The Secret His Mistress Carried

by Lynne Graham

  ‘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?

  Gio strolled up and without a word to even acknowledge his ex-wife walked Billie out of the gallery. ‘Only two people knew we were coming here and one of them is Damon, whom I trust with my life,’ he told her grimly. ‘I’ve already called him. He will deal with the leak and the person concerned will be sacked.’

  ‘I think that would be best,’ Billie said rather woodenly. ‘And perhaps the lawyer, whom you mentioned is her stepbrother? He seems to have talked out of turn about confidential matters as well.’

  Gio frowned, making it obvious that he had not overheard Calisto’s final salvo. ‘What confidential matters?’

  Billie shrugged as though she meant something trivial, reluctant to think the worst of Gio, averse to trusting anything that witch, Calisto, had claimed at his expense. She would dig out the pre-nup and check it out for herself or arrange to have it looked over by an independent lawyer. It couldn’t be true; it couldn’t possibly be true, she thought in an agony of fear. After all, if that claim of Calisto’s was true, it would mean that their marriage was an empty charade, never intended to do anything but gain Gio legal custody of Theo and she could not, would not believe that of him!

  ‘Your ex is a bit of a pyscho,’ Billie remarked tentatively as they settled into the waiting limousine.

  ‘And probably what I deserved,’ Gio breathed in a raw undertone of stress.

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’ Billie prompted before they entered the fashionable restaurant.

  ‘Nothing’s the matter,’ Gio insisted.

  If you can believe that, you can believe anything, Billie reflected, unimpressed, off-balanced by the odd way he was behaving. He was still holding her hand, still acting as if he were physically welded to her or, ridiculously, as though he were afraid that she might run away somewhere.

  No way, Billie thought combatively. He had signed up for a life sentence as far as she was concerned and he was going to serve it, she thought crazily, studying his lean, bronzed, totally gorgeous profile while he talked to Leandros and Billie listened to Leandros’ girlfriend, Claire, who was a British model, talk about the joys of fake tan and the cosmetics range she was plannin
g. It wasn’t riveting stuff but Billie tried her best to be friendly while reaching the conclusion that Leandros was as shallow as a puddle when it came to the female sex.

  Gio skated a teasing forefinger along Billie’s thigh below the table and she tensed, thinking, not about what he probably hoped she was thinking about, but instead about what Calisto had said. I’m going to have to ask him, she accepted unhappily.

  Was he capable of such a deception through the means of a legal document? Oh, yes, Billie had no doubts when it came to how ruthless Gio could be. After all, in spite of what she had deemed to be a very happy relationship and her warning that she would not be there when he returned, Gio had still gone off and married another woman because that was what he’d felt he had to do. Like a granite rock rolling down a hill on a set path, Gio was not given to second thoughts or doubts or insecurities like frailer personalities and he didn’t think much about the damage he could be inflicting.

  How could she love someone like that? Billie asked herself wretchedly as the limousine carried them back to the airport.

  ‘What did you think of Claire?’ Gio enquired in the silence, desperate to know what Calisto had said to her. Calisto could be so vicious and, when she aimed it at Billie, even Gio was willing to admit that she had some excuse for her resentment.

  ‘Very chatty and glam. She seems pleasant enough,’ Billie commented.

  ‘For a fake-tan expert. She must be great in bed,’ Gio said sardonically.

  ‘Why?’ Billie heard herself say. ‘Is that how you first thought about me? Let’s face it, I didn’t have much in the way of intellectual conversation to offer either.’

  ‘We’re not talking about you.’ Gio gave her hand a little shake as though in rebuke. ‘You were never that vain or frivolous.’

  ‘Claire’s looks are the basis of her whole career so I don’t think it’s fair to call her vain or frivolous.’ And in the back of her mind, Billie was wondering why she was arguing with him about something that didn’t matter in the slightest to her. Dimly it dawned on her that fear was working on her nerves, cutting through the sense of trust and security that she had begun to develop and throwing up friction in her every response to him.