The Best Of The Year - Modern Romance. Annie West

will never ever forgive you for this,’ Gio ground out at the top of the stairs, his dark velvety drawl as chilling as an icicle shot into her flesh.

      Consternation winging through her at that inflexible assurance, Billie’s tummy flipped and her legs felt hollow and clumsy as she descended the stairs.

      In the sitting room she turned round to face him. ‘Why won’t you forgive me?’ she prompted. ‘Because I got pregnant?’

      A tall, dark, brooding figure in the doorway, Gio stared across the room at her. ‘I’m not that stupid. It takes two people to make a baby. I know you couldn’t have schemed behind my back to have him because if that had been the case your goal would have been to claim child support. As you made no attempt to contact me to tell me that you had had my child, I can, at least, absolve you of a motive of greed.’

      ‘Am I supposed to say thank you for that vote of confidence?’ Billie asked with raised brows.

      ‘No.’ Gio closed the door behind him. ‘You’re supposed to explain why you chose not to tell me.’

      ‘I’m surprised you can ask me that.’

      ‘Are you really?’ Gio prompted in a gritty undertone.

      ‘Yes...you were getting married,’ Billie pointed out flatly.

      ‘That’s not an excuse,’ Gio declared harshly. ‘Whether I was single, married or divorced that child upstairs was my business and will always be my business and that’s why you should have told me the minute you realised that you were pregnant.’

      ‘I didn’t think you’d want to know,’ Billie admitted uncomfortably, wondering exactly what he expected her to say. ‘You once warned me that if I got pregnant it would be a disaster and the end of our relationship.’

      ‘That’s not an excuse either, particularly as, according to you, our relationship was already at an end,’ Gio reminded her staunchly.

      ‘Gio, you know you would’ve been furious and that you probably would’ve blamed me for it. I knew you wouldn’t want me to have your child!’ she exclaimed in frustration, resenting his refusal to acknowledge the limits of their relationship at the time.

      ‘What you want and what you get in life are often two very different things,’ Gio pointed out cynically. ‘I’m adult enough to accept that reality.’

      ‘Oh, thanks a bundle!’ Billie snapped back at him, her face flaming. ‘How dare you sneer at me because I have your child? I believed that if I’d told you back then, you would have asked me to have a termination—’

      Gio shot her a chilling appraisal. ‘On what grounds do you base that assumption?’

      Aware of the rise of hostile vibrations in the atmosphere, Billie fumbled to find the right words. ‘Well, obviously—’

      An ebony brow lifted. ‘Did I ever make any comment about expecting you to have a termination if the situation arose?’

      Put so unerringly on the spot, Billie shifted her feet uneasily. ‘Well, no, but once you had admitted what your attitude would be to an unplanned pregnancy it was a natural assumption for me to make.’

      ‘I don’t think so.’

      ‘So, you’re saying that you wouldn’t have suggested a termination?’ Billie prompted.

      ‘That’s exactly what I’m saying. And considering that we only once briefly discussed how I would feel about you getting pregnant, you made one hell of a lot of assumptions about how I would react to having a child!’ Gio condemned.

      ‘At the time you were getting married to have a child with another woman. My being pregnant was nothing but bad news on every level!’ Billie proclaimed emotively. ‘And maybe I didn’t care to be the bearer of such bad news, maybe I didn’t want to tell you what I knew you didn’t want to hear, maybe, just maybe, I had a little pride of my own...’

      ‘I would never have married Calisto had I known you were pregnant,’ Gio declared grimly. ‘I would always have put the needs of my child first.’

      Billie was rocked by that blunt announcement and she frowned. ‘I don’t understand.’

      Gio was beginning to grasp that reality for himself and his temper was on a hair trigger. ‘No, you don’t understand what you’ve done,’ he told her flatly. ‘Do you?’

      ‘What have I done?’ Billie fired back defensively. ‘I brought Theo into the world and I’ve looked after him ever since to the best of my ability. He has everything that he needs—’

      Gio’s eyes flared golden as luminous torches, the force of his anger obvious in the harsh angular lines stamped on his darkly handsome features. ‘No, he has not. He has no father—’

      Her brow furrowed. ‘If you want to play a part in Theo’s life, I’ll support that...if that’s what you’re worrying about—’

      ‘You think it’s acceptable to offer me a part?’ Gio derided in a tone that cracked like a whiplash in the silence. ‘You think it’s acceptable to let my son go through surgery without even telling me? To raise him here in a dump? To drag him to a shop while you work? To keep him ignorant of my language, his heritage, his father’s family, when you don’t even have a family of your own to offer him? Let me tell you now that nothing you have done is acceptable to me!’

      Shaken by that comprehensive denunciation of what she had to offer her child and the fury he couldn’t hide, Billie backed off a step. ‘My home is not a dump—’

      ‘It is on my terms,’ Gio fired back unapologetically.

      ‘How did you know that Theo had to have surgery?’ Billie asked, thrown by Gio’s attitude, which was the exact opposite of what she had expected, and then finally making the leap to guess the most likely source of his information. ‘Oh, you’ve had us investigated, haven’t you?’

      ‘Why was my son over six months old before he received surgery?’ Gio demanded. ‘Hip dysplasia is usually recognised early.’

      ‘His wasn’t and when it was other treatments were tried first. You seem to know something about it—’

      ‘Of course I do—there’s a genetic link to the condition in my family. My half-sister and one of my full sisters were born with it as well as one nephew and one niece. It’s less common in boys. Theo having suffered it was almost as good as a DNA test,’ Gio spelt out with sardonic bite. ‘He is a Letsos in all but name—’

      Billie lifted her chin. ‘No, he’s a Smith.’

      Ramping down his anger, Gio looked at her, lustrous dark golden eyes semi-veiled by the thickness of his lashes. Even dressed in old jeans and a blue cotton top, her lush feminine curves sang a siren’s song to him. He hardened, knowing that, no matter how angry he was with her, he still wanted her on the most visceral level. Once had not been enough; once had not sated him. ‘I want my son,’ he said simply.

      Billie turned pale, eyes flickering uncertainly over his lean, tight face, skimming uneasily over the lithe, lethal power of his very well-built body. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

      ‘It means exactly what I said—I want my son. I want to be there for him as my father was not there for me,’ Gio extended curtly, wide sensual mouth compressing on the grudging admission, reminding her that his background and his family had always been a thorny topic on which he was only prepared to offer the barest details.

      ‘And how do you propose to do that?’

      ‘By fighting you for custody,’ Gio countered, throwing his big shoulders back, standing tall. ‘My son deserves no less from me.’

      Her brow furrowed, consternation and disbelief running through her in a debilitating wave as she collided with his fiery gaze. That visual connection seemed to make the very blood in her veins move sluggishly