The Best Of The Year - Modern Romance. Annie West

child the minute I reappeared. It’s a game changer, not something I could accept.’

      Once, Billie would have assumed that she would experience a certain bitter satisfaction from Gio, in his ignorance, rejecting his own child, but instead guilt bit deep into her uneasy conscience. The passage of time had softened her outlook. Nothing was as black and white as she had believed when she had given birth to Theo without Gio’s knowledge. Less emotional now than she had been then, she knew that Gio had wronged her but that Gio’s wrong did not necessarily make her decisions right. A child wasn’t a trophy or a payback for an adult’s unkindness. A child was only a small human being, who might well not appreciate the choice she had made when he was old enough to have an opinion.

      * * *

      For Gio the next morning started with a bang when the fax spewed out a document and kept on printing. He scooped up the first page on the way to the shower and froze when he realised that he was looking at a facsimile of a birth certificate.

      Theon Giorgios, a little boy aged fifteen months, had been born to Billie Smith. Theon was his grandfather’s name and the child’s age left no doubt of when conception had occurred.

      Gio swept up the other pages of the report that had come through. His hands were trembling with rage. He was so angry, so incredulous that he wanted to smash something. He had trusted Billie and yet self-evidently she had betrayed his trust. He struggled to cool down for long enough to take a rational appraisal of the facts. No method of birth control was fool proof. He knew that intellectually, but he had always been careful, determined never to be caught in that net by something as basic as biology.

      Billie had been on the contraceptive pill but side effects had led to her trying several brands before finally choosing to have an implant put in her arm instead. In short he had allowed her to take contraceptive responsibility and it was very possible that she had simply fallen victim to the failure rate. He set down the report, strode into the shower and, below the pounding beat of the overhead power shower, he thought with an incredulous wonder that was entirely new to his experience, I have a son.

      An illegitimate son. He didn’t like that; he didn’t like that aspect at all. Gio was rigid in his views in that line and was well aware that his half-sister had suffered from having neither a father nor the acceptance and support of her own family. Times had changed since then and the world in general was much less concerned about whether or not children were born within marriage. In the Letsos family, however, such formal acknowledgements of inheritance, status and honour still mattered a great deal.

      That Billie had lied outright to him shocked Gio the most and by the time he had finished reading that report and had learned about his son’s surgery, Billie’s unacceptable childcare arrangements and the unsavoury character of the woman she was living with, he wasted no time in setting up a video-conference meeting with his legal team in London to get advice. That discussion concluded, Gio knew what his options were and they were very few and the fierce temper he usually kept under wraps was boiling up like lava below his calm surface. He was in a situation he would never have chosen and, worst of all, a situation he could not necessarily control. He would fight dirty if he had to, very dirty if need be. Billie might have taken him by surprise but Gio knew where his priorities lay.

      That same morning, Billie felt washed out because she had tossed and turned through the night and she got up early and was sitting with a cup of tea when Dee came downstairs smothering a yawn and swearing she was going straight back to bed.

      ‘I’ve done something awful,’ she confided to her cousin, quickly filling in the details and wincing when Dee looked at her in surprise and dismay. ‘I know, it was totally wrong of me to tell Gio that Theo was another man’s child—’

      ‘What came over you?’

      Billie groaned. ‘I felt cornered and threatened. I didn’t get the chance to think anything through. I know Gio’s going to be furious when he finds out the truth.’ She pushed away the curls flopping on her brow and groaned. ‘I’m going to text him and ask him to come over.’

      ‘I think you’d better. I mean...the minute you realised that he knew you had a child, you should’ve come clean. After all, if you don’t tell Gio, what happens if Theo decides that he wants to meet his father ten or fifteen years from now?’ the blonde woman asked anxiously. ‘I know Gio hurt you but that doesn’t mean that he couldn’t be a good father.’

      Dee wasn’t telling Billie anything she hadn’t thought herself during the long lonely hours of the night. Gio walking back into her life had changed everything. It was no longer acceptable to conceal the truth of Theo’s paternity and pretending that some other man was responsible for his conception had been downright unforgivable, she acknowledged with eyes that ached from the tears she was holding back. Ashamed of that moment of cowardice, she swallowed hard and lifted her phone, selecting the number she had never deleted, hoping it remained unchanged, texting...

      I have to speak to you today. It’s very important.

      Gio texted back.

      Eleven, your house.

      Clearly, Billie was planning to tell him the truth. Gio’s mouth curled; he wasn’t impressed. The truth would still be coming fifteen months and more too late...

CHAPTER FIVE

      RESTIVE AS A cat on hot bricks, Billie peered out of the window as Gio sprang out of the limo and she tensed up even more at the sight of his formal attire. He wore a faultlessly tailored black business suit teamed with a white shirt and purple tie. This was Gio in full tycoon mode, eyes veiled, lean, strong face taut with reserve, and unsmiling.

      ‘I have something to tell you,’ she said breathlessly in the hall.

      Gio withdrew a folded sheet of paper from his jacket and simply extended it. ‘I already know...’

      Her heart beating very fast, Billie shook open the sheet, lashes fluttering in disconcertion when she saw the photocopy of the birth certificate. ‘I don’t know what to say—’

      ‘There’s nothing you can say,’ Gio pronounced icily. ‘You lied last night. You deliberately concealed the truth from me for well over a year. Evidently you had no intention of ever telling me that I was a father.’

      ‘I never expected to see you again,’ Billie muttered weakly.

      ‘I want to see him,’ Gio breathed in a driven undertone.

      ‘He’s having a nap—’

      Poised at the foot of the stairs, Gio sent her a sardonic appraisal. ‘I will still see him...’

      Billie breathed in deep and started up the stairs, brushing damp palms down over her jeans. If she was reasonable, even a touch conciliating, they could deal with this situation in a perfectly civilised fashion, she told herself soothingly. Naturally, Gio’s first reaction was curiosity and, since he was divorced, Theo’s existence was probably less of an embarrassment than it might otherwise have been.

      ‘We need to be quiet,’ she whispered. ‘Dee’s very tired and she went back to bed. I don’t want to wake her.’

      Billie pressed open the door of the room that the three children shared. Theo’s cot was in the corner. Gio strode up to the rails and gazed down with a powerful sense of disbelief at the baby peacefully sleeping in a tangle of covers. His son. Even at first glance, the family resemblance was staggering. Theo had a shock of black curls, a strong little nose and the set of his eyes was the same as Gio’s. Gio breathed in deep and slow, his broad chest tightening on a surge of emotion unlike anything he had ever felt. This was his little boy and he had gone through serious surgery without Gio. Any sort of surgery on babies was risky. His child could have died without Gio ever having known of his existence. Rage shot through Gio like a rejuvenating drug, ripping through the carapace of uncertainty and shock. Not trusting himself to remain quiet, he swung away from