The Best Of The Year - Modern Romance. Annie West

skull, fluffing up the short strands of hair that were never allowed to amount to curls.

      Gio rocked his hips lightly against hers and she tensed, suddenly insanely aware of his arousal and her own. ‘Theo’s my son. It’s my duty to look after both of you.’

      With a mighty effort of self-control, Billie yanked herself back from Gio and temptation. He could always make her want him but she could not afford to be stretched thin by that fierce wanting while she was trying to concentrate on the need to conserve her own life. With a slight shudder of loss, she straightened her slight shoulders and breathed in deep and slow to compose her scattered wits.

      ‘Sell the shop or let me hire a manager for it. You decide which option will suit you best,’ Gio urged, his lean dark features taut with impatience.

      Billie looked at him with wide eyes of disbelief. ‘Gio...I worked very hard to build up my business. You can’t expect me to walk away from it.’

      ‘Not even for Theo?’ Gio prompted, glancing down at the little boy now clinging precariously to his jeans-clad leg and gazing up at both of them. ‘Our son needs both of us and will do for some time. I want a normal family rapport with him. At the very least you will have to relocate your life to London, so that I can have regular access to him.’

      Unexpectedly that statement jolted Billie because Gio spent most of his time in Greece. No, he was definitely not offering her a fairy-tale for-ever marriage because he was clearly already envisaging a future in which they were separated and sharing custody of their son. Billie paled, feeling as though he had slapped her in the face with reality, but ironically it was her own silly thoughts she needed to put a guard on, she conceded painfully. Of course, Gio wasn’t suggesting a real marriage and a whitewash marriage would naturally have a sell-by date beyond which it was no longer required.

      ‘I need to think about all this,’ Billie admitted tightly. ‘You’re talking about turning my life upside down.’

      ‘And my own,’ Gio added softly. ‘None of this was on my bucket list either.’

      That obvious fact struck Billie like a second slap when she least required it. She did not need the reminder that Gio would never have chosen to marry her were it not for Theo. That reality was engraved on her soul because he had once rejected her in favour of Calisto. She bent down and scooped up Theo, loving the warm cuddliness of his solid little body and using it as a comfort to the chill spreading through her stomach. ‘I need to change him,’ she explained, walking away to scoop up the holdall and locate the nearest bathroom.

      Why were women so complicated? Gio thought in seething frustration. He had offered her what he had assumed she had always wanted and she was behaving as if he had offered her a dirty deal. What did she have to think about? How many women had to run off to the bathroom and change a nappy before they could decide whether or not they wanted to marry a billionaire? Was it possible that she suspected that he had a motivation that he wasn’t sharing?

      His lean, strong face set like granite. Admittedly, he had not told her the whole truth, could not possibly tell her the whole truth because that would make her fear him. He was fighting for what he believed in, fighting for what Theo needed most. In every battle there were winners and losers and Gio had no plans to be a loser or to stand by powerless while Theo received less than his due. In the rarefied world of the super-rich Billie could only be a trusting babe in arms. She was so ignorant of the utter ruthlessness that could make Theo a target for the greedy that she had no concept of how best to protect their son. But Gio knew and there was nothing he would not do to achieve that objective.

      Billie hovered by the vanity while Theo crawled across the tiled floor and pulled himself up on the side of the bath. Her brain was in turmoil, inescapable fear rammed down behind every thought. Gio wanted her to marry him for Theo’s sake and she wanted to give her son the best possible start in life. But there would be a steep price to pay for such a rise in her social status, she acknowledged unhappily. She would inevitably be an embarrassment to Gio, and his precious family were certain to disapprove of her. But then doubtless Gio planned to pension her off once all the legalities and his son’s place in life had been affirmed. So, it wouldn’t be a real for-ever marriage and would probably be set aside once Theo was old enough to go and visit his father without his mother in tow. Everything, she assumed, would happen exactly the way Gio wanted it to happen because he left nothing to chance. She foresaw that reality and froze at the terrifying prospect of being left so powerless, shorn of her home and her business. Did she have a choice? Could she trust Gio with their son’s future well-being?

      Theo anchored on her hip, Billie walked back into the gracious reception room. Gio had removed his jacket, loosened his tie and pushed up the sleeves of his white silk shirt. The super-fine expensive material accentuated the muscles that rippled with his every movement and his impossibly taut, flat stomach. Her gaze lingered there, feverish memories of torrid moments awakening, fingers and lips gliding along his hard ribcage, smoothing over his abdomen before stroking down the furrow of silky hair disappearing below his waistband. Her tummy flipped and she gave herself a stern, frowning little shake as she emerged from her reverie. Black lashes flicking up on shrewd eyes, Gio completed the phone call he was making and set the phone down.

      ‘OK. I’ll marry you,’ Billie spelled out tautly, her colour high. ‘But that means I’m trusting you not to do anything that might harm Theo or me. If I find out that I can’t trust you I’ll leave you.’

      Gio flashed her a deeply appreciative smile. She would never leave him again. Not unless she was prepared to leave her son behind with him, he reflected with immense satisfaction. She might not know it yet but her days of running were at an end.

      ‘And you have to be totally, one hundred per cent faithful,’ Billie decreed.

      ‘I always was with you,’ Gio responded airily.

      ‘But there’s that saying about how when a man marries his mistress he creates a vacancy,’ Billie remarked flatly, her lush mouth compressing on a sense of humiliation.

      ‘I think my life is complicated enough,’ Gio fielded.

      And of course he wouldn’t be expecting to be married to her until he was old and grey and, since he would always have an end to their arrangement in sight, straying through boredom was less likely to be a problem, Billie affixed grimly, striving not to be hurt by that truth.

      ‘Now that you’ve got what you wanted, can I go home?’ Billie pressed.

      ‘I want you here. Presumably you want to be involved in making your own wedding arrangements.’ A straight ebony brow inclined. ‘We’ll have a small wedding in the Greek Orthodox church I attend in London. I’ve already applied for the required licences.’

      Billie’s eyes flared in surprise. ‘You took a lot for granted.’

      Gio’s steady gaze held hers. ‘I can afford to. Why would you refuse to marry me when that was presumably what you wanted two years ago?’

      Billie reddened as though she had been slapped. So, he had finally worked that obvious fact out, had he? Mortification drenched her like a tidal wave. ‘I don’t buy into fairy tales any more.’

      ‘But I want you to have the fairy tale, pouli mou,’ Gio breathed curtly, thoroughly disconcerting her with that statement. ‘I want you to wear a fancy dress and all the trimmings.’

      ‘Why? Because it will look good in the photos?’ Billie forced her strained eyes away from him, her heart-shaped face stiff because she knew that he could never give her the fairy tale. After all, the one essential facet of her fairy-tale denouement had been his love. She was also wounded that he was so sure that she would have married him like a shot two years earlier, particularly when he had coolly turned away from her to marry another, more suitable woman. Her love had meant nothing to him in those days but then she had offered her love too freely. Was it fair to judge him harshly for not being able to love her back?

      ‘A normal marriage,’ he reminded her quietly. ‘That is what I want and that is what we will have.’

      His