The Best Of The Year - Modern Romance. Annie West

Gio’s grandfather confessed. ‘The effect on Gio was catastrophic. He had lost his father, his home and then his mother, only a few months later.’

      Billie shook her head slowly, cringing at the thought of such a huge loss being inflicted on Gio and his sisters while they were still so young. ‘That must have been dreadful for him,’ she muttered unsteadily, her heart swelling. ‘He would’ve felt responsible—’

      ‘I worried that Gio would inherit the same excessively emotional personality that both Dmitri and Ianthe demonstrated in the way they led their lives. That kind of emotional intensity leads to instability.’

      ‘Not always,’ Billie inserted gently.

      Theon shook his white head. ‘I wanted to be sure that Gio did not repeat his father’s mistakes. It was too much responsibility to place on a child’s shoulders. In many ways I taught him the wrong values,’ he explained with unashamed guilt etched in his lined features. ‘I expected, wanted him to marry well...and we all know how successful that proved to be. I put far too much emphasis on wealth, status and family duty—’

      ‘But,’ Billie cut in with an apologetic look, ‘at the end of the day, Gio is a highly intelligent adult and totally independent and he made his own decisions.’

      ‘Ne...yes, and he married you without telling any of us because he refused even to risk the fact that I might have tried to interfere.’

      ‘Probably,’ Billie agreed thoughtfully. ‘But he’s not enough in touch with his own feelings to even know that.’

      ‘You know him so well,’ Theon pronounced with appreciation. ‘Now we’ve got the difficult bit over, shall we enjoy our scones?’

      * * *

      Gio was on the phone to Leandros and Leandros was asking awkward questions, destined not to be answered. ‘I just don’t understand.’ His best friend sighed. ‘You only got married yesterday. You only arrived with your family today. Why would you want to fly back to Athens for one night simply to have some fancy dinner?’

      ‘Tomorrow’s Billie’s birthday.’

      ‘So, make it tomorrow, then.’

      ‘I want to do it tonight. Are you joining us?’ Gio prompted. ‘And, Leandros, if you mention Canaletto, I’ll cut your throat.’

      ‘Of course I’ll join you.’

      Billie was engaged in drying Theo and slotting him into his pyjamas when Gio appeared in the bathroom doorway of the nursery suite.

      Gio swept up his son and hugged him and did the flying thing again, which sent Theo into gales of laughter. ‘He’s tired,’ Gio acknowledged as Theo then rested his curly head down on his father’s shoulder and slumped.

      ‘He’s had a lot of excitement today and he’s always exhausted when he’s been with other kids.’ Billie carried her son through to the bedroom and settled him down in the very fancy cot, from which she quickly detached the flouncy hangings and everything else within reach for such dangling temptations were not a good idea with an active toddler.

      ‘This place needs to be refurnished,’ Gio commented tautly, watching her every move, it seemed, unsettling her.

      Billie laughed. ‘It’s perfectly fine. It might have been done up for a little girl but Theo doesn’t know the difference yet.’

      ‘It was decorated for Sofia’s youngest daughter. She had a difficult birth and her husband was travelling and Theon suggested she move back here while he was away,’ Gio volunteered.

      ‘Sofia’s lovely,’ Billie said warmly.

      ‘We’re going out tonight,’ Gio announced abruptly.

      ‘Where to?’

      ‘Athens.’

      Billie blinked. ‘Athens? But we’ve only just got here!’

      ‘We’ll be back tomorrow,’ Gio sliced in. ‘We’re eating out with Leandros and his current girlfriend.’

      ‘Are they getting engaged or something?’

      ‘Not that I know of. Is going out with me such a big deal?’ Gio demanded in frustration.

      Billie almost said that, naturally, it was a big deal when he had never taken her anywhere public in years, aside of the wedding, but she thought better of that piece of one-upmanship. She was reluctant to hark back to the past when their marriage was, self-evidently, a very new and much altered situation. She supposed that, for Gio, taking a flight for one night out was almost normal, certainly nothing he appeared to have to think about, and she resolved to say no more while privately worrying about what she had to wear.

      She blessed the foresight that had sent her out shopping for more sophisticated and expensive clothes before the wedding and pulled an elegant pewter-coloured dress from a closet in the luxurious dressing room where all her clothes had been carefully unpacked for her. While she showered and attended to renewing her make-up, she pondered Gio’s strange mood.

      ‘What do you think?’ she asked, twirling a little apprehensively in front of him when she found him waiting in the bedroom for her.

      Stunning dark golden eyes flared over her. ‘You look incredible,’ he intoned with convincing appreciation. ‘Are you ready to leave?’

      A warm sense of acceptance blossomed inside Billie even though she could still not understand how he could have been married to a beauty like Calisto and still deem his infinitely less-beautiful second wife equal to the label ‘incredible’.

      ‘Are we returning to Letsos tonight?’ she prompted as she let Gio lift her into the helicopter.

      ‘Yes, although the family own a city apartment if you would prefer to stay there,’ he volunteered.

      ‘No, I’d miss Theo at breakfast time when he’s all warm and cuddly and glad to see me,’ Billie confided sunnily.

      As the helicopter rose in the air Gio leant closer, meshing long fingers into the tumble of her curls. He turned her face up and crushed her mouth under his in a breathtakingly hot kiss and that not only startled her, but also sent hunger crashing greedily through her body.

      Billie rested disconcerted eyes on him in the aftermath. His lean, darkly beautiful face was slashed by a brilliant smile and he closed one hand firmly over hers. Wonderment filtered through Billie. There was something wrong but she didn’t know what it was...

CHAPTER NINE

      BILLIE WALKED INTO the upmarket art gallery with one hand resting on Gio’s arm. The owner swam up to them wreathed in smiles. Wine was served while they were treated to a personalised tour of the exhibits. Billie was bored but worked hard not to show it, politely absorbing the pretentious descriptions of canvases that looked as though a toddler had thrown paint at them.

      ‘Do you see anything you like?’ Gio enquired, apparently surprised by his wife’s unresponsive silence.

      ‘I’m not an art buff. I sort of prefer more traditional paintings,’ she whispered back guiltily, and then she stiffened, staring across the gallery at the unmistakeable figure of Calisto, sheathed in a scarlet minidress and virtually impossible to miss.

      ‘What the hell...?’ Gio breathed irritably above her head.

      ‘I’ll deal with this,’ Billie announced, startling him, walking across the marble tiles with her wine glass clasped in one determined hand.

      ‘How did you know we were going to be here?’ Billie asked Gio’s ex-wife without hesitation.

      Calisto’s ice-blue eyes glinted. ‘I have my sources, but aren’t you a little out of your depth in this milieu?’

      ‘I believe you’re the one out of your depth. Gio