The Best Of The Year - Modern Romance. Annie West

civilised way.

      * * *

      That same day the head of Gio’s security, Damon Kitzakis, came to see him after dinner. Wearing a rare air of discomfiture for a man who was generally very relaxed with his employer, Damon hovered and took his time about speaking up.

      ‘Something worrying you?’ Gio encouraged with a frown.

      ‘As you instructed, Stavros has been keeping an eye on Miss Smith and in the course of doing that he got chatting to one of her neighbours,’ Damon volunteered stiffly. ‘Quite accidentally he picked up something you probably already know about...of course, but—’

      Gio was steadily becoming very still behind the desk, his broad shoulders taut. ‘What is this something?’

      ‘Miss Smith has a child.’

      Gio shot him a startled look. ‘The woman she lives with has kids.’

      Damon winced. ‘Apparently when...Miss Smith moved in when she was pregnant. The youngest kid...the baby...is hers.’

      Suddenly something was buzzing in Gio’s head, interfering with his ability to think clearly. He blinked rapidly, fighting to clear his thoughts. Billie had a baby, another man’s child. There had been another man. Theos, he should never have approached her in advance of seeing the background report he had yet to receive from Henley. This was his reward for his ridiculous impatience, he reflected grimly. The least she could have done was tell him, he thought then with the dull, unfeeling anger of shock.

      Pallor framed his mouth as he compressed his lips hard and phoned Joe Henley. Yes, there was a child, the older man confirmed without hesitation, but he hadn’t yet got hold of a copy of the birth certificate and couldn’t offer any further details until he did.

      Why the hell hadn’t Billie just told him that she was a mother? After all, she had had the perfect excuse for not resuming their relationship, so why hadn’t she used it? Surely she would have guessed that he would no longer want her with a kid in tow? Gio sprang upright. His anger, cold from sheer shock, was heading towards sizzling temperatures very fast indeed because Billie had achieved a feat few people lived to boast about: she had made Gio feel foolish. He would never have gone to bed with her again had he known she had a child. Was Billie playing some silly waiting game, planning to entrap him with the lure of sex before admitting that she now had a kid?

      * * *

      Billie sank into a deep bath and whisked her fingers through the bubbles coating the surface of the water. It was treat night, when she spoiled herself with her favourite things. The children were in bed fast asleep. The kitchen was clean. She would curl up on the sofa and watch a romantic movie and have some chocolate. Even if she no longer quite believed in true love or the staying power of romance she could still enjoy the fantasy, she acknowledged ruefully.

      The doorbell went when she was drying herself. And she grimaced, hurriedly reaching for her robe and tying the sash tight round her waist as she sped barefoot down the stairs, keen to prevent her caller from pressing the bell again and disturbing the children. Jade was a light sleeper and once she was up she would be up and there would be no prospect of peace and tranquillity. No, then it would be cartoons and endless chatter until Jade got sleepy again.

      Billie yanked open the door and stiffened in dismay. It was Gio, shorn of his usual business suit, wearing black jeans and a leather jacket. She dragged her attention from the rare sight of him in casual clothing up to his lean, hard-boned face. Dark eyes glittered like golden fireworks at her and colour surged up in a hot wave over her cheeks because all she could think about at that instant was the thrusting potency of him over and in her and the earth-shattering pleasure that had followed.

      ‘Why didn’t you tell me you had a child?’ Gio demanded in a raw undertone.

      Billie jerked and lost colour even faster than she had gained it at the recollection of how they had spent the afternoon. She pushed the door wider, immediately recognising that this was not a conversation she could keep outdoors. ‘You’d better come in.’

      ‘You’re damned right I’m coming in,’ Gio all but snarled at her, striding past her and thrusting open the sitting-room door with all the annoying assurance of a regular and more welcome visitor.

      He knew. Oh, dear heaven, he knew, and that was why he was furious, Billie assumed in consternation.

      Gio swung round from the window, all fluid grace and driving aggression, stunning eyes blistering over her as if she had deeply offended him in some way. ‘I’d never have touched you if I’d known you’d had some other man’s child!’

      Some other man’s child. The worst of the tension holding Billie uncannily still evaporated as she realised that by some mysterious good fortune her secret was still a secret. Evidently it had not even occurred to Gio that her child might be his, but she was disconcerted by the unexpected flash of sexual possessiveness he was revealing. ‘Yes, I have a child,’ she confirmed flatly. ‘But I don’t see that as your business—’

      ‘Theos... Of course it was my business when I was asking you to come back to me!’ he flung back at her, his spectacular bone structure rigid with condemnation.

      So, he didn’t want her with the encumbrance of a child. That was no surprise to Billie. He might have wanted a legitimate heir from Calisto but that want had been firmly rooted in his pride in his family line and his apparent desire to have a child to inherit his business empire. He had no particular fondness for children or interest in them that she had ever noticed. He had nephews and nieces because at least two of his sisters had married and produced but he had never mentioned those kids in a positive way, choosing instead to complain about the noise, inconvenience and indiscipline they displayed at adult gatherings.

      ‘But I didn’t owe you the information that I had a child when I had no plans to come back to you,’ Billie countered evenly, slight shoulders setting straight now that she no longer felt threatened, green eyes bright with defiance.

      ‘Then what was this afternoon all about?’ Gio demanded with cutting derision.

      ‘A mistake, as I said earlier,’ she reminded him doggedly. ‘A mistake we will obviously never repeat.’

      Gio studied Billie, all pink and tousled and undoubtedly naked below the robe. As she moved her breasts swayed, pointed nubs making faint indents on the fabric, and within seconds he was hard as iron and furious that the hunger he had so recently assuaged could return without his volition. ‘Who was the guy?’

      ‘That’s not relevant,’ Billie fielded.

      The fury still powering Gio wouldn’t quit. He breathed in slow and deep, disturbed by the level of anger still burning through him, questioning its source. ‘What age is the kid?’ he asked, although he didn’t know why he was asking because he could see no reason why he should want to know.

      ‘A year old,’ Billie answered, trimming a couple of months from Theo’s tally for safety’s sake, fearful of rousing Gio’s curiosity and making him wonder if there was the smallest possibility that her child might also be his child.

      Involved in fast mental calculations as he counted the months, Gio compressed his wide sensual mouth into a hard line of distaste. ‘So, it was some kind of rebound thing after me,’ he assumed.

      ‘Not everything in my life is about you!’ Billie snapped back defensively.

      ‘But obviously the kid’s father isn’t still around—’

      ‘Not all men are cut out to be fathers,’ she parried.

      ‘The least a man should do is stand by his own child,’ Gio pronounced, startling her with that opinion. ‘It’s his most basic duty.’

      ‘Well, mine didn’t...’ and she almost reminded him that his father hadn’t either but that felt like too sensitive a point to raise in the mood he was in.

      ‘Whatever.’ Gio shifted a broad shoulder sheathed in butter-soft