The Best Of The Year - Modern Romance

CHAPTER FOUR

LIKE AN ACCIDENT VICTIM, Billie sat up in the tangled and creased remnants of her clothes. She blinked and then the realisation of what had just happened kicked in and she hated herself with a virulence that literally hurt. In shock, she struggled to deal with a colossal self-betrayal. Gio would never believe she wanted to be left alone now, would he? Not when she glugged down a couple of glasses of wine over lunch with him as if they were old and dear friends and then got upset and still went to bed with him!

How could I have? Theo’s trusting little face below his mop of black curls swam inside her head. What had happened to her self-respect? She had wanted Gio with a desperate hunger that in retrospect shook her inside out. Had she missed sex that much? She fought her way into her knickers with clumsy, trembling hands. The bathroom door opened and she froze before sliding off the bed, gathering up her discarded clothing, locked in a cocoon of almost-sick mortification.

‘I didn’t plan for this to happen...’ Gio breathed curtly.

Engaged in getting her bra back on, it was as much as Billie could do to even spare a glance in his direction. She was surprised that he wasn’t sporting a triumphant smile because he had won and Gio liked to win much more than most people. It was the high-voltage combination of that essential drive, innate aggression and competitiveness that made Gio Letsos a global success.

‘Like I believe that,’ Billie framed dully while she slid into her dress because she knew how intensely manipulative and devious he could be. He used those qualities in business. She was quite sure he had used them on her and was still doing so. Conscience didn’t get much of a look-in with Gio when it came to anything he wanted.

‘Let me...’ He strode round the foot of the bed to run up her zip and she wanted to slap his hands away and scream, only that would have humiliated her even more by exposing just how much he had wounded her. ‘I didn’t plan it,’ he repeated.

‘Right, you didn’t plan it,’ Billie echoed like a well-taught parrot, pushing her feet into her shoes, wanting a shower badly but desperate to escape his presence and reach the sanctuary of her home and her son.

‘Next week you have your twenty-fifth birthday,’ Gio told her.

Billie grimaced. ‘My twenty-third—’

Gio looked back at her in bewilderment. ‘Twenty-fifth—’

‘I lied when we first met,’ Billie volunteered carelessly. ‘You said you didn’t date teenagers and I was nineteen, so I said I was two years older.’

Taken aback, Gio stared at her. ‘You lied? You were only nineteen?’

Billie nodded and shrugged. ‘What does it matter now?’

Biting back a sharp retort, Gio compressed his handsome mouth, his absolute trust in her taking a severe hit because right from the start of their acquaintance he had been disarmed by her apparent honesty. Aside of that he was less than pleased that he had taken a teenager to his bed without even realising it. It had been a much more unequal relationship than he had ever appreciated, he recognised grudgingly. He had been twenty-six years old and about a thousand years of sexual savoir faire and sophistication ahead of her.

‘Call me a taxi,’ she prompted in the strained silence. ‘I want to go home.’

‘We haven’t agreed anything yet—’

‘And we’re not going to,’ Billie interposed. ‘What just happened was an accident, a mistake...a case of familiarity breeding contempt, whatever you choose to call it. But it didn’t mean anything to either of us and it didn’t change anything...’

Billie waited for Gio to protest but the silence stretched and she was suddenly wretchedly, unhappily aware of how much that silence of agreement hurt. He had travelled from hot-pursuit mode to apparent indifference: it seemed the sex had acted like a miracle cure. And why was she surprised? She had always been surprised that Gio stayed interested in her. She had been surprised throughout their relationship, had never contrived to work out what he saw in her that he could not find in a more beautiful and glossier woman.

‘The limo will drop you back,’ Gio breathed flatly, his spectacular eyes veiled. ‘I have work to catch up on. My business team are joining me here within the hour. I’ll call you tomorrow.’

Shot from the conviction that she was being rejected to the news that once again she had read him wrong, Billie slowly shook her head. ‘There’s no point. End it here, Gio. Leave me alone. You go your way, I go mine. It’s the only sensible option after all this time.’

A sliver of dark fury shot through Gio that Billie should still feel detached enough to believe that she could easily walk away from him. This was the woman he had once believed loved him. This was the woman he had spent a fortune tracking down. Well, so much for love, he reflected without wonder at that change in her and her lack of appreciation for a persistent and flattering pursuit that many women would have killed to receive from him. Was his less-than-stellar performance between the sheets at fault? Shorn of his usual cool, he had been too fast and too eager. His perfect white teeth gritted.

‘You’re starting to offend me,’ Gio admitted with the disconcerting honesty he could occasionally employ to unsettle the opposition. He tugged out his phone and voiced terse instructions in Greek. ‘Perhaps it’s better that you leave now and think over what you’re doing.’

Billie flushed, hands linking tightly in front of her. ‘I’ve already thought—’

‘If I leave, I never come back,’ Gio spelt out in pure challenge. ‘Think carefully before I give you what you say you want.’

A pang of dismay shot through Billie. She wanted him to go away and leave her alone, of course she did. She didn’t have a single doubt. She had to protect Theo because Gio would hit the roof if he found out about him. His Greek family was very traditional and old-fashioned and children born on the proverbial wrong side of the blanket were not welcomed. She knew his father had had an illegitimate child with a lover, a half-sister of Gio’s, whom his family did not acknowledge or accept into their select circle.

Gio was finally coming round to her arguments, she decided, striving to feel pleased that her objections were finally getting through to him and being taken seriously. But just then, as Gio showed her back out to the lift and turned away again without a backward glance to vanish into his suite, it was impossible for Billie to feel good about anything that had happened. She was a mess inside and out and she hadn’t even brushed her hair. The mirrored wall in the lift showed a woman with a reddened swollen mouth, a wild torrent of tousled curls and guilty troubled eyes gritty with the tears she was denying. Did she blame the wine? Being sex-starved? Old memories and familiarity? Or did she have a fatal weakness called Gio Letsos? And without any warning, time was sweeping her boldly back to their very first meeting.

Billie’s grandfather had died when she was eleven. Seven years later, her grandma had passed away after a very long illness. The older woman had willed her house to a local charity and had essentially left Billie homeless. Billie had travelled down to London with another girl, moved into a hostel and found work as a cleaner in a luxury block of apartments. She had cleaned Gio’s palatial apartment daily for several months before she met him.

Before she’d entered any apartment she had rung the bell to check whether anyone was at home and there had been no answer that day. Billie had been dusting shelves in the vast open-plan living area when a sudden unexpected noise had made her jump in fright. Whirling round, she had belatedly realised that there was a man lying slumped on one of the sofas. For an instant she had believed he was asleep, but his dark golden brown eyes had opened to stare at her and he had immediately begun trying to sit up, his movements clumsy and uncoordinated. She had watched in shock as, instead of standing, he had ended up rolling off the sofa and falling heavily to the polished wooden floor.

‘For goodness’ sake...are you all right?’ she had exclaimed, wondering if he was in a drunken stupor.

But having grown up with a grandfather and school friends who liked to overindulge in alcohol at every opportunity, Billie had trusted her ability to recognise when someone was drunk. Gio had tried and failed to lift his head and he had groaned. She had noted that there was no sign of a bottle or a glass anywhere and no smell of drink before she had finally risked moving closer to see if he was simply ill.

‘Flu...’ he had mumbled, ridiculously long black lashes dropping back down over his stunning eyes as if even the effort of speech was too much for him.

Billie had rested cool fingers fleetingly on his forehead and registered that he was running one heck of a fever. ‘I think you need an ambulance,’ she had whispered.

‘No...doctor...phone,’ he had framed with difficulty, patting the pocket of his business suit jacket.

Billie had dug out the phone for him and slotted it into his hand. He had fumbled with buttons and cursed. ‘No, you do it.’

But the contacts list had been written in some weird script that was definitely not the alphabet and most probably a foreign equivalent. She had had to shake his shoulder to bring that to his attention and with some difficulty at focusing he had stabbed out the name for her and she had had to make the call to the doctor for him. Mercifully the doctor had spoken English and, sounding very concerned about the male he’d referred to as ‘Gio’, he had promised to be with them in twenty minutes.

Feeling uncomfortable but knowing she had to wait to let the doctor into the apartment, Billie had got on with the cleaning while Gio had lain there on the floor. She had felt helpless and useless because he was simply too big and heavy in build for her to lift him in an effort to make him more comfortable. The doctor, young and fit, had been shocked to see Gio lying on the floor and had immediately hauled him up and practically carried him into the first bedroom off the corridor.

Ten minutes later, the doctor had sought her out in the kitchen. ‘He’s a workaholic and he’s exhausted, which is probably why he’s ill. It’s a bad dose of the flu and he won’t go to hospital. I’ll bring back his prescription and look into getting a private nurse...in the short term, can you stay for a while? He shouldn’t be alone but I’m on emergency call—’

‘I’m only here to clean and I’m already behind,’ Billie had explained apologetically. ‘I should be starting on the apartment next door—’

‘Gio owns the building. He’s probably the man who signs your pay cheque through the management company. I wouldn’t worry about the place next door,’ the doctor had told her drily. ‘He asked for you to go in and see him—’

‘But why?’

The doctor had shrugged on his way out. ‘Maybe he wants to thank you for being a good Samaritan. You could’ve run and left him lying there.’

She had knocked on the bedroom door and when it wasn’t answered had peeped in, seeing Gio sprawled naked but for a pair of black silk pyjama trousers on the biggest bed she had ever seen. Even ill, pale below his olive skin and fast asleep, he had been the most beautiful specimen of masculinity she had ever seen, from his ruffled black curly hair to his unshaven chin and his incredibly impressive bronzed and muscular torso and flat stomach.

She had cleaned the guest bathrooms, waited an hour and then gone back into the bedroom, finding him awake.

‘Do you need anything?’

‘Water would be welcome...what’s your name?’ he had asked limply, breathing heavily as he’d tried to sit up but had lurched sideways instead.

‘Billie.’

‘Short for?’

‘Billie. Do you want me to fix your pillows?’

And she had fixed the pillows and straightened the sheet and fetched him a glass of water. He had seemed stunned by the discovery that she cleaned his apartment regularly sight unseen.

‘There’s never much to do here,’ she had admitted. ‘You don’t seem to use the kitchen.’

‘I travel a lot, eat out or order in when I’m here.’

The bell had buzzed. ‘That’ll be the nurse the doctor mentioned,’ she remarked.

‘I don’t need a nurse.’

‘You’re too weak and sick to be left alone,’ Billie had informed him bluntly.

‘I was hoping you’d hang around...’

‘I have other apartments to cleanI’ll be working late tonight as it is,’ she had said before she hurried to answer the door to a beautiful uniformed blonde with the face of a madonna.

The next morning when she had clocked in, her manager had emerged from his office to say, ‘You’ve been seconded full-time to Mr Letsos’ apartment until further notice.’

‘But how...why on earth? Full-time?’ she had queried in astonishment.

‘The order came down from higher up. Maybe the guy had a party last night and needs the place gutted,’ he had muttered without interest. ‘It’s not our business to question why.’

She had used the bell but nobody had answered and she had let herself in with her pass key, moving quietly round the silent apartment before knocking on the bedroom door.

‘Where’s the nurse?’ she had asked straight away.

Even more badly in need of a shave and still flat on the pillows, Gio had given her a wry look. ‘She tried to get into bed with me... I told her to leave.’

Thoroughly disconcerted by that bald admission, Billie had surveyed him wide-eyed, recognising the level of his primal male attraction even in sickness. He was gorgeous. Just looking at him had made butterflies take flight in her tummy.

‘For that reason, I hope you don’t mind that I arranged for you to take care of me because you haven’t demonstrated any desire to get into bed with me—’

Billie had reddened to the roots of her hair. ‘Of course not...how did you arrange it?’

‘Do you mind?’

‘What would taking care of you entail?’ Billie had prompted suspiciously. ‘I’m no nurse—’

‘I haven’t eaten since breakfast yesterday,’ Gio had confided, stunning lustrous dark eyes locking onto hers in clear search of sympathy. ‘Food would be very welcome.’

She had felt sorry for him, had even contrived to feel guilty that she hadn’t offered him a meal the day before. And after all, taking care of the sick was pretty much all Billie had done from the age of eleven right up until her grandmother had passed away. For the following three days, Billie had done what came naturally without fuss or fanfare. She had looked after Gio, shopping for him, cooking meals, changing the bed, passing out his medication and arguing with him every time he prematurely announced that he was well enough to get out of bed because his state of exhaustion was still etched in his pallor and sunken eyes. Indeed she had established an amazingly easy camaraderie with Gio Letsos that took no note whatsoever of their divergent status in life and she had laughed out loud when he had announced that he would take her out to dinner as a thank you as soon as he was stronger.

‘What age are you?’ he had suddenly demanded, staring at her. ‘I don’t date teenagers.’

And the minute that Billie had appreciated that the dinner suggestion could actually be described as a date, she had lied without shame to fulfil the conditions of acceptance because any kind of a date with a male like Gio had struck her as a dream come true.

As the images of the past receded, Billie swallowed hard, shaken up by those recollections and her own innocence, for in those days she had very definitely viewed Gio as a knight on a white horse. He had seemed so perfect to her, so very considerate and courteous. Well, she conceded painfully, she knew how well that belief had turned out... Gio could say the most dreadful things in the politest way without even raising his voice. He could graciously open the door for you while saying something that flayed the skin from your bones and ripped your heart to shreds. His superb manners and self-control had only added another layer of pain to the end game because he was clever enough to voice intolerable expectations in an acceptable, seemingly civilised way.

* * *

That same day the head of Gio’s security, Damon Kitzakis, came to see him after dinner. Wearing a rare air of discomfiture for a man who was generally very relaxed with his employer, Damon hovered and took his time about speaking up.

‘Something worrying you?’ Gio encouraged with a frown.

‘As you instructed, Stavros has been keeping an eye on Miss Smith and in the course of doing that he got chatting to one of her neighbours,’ Damon volunteered stiffly. ‘Quite accidentally he picked up something you probably already know about...of course, but—’

Gio was steadily becoming very still behind the desk, his broad shoulders taut. ‘What is this something?’

‘Miss Smith has a child.’

Gio shot him a startled look. ‘The woman she lives with has kids.’

Damon winced. ‘Apparently when...Miss Smith moved in when she was pregnant. The youngest kid...the baby...is hers.’

Suddenly something was buzzing in Gio’s head, interfering with his ability to think clearly. He blinked rapidly, fighting to clear his thoughts. Billie had a baby, another man’s child. There had been another man. Theos, he should never have approached her in advance of seeing the background report he had yet to receive from Henley. This was his reward for his ridiculous impatience, he reflected grimly. The least she could have done was tell him, he thought then with the dull, unfeeling anger of shock.