The Best Of The Year - Modern Romance. Annie West

ability to recognise when someone was drunk. Gio had tried and failed to lift his head and he had groaned. She had noted that there was no sign of a bottle or a glass anywhere and no smell of drink before she had finally risked moving closer to see if he was simply ill.

      ‘Flu...’ he had mumbled, ridiculously long black lashes dropping back down over his stunning eyes as if even the effort of speech was too much for him.

      Billie had rested cool fingers fleetingly on his forehead and registered that he was running one heck of a fever. ‘I think you need an ambulance,’ she had whispered.

      ‘No...doctor...phone,’ he had framed with difficulty, patting the pocket of his business suit jacket.

      Billie had dug out the phone for him and slotted it into his hand. He had fumbled with buttons and cursed. ‘No, you do it.’

      But the contacts list had been written in some weird script that was definitely not the alphabet and most probably a foreign equivalent. She had had to shake his shoulder to bring that to his attention and with some difficulty at focusing he had stabbed out the name for her and she had had to make the call to the doctor for him. Mercifully the doctor had spoken English and, sounding very concerned about the male he’d referred to as ‘Gio’, he had promised to be with them in twenty minutes.

      Feeling uncomfortable but knowing she had to wait to let the doctor into the apartment, Billie had got on with the cleaning while Gio had lain there on the floor. She had felt helpless and useless because he was simply too big and heavy in build for her to lift him in an effort to make him more comfortable. The doctor, young and fit, had been shocked to see Gio lying on the floor and had immediately hauled him up and practically carried him into the first bedroom off the corridor.

      Ten minutes later, the doctor had sought her out in the kitchen. ‘He’s a workaholic and he’s exhausted, which is probably why he’s ill. It’s a bad dose of the flu and he won’t go to hospital. I’ll bring back his prescription and look into getting a private nurse...in the short term, can you stay for a while? He shouldn’t be alone but I’m on emergency call—’

      ‘I’m only here to clean and I’m already behind,’ Billie had explained apologetically. ‘I should be starting on the apartment next door—’

      ‘Gio owns the building. He’s probably the man who signs your pay cheque through the management company. I wouldn’t worry about the place next door,’ the doctor had told her drily. ‘He asked for you to go in and see him—’

      ‘But why?’

      The doctor had shrugged on his way out. ‘Maybe he wants to thank you for being a good Samaritan. You could’ve run and left him lying there.’

      She had knocked on the bedroom door and when it wasn’t answered had peeped in, seeing Gio sprawled naked but for a pair of black silk pyjama trousers on the biggest bed she had ever seen. Even ill, pale below his olive skin and fast asleep, he had been the most beautiful specimen of masculinity she had ever seen, from his ruffled black curly hair to his unshaven chin and his incredibly impressive bronzed and muscular torso and flat stomach.

      She had cleaned the guest bathrooms, waited an hour and then gone back into the bedroom, finding him awake.

      ‘Do you need anything?’

      ‘Water would be welcome...what’s your name?’ he had asked limply, breathing heavily as he’d tried to sit up but had lurched sideways instead.

      ‘Billie.’

      ‘Short for?’

      ‘Billie. Do you want me to fix your pillows?’

      And she had fixed the pillows and straightened the sheet and fetched him a glass of water. He had seemed stunned by the discovery that she cleaned his apartment regularly sight unseen.

      ‘There’s never much to do here,’ she had admitted. ‘You don’t seem to use the kitchen.’

      ‘I travel a lot, eat out or order in when I’m here.’

      The bell had buzzed. ‘That’ll be the nurse the doctor mentioned,’ she remarked.

      ‘I don’t need a nurse.’

      ‘You’re too weak and sick to be left alone,’ Billie had informed him bluntly.

      ‘I was hoping you’d hang around...’

      ‘I have other apartments to cleanI’ll be working late tonight as it is,’ she had said before she hurried to answer the door to a beautiful uniformed blonde with the face of a madonna.

      The next morning when she had clocked in, her manager had emerged from his office to say, ‘You’ve been seconded full-time to Mr Letsos’ apartment until further notice.’

      ‘But how...why on earth? Full-time?’ she had queried in astonishment.

      ‘The order came down from higher up. Maybe the guy had a party last night and needs the place gutted,’ he had muttered without interest. ‘It’s not our business to question why.’

      She had used the bell but nobody had answered and she had let herself in with her pass key, moving quietly round the silent apartment before knocking on the bedroom door.

      ‘Where’s the nurse?’ she had asked straight away.

      Even more badly in need of a shave and still flat on the pillows, Gio had given her a wry look. ‘She tried to get into bed with me... I told her to leave.’

      Thoroughly disconcerted by that bald admission, Billie had surveyed him wide-eyed, recognising the level of his primal male attraction even in sickness. He was gorgeous. Just looking at him had made butterflies take flight in her tummy.

      ‘For that reason, I hope you don’t mind that I arranged for you to take care of me because you haven’t demonstrated any desire to get into bed with me—’

      Billie had reddened to the roots of her hair. ‘Of course not...how did you arrange it?’

      ‘Do you mind?’

      ‘What would taking care of you entail?’ Billie had prompted suspiciously. ‘I’m no nurse—’

      ‘I haven’t eaten since breakfast yesterday,’ Gio had confided, stunning lustrous dark eyes locking onto hers in clear search of sympathy. ‘Food would be very welcome.’

      She had felt sorry for him, had even contrived to feel guilty that she hadn’t offered him a meal the day before. And after all, taking care of the sick was pretty much all Billie had done from the age of eleven right up until her grandmother had passed away. For the following three days, Billie had done what came naturally without fuss or fanfare. She had looked after Gio, shopping for him, cooking meals, changing the bed, passing out his medication and arguing with him every time he prematurely announced that he was well enough to get out of bed because his state of exhaustion was still etched in his pallor and sunken eyes. Indeed she had established an amazingly easy camaraderie with Gio Letsos that took no note whatsoever of their divergent status in life and she had laughed out loud when he had announced that he would take her out to dinner as a thank you as soon as he was stronger.

      ‘What age are you?’ he had suddenly demanded, staring at her. ‘I don’t date teenagers.’

      And the minute that Billie had appreciated that the dinner suggestion could actually be described as a date, she had lied without shame to fulfil the conditions of acceptance because any kind of a date with a male like Gio had struck her as a dream come true.

      As the images of the past receded, Billie swallowed hard, shaken up by those recollections and her own innocence, for in those days she had very definitely viewed Gio as a knight on a white horse. He had seemed so perfect to her, so very considerate and courteous. Well, she conceded painfully, she knew how well that belief had turned out... Gio could say the most dreadful things in the politest way without even raising his voice. He could graciously open the door for you while saying something that flayed the skin from your bones and ripped your heart