The Best Of The Year - Modern Romance. Annie West

to show you off anywhere. I’m really proud that you’re my wife,’ Gio imparted with a brilliant beautiful smile as he scooped her up in his arms and carried her through to their bed.

      ‘Honestly?’ Billie pressed.

      ‘Honestly,’ Gio stressed. ‘I only wish I’d understood the strength of what I felt for you a lot sooner because it would have saved us both a great deal of unhappiness. I would never willingly have let you go.’

      ‘I still love you,’ Billie told him with a forgiving grin that illuminated her whole face.

      ‘I have to wonder why,’ he said seriously.

      ‘Maybe because I see a side of you that other people don’t. I don’t know. I just always loved you,’ Billie mused, relaxed about her own feelings for the first time in years because he loved her back. A singing, dizzy sense of happiness was spreading through her, all her fears finally laid to rest.

      ‘Bet I love you even more than you love me,’ Gio husked, dark eyes smouldering gold as he kissed her with sweet, ravishing hunger. ‘I’m hopelessly competitive.’

      ‘You can win that competition any time you like,’ Billie joked, feeling gloriously free to express her own feelings as she gripped his shirt collar and dragged him down to her again.

      * * *

      Billie watched Theo race into the waves with Jade and Davis while Gio kept a watch on the children.

      ‘You know,’ Dee remarked from her lounger by Billie’s side on the deck of the beach house, ‘Gio’s totally different from the sort of man I thought he was. He’s great with kids, for a start.’

      ‘Oh, he’s surprised me too in that line,’ Billie confided lazily, her attention on the six-month-old daughter sleeping in her portable crib in the shadows. ‘He adores Ianthe.’

      ‘When does your family tree get a look-in with the names?’ Dee asked.

      ‘Are you joking?’ Billie laughed. ‘With Grandpa being a Wilfred and Grandma Ethel, I think Gio’s family names have more promise. What were we talking about? Right, yes, Gio and children. He’s surprised too by how much he enjoys having a family.’

      ‘Billie, if you wanted a giraffe in the family, he’d try to give it to you,’ her cousin said with a roll of her eyes. ‘The man is besotted. I can see it every time he looks at you.’

      ‘Maybe it’ll be your turn soon,’ Billie remarked quietly, because Dee had started seeing someone back home. It was early days yet, of course, but she was hoping Dee would be brave enough to try another relationship because her cousin spent too much time alone.

      It had been two years since Billie had married Gio and Dee was currently in the process of buying Billie’s vintage clothes shop, which she was still successfully managing. A lot had changed for Billie in that same period but Gio had changed too, opening up to his emotions and pulling free of an outlook that had once been set in stone. He would never be Dee’s best friend but he could relax now with the other woman and accept her place in Billie’s life without comment or tension. Billie suspected that their children had helped Gio become more relaxed and flexible.

      Theo was tall for a three-year-old, like all the men in the Letsos family, and he had Gio’s black hair messily combined with his mother’s corkscrew curls, something he would no doubt complain bitterly about when he reached his teenaged years, Billie reflected fondly. Ianthe was a combination of their genes as well, for her eyes had turned as green as her mother’s and she was fairer in colouring than her brother with dead straight hair with not even a hint of a curl.

      Billie went into the beach house for a cold drink and glanced around with a rather wicked smile because she knew that she and Gio would be spending the night there. Dee and the children were heading home in the afternoon and Irene, their trusty nanny, would collect Theo and Ianthe to take them back to the villa.

      In the two years since she had married Gio, Billie had learned to make the most of their private time together. Gio travelled less than he once had and their lives were based on the island. Billie got on great with Gio’s family and was particularly close to his sisters and never short of company. Sometimes she wanted to pinch herself because she had never dreamt that she could be so happy.

      A pair of arms closed round her from behind and she jumped. ‘Gio?’

      ‘Who else?’ he breathed teasingly above her head.

      ‘You gave me a fright,’ she whispered, swivelling round in his arms to look up at him. ‘Who’s with the children?’

      ‘Dee’s taking a turn.’

      Billie collided with smouldering dark golden eyes set in a stunning lean dark face and wrapped her arms round his neck, her heart hammering. ‘You still rock my world, Mr Letsos,’ she confided breathlessly.

      Gio dealt her a thrillingly erotic smile of anticipation. ‘Not until tonight, agapi mou.’

      He called her ‘my love’ now, Billie reflected blissfully, for she now spoke a fair amount of Greek. Her curvaceous body sealed slowly to his with intense appreciation of the strength and protectiveness in his tall, well-built length. ‘I love you, Gio...’

      ‘And I am totally devoted to you,’ Gio intoned huskily, bending his head to steal a kiss that went on until they had to break apart to breathe.

      * * * * *

Innocent in His Diamonds

       ‘Save the act, Miss Duval. Pretending outrage while your eyes devour me wears thin after a while,’ he sliced at her.

      ‘God, you are full of yourself, aren’t you? The outrage is real. I’ve never met anyone more infuriating than you. And there’s nothing remotely sexual about that!’

      There—that should set him straight, she congratulated herself, so pleased with her comeback that she didn’t acknowledge the charged silence until his hand landed on her shoulder.

      ‘Then this shouldn’t affect you too much.’

      ‘Wha—?’

      His lips slanted over hers before she could get the word out.

      Ana’s world imploded. Every coherent thought, every ounce of outrage fled as she experienced Bastien, up close and devastatingly personal.

      His kiss started out as a ruthless lesson. Very quickly it became something else. Something that made her stomach muscles quiver.

      His lips, hot and urgent, seared her, branded her, evoking such electrifying reactions that she could do nothing but cling on, crave more, open herself to the pleasure drenching her.

      When his tongue stroked hers molten heat seared through her, singeing every nerve-ending, every drop of her blood, until she burned, engulfed in sensual flames.

      Bastien had called her reaction to him an act. Except it wasn’t an act. The world might think Ana Duval represented sex on legs, but the truth would shock them even more. The fact was that she was as far removed from being sexually promiscuous as was humanly possible.

      MAYA BLAKE’s hopes of becoming a writer were born when she picked up her first Mills & Boon^® aged thirteen. Little did she know her dream would come true! Does she still pinch herself every now and then to make sure it’s not a dream? Yes, she does!

      Feel free to pinch her too, via Twitter, Facebook or Goodreads!

CHAPTER ONE

      BASTIEN HEIDECKER THREW OPEN the doors of his boardroom and strode in. For several seconds none of his board members