The Best Of The Year - Modern Romance

‘People make mistakes, people change, turn their lives around. Don’t be so narrow-minded!’ Billie urged, stricken, appalled that he had uncovered her cousin’s troubled history and leapt straight to a disparaging conclusion.

Dee had got involved with an older man in her teens and had dropped out of school and ended up as a drug addict on the streets. Dee had been brutally honest with Billie about her past and Billie had tremendous respect for the amount of work and effort the other woman had put into making a fresh start for her and the twins.

‘I’m glad for her sake that she’s turned her life around but I still don’t want her anywhere near my son,’ Gio growled without apology. ‘How do you know she’s not still turning tricks at the bar where she works at night?’

‘Because I know her and how much she values what she has now!’ Billie slammed back furiously.

‘I want my son out of this house right now,’ Gio admitted. ‘I want the two of you to move into my hotel with me until we get this situation sorted out.’

Wildly disconcerted by that demand, Billie stared back at him. ‘No,’ she said straight away.

‘Say no and take the consequences,’ Gio drawled softly, chillingly.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘That I will use whatever I have against you to make the case for gaining custody of my son,’ Gio advanced with measured force. ‘I will go to social services with my concerns and they are bound by law to investigate.’

‘I don’t believe I’m hearing this!’ Billie exclaimed jerkily, appalled by what he was telling her and cringing at the prospect of Dee being investigated once again by suspicious hypercritical officials, who would disinter the past that Dee had worked so hard to leave behind her. ‘You’re threatening me and my cousin!’

‘If it is in my son’s best interests, there’s nothing I won’t do for his benefit,’ Gio intoned harshly. ‘He is my primary concern here. I don’t care what it takes or who else it hurts but I will always do my absolute best for him by whatever means possible.’

‘How can you feel like that about a son you haven’t even met yet?’ Billie demanded shakily.

‘Because he has my blood in his veins. He is mine, he is a Letsos and I must fight his battles for him because it is my duty to do that while he is still too young to have a voice.’ Gio glanced down at the wafer-thin gold watch barely visible below his immaculate white shirt cuff. ‘You have fifteen minutes to pack.’

‘Leaving here is absolutely out of the question.’

‘No, it is your one chance to escape the penalty for defying me. If I leave this house without my son today, I will fight to win custody and I will use whatever means are at my disposal,’ Gio warned her with chilling bite.

Her eyes rounding, Billie’s upper lip parted company from her lower. ‘You’re not being reasonable!’

‘Why would I be? You’ve stolen the first fifteen months of my son’s life from me,’ Gio pronounced with lethal cool. ‘How can you be surprised that I refuse to allow you to steal one day more?’

In receipt of that caveat, Billie could feel the blood draining slowly from below her skin, shock smacking through her in a dizzy wave. He was angry, he was bitter, but he couldn’t possibly be thinking through what he was doing. ‘Are you crazy? Theo needs both of us,’ she told him tightly.

His lean, strong face clenched hard. ‘Of course he does...in a perfect world. And this, I need hardly remind you, is not a perfect world.’

‘Where are you planning to make time for a baby in your schedule?’ Billie demanded with scorn. ‘You won’t. You don’t really want him. You’re behaving as if Theo is some kind of a trophy.’

‘Pack,’ Gio urged, one long brown forefinger tapping his watch face. ‘You need only bring what you need for twenty-four hours. Naturally I will cover any necessities you need.’

Frozen to the spot, Billie stared at him, unwilling to believe that he could threaten everything she held dear in her life on the strength of what could only be a whim. ‘Gio—’

‘Not one word,’ Gio cut in fiercely. ‘I want my son. You’ve had all the time with him that you ever wanted. It’s my turn now and I’m taking it.’

Billie reached a sudden decision. She would go to the hotel and allow Gio the time and space to get acquainted with Theo. Surely that major concession would cool his temper and calm him down? Sadly, she couldn’t feel sure of the outcome. Gio’s anger was shockingly new to her and she could still feel that anger sizzling from him in invisible sparks that could ignite into an explosion. Right now, opposition would probably only make him angrier and given a few hours’ respite he would surely cool off and develop a more practical outlook, she reasoned frantically.

Billie withdrew a case from the hall cupboard and carried it up to her room. She packed the basics for herself and her son and then went downstairs to throw Theo’s feeding essentials into a holdall. In the kitchen she scribbled a note to Dee, telling her where she had gone and that she would phone.

‘Dee won’t be able to work tonight if I’m not here to babysit for her,’ Billie protested as she pulled on a light cotton jacket. Beneath the onslaught of Gio’s appraisal she suddenly felt like a complete mess and she turned her head away, stiff with self-loathing. Her toffee-coloured corkscrew curls were never going to compare to Calisto’s blade-straight blonde locks. Her hips were never going to be boyishly lean, nor would her boobs ever be dainty handfuls. Short of a body transplant, she was what she was. Wearing only a smattering of make-up, she looked very ordinary. It was ironic that she was so casually dressed because she hadn’t wanted Gio to think that she had made a special effort for him. It was not a comfort that looking less than her best now felt like striking an own goal.

‘I’ll hire a babysitter for your cousin.’

‘I can’t let her down like this, Gio. It took so long for her to find a job with hours that suited.’

‘I said I’ll take care of it and I will,’ Gio incised, grabbing her case from the hall and yanking open the front door, determined to let nothing come between him and his ultimate objective. ‘Trust me.’

His chauffeur was waiting on the step to collect her case. After a moment’s hesitation, Billie passed over her holdall as well, snatched a tiny jacket off the handles of the pram below the stairs and went up to lift Theo out of his cot. Trust me! Perhaps the strangest thing was that she did trust Gio because he had told her the truth even when she didn’t want to hear it and he had never broken his word to her.

Her son was sleepy and warm as toast. She nuzzled her cheek against his smooth skin and breathed in his glorious baby scent before threading his short little arms into the jacket. Even in the very dark mood he was in, Gio had stated that their son needed both of his parents, she reminded herself staunchly. He wasn’t trying to split them up; he was only making threats to make her listen and do what he wanted. Possibly all he really wanted was a couple of days with free access to Theo so that he could get to know him and he couldn’t have that opportunity without including Billie in the arrangements.

A built-in safety seat for a child sat in the rear seat of the limousine. Billie settled Theo in and did up the buckle while her son craned his head to stare at Gio with big brown eyes. Silence fell while the two of them sized each other up. Gio had a cell phone in his hand and the light danced across the metallic finish. Theo stretched out a hand to grab the phone and Billie was incredulous when Gio handed it over.

‘You can’t give him that!’ Billie exclaimed as the phone went straight into Theo’s mouth to be chewed. ‘He tries to eat everything.’

Billie filched the phone back. Theo looked at his empty hand and wailed while Billie passed the phone back to Gio out of her son’s view. She dug a toy out of the holdall to give her son. He studied it with a jutting lower lip and threw it down.

‘He wants the phone back,’ Gio breathed in wonderment.

‘Of course he does...it’s got lots of buttons. The brightest, shiniest new toy always gets his interest.’

They drew up outside the hotel. Billie climbed out and leant back into the car to unbuckle Theo but Gio was one step ahead of her and was already hoisting Theo into his arms. She followed them into the hotel. Theo loved new places just as much as new toys and his curly dark head was turning this way and that with keen interest. Billie stepped into the lift. Theo beamed at her from the vantage point of his father’s arms, clearly very pleased with the exchange.

Billie was surprised to enter a different suite from the one that Gio had previously used. ‘Have you changed to another floor?’

‘Of course, we needed more space,’ Gio pointed out while Theo frantically wriggled in his arms. With a sigh, Gio gave way and gently lowered Theo to the wooden floor. The little boy crawled off at high speed, grabbed at the leg of a fancy sofa and hauled himself upright, grinning with satisfaction.

‘Theo’s a clever boy,’ Billie praised warmly.

Her son’s sturdy little legs began to wobble and he toppled down onto his bottom in a sudden loss of balance and burst into floods of tears. Gio scooped him up again and held him high above his head. In his usual mercurial fashion, Theo forgot his moment of misery and burst out laughing instead at finding himself airborne. Gio made aeroplane noises like a little boy and whirled his son energetically round the room while Billie watched with a dropped jaw, not entirely sure that she could credit what she was seeing. Gio, shedding his dignity and distance, Gio smiling with unabashed enjoyment.

‘It’s time he had lunch,’ Billie remarked.

The game between father and son concluded. A high chair was delivered along with the case and Billie started to feed Theo, who wanted to feed himself and complained vociferously between mouthfuls until she finally gave him the spoon. Theo stuck the spoon in the carton of yogurt with a victorious smile. Billie was still in a daze, her mind still engaged in replaying Gio acting as she had never before seen him act. Only an hour earlier, he had been threatening her with an adverse report to social services.

It had been an utterly ruthless threat that had chilled Billie to the marrow. A couple of years earlier, before Dee began getting her life straightened out, Dee’s children had been put into care. Although she had got the twins back again and no longer even received visits to check on her progress, any allegation of negligent childcare made against the household where Dee lived would certainly result in a full investigation being made by the authorities. Billie could not bear the threat of that happening to her cousin again. It would flatten Dee’s confidence, make her feel like an unfit mother again and if people realised that social services were checking up on her it would rouse local gossip. There was very little that Billie would not have done to protect Dee from such a development.

Yet the same male who had voiced that chilling threat had shown an entirely different side of himself to their son. With Theo, Gio had been playful, uninhibited, almost joyful, three traits she would never ever have associated with Gio’s cool, calm and reserved nature. She recognised that Gio’s interest in his son was considerably more powerful than she had ever dreamt it would be and she wondered uneasily where that left her in the triangle. He had said he wanted his son. What exactly did that mean?

Gio strode into one of the rooms leading off the spacious reception room and reappeared in jeans and a trendy striped cotton sweater. Billie couldn’t drag her eyes from his lean, dark, devastating face as he watched entranced while Theo piled up his bricks and smashed them down again, giggling at the noise he was making. The tight jeans delineated every muscle in Gio’s long, powerful thighs and narrow hips as he squatted down on the floor beside Theo. Billie’s gaze ran over his washboard-flat stomach to the bulge below his belt and she averted her eyes, as hot and cold as someone with a fever. And mortifyingly, she knew precisely what was wrong with her. The kind of craving she had for Gio didn’t go away, didn’t take a back seat when you wanted it to, didn’t fade when you knew it should; it just went on and on, the gift that kept on giving.

Sometimes wanting Gio had felt like a life sentence to Billie. Her pregnancy had only accelerated her exit from his life because she had been afraid that he might guess her secret. She had believed that that would be the ultimate humiliation because she had assumed that Gio would foist all the blame on her for her inconvenient pregnancy and make her feel dreadful as well as guilty and unworthy. Yet now he was telling her differently, insisting that he would never have suggested she have a termination.

Yet how much faith could she have in what Gio was currently saying? Gio, after all, was speaking with the benefit of hindsight, aware that his dynastic marriage was destined to fail. But two years ago that marriage had been very important to him and Billie’s pregnancy would have been a severe embarrassment at the very least. What on earth had he meant when he had sworn he would never have married had he known about Billie’s pregnancy?

It would never have occurred to Billie then that she could set the clock forward by two years and would see Gio, down on his jeans-clad knees, creating a precarious tower of bricks for Theo’s benefit and actually laughing when Theo smacked it down with a chubby fist.

‘You said you wanted Theo,’ Billie murmured quietly, having finally worked up the courage to press for answers. ‘What does that mean exactly?’

‘That now that I’ve found him, I’m not walking away again,’ Gio intoned, level dark golden eyes resting on her above Theo’s head. Such beautiful eyes he had that even thinking was a challenge when she looked at them.

‘No...er obviously,’ she managed gruffly, ‘you want to get to know him and stay in contact.’

Keeping very still, Gio lifted an ebony brow. ‘I want much more than that.’

‘How much more?’ she pressed, struggling to breathe while level with those stunning eyes of his.

A sardonic smile curled Gio’s wide sensual mouth. ‘I don’t like half measures...I want it all.’

‘And what does “all” encompass?’ Billie asked shakily.

Gio surveyed her with grim amusement. He had thought she would work it out for herself. He was ready to give her what she had always wanted from him and what he had never dreamt of offering before. Now he had very sound reasons for offering and anything else he gained as a by-product did not have to be measured or considered. The ever-ready pulse at his groin grew heavy while his attention roved to the deep valley between her full breasts, which was tantalisingly visible every time she angled her head down to speak to him. He wanted to rip her clothes off and slide between her thighs and stay there until he had worked off the powerful hunger riding him.

‘Gio...?’ she prompted, crystalline green eyes very serious.

‘I want it all...as in marriage,’ Gio filled in smoothly, long fingers smoothing back the curls on Theo’s brow as his son slumped back against him for support. ‘It’s the only serviceable option we have.’

CHAPTER SIX

‘LET ME GET this straight...’ Billie framed between bloodless lips, barely able to credit what he was implying. ‘You’re suggesting that we get married?’

‘If we marry, Theo’s birth is automatically legitimised under British law.’

‘But that scarcely matters when anyone who knows his age will guess that he was born while you were married to another woman,’ Billie pointed out flatly.

‘That’s immaterial. The end result is what I want most—Theo legitimised, his place as my heir legally secured and recognised,’ Gio spelt out very quietly, his dark, velvet drawl lowered to the level of an insidious husky murmur. ‘That is his birthright and I want him to have it.’

‘Even if it means you have to marry me to achieve that?’ Billie prompted in disbelief.

‘You will marry me for his sake and I will marry you for the same reason. We’re responsible for his birth and we should put him first,’ Gio told her squarely. ‘We owe him that.’

Her skin clammy with disconcertion, Billie was trembling where she sat. Long, long ago, she had dreamt of being Gio’s wife, indeed she had dreamt the whole fairy tale before being forced to accept in the most painful way possible that it was just a fantasy. She could hardly bring herself to accept that he was actually talking about marrying her because it was like opening a locked door to let the silly fairy tale back in. She wrapped her arms protectively round herself. ‘And you’re quite sure that Theo’s rights as your heir couldn’t be secured any other way?’

‘I could have legal agreements drawn up to officially acknowledge him as my son but nothing of that nature would be as watertight as marriage to his mother. In such agreements there is almost always a loophole or an irregularity and a clever enough lawyer can always find those weaknesses and build on them to make a claim.’

‘And who on earth do you think is likely to make a claim?’ Billie pressed in wonderment, sufficiently challenged to even picture her infant son as a child of future means.

‘Have you any idea how wealthy I am?’ Gio asked with lethal quietness of tone. ‘Or of the lengths even wealthy people will go to in an effort to enrich themselves or their children even more?’

‘Probably not,’ she conceded ruefully, knowing when she was out of her depth.

‘When I was fourteen, my stepmother tried to have me disinherited from the family trust in favour of her son, who was eight years old. The claim was only thrown out of court when my grandfather was able to prove that her son was not his grandson,’ Gio completed.

Billie was sharply disconcerted, never having had any suspicion that Gio’s place in his family had been challenged before he even reached adulthood. She frowned, shaken on Gio’s behalf, wondering what on earth his childhood could have been like with such a spiteful and grasping stepmother and finally comprehending his fears on Theo’s behalf.

‘We can get married within a matter of days,’ Gio told her smoothly, as if he had already worked out that he had won the battle. ‘After the ceremony, we’ll fly out to Greece and I’ll introduce my wife and child to my family.’

Quite unable to credit such an event even taking place with her in a starring role, Billie sprang out of her seat and walked over to the window. ‘That would be crazy, me trying to pretend I was your wife... We can’t do this!’

‘You will be my wife, you won’t be pretending. What it comes down to is...how much do you love your son?’ Gio enquired with almost casual cruelty.

Billie went rigid. ‘That’s not fair!’

‘Isn’t it? You chose to make yourself solely responsible for Theo and his future happiness. I’m only asking you to make good on your mistakes and ensure that he receives everything that should be his by right of birth,’ he asserted glibly.

Billie inwardly squirmed at the accusation that she had made a serious mistake where Theo was concerned in not immediately informing Gio that he had a child, but the reference to Greece had sent her thoughts racing in another direction. ‘If the marriage is only a legal formality why would you need me to accompany you to Greece?’

‘Would you allow me to take Theo to Greece without you?’ Gio asked in apparent surprise.

‘No!’ Billie proclaimed instantly.

‘And while the marriage may appear to be little more than a legal formality to you,’ Gio continued in the same reasonable tone, ‘it is essential that it appears to be a normal marriage.’

Billie closed her arms round herself again, feeling threatened, cornered, bewildered, fighting that disorientation on every level as her chin tilted and her green eyes flared bold and bright as emeralds. ‘But why should it have to appear normal?’ she demanded.

‘Do you want our son to feel guilty when he’s older that you were forced to marry me for his benefit?’ Gio enquired.

Billie frowned. ‘Of course not—’

‘Making it seem normal is a whitewash. There’s nothing I can do about that,’ Gio swore, manipulating the argument to the very best of his ability, flexing a level of cunning he had never utilised on Billie before. ‘The more people who accept that the marriage is normal, the fewer the awkward questions that will be asked and the less comment it will create.’

‘Nobody’s going to accept that you freely chose to marry your mistress!’ Billie slashed back at him angrily, hating to use that label on herself but willing to use it if it forced him to see sense.

‘But we are the only people who know that you were my mistress. We didn’t broadcast the fact and now we can be grateful that we kept a low profile. Ne...yes, you’ve had my child,’ Gio conceded, sliding fluidly upright and moving towards her. ‘All that proves is that we had a relationship.’

Billie clashed with spectacular dark eyes and her heart raced. ‘All that proves is that we had, at least, a one-night stand.’

‘Diavelos...you’re not a one-night-stand woman and no man looking at you could believe that one night would be enough, pouli mou,’ Gio purred soft and low, closing his hands firmly over hers to draw her close to his lean, powerful body. ‘You will be my wife, the mother of my son. You will have nothing to be embarrassed about...’

It was a seductive image because Billie had always been embarrassed about the reality of her relationship with Gio. He had not been her knight on a white horse and she had not been his one true love. Her power had never stretched beyond the bedroom door and that was a demeaning truth that Billie had always felt shamed by, for what sort of woman settled for that kind of half-relationship? Her hands trembled in the grasp of his. A whitewash, he called it. But to the woman whose heart he had broken, and in spite of the fact that love wasn’t involved, it still seemed more like a fairy tale to be offered what he had once tacitly refused to offer her.

‘I can’t leave Dee or the shop to go to Greece,’ Billie told him abruptly. ‘It’s impossible. The shop is my livelihood and I can’t just up and leave it...’

Gio closed his arms round her. Freed, one of her hands skimmed up over his muscular torso and came to rest uncertainly on a broad shoulder while the other lifted of its own volition to delve into his cropped black hair. ‘I’ll look after everything,’ he told her.

‘I have to have my independence,’ Billie muttered unsteadily, her mouth drying and her breathing quickening as he ran the tip of his tongue along the closed seam of her lips. Her mouth tingled, stinging tightness pinching her nipples to send a current of liquefied heat into her pelvis. ‘Listen to me, Gio,’ she urged even as her fingers massaged his well-shaped skull, fluffing up the short strands of hair that were never allowed to amount to curls.

Gio rocked his hips lightly against hers and she tensed, suddenly insanely aware of his arousal and her own. ‘Theo’s my son. It’s my duty to look after both of you.’

With a mighty effort of self-control, Billie yanked herself back from Gio and temptation. He could always make her want him but she could not afford to be stretched thin by that fierce wanting while she was trying to concentrate on the need to conserve her own life. With a slight shudder of loss, she straightened her slight shoulders and breathed in deep and slow to compose her scattered wits.

‘Sell the shop or let me hire a manager for it. You decide which option will suit you best,’ Gio urged, his lean dark features taut with impatience.

Billie looked at him with wide eyes of disbelief. ‘Gio...I worked very hard to build up my business. You can’t expect me to walk away from it.’

‘Not even for Theo?’ Gio prompted, glancing down at the little boy now clinging precariously to his jeans-clad leg and gazing up at both of them. ‘Our son needs both of us and will do for some time. I want a normal family rapport with him. At the very least you will have to relocate your life to London, so that I can have regular access to him.’