The Best Of The Year - Modern Romance

Billie was silenced. Suddenly she was the one at fault for straining their relationship beyond tolerance. Wide-eyed she stared back at him, the atmosphere dense and sending a curious little quiver through her belly. ‘So...we...er call it off now and go our separate ways?’ she whispered shakily.

Gio stared at her in rampant disbelief, his dark eyes golden-bronze spearheads of intimidation at the mere thought of her pulling a disappearing act again. ‘You’re not going anywhere without me.’

Billie didn’t understand because that sudden shock of fear had destroyed her ability to think straight. Her heart was jumping up and down inside her ribcage like a rubber ball being bounced and making it very hard for her to breathe.

‘Ever again,’ Gio growled in menacing completion as he scooped her up in his arms and brought her down on the bed.

‘What are you doing?’ Billie gasped. ‘Gio...my dress!’

Gio came down on top of her, almost squashing her flat. ‘Stop struggling...you’re more likely to rip something.’

Billie looked up at him with huge disconcerted eyes. ‘Gio...we can’t...this isn’t the answer to anything.’

Gio rubbed his mouth sexily across hers with a sensual groan. ‘It’s the only answer for me.’

‘You’re wrecking my make-up,’ she framed unevenly, fingertips dancing shyly through his cropped black hair, slowly dropping to frame his amazing cheekbones.

‘You don’t need make-up,’ Gio told her thickly.

‘Every bride needs make-up,’ Billie argued, trying to slide unobtrusively out from beneath his weight without shredding her dress.

He lowered his head and devoured her mouth with a hungry driving urgency that made her every sense shift into superdrive with piercingly sweet longing. The taste and scent of him infiltrated her like a dangerous drug, blowing her control out of the water. ‘I won’t wreck the dress,’ he promised, lifting his hips to tip the bundled skirt of her gown up to her waist.

‘Gio...’ Billie whispered pleadingly even as her back arched and her pelvis rocked up to his without her volition.

‘Diavelos, Billie...I hurt,’ he ground out, his breath fanning her cheek while he shifted revealingly against her, grinding the thrust of his erection into the cradle of her thighs.

And low down in her pelvis, deep in her feminine core a surge of moisture dampened her most tender flesh and she started to melt. ‘We can’t...we haven’t got the time.’

‘We’ll make time,’ he husked, yanking out his phone as it buzzed, clamping it to his ear and talking in fast Greek to a male voice that sounded both loud and agitated. ‘Our day, nobody else’s,’ he spelled out fiercely.

Long fingers glided up her inner thigh, leaving tingles of humming energy in their wake. Her eyes closing, her head fell back on the pillows, her neck extending as her spine arched. Her heart was racing thump-thump-thump at the foot of her throat. He stroked the taut triangle of satin between her thighs and the only thing in the world for her at that moment was the stupendous high of excitement and anticipation holding her fast. With a yank, Gio dislodged her bodice sufficiently to expose a creamy breast topped by a pale pink nipple. He closed his mouth urgently to that swollen peak and a stifled gasp escaped her, eyes squeezing tight shut.

‘I need to know you’re mine,’ Gio growled against her throat.

He eased a finger below her lace-edged knickers and stroked along the petal-soft folds. Her thighs opened wider in helpless invitation and when he rubbed the little bud where she was most sensitive she moaned and shifted her hips, urging him on, helpless in the grip of the savage need he could induce. He thrust a long finger into her tight, wet sheath and she jerked, on the edge of crying out until he clamped his mouth to hers to silence the sounds she was making. The rhythmic play of his fingers over her tender flesh sent ripples of throbbing excitement through her. As the tension in her pelvis rose to an all-consuming ache that was unbearable, her every muscle clenched tight and she soared to a breathless shattering peak of ecstasy while biting the shoulder of his jacket to mute the sob of release building up inside her.

‘Oh...’ she mumbled afterwards, her body as languorous as a floating beach ball.

Gio’s phone was screeching in his pocket. Scanning her dreamy face, he switched it off with an unsteady hand. Strangely, although he was still taut with sexual arousal, the inner tension driving him had dissolved. He felt like himself again for the first time in four days and snapped straight into rescue mode, propelling Billie off the bed, repositioning her bodice, brushing down the skirt of her gown before urging her into the bathroom where he stared in all male helplessness at the crushed veil hanging askew, the curls positively rioting round it and the smudges of the lipstick he had dislodged.

‘Good grief,’ Billie groaned, catching her mangled reflection. ‘Gio, you’re a menace.’

Gio washed with enviable cool and ran a comb through his tousled hair. A sharp knock sounded on the bedroom door and it opened the merest crack. ‘The cars have arrived, Mr Letsos. We cannot be late...’ It was Damon Kitzakis’ voice.

‘I’ll get your friend to help you,’ Gio breathed in sudden decision.

Billie was in full bridal panic mode, scanning her swollen mouth and tumbled hair and veil with withering scorn. You should have said no, she told herself furiously. Why didn’t you say no? Why had she, once again, failed to call a halt? Sex had always been a slippery slope with Gio. She couldn’t keep her hands off him, she couldn’t resist his passion but she was convinced that he would respect her more if she was less spontaneous and more restrained. Yet he had received no satisfaction whatsoever from what they had done, she acknowledged in surprise as she waged a frantic war on her rebellious curls and hurriedly repaired her make-up.

Gio reappeared in the bathroom doorway, lean, strong face taut. ‘Damon thought it best that your cousin, her children and Irene and Theo leave immediately for the church. You’re travelling with Leandros and me.’

Billie turned from the mirror. ‘But you and your best man are supposed to arrive first.’

‘You can wait in the church porch for ten minutes, koukla mou,’ Gio pointed out, lustrous dark eyes gleaming with sudden amusement. ‘Why do you take all these silly little rules so seriously?’

Billie went pink and lifted her chin. ‘I assume all brides do the same.’

Gio closed a hand over hers and pulled her towards the lift, sweeping her off her feet before she could reach the pavement and depositing her in a vast tumbling heap of lace and chiffon into the stretch limousine waiting by the kerb.

Billie forced a smile when Leandros Conistis looked at them both in frank astonishment. The heat of almost unbearable embarrassment engulfed her in a burning tide because she had never forgotten her one and only meeting with Gio’s best friend and the incredulous look on his face that evening when he had realised that she had never heard of Canaletto.

Leandros tossed a handkerchief at Gio. ‘You have lipstick on your face.’

Billie’s mortification did not abate at that aside; indeed it worsened. Now the other man would think that she was not only stupid but also a slut with no idea of how to behave like a dignified bride. Even though she knew she was being ridiculously oversensitive, she could not overcome her attack of self-consciousness. Dee helped her climb out of the limousine and ushered her into the porch where she admired the pearl set, teased her cousin about what she saw as Gio’s wildly romantic gesture at showing up at the apartment before the wedding and then fussed with the skirts of Billie’s gown before checking that her daughter, Jade, was still carrying her basket and flowers and Davis, his lucky horseshoe.

Walking down the aisle of the half-empty church some minutes later, her hand resting lightly on her cousin’s arm, Billie was earnestly instructing herself that she was not living a fairy tale and striving not to react to the lean dark charisma of Gio’s sheer beauty as he looked down the aisle, brilliant dark eyes glimmering gold.

‘This is your dream,’ Dee whispered unhelpfully at that exact same moment. ‘Stop fretting...enjoy your moment in the sun.’

Billie recalled the vanishing act that Gio had pulled in Yorkshire, her own frustrated rage, and breathed in deep. So, he wasn’t straightforward, he was complex, secretive and arrogant, but as she focused on his tall, dark, powerful figure at the altar her heart sang its own deeply revealing signature tune. That was when she recognised and accepted the truth—the truth that vanity had made her deny. Gio was the man she loved, very probably would always be the man she loved, regardless of what he did in the future, because she was very steady in her affections.

Acknowledging the strength of her feelings was like breaking free of a constricting band round her chest. She had never got over Gio and now he was back and they had a child and she was about to become his wife. Instead of expecting, indeed almost inviting the roof to fall in on her, wasn’t it time she went for a little positive thinking? And it was at that instant of sunny, optimistic thought with her emotions on a high that her eyes zeroed in on the blue-eyed blonde keenly studying her two pews back from the front. Her heart and her body froze in concert and even her feet became reluctant to do her bidding. Dee had to use momentum to move Billie on down the aisle.

Calisto was a guest at their very small wedding. Billie was in shock. What did Calisto’s presence today of all days mean? Her hand trembled as Gio slid the ring onto her wedding finger. Her skin was clammy with shock, her knees in a rigid hold. In her mind’s eye she was seeing not the priest but Calisto, her tiny proportions sheathed in a killer-blue fitted dress and lace jacket, a jaunty little feather confection adorning her head, waterfall-straight platinum-pale hair falling to her shoulders, framing a face of such perfection that angels would weep to look at it. In print she had been a beauty; in the flesh she was downright dazzling, setting a standard that Billie could never hope to reach. A deep chill spread through Billie like an unexpected frost on a summer day.

‘What’s your ex-wife doing here?’ Billie whispered shakily on the church steps as the society photographer and his assistant got them to pose with linked hands.

Gio massaged the tender skin of her wrist with his thumbs, sending a delicious little thrill of awareness trickling through her tense body. ‘Haven’t a clue, but it wouldn’t have been polite to ask her to leave.’

‘Perhaps not.’ Billie was in two minds about what being polite entailed in such circumstances. ‘But how did she know about the wedding?’

Gio sent her a frowning glance. ‘Naturally I told her about it. It would’ve been bad manners to let her find out from anyone else. Cal probably thinks that showing up is the socially “hip” thing to do. She likes to be “hip”,’ he completed drily.

Billie was sharply disconcerted by the news that Gio was still on good enough terms with his former wife to have automatically informed her of his remarriage. The comfortable way he referred to Calisto with the fond diminutive ‘Cal’ bothered her even more although she was quick to question her own reaction. Not all ex-wives and husbands loathed each other and it was perfectly possible that Calisto had turned up simply out of curiosity. And who could blame her for that? Gio and Calisto had only been divorced for a couple of months at most. She glanced across to where Calisto stood in animated conversation with Leandros and two other Greek friends.

‘She’s very friendly with everyone,’ Billie remarked gingerly, quite frankly envying the blonde’s confident assumption of her welcome. Calisto evidently didn’t feel the slightest bit uncomfortable attending her ex-husband’s wedding and Billie struggled to be equally accepting of the blonde’s presence.

‘Cal is Leandros’ first cousin,’ Gio advanced. ‘And one of my lawyers is her stepbrother. She probably knows virtually everybody here.’

Dismay at those previously unknown close connections assailed Billie and her unease only increased when she saw Calisto climb with a tinkling girlish giggle into a limo with the three men. A wedding breakfast was being served at an exclusive London hotel. She seriously hoped Calisto wasn’t going to push her way in there as well. It was a hope destined to disappointment, however, because the first person Billie saw in the foyer was Calisto, beaming smile all over her perfect face as she surged forward to kiss Gio on both cheeks and beg sweetly for an introduction to Billie.

‘I’ve already met your son...what a little darling!’ Calisto gushed, all dimples and flapping fake lashes. ‘And what a clever, clever girl you are to have brought such a little angel into the world.’

Gio laughed softly. ‘Theo’s cute, isn’t he?’

‘Super cute,’ Calisto purred in agreement, flexing manicured scarlet fingertips on Billie’s arm to prevent her from moving away.

‘Excuse us for a moment,’ Dee interrupted in an undertone. ‘Billie, you need your veil fixed. It’s hanging by a thread.’

Relieved to have an excuse to escape, Billie followed her cousin to the other side of the foyer. She angled her head back to assist Dee’s efforts to anchor her veil and she was in the perfect position to catch Dee’s hissed enquiry, ‘Who on earth is the pushy blonde?’

As Billie spun to fill in the details Dee’s eyes got rounder and rounder. ‘She’s got a heck of a nerve coming today!’ she commented angrily. ‘No bride wants her predecessor as a guest!’

Billie coloured. ‘I don’t want to make a fuss about it when everybody else is quite happy.’

‘By everybody else, you mean Gio,’ Dee interpreted. ‘She’s spoiling your day and, like most men, he’s just taking the easy way out by doing nothing!’

‘He hates bitchiness and catfights. I’m not going to say anything,’ Billie intoned as if she were mouthing a soothing mantra she badly needed to absorb. ‘If Calisto can handle me then I can handle her.’

‘Whatever you think,’ Dee trilled, clearly unimpressed. ‘But I wouldn’t stand her being here like the spectre at the feast for longer than ten seconds.’

Billie greeted the other guests as they arrived with quiet poise. Several of Gio’s British business colleagues were attending as well as his lawyers and a large group of London-based Greeks. She was surprised that he had not invited any of his family to attend their wedding and worried that they might have refused to attend because they disapproved of Gio marrying a woman from so ordinary a background.

She had met Gio’s lawyers in Yorkshire when they had called at the hotel to present her with the pre-nuptial agreement. They had advised her to take independent advice before she signed but Billie really hadn’t had the time to consult anyone, being far too busy packing up the life she had lived for two years and discarding what she no longer required. In any case, Gio was anything but mean when it came to money and, regardless of what might happen between them in the future, she didn’t feel she needed documentary proof that he would always be fair. He had once mentioned that his father had been shamefully stingy in his monetary dealings with his mother after they had divorced and she was convinced he would never be guilty of committing the same sin.

As they ran out of guests to greet in the reception area beside the dining room, Billie saw Gio and Leandros approach Calisto. She watched that perfect face freeze and her scarlet-painted mouth open to deliver an obviously animated response before Billie forced herself to turn away and head for the cloakroom to freshen up. There was no denying that Calisto had cast a cloud over the day. Unfortunately, Calisto was Gio’s ex and still part of his social circle and Billie was stuck with that reality. Making heavy weather of the fact wasn’t going to change anything.

Billie was engaged in renewing her lipstick when the door slammed behind a new arrival and high heels smacked noisily across the tiles. Calisto appeared in the mirror beside Billie like the evil fairy. ‘Don’t waste your time feeling smug that Gio’s asked me to leave. He’s had long enough to regret our divorce and naturally he’s upset at having to marry you to get his son and even more upset to see you and I together...well, there is no comparison, is there?’ Calisto pointed out, lifting her chin to examine her perfect reflection with open admiration.

Billie turned away from the mirror, lifting her own chin in fear that she might have a slight suggestion of a double chin when she held her head at some angles and that was a humiliation she could not have borne in Calisto’s presence. ‘Gio divorced you?’

‘Only because I wouldn’t give him a baby,’ Calisto told her cheerfully. ‘But now that he’s got one...thank you so much for taking care of that problem for me. He can have me and his precious son and heir. You’ve given us a textbook solution to our dilemma.’

‘What on earth are you trying to say?’ Billie asked in genuine astonishment.

‘That triangles never work and it won’t be long before Gio takes his son off you and reclaims me as his wife,’ Calisto trilled with satisfaction. ‘You were his mistress and I’m afraid the background of his life is where a woman like you belongs.’

‘A woman like me?’ Billie prompted, her green eyes taking on a dangerous sparkle.

‘A tart with a heart,’ Calisto quipped, rolling her eyes. ‘And let’s not forget the pantomime big boobs and bum. But you were never destined to be a Letsos and your reign as one will be painfully short.’

Billie shook her head in silent wonderment as she walked to the door. How could Gio have married such a spiteful shrew? In comparison with Calisto, she was unquestionably rounder in certain areas but she was determined not to get drawn into a childish spat with the other woman. She was less sanguine, however, concerning Calisto’s claims about Theo and why Gio had married her.

Was it possible that Gio had only married Billie to gain equal rights to his son? It was simply another angle to Gio’s insistence that they marry to give Theo his birthright. Obviously Gio would benefit as well from the formal acknowledgement of his role as Theo’s father. And was it true that Gio had divorced Calisto because she wouldn’t give him a child? Stamping down on further conjecture about Calisto, Billie reminded herself comfortingly that Gio had asked his ex-wife to leave their wedding.

Feeling hot, flushed and distinctly out of sorts, Billie returned to the elegant function room and collected Theo from his nanny to give him a cuddle. While her son nestled close, she was relieved to see Gio and Leandros chatting away to Dee.

‘She’s pleasant,’ Gio conceded later when they were all seated for the wedding breakfast. ‘But that doesn’t mean that I think she’s a fit person for you to have as a friend.’

‘Try to be less judgemental. If you hadn’t seen that report, you wouldn’t have known about her past,’ Billie pointed out. ‘And we’ve all made mistakes...you married Calypso.’

‘Calisto,’ Gio corrected. ‘She’s gone—’

‘Good.’ Lashes screening her gaze, Billie sipped her champagne.

‘It wasn’t appropriate for her to stay.’

‘Why did you divorce her?’ she heard herself ask.

‘We were incompatible,’ Gio fielded without hesitation.

‘That’s not telling me any—’ Billie began heatedly as Gio lifted a hand and closed it into her curls to turn her back to him.

She clashed with smouldering dark golden eyes and a writhing inferno of heat rushed up inside her in response. Her heart stuttered, her breath shortened in her throat. The tip of his tongue traced the curve of her lower lip and the peaks of her full breasts stiffened and strained below her boned bodice.

‘Se thelo...I want you,’ Gio growled soft and low, ferocious tension etched in every taut athletic line of his lean, powerful body.

‘So much,’ she echoed in breathless agreement, her tummy performing a somersault as he ravaged her mouth in an electrifyingly passionate kiss.

As Leandros signalled to indicate his readiness to make a short speech and dealt him a highly amused smile, Gio set Billie back from him, shrewd eyes searching her bemused face. She was like a breath of fresh air in his life. Was that why she unsettled him? Tempted him into engaging in the kind of PDA he had never before indulged in? But then what other woman would have tolerated Calisto’s appearance without throwing a big scene?

He watched Billie rise from her seat without hesitation to take Theo, who was stretching his arms out to her from a nearby table. Clearly tired and fed up, his son whimpered and clung to his mother like a little limpet before burying his head sleepily against her shoulder. Gio’s rarely touched conscience was pierced by the sight when he thought of the iniquitous pre-nuptial agreement he had had drawn up to ensnare Billie. She was such an innocent. He had guessed that she wouldn’t bother to read the terms, never mind the small print. Knowing she didn’t give a damn about his money, he had taken ruthless advantage of her trusting nature....regardless of his awareness of how much she loved their son.

Of course, she need never know about the terms of the pre-nup, Gio reasoned, reckoning that he didn’t want that coming back to haunt him at some inopportune time in the future. Billie would be shocked. Billie, who had always tried to see him as a nicer, kinder person than he could ever be, would for ever lose her rose-tinted view of him. He frowned, deciding that he would lose her copy of that document in a safe somewhere...

CHAPTER EIGHT

THE HELICOPTER LANDED in a clearing lit by torches on the island of Letsos.

‘So, this is the island where you were born. Does it belong to you?’ Billie remarked as Gio lifted her down to the ground and then went back to take Theo and assist the nanny in her descent.

‘It still belongs to my grandfather, Theo’s namesake. I imagine if it had ever passed to my father, it would’ve been sold long ago,’ he opined drily. ‘He sold everything that wasn’t nailed down long before he died.’

‘Did your family name the island after themselves?’ she asked curiously.

‘No, I believe my ancestors stole the name and began using it several generations back after a family dispute split them into two factions,’ he explained, ushering her into the four-wheel-drive vehicle.

‘I’m looking forward to meeting your family,’ Billie lied because she felt she had to lie out of politeness.

While Billie was undeniably curious, she was also very apprehensive about the sort of reception she could expect to receive from Gio’s wealthy relatives. In her own opinion she had so many strikes against her: the speed of their marriage, Theo’s birth out of wedlock, never mind the reality that she was a complete stranger and a foreigner without either fancy lineage or cash. She was convinced that those facts would ensure that she was viewed with extreme suspicion and possibly even hostility.

‘You’ll meet them all tomorrow,’ Gio told her calmly.

‘But I assumed I’d be meeting them now...tonight,’ she said tensely.

‘It’s been a very long day and we’re not staying at the main house tonight. We’ll introduce them to Theo in the morning.’ Gio smoothed a hand down over Theo’s back as his son squeezed out a cross little mutter as he secured him in a car seat. ‘The sooner he’s in bed, the better. Irene, you’ll have the help of my old nursemaid tonight because I know you’re tired. We’re leaving Irene and Theo at Agata’s house.’

‘Leaving...Theo?’ Billie parroted in dismay.

‘Relax. It’s not as though we’re abandoning him on a park bench,’ Gio censured with quiet amusement, dark eyes skimming her anxious face. ‘We’re spending our wedding night at the beach house. We’ll pick up Theo in the morning before we go and meet the family. Agata will revel in being the first islander to get to know my son.’