The Best Of The Year - Modern Romance. Annie West

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