The Best Of The Year - Modern Romance. Annie West

always followed such demonstrations of independent action. Once long ago she had insisted on attending a tutorial interview while he was staying at the apartment. He had been irritated that she should want to go out and leave him, even if it was only for a couple of hours. By the time she had got back, he had returned to Greece. Lesson learned, she had thought then, sick with disappointment and resolving never to mention the need to go anywhere else again. This time around, however, Billie was exasperated and furious that he had removed her from the comfort of home and familiarity and marooned her in a luxury hotel with a nanny and a four-strong set of bodyguards to watch over her and Theo.

CHAPTER SEVEN

      LEANDROS CONISTIS VERY NEARLY dropped his drink. ‘You’re getting married again?’ he repeated like a well-trained parrot to the male who had so recently told him he would never remarry.

      Gio dealt his best friend a forbidding look that dared irreverent comment. ‘Ne...yes.’

      ‘Do I know the lady?’ Leandros enquired somewhat stiffly.

      ‘You met her briefly on one occasion,’ Gio divulged grudgingly. ‘Her name’s Billie...’

      Leandros knocked what remained of his drink down in one suicidal gulp because he knew in that same moment that Canaletto’s name would never ever cross his lips again. ‘I didn’t realise...Billie was still a feature in your life. Have your family met her?’ he asked.

      Gio compressed his wide sensual mouth. ‘No.’

      ‘And when is this wedding at which you wish me to act as your best man to take place?’

      ‘Tomorrow.’ Gio threw in the necessary details of place and time in a demonstration of spectacular cool.

      Leandros studied the date on his watch face, astonished that it wasn’t the first of April and an April fool’s joke because Gio, who was as a rule extremely conservative and never imprudent, had literally stunned him speechless. ‘It seems...er...very sudden,’ he commented cautiously.

      ‘Ne...yes,’ Gio conceded.

      ‘Very...er hasty.’ Leandros was gradually becoming more daring.

      ‘Not hasty enough,’ Gio told him drily. ‘My son is fifteen months old.’

      * * *

      ‘Oh, Billie, you look amazing.’ Dee sighed as she stepped back from tying the laces at the back of Billie’s wedding gown.

      Billie stared at her reflection in the cheval mirror and blinked several times at the still-unfamiliar furnishings of the opulent bedroom. Gio had taken a plush city apartment for her and Theo to stay in. She still couldn’t quite believe that she was marrying Gio, indeed she kept on expecting some movie cameraman to show up and shout, ‘Cut!’ before things went any further. After all, in an hour’s time she was going to marry a man she wasn’t even speaking to. How’s that for stupidity? she asked herself ruefully.

      Gio had left her and Theo in the hotel in Yorkshire for four days. Of course he had made regular phone calls and had talked during those calls as though there were nothing wrong with his desertion while smoothly excusing himself in advance.

      ‘I knew you had too much on your plate to accompany me down to London,’ Gio had told her, ignoring the fact that he had put one of his aides in charge of dealing with all the wedding and removal arrangements for her.

      ‘I knew you would want to spend time saying goodbye to your friends and sorting out your shop,’ Gio had said optimistically, ignorant of the reality that Dee was walking Billie down the aisle while her twins were acting as a bridesmaid and pageboy.

      ‘I knew that you would think it was a bad idea to subject Theo to another change of surroundings and more strangers when it wasn’t strictly necessary,’ Gio had opined complacently.

      Billie was furious with him and her anger hadn’t faded; it had only grown while Gio had acted as if leaving his bride-to-be and newly discovered son behind him in Yorkshire had been the only possible thing to do. Striving to keep a lid on that tight little knot of rage locked deep inside her, Billie surveyed her dress with faraway eyes. It was a romantic dress fashioned of Chantilly lace and chiffon, light and floaty and styled to make the most of her natural curves and waist. The flirty short veil and crown of flowers had a natural elegant simplicity. Pearl-studded shoes peeped out below the hem of her gown.

      Someone knocked on the bedroom door. Since the only other person in the apartment was Irene, the pleasant middle-aged nanny whom Gio had hired, Dee answered it.

      ‘Oh...’ Dee backed off uneasily, her surprise unhidden when she recognised Gio.

      Billie froze. ‘You’re not supposed to see me in my wedding dress!’ she exclaimed in consternation.

      Taken aback by Dee’s appearance, Gio muttered a stiff acknowledgment in English while hungrily taking in the vision Billie made in her white dress. He had died and gone to heaven, he decided without hesitation. As Dee ducked out behind him, tactfully closing the door in her wake, he strode forward, his attention locked to the tantalising pout of Billie’s ripe pink mouth and the creamy swell of her luscious breasts above the boned bodice of her gown. ‘You look fantastic,’ he breathed in a roughened undertone.

      It was a challenge for Billie not to echo that sentiment. It might be a small wedding on Gio’s terms, which was to say that it was a large wedding on her terms, but Gio had still chosen to embrace the formality of a full morning suit teamed with a striped black and silver cravat at his brown throat. The black jacket was exquisitely tailored to his tall, well-built form, delineating his broad shoulders and muscular chest, while the striped trousers enhanced his narrow hips and long powerful legs. Billie collided headily with smouldering dark golden eyes heavily fringed with curling black lashes. Gio looked absolutely gorgeous.

      ‘What are you doing here?’ she whispered and then tensed. ‘Have you changed your mind? If you have, it’s all right. I’m not going to make a fuss. It doesn’t feel real anyway—’

      ‘Theos...of course I haven’t changed my mind!’ Gio ground out, extending the jewel case he carried in one lean brown hand. ‘I wanted to give you this...’

      For a split second he too wondered what he was doing there for in truth he had acted on the kind of impulse he usually suppressed. On the way to the church he had realised that he had to see her before the wedding and there was nothing wrong with that, he reasoned uneasily, when he was about to take the very major step of marrying her. Desire was always an acceptable motivation as long as it stayed within rational bounds. And sex with Billie was incredible. He felt nothing else, needed nothing beyond her physical presence.

      In a daze, Billie blinked and accepted the case, flipping it open to display a breathtaking triple string of pearls and dangling pearl earrings. The set would match her shoes and be a great deal more impressive than the cheap diamanté set she had purchased. ‘It’s beautiful,’ she murmured weakly as he moved forward to detach the pearls from the case and fasten them round her neck.

      His fingertips brushed the nape of her neck. ‘I wanted to give you something special.’

      The glowing pearls were cool at her throat and she bent over the case to detach the earrings. Threading her veil and her curls out of the way, she put the earrings on. ‘Thank you,’ she said woodenly, thinking that he hadn’t changed one little bit in all the years she had known him. Here he was still trying to bribe and guilt her into ignoring his bad behaviour.

      ‘I can’t stand you talking to me in that chilly voice,’ Gio informed her grimly. ‘Obviously you’re annoyed I left you behind in Yorkshire.’

      Billie’s teeth rattled together with rage. ‘You mean...you actually noticed I was being cool on the phone?’

      ‘Considering that you would once chat about nothing in particular for hours on end without the slightest encouragement, one-word responses were rather obvious,’