by Lynne Graham
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.’
Unexpectedly that statement jolted Billie because Gio spent most of his time in Greece. No, he was definitely not offering her a fairy-tale for-ever marriage because he was clearly already envisaging a future in which they were separated and sharing custody of their son. Billie paled, feeling as though he had slapped her in the face with reality, but ironically it was her own silly thoughts she needed to put a guard on, she conceded painfully. Of course, Gio wasn’t suggesting a real marriage and a whitewash marriage would naturally have a sell-by date beyond which it was no longer required.
‘I need to think about all this,’ Billie admitted tightly. ‘You’re talking about turning my life upside down.’
‘And my own,’ Gio added softly. ‘None of this was on my bucket list either.’
That obvious fact struck Billie like a second slap when she least required it. She did not need the reminder that Gio would never have chosen to marry her were it not for Theo. That reality was engraved on her soul because he had once rejected her in favour of Calisto. She bent down and scooped up Theo, loving the warm cuddliness of his solid little body and using it as a comfort to the chill spreading through her stomach. ‘I need to change him,’ she explained, walking away to scoop up the holdall and locate the nearest bathroom.
Why were women so complicated? Gio thought in seething frustration. He had offered her what he had assumed she had always wanted and she was behaving as if he had offered her a dirty deal. What did she have to think about? How many women had to run off to the bathroom and change a nappy before they could decide whether or not they wanted to marry a billionaire? Was it possible that she suspected that he had a motivation that he wasn’t sharing?
His lean, strong face set like granite. Admittedly, he had not told her the whole truth, could not possibly tell her the whole truth because that would make her fear him. He was fighting for what he believed in, fighting for what Theo needed most. In every battle there were winners and losers and Gio had no plans to be a loser or to stand by powerless while Theo received less than his due. In the rarefied world of the super-rich Billie could only be a trusting babe in arms. She was so ignorant of the utter ruthlessness that could make Theo a target for the greedy that she had no concept of how best to protect their son. But Gio knew and there was nothing he would not do to achieve that objective.
Billie hovered by the vanity while Theo crawled across the tiled floor and pulled himself up on the side of the bath. Her brain was in turmoil, inescapable fear rammed down behind every thought. Gio wanted her to marry him for Theo’s sake and she wanted to give her son the best possible start in life. But there would be a steep price to pay for such a rise in her social status, she acknowledged unhappily. She would inevitably be an embarrassment to Gio, and his precious family were certain to disapprove of her. But then doubtless Gio planned to pension her off once all the legalities
and his son’s place in life had been affirmed. So, it wouldn’t be a real for-ever marriage and would probably be set aside once Theo was old enough to go and visit his father without his mother in tow. Everything, she assumed, would happen exactly the way Gio wanted it to happen because he left nothing to chance. She foresaw that reality and froze at the terrifying prospect of being left so powerless, shorn of her home and her business. Did she have a choice? Could she trust Gio with their son’s future well-being?
Theo anchored on her hip, Billie walked back into the gracious reception room. Gio had removed his jacket, loosened his tie and pushed up the sleeves of his white silk shirt. The super-fine expensive material accentuated the muscles that rippled with his every movement and his impossibly taut, flat stomach. Her gaze lingered there, feverish memories of torrid moments awakening, fingers and lips gliding along his hard ribcage, smoothing over his abdomen before stroking down the furrow of silky hair disappearing below his waistband. Her tummy flipped and she gave herself a stern, frowning little shake as she emerged from her reverie. Black lashes flicking up on shrewd eyes, Gio completed the phone call he was making and set the phone down.
‘OK. I’ll marry you,’ Billie spelled out tautly, her colour high. ‘But that means I’m trusting you not to do anything that might harm Theo or me. If I find out that I can’t trust you I’ll leave you.’
Gio flashed her a deeply appreciative smile. She would never leave him again. Not unless she was prepared to leave her son behind with him, he reflected with immense satisfaction. She might not know it yet but her days of running were at an end.
‘And you have to be totally, one hundred per cent faithful,’ Billie decreed.
‘I always was with you,’ Gio responded airily.
‘But there’s that saying about how when a man marries his mistress he creates a vacancy,’ Billie remarked flatly, her lush mouth compressing on a sense of humiliation.