by Lynne Graham
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.’
When they drew up at Agata’s house, Billie soon appreciated that Gio had not exaggerated because Theo’s arrival was the source of much excitement and pleasure. Agata was middle-aged and rotund. She greeted Gio with overflowing affection and took hold of his son with a blissful smile while contriving simultaneously to offer Irene a warm welcome and the promise of a comfortable bed in her guest room.
Gio swept Billie back into the car. The road was soon travelling sharply downhill and the car finally stopped at the mouth of a sandy path. Their driver, a strapping youth, grabbed the heavy cases and trudged down the path, leaving them to follow.
‘Watch your step. It’s a steep track,’ Gio warned, clamping a strong arm to her slender spine to steady her as her heels sank into the sandy surface.
‘I’d never have worn these shoes if I’d realised we were going to a beach house!’ Billie muttered ruefully. ‘I’m dressed up in my fanciest togs because I thought I’d be meeting your family tonight.’
‘I wanted to surprise you.’
‘You’ve succeeded.’ Billie laughed, staring down at the stretch of pristine beach coming into view as they descended. The sun had gone down but a brazier was burning, casting flickers of light across the sand and the dark waves washing into the cove.
The wooden beach house was tucked into a corner and lit up with fairy lights that looked like roses. ‘Wow...that’s so pretty!’ Billie exclaimed, staring when she saw lights flickering beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows as well.
Gio carried her over the threshold and she lost one of her shoes and he said that was a good thing because she couldn’t walk in them and she was smiling as he set her down on a polished wood floor. There were flowers everywhere she looked and lots of burning candles casting glimmers of moving light and shadow across the opulent interior. Their driver settled the cases in the adjoining bedroom and departed.
Billie wandered barefoot into the bedroom, appreciating the luxurious but plain furnishings and the wide, comfortable bed.
‘Champagne?’ Gio prompted.
‘Maybe later. Right now, I want a shower more than anything,’ she confided, keen to be free of the tailored dress and jacket she had worn to look smart. ‘Could you unzip me?’
‘If I unzip you,’ Gio remarked as she shed her jacket and moved helpfully close, ‘you’ll never make it to the shower.’
The zip ran down. He spread the fabric back and pressed his mouth to the smooth slope of her shoulder. ‘Your skin is so wondrously soft,’ he told her huskily, skimming the short sleeves down her arms, giving the dress a helpful push downward as it threatened to settle at her waist, and lifting her out of the folds.
‘I’m not going to get my shower,’ Billie forecast as he turned her slowly round to face him.
‘Well, possibly not until later and you might have to share it.’ Gio grinned down at her, his eyes hot as the sun’s rays on her exposed the lush curves of her figure in a green satin and lace bra and panties set. ‘That’s if I ever let you out of bed...’
Billie resisted a sudden urge to stupidly ask him if he thought her bottom was too large. She tried to stay a stable weight but she had never fussed about the curvy shape she had been born with, regarding that as a futile exercise destined to lead only to disappointment. Irritated by her sudden self-consciousness in his presence, she said instead, ‘You’re wearing way too many clothes.’
Gio hauled her up into his arms and kissed her with passionate force before bringing her down on the bed. ‘A shower and food and civilised behaviour later...I promise,’ he swore.
Billie’s memory flew back to the many, many times in the past when Gio had barely stepped through the door of the apartment before grabbing her with the wild impatience and hunger she had always cherished in him, deeming that fervour proof that she was more important to him than he was ever likely to tell her. Of course, the fallout when he announced that he was marrying Calisto had been all the more painful to bear, she conceded ruefully. He had forced her to see the danger of wishful thinking, the foolishness of the assumptions that had made her feel secure. But as soon as she found herself thinking that way, Billie kicked out those negative thoughts and, reminding herself that this was their wedding night, she lay back on the bed where he had placed her.
Gio was her husband now and he was hers in so many ways that he had never been before, she conceded, trying to banish her worries. Together, she and Gio and Theo would be a family. They would also be part of a much bigger family, which she was praying would eventually accept her, even if it was only for Theo’s sake.
‘Who organised all this?’ Billie asked, shifting a hand to indicate the flowers and the candles and the opulent comfort of the room’s appointments. ‘Is the beach house in regular use?’
‘It hadn’t been used in quite some time,’ Gio admitted as he shed his shirt in a careless heap. ‘Leandros’ sister, Eva, is an interior designer and she agreed to do a rush job for me as a favour. She wasn’t sure she would make the deadline until the last minute and only finished this afternoon. The household staff saw to the rest.’
‘I love the candles and the flowers,’ Billie admitted.
‘I knew you would...you’ve always been such a romantic,’ Gio teased.
‘But you organised it so you must be a romantic too,’ she pointed out, absolutely blown away by the gradually dawning realisation that Gio had had the beach house set up for their wedding night solely in an attempt to please her.
‘I’ll never be romantic,’ he fielded wryly. ‘But I am bright enough to work out what’s required and deliver it, glyka mou.’
With the greatest difficulty, Billie dragged h
er attention from his washboard abs and the way his naturally golden skin sleekly delineated his ripcord musculature. He was gorgeous and yet he was with her and not with the equally gorgeous Calisto. For a split second she let that mystery unnerve her and then she squashed the thought flat, telling herself off for even thinking it. He was married to her now, with her, and Calisto was in the past. Gloriously unaware of her constant attacks of insecurity, Gio stepped out of his trousers and skimmed off his boxers in one fell swoop of impatience.
Her mouth ran dry, her heartbeat quickening. It had been so long since she had had the luxury of watching Gio strip. That day she had gone for lunch with him at his hotel and ended up in bed with him, he hadn’t even got undressed. Her face burned at the recollection.
‘What are you thinking about?’ Gio breathed, stalking across the bedroom to join her on the bed.
And she told him and, surprisingly, he laughed. ‘I wasn’t exactly the cool seducer, was I? I was as hot for you as a teenage boy having sex for the first time but I did at least use a condom.’
‘I got carried away too,’ she soothed, running gentle fingers along his angular jaw line. ‘But you’d best be careful. I’m not using any form of contraception.’
Gio tugged her down on the pillows beside him and leant over her. ‘Do I need to be careful? I missed out on you being pregnant with Theo and I would be pretty excited if you were to conceive again,’ he admitted, dark eyes shimmering gold in the candlelight.
That was the most confidence-boosting thing Gio could have said to her, Billie reflected dizzily. His interest in her having a second child took her by storm because it meant that he regarded their marriage as a long-term venture rather than an exercise to simply grant Theo his legal birthright.
‘I put on a lot of weight when I’m pregnant,’ she warned him.
‘And in all the best places,’ Gio husked, running an admiring finger across a bra cup overflowing with soft creamy flesh. ‘Theos, I love your body.’
‘Honestly?’ Billie prompted, loathing herself for pressing the point.
‘I can’t keep my hands off you, Billie,’ Gio groaned, flipping open the catch on her bra and filling his hands with the bounty he had been admiring. ‘I never could...’
Her wretched brain was still shooting in directions she didn’t want it to. It was urging her to ask why he had then chosen to marry a woman like Calisto and suddenly she couldn’t restrain that need to know any longer and she asked, ‘Then why did you marry a woman half my size?’
There was a sudden deathly silence. His head bent while he toyed with the warm soft curves he had bared, Gio glanced up at her from below his ridiculously long lashes. ‘For all the wrong reasons...and I paid the price,’ he admitted in a roughened undertone.
Billie wanted to dig deeper into the topic but she also knew that she didn’t want to spoil their wedding night with the shadow of past pain and loss. With an almighty effort she cleared her head of such morbid reflections and said nothing at all because regret had coloured every syllable he spoke. Regret was enough to satisfy her, wasn’t it? How much of a pint of blood did she need to satisfy her damaged ego? Enough blood to cause ructions in their shiny new marriage when Gio had already mentioned a desire for another child? She thought not, decided it was better to leave the past where it belonged and look to a brighter future.
Gio captured a turgid nipple in his mouth and toyed with it until it was throbbing. Billie rested back, letting the heat flow through her, warming and moistening ever more sensitive parts. Her hips shifted, her fingers raked through his short hair, eyes sliding shut as she held him to her with a deep sense of happiness. Another baby? What a sign of optimism on his part! He was a child of a broken marriage and she was convinced he would not risk bringing a second child into the mix if he believed their relationship was likely to break down.
‘Tomorrow’s going to come too soon for me,’ Gio complained huskily as he tugged up her knees and peeled down her knickers in one smooth operation. ‘But if I make love to you all night, you’ll be too tired to meet my family in the morning.’
‘You’ve got every night with me that you want now,’ Billie whispered as he shifted to trace the moist cleft between her legs with a roving forefinger and she quivered instantaneously, every tingling nerve ending instantly clamouring for more.
‘And I’m going to make the most of every opportunity. I’m sex-starved,’ Gio confided, working a trail of lusty nipping and sucking across the upper slope of her breasts to her throat. ‘I never could get enough of you. Now I’ve finally got you round the clock, I’ll be very demanding.’
‘Promises...promises,’ Billie quipped, warmed by that threat, for the more Gio expressed his desire for her, the more secure she felt.
As excitement began to claim Billie, conversation died because she couldn’t think straight for long enough to vocalise. He touched her with the unerring skill of an expert and she writhed, hands digging into his cropped black hair as he used his mouth to bring her to a shattering climax.
Weak with satiation in the aftermath, she loosed a startled gasp as Gio flipped her over onto her stomach. ‘What—?’
‘I’m in a very dominant mood, moro mou,’ Gio growled, gripping her hips and driving hard into her passion-moistened depths, stretching her to the limit with his length and girth and sending a renewed and arousing wash of hunger through her.
And Billie had always secretly liked it when Gio was forcefully passionate in bed. Then as now, his dominance somehow made her feel irresistible. A helpless shudder of response snaked through her quivering body, her breath rasping in her throat, her heart hammering as he plunged into her with pounding erotic urgency. It went on and on and on, igniting the bittersweet torment of need inside her again. A carnal finger stroked and encircled her clitoris and the tightening knot of tension in her womb started up a chain reaction. A string of tiny inner convulsions pulsed along her inner channel and finally merged into a rapturous explosion of soul-destroying pleasure.
‘That’s something you’re very, very good at,’ Billie mumbled unsteadily just as Gio began to pull away from her and she grabbed his arm, eyes flying wide in the candlelight. ‘No, don’t, don’t move away. I hate it when you do that.’
‘It’s just the way I am,’ Gio framed, frowning.
Billie brought up another hand to grip his shoulder. ‘But it doesn’t have to be like that. You can hug Theo.’
‘That’s different.’
Billie knew she was hitting barriers and that possibly she hadn’t chosen the best time to complain, but his habit of shifting away from all contact in the immediate aftermath of intimacy had always hurt her feelings. ‘You’ve never had a problem with hugging me if I’m upset about anything, have you?’
‘Well, no, but—’
‘So, pretend I’m upset,’ Billie urged with all the enthusiasm of a woman who believed she had found the perfect solution to his lack in the affection department.
Gio settled dazed eyes on her. ‘What?’ he breathed in disbelief.
‘After sex,’ Billie told him bluntly. ‘Just think. She’s upset, now I have to hug her.’
‘I don’t want to think of you being upset after we make love.’
‘Have you got an argument against absolutely everything?’ Billie asked him in a pained tone. ‘I was trying to work out a strategy which would suit us both.’
‘Forget the strategy,’ Gio advised, anchoring both arms firmly round her and hauling her back against him with gritted teeth. ‘I’ll work on it...OK?’
‘OK,’ Billie agreed, satisfied, running an exploring hand down over his hair-roughened torso and then teasingly lower in an operation destined to prove to him there would be advantages to a change of behaviour that brought him physically closer.
‘OK,’ Gio said again but in a deep husky purr. ‘Very OK...’
An hour later they were outdoors, lying relaxed on the huge upholstered recliner on the deck and watching the flames from the brazier
shooting up against the night sky. Discarded dishes from the packed fridge were scattered around, evidence of the substantial meal they had contrived to eat. Billie laced her fingers round the stem of her champagne flute and heaved a contented sigh. ‘It’s incredibly peaceful here with just the sound of the sea in the background.’
‘I always loved that sound when I was a kid. My parents used to bring us down here and...’ Gio’s voice trailed away into silence.
Billie glanced up at him, aware of the tension now stiffening his long, lean length against her. ‘And...what?’ she pressed. ‘It’s great that you’ve got some good memories of your childhood.’
‘My sisters and I were very young then. It was long before my parents broke up...before my father met the love of his life.’ Gio voiced that emphasis with biting derision.
‘Oh...and she was?’ Billie jumped straight into the opening he had given her because he had always avoided the subject of his parents’ divorce.
‘An English fashion model called Marianne. She was his mistress and when she became accidentally pregnant—with the boy who later turned out not to be my father’s—he decided that he couldn’t live without her.’
‘Oh,’ Billie said in quite another tone, discomfited by the similarities she saw to their own previous relationship, wondering if she was at last learning the reason why Gio had always maintained an emotional distance in their relationship.
‘My sisters and I returned from boarding school for our summer break and learned that our whole lives had changed. My father had divorced my mother and stuck her in an Athens apartment. Suddenly we weren’t welcome on Letsos or in our childhood home any more because my father—and it is a challenge to compliment him with that label—had married Marianne and she refused to have the children of his first marriage hanging around.’
The depth of Gio’s bitterness shocked Billie but she could imagine how horrible it must have been for him and his sisters to see their mother rejected and all of them excluded from everything they had become accustomed to believing was theirs. ‘Didn’t your grandfather intervene? You said he owned this island.’