her. ‘But then we didn’t get much sleep last night...’

The faintest colour stung his stunning cheekbones, brilliant dark eyes flaring gold, lean bronzed features breathtaking in their perfect symmetry as his wide mouth took on a sensual curve. She loved him; she loved him so much, she acknowledged helplessly.

‘What are you out here worrying about?’

‘I’m not worrying,’ Billie declared. ‘This is a gorgeous garden and I’m enjoying it.’

Recalling the window boxes and pot plants she used to keep at the apartment, Gio felt his conscience ping. Just as quickly he recalled the hollow sensation he had suffered when, following her disappearance, he had seen those plants dead and withered and as always he buried the memory deep of that period in his life. ‘I should’ve bought you a house with a garden a long time ago.’

‘My only experience of gardening was visiting my granddad’s allotment as a child,’ Billie confided quietly. ‘He used to plant vegetable seeds for me. That was in the days before the betting shop and the drink pushed him into a less active lifestyle.’

Gio frowned, astonished by the sudden realisation that he could know so little about his wife’s background. Momentarily he marvelled that he had never asked her anything beyond the most basic questions, but, after learning that she had virtually no living relatives that she knew of, he had seen no reason to probe deeper. ‘He was a drunk?’

‘No, that’s too harsh. He drank to escape my grandma’s nagging. She was kind of sour in nature. If he was a drunk,’ Billie extended, ‘he was a nice drunk because he was never mean, but his liver failed and he was ill for a long time. That’s when I first began missing school because my grandma wouldn’t look after him the way he needed to be looked after and I felt so guilty leaving him to her care every day.’

‘Surely there was some care offered by the state?’

‘No, there’s actually very little help available. Grandma was told he wasn’t sick enough to get a bed in a nursing home even though he was terminally ill. Once he had passed, it was just her and me...and she never liked me, said I reminded her of my mother.’ Billie grimaced. ‘You can’t really blame her. My mother dumped me on her and never came back. She was a bitter woman, who just never saw the good in anyone. I got to go back to school for a couple of years and then Grandma’s health failed too and that was the end of that.’

Gio was stunned by what he was belatedly learning. ‘How is it that I’m only finding out all this about you now?’ he could not help asking, as if he thought the oversight might somehow be her fault.

Tactfully concealing her wonder at that question, Billie shot him a wry glance. ‘Gio, back then, in your eyes, when I wasn’t physically in front of you, I didn’t exist.’

Gio tensed. ‘That’s untrue.’

‘Do you recall that cabinet with drawers I once mentioned where I was tucked in my own tiny drawer, only to be taken out and appreciated by you on special occasions? Seriously, I wasn’t joking—that was what it was like.’

His lean dark features were grim. ‘What you’re really saying is that I’m a colossally selfish individual.’

‘You were self-absorbed and very driven. Let’s face it, when we were together your main focus was always business. I also think you were too posh to be comfortable with the difference in our backgrounds. Ignoring it was easier. I think as long as I was willing to be quiet about it, you preferred not to be reminded that I was once a humble cleaner,’ Billie told him gently.

‘I can’t believe we’re even having this conversation!’ Gio ground out angrily, his temper, kept on a short leash all day, whipping up in a sudden surge hotter than lava. ‘Or that you could ever have had such a low opinion of me!’

In mute frustration, Billie closed her eyes and counted to ten. ‘It’s done and dusted, Gio—it’s the past. I’m not attacking you. I’m only being honest. I wasn’t perfect either. I should have stood up to you, demanded more, but I was too young and in my very first relationship.’

‘You lied about your age.’ Gio was quick to pounce on that reminder.

Billie nodded peaceably, refusing to rise to the bait because there was no way she was about to engage in a massive row with Gio about their past. After all, everything had changed now and they were making a new start at a very different level of intimacy.

‘I’ve got some work to do,’ Gio said in a tone of finality.

Billie smiled, knowing his first refuge when emotion threatened was work. ‘I’ll walk back indoors with you.’

Gio settled with his laptop in the library, which was set up like a high-tech office for his use. Theos, he still found himself thinking furiously, he was not and he never had been a selfish person. On one issue, Billie was correct: he had no need whatsoever to revisit the past. That conviction in place, Gio struggled to concentrate on the lines of figures on his laptop screen and he was fine until the moment that the matter of the pre-nuptial settlement contract squeezed into his mind and practically obliterated everything else in the process. He rang the housekeeper to discover where Billie’s possessions had been stored since being shipped out the previous week.

It occurred to him then without warning that even the devil could not have devised a more colossally selfish or fiendish document. He refused to act like a male engaged in a covert operation, but on some level of his brain he was astounded by what he was about to do when he finally stood in the room confronted with a heap of boxes. After all, when was Billie ever likely to lift that contract out and reread it? Why the hell was he so damned rattled by a very minor risk? Perspiration dampened his lean, bronzed features. He was engaging in a cover-up and the knowledge didn’t sit well with him. But prior to that contract he had never once been dishonest with Billie. He hovered, studying the boxes. That document could hurt her, he reflected broodingly, and he latched onto that excuse for what he was about to do with alacrity.

Gio had never unpacked a box in his life but he wasn’t surprised by the discovery that every box was labelled and incredibly neatly filled because Billie was very, very organised and always had been. In the third box, he hit the pay dirt of finding files full of papers and in the second file he espied the contract and ripped it out, but not before he frowned down at a certificate for wine tasting and found beneath it one for art appreciation. He went through the whole file, checking the dates, learning what he knew he should have learned years sooner.

There was a burning behind his eyes that made them feel scratchy and he felt oddly hollow, as though someone had gutted him without warning. Feeling rather as though he had been beaten up, Gio replaced everything where he had found it with the exception of the contract and strode off to pour himself a very stiff drink. The contract went through the shredder but the relief he had expected to feel was utterly absent. He had gone digging where he had no business digging, he conceded sardonically, and he rather thought that in the process he had got what he deserved.

‘Theon wants you to join him for afternoon tea,’ Sofia told Billie cheerfully around three that afternoon. ‘It’s a big honour.’

Billie grinned. ‘I liked him.’

‘I think the feeling’s reciprocated,’ Gio’s sister responded with a laugh as she guided Billie across the villa to the wing of the house Theon occupied.

A manservant showed her out onto a big shaded balcony where Theon awaited her. ‘I believe this is an honour,’ Billie remarked with a grin.

‘How on earth have you escaped Gio?’ his grandfather enquired mockingly.

‘Something I said annoyed him... He’s taken refuge in work,’ Billie confided, marvelling at how very comfortable she felt in the older man’s company.

‘I overheard that conversation,’ Theon admitted, disconcerting her. ‘This balcony is directly overhead.’

Billie reddened but sat down. ‘Oh, well, it’s all within the family,’ she said without great concern because it wasn’t as if she and Gio had been hurling insults at each other or discussing anything she considered particularly private, although she knew that put in the same position Gio would have been furious.

‘I thought I should bring you up to date on some family history, as I doubt very much that Gio has done the job for me,’ Theon commented.

‘I know about his parents’ divorce,’ Billie contributed. ‘And I know his father really didn’t have much to do with him after it.’

‘Dmitri was a weak man. There, I have said it,’ the older man said wryly. ‘For years I wouldn’t admit that to myself because he was my son...’

‘It’s challenging to accept faults in those we care about most,’ Billie murmured soothingly.

‘You love Gio a great deal—it shines from you,’ his grandfather told her. ‘He’s a very lucky man.’

Billie flushed and decided not to embarrass herself with a denial while she poured the tea. ‘I hope he always thinks so. He’s much more complicated than I am...’

‘And that’s why I invited you for tea,’ Theon told her. ‘I’m very much afraid that his complexity can be laid at my door. I raised Gio from the age of eleven after his mother died.’

‘I had no idea she died while he was still so young,’ Billie said in surprise as she buttered a scone and deliberated with some gastronomic anticipation on whether to have raspberry or strawberry jam with her cream.

‘Ianthe couldn’t cope alone after Dmitri divorced her for Marianne. I had no idea how bad things had become for Gio’s mother,’ Theon told her heavily. ‘Perhaps if my wife had still been alive she would have had the wisdom to foresee the problems and she would have encouraged me to offer help in time to prevent a tragedy.’

Billie set down her scone after one delicious bite. ‘A tragedy?’ she pressed.

‘Ianthe hanged herself...and Gio found her,’ the older man recounted with a shudder. ‘I will carry the burden of my guilt to the end of my days.’

Eyes widening, Billie had lost colour. ‘I had no idea...’

‘I didn’t think you would, which is why I told you,’ Gio’s grandfather confessed. ‘The effect on Gio was catastrophic. He had lost his father, his home and then his mother, only a few months later.’

Billie shook her head slowly, cringing at the thought of such a huge loss being inflicted on Gio and his sisters while they were still so young. ‘That must have been dreadful for him,’ she muttered unsteadily, her heart swelling. ‘He would’ve felt responsible—’

‘I worried that Gio would inherit the same excessively emotional personality that both Dmitri and Ianthe demonstrated in the way they led their lives. That kind of emotional intensity leads to instability.’

‘Not always,’ Billie inserted gently.

Theon shook his white head. ‘I wanted to be sure that Gio did not repeat his father’s mistakes. It was too much responsibility to place on a child’s shoulders. In many ways I taught him the wrong values,’ he explained with unashamed guilt etched in his lined features. ‘I expected, wanted him to marry well...and we all know how successful that proved to be. I put far too much emphasis on wealth, status and family duty—’

‘But,’ Billie cut in with an apologetic look, ‘at the end of the day, Gio is a highly intelligent adult and totally independent and he made his own decisions.’

‘Ne...yes, and he married you without telling any of us because he refused even to risk the fact that I might have tried to interfere.’

‘Probably,’ Billie agreed thoughtfully. ‘But he’s not enough in touch with his own feelings to even know that.’

‘You know him so well,’ Theon pronounced with appreciation. ‘Now we’ve got the difficult bit over, shall we enjoy our scones?’

* * *

Gio was on the phone to Leandros and Leandros was asking awkward questions, destined not to be answered. ‘I just don’t understand.’ His best friend sighed. ‘You only got married yesterday. You only arrived with your family today. Why would you want to fly back to Athens for one night simply to have some fancy dinner?’

‘Tomorrow’s Billie’s birthday.’

‘So, make it tomorrow, then.’

‘I want to do it tonight. Are you joining us?’ Gio prompted. ‘And, Leandros, if you mention Canaletto, I’ll cut your throat.’

‘Of course I’ll join you.’

Billie was engaged in drying Theo and slotting him into his pyjamas when Gio appeared in the bathroom doorway of the nursery suite.

Gio swept up his son and hugged him and did the flying thing again, which sent Theo into gales of laughter. ‘He’s tired,’ Gio acknowledged as Theo then rested his curly head down on his father’s shoulder and slumped.

‘He’s had a lot of excitement today and he’s always exhausted when he’s been with other kids.’ Billie carried her son through to the bedroom and settled him down in the very fancy cot, from which she quickly detached the flouncy hangings and everything else within reach for such dangling temptations were not a good idea with an active toddler.

‘This place needs to be refurnished,’ Gio commented tautly, watching her every move, it seemed, unsettling her.

Billie laughed. ‘It’s perfectly fine. It might have been done up for a little girl but Theo doesn’t know the difference yet.’

‘It was decorated for Sofia’s youngest daughter. She had a difficult birth and her husband was travelling and Theon suggested she move back here while he was away,’ Gio volunteered.

‘Sofia’s lovely,’ Billie said warmly.

‘We’re going out tonight,’ Gio announced abruptly.

‘Where to?’

‘Athens.’

Billie blinked. ‘Athens? But we’ve only just got here!’

‘We’ll be back tomorrow,’ Gio sliced in. ‘We’re eating out with Leandros and his current girlfriend.’

‘Are they getting engaged or something?’

‘Not that I know of. Is going out with me such a big deal?’ Gio demanded in frustration.

Billie almost said that, naturally, it was a big deal when he had never taken her anywhere public in years, aside of the wedding, but she thought better of that piece of one-upmanship. She was reluctant to hark back to the past when their marriage was, self-evidently, a very new and much altered situation. She supposed that, for Gio, taking a flight for one night out was almost normal, certainly nothing he appeared to have to think about, and she resolved to say no more while privately worrying about what she had to wear.

She blessed the foresight that had sent her out shopping for more sophisticated and expensive clothes before the wedding and pulled an elegant pewter-coloured dress from a closet in the luxurious dressing room where all her clothes had been carefully unpacked for her. While she showered and attended to renewing her make-up, she pondered Gio’s strange mood.

‘What do you think?’ she asked, twirling a little apprehensively in front of him when she found him waiting in the bedroom for her.

Stunning dark golden eyes flared over her. ‘You look incredible,’ he intoned with convincing appreciation. ‘Are you ready to leave?’

A warm sense of acceptance blossomed inside Billie even though she could still not understand how he could have been married to a beauty like Calisto and still deem his infinitely less-beautiful second wife equal to the label ‘incredible’.

‘Are we returning to Letsos tonight?’ she prompted as she let Gio lift her into the helicopter.

‘Yes, although the family own a city apartment if you would prefer to stay there,’ he volunteered.

‘No, I’d miss Theo at breakfast time when he’s all warm and cuddly and glad to see me,’ Billie confided sunnily.

As the helicopter rose in the air Gio leant closer, meshing long fingers into the tumble of her curls. He turned her face up and crushed her mouth under his in a breathtakingly hot kiss and that not only startled her, but also sent hunger crashing greedily through her body.

Billie rested disconcerted eyes on him in the aftermath. His lean, darkly beautiful face was slashed by a brilliant smile and he closed one hand firmly over hers. Wonderment filtered through Billie. There was something wrong but she didn’t know what it was...

CHAPTER NINE

BILLIE WALKED INTO the upmarket art gallery with one hand resting on Gio’s arm. The owner swam up to them wreathed in smiles. Wine was served while they were treated to a personalised tour of the exhibits. Billie was bored but worked hard not to show it, politely absorbing the pretentious descriptions of canvases that looked as though a toddler had thrown paint at them.

‘Do you see anything you like?’ Gio enquired, apparently surprised by his wife’s unresponsive silence.

‘I’m not an art buff. I sort of prefer more traditional paintings,’ she whispered back guiltily, and then she stiffened, staring across the gallery at the unmistakeable figure of Calisto, sheathed in a scarlet minidress and virtually impossible to miss.

‘What the hell...?’ Gio breathed irritably above her head.

‘I’ll deal with this,’ Billie announced, startling him, walking across the marble tiles with her wine glass clasped in one determined hand.

‘How did you know we were going to be here?’ Billie asked Gio’s ex-wife without hesitation.

Calisto’s ice-blue eyes glinted. ‘I have my sources, but aren’t you a little out of your depth in this milieu?’

‘I believe you’re the one out of your depth. Gio isn’t coming back to you,’ Billie responded stiffly. ‘This is a waste of your time.’

‘Oh, I don’t think so. Once I heard the terms of your pre-nup, I knew you would be on your way out almost as soon as you arrived,’ Calisto trilled with a scornful smirk. ‘You signed it without reading it, didn’t you? Silly, silly woman. Remember that when Gio dumps you back in the UK without your precious son!’

Billie refused to react in any way, determined not to give Calisto that much satisfaction. The woman hated her: she could see that. It was there in the dripping malevolence of her gaze and the sneering tone of her voice and Billie was challenged to understand what exactly she had done to incite such intense loathing. Simply marrying Gio? Her custody of Gio’s son? Or was Calisto still in love with Gio and feeling scorned by his rapid remarriage?