One Night: Blissful Seduction
‘A year old,’ Billie answered, trimming a couple of months from Theo’s tally for safety’s sake, fearful of rousing Gio’s curiosity and making him wonder if there was the smallest possibility that her child might also be his child.
Involved in fast mental calculations as he counted the months, Gio compressed his wide sensual mouth into a hard line of distaste. ‘So, it was some kind of rebound thing after me,’ he assumed.
‘Not everything in my life is about you!’ Billie snapped back defensively.
‘But obviously the kid’s father isn’t still around—’
‘Not all men are cut out to be fathers,’ she parried.
‘The least a man should do is stand by his own child,’ Gio pronounced, startling her with that opinion. ‘It’s his most basic duty.’
‘Well, mine didn’t...’ and she almost reminded him that his father hadn’t either but that felt like too sensitive a point to raise in the mood he was in.
‘Whatever.’ Gio shifted a broad shoulder sheathed in butter-soft leather in a Mediterranean shrug as he moved past her to the door, clearly eager to be gone this time around. ‘You should’ve told me about the child the minute I reappeared. It’s a game changer, not something I could accept.’
Once, Billie would have assumed that she would experience a certain bitter satisfaction from Gio, in his ignorance, rejecting his own child, but instead guilt bit deep into her uneasy conscience. The passage of time had softened her outlook. Nothing was as black and white as she had believed when she had given birth to Theo without Gio’s knowledge. Less emotional now than she had been then, she knew that Gio had wronged her but that Gio’s wrong did not necessarily make her decisions right. A child wasn’t a trophy or a payback for an adult’s unkindness. A child was only a small human being, who might well not appreciate the choice she had made when he was old enough to have an opinion.
* * *
For Gio the next morning started with a bang when the fax spewed out a document and kept on printing. He scooped up the first page on the way to the shower and froze when he realised that he was looking at a facsimile of a birth certificate.
Theon Giorgios, a little boy aged fifteen months, had been born to Billie Smith. Theon was his grandfather’s name and the child’s age left no doubt of when conception had occurred.
Gio swept up the other pages of the report that had come through. His hands were trembling with rage. He was so angry, so incredulous that he wanted to smash something. He had trusted Billie and yet self-evidently she had betrayed his trust. He struggled to cool down for long enough to take a rational appraisal of the facts. No method of birth control was fool proof. He knew that intellectually, but he had always been careful, determined never to be caught in that net by something as basic as biology.
Billie had been on the contraceptive pill but side effects had led to her trying several brands before finally choosing to have an implant put in her arm instead. In short he had allowed her to take contraceptive responsibility and it was very possible that she had simply fallen victim to the failure rate. He set down the report, strode into the shower and, below the pounding beat of the overhead power shower, he thought with an incredulous wonder that was entirely new to his experience, I have a son.
An illegitimate son. He didn’t like that; he didn’t like that aspect at all. Gio was rigid in his views in that line and was well aware that his half-sister had suffered from having neither a father nor the acceptance and support of her own family. Times had changed since then and the world in general was much less concerned about whether or not children were born within marriage. In the Letsos family, however, such formal acknowledgements of inheritance, status and honour still mattered a great deal.
That Billie had lied outright to him shocked Gio the most and by the time he had finished reading that report and had learned about his son’s surgery, Billie’s unacceptable childcare arrangements and the unsavoury character of the woman she was living with, he wasted no time in setting up a video-conference meeting with his legal team in London to get advice. That discussion concluded, Gio knew what his options were and they were very few and the fierce temper he usually kept under wraps was boiling up like lava below his calm surface. He was in a situation he would never have chosen and, worst of all, a situation he could not necessarily control. He would fight dirty if he had to, very dirty if need be. Billie might have taken him by surprise but Gio knew where his priorities lay.
That same morning, Billie felt washed out because she had tossed and turned through the night and she got up early and was sitting with a cup of tea when Dee came downstairs smothering a yawn and swearing she was going straight back to bed.
‘I’ve done something awful,’ she confided to her cousin, quickly filling in the details and wincing when Dee looked at her in surprise and dismay. ‘I know, it was totally wrong of me to tell Gio that Theo was another man’s child—’
‘What came over you?’
Billie groaned. ‘I felt cornered and threatened. I didn’t get the chance to think anything through. I know Gio’s going to be furious when he finds out the truth.’ She pushed away the curls flopping on her brow and groaned. ‘I’m going to text him and ask him to come over.’
‘I think you’d better. I mean...the minute you realised that he knew you had a child, you should’ve come clean. After all, if you don’t tell Gio, what happens if Theo decides that he wants to meet his father ten or fifteen years from now?’ the blonde woman asked anxiously. ‘I know Gio hurt you but that doesn’t mean that he couldn’t be a good father.’
Dee wasn’t telling Billie anything she hadn’t thought herself during the long lonely hours of the night. Gio walking back into her life had changed everything. It was no longer acceptable to conceal the truth of Theo’s paternity and pretending that some other man was responsible for his conception had been downright unforgivable, she acknowledged with eyes that ached from the tears she was holding back. Ashamed of that moment of cowardice, she swallowed hard and lifted her phone, selecting the number she had never deleted, hoping it remained unchanged, texting...
I have to speak to you today. It’s very important.
Gio texted back.
Eleven, your house.
Clearly, Billie was planning to tell him the truth. Gio’s mouth curled; he wasn’t impressed. The truth would still be coming fifteen months and more too late...
CHAPTER FIVE
RESTIVE AS A cat on hot bricks, Billie peered out of the window as Gio sprang out of the limo and she tensed up even more at the sight of his formal attire. He wore a faultlessly tailored black business suit teamed with a white shirt and purple tie. This was Gio in full tycoon mode, eyes veiled, lean, strong face taut with reserve, and unsmiling.
‘I have something to tell you,’ she said breathlessly in the hall.
Gio withdrew a folded sheet of paper from his jacket and simply extended it. ‘I already know...’
Her heart beating very fast, Billie shook open the sheet, lashes fluttering in disconcertion when she saw the photocopy of the birth certificate. ‘I don’t know what to say—’
‘There’s nothing you can say,’ Gio pronounced icily. ‘You lied last night. You deliberately concealed the truth from me for well over a year. Evidently you had no intention of ever telling me that I was a father.’
‘I never expected to see you again,’ Billie muttered weakly.
‘I want to see him,’ Gio breathed in a driven undertone.
‘He’s having a nap—’
Poised at the foot of the stairs, Gio sent her a sardonic appraisal. ‘I will still see him...’
Billie breathed in deep and started up the stairs, brushing damp palms down over her jeans. If she was reasonable, even a touch conciliating, they could deal with this situation in a perfectly civilised fashion, she told herself soothingly. Naturally, Gio’s first reaction was curiosity and, since he was divorced, Theo’s existence was probably less of an embarrassment than it might otherwise have been.
‘We need to be quiet,’ she whispered. ‘Dee’s very tired and she went back to bed. I don’t want to wake her.’
Billie pressed open the door of the room that the three children shared. Theo’s cot was in the corner. Gio strode up to the rails and gazed down with a powerful sense of disbelief at the baby peacefully sleeping in a tangle of covers. His son. Even at first glance, the family resemblance was staggering. Theo had a shock of black curls, a strong little nose and the set of his eyes was the same as Gio’s. Gio breathed in deep and slow, his broad chest tightening on a surge of emotion unlike anything he had ever felt. This was his little boy and he had gone through serious surgery without Gio. Any sort of surgery on babies was risky. His child could have died without Gio ever having known of his existence. Rage shot through Gio like a rejuvenating drug, ripping through the carapace of uncertainty and shock. Not trusting himself to remain quiet, he swung away from the cot and walked back to the door.
Billie studied him uneasily. Colour scored along the high blades of his cheekbones. His eyes were a glossy brilliant black she couldn’t read and his wide sensual mouth was clenched into a hard line.
‘Theos...I will never ever forgive you for this,’ Gio ground out at the top of the stairs, his dark velvety drawl as chilling as an icicle shot into her flesh.
Consternation winging through her at that inflexible assurance, Billie’s tummy flipped and her legs felt hollow and clumsy as she descended the stairs.
In the sitting room she turned round to face him. ‘Why won’t you forgive me?’ she prompted. ‘Because I got pregnant?’
A tall, dark, brooding figure in the doorway, Gio stared across the room at her. ‘I’m not that stupid. It takes two people to make a baby. I know you couldn’t have schemed behind my back to have him because if that had been the case your goal would have been to claim child support. As you made no attempt to contact me to tell me that you had had my child, I can, at least, absolve you of a motive of greed.’
‘Am I supposed to say thank you for that vote of confidence?’ Billie asked with raised brows.
‘No.’ Gio closed the door behind him. ‘You’re supposed to explain why you chose not to tell me.’
‘I’m surprised you can ask me that.’
‘Are you really?’ Gio prompted in a gritty undertone.
‘Yes...you were getting married,’ Billie pointed out flatly.
‘That’s not an excuse,’ Gio declared harshly. ‘Whether I was single, married or divorced that child upstairs was my business and will always be my business and that’s why you should have told me the minute you realised that you were pregnant.’
‘I didn’t think you’d want to know,’ Billie admitted uncomfortably, wondering exactly what he expected her to say. ‘You once warned me that if I got pregnant it would be a disaster and the end of our relationship.’
‘That’s not an excuse either, particularly as, according to you, our relationship was already at an end,’ Gio reminded her staunchly.
‘Gio, you know you would’ve been furious and that you probably would’ve blamed me for it. I knew you wouldn’t want me to have your child!’ she exclaimed in frustration, resenting his refusal to acknowledge the limits of their relationship at the time.
‘What you want and what you get in life are often two very different things,’ Gio pointed out cynically. ‘I’m adult enough to accept that reality.’
‘Oh, thanks a bundle!’ Billie snapped back at him, her face flaming. ‘How dare you sneer at me because I have your child? I believed that if I’d told you back then, you would have asked me to have a termination—’
Gio shot her a chilling appraisal. ‘On what grounds do you base that assumption?’
Aware of the rise of hostile vibrations in the atmosphere, Billie fumbled to find the right words. ‘Well, obviously—’
An ebony brow lifted. ‘Did I ever make any comment about expecting you to have a termination if the situation arose?’
Put so unerringly on the spot, Billie shifted her feet uneasily. ‘Well, no, but once you had admitted what your attitude would be to an unplanned pregnancy it was a natural assumption for me to make.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘So, you’re saying that you wouldn’t have suggested a termination?’ Billie prompted.
‘That’s exactly what I’m saying. And considering that we only once briefly discussed how I would feel about you getting pregnant, you made one hell of a lot of assumptions about how I would react to having a child!’ Gio condemned.
‘At the time you were getting married to have a child with another woman. My being pregnant was nothing but bad news on every level!’ Billie proclaimed emotively. ‘And maybe I didn’t care to be the bearer of such bad news, maybe I didn’t want to tell you what I knew you didn’t want to hear, maybe, just maybe, I had a little pride of my own...’
‘I would never have married Calisto had I known you were pregnant,’ Gio declared grimly. ‘I would always have put the needs of my child first.’
Billie was rocked by that blunt announcement and she frowned. ‘I don’t understand.’
Gio was beginning to grasp that reality for himself and his temper was on a hair trigger. ‘No, you don’t understand what you’ve done,’ he told her flatly. ‘Do you?’
‘What have I done?’ Billie fired back defensively. ‘I brought Theo into the world and I’ve looked after him ever since to the best of my ability. He has everything that he needs—’
Gio’s eyes flared golden as luminous torches, the force of his anger obvious in the harsh angular lines stamped on his darkly handsome features. ‘No, he has not. He has no father—’
Her brow furrowed. ‘If you want to play a part in Theo’s life, I’ll support that...if that’s what you’re worrying about—’
‘You think it’s acceptable to offer me a part?’ Gio derided in a tone that cracked like a whiplash in the silence. ‘You think it’s acceptable to let my son go through surgery without even telling me? To raise him here in a dump? To drag him to a shop while you work? To keep him ignorant of my language, his heritage, his father’s family, when you don’t even have a family of your own to offer him? Let me tell you now that nothing you have done is acceptable to me!’
Shaken by that comprehensive denunciation of what she had to offer her child and the fury he couldn’t hide, Billie backed off a step. ‘My home is not a dump—’
‘It is on my terms,’ Gio fired back unapologetically.
‘How did you know that Theo had to have surgery?’ Billie asked, thrown by Gio’s attitude, which was the exact opposite of what she had expected, and then finally making the leap to guess the most likely source of his information. ‘Oh, you’ve had us investigated, haven’t you?’
‘Why was my son over six months old before he received surgery?’ Gio demanded. ‘Hip dysplasia is usually recognised early.’
‘His wasn’t and when it was other treatments were tried first. You seem to know something about it—’
‘Of course I do—there’s a genetic link to the condition in my family. My half-sister and one of my full sisters were born with it as well as one nephew and one niece. It’s less common in boys. Theo having suffered it was almost as good as a DNA test,’ Gio spelt out with sardonic bite. ‘He is a Letsos in all but name—’
Billie lifted her chin. ‘No, he’s a Smith.’
Ramping down his anger, Gio looked at her, lustrous dark golden eyes semi-veiled by the thickness of his lashes. Even dressed in old jeans and a blue cotton top, her lush feminine curves sang a siren’s song to him. He hardened, knowing that, no matter how angry he was with her, he still wanted her on the most visceral level. Once had not been enough; once had not sated him. ‘I want my son,’ he said simply.
Billie turned pale, eyes flickering uncertainly over his lean, tight face, skimming uneasily over the lithe, lethal power of his very well-built body. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘It means exactly what I said—I want my son. I want to be there for him as my father was not there for me,’ Gio extended curtly, wide sensual mouth compressing on the grudging admission, reminding her that his background and his family had always been a thorny topic on which he was only prepared to offer the barest details.
‘And how do you propose to do that?’
‘By fighting you for custody,’ Gio countered, throwing his big shoulders back, standing tall. ‘My son deserves no less from me.’
Her brow furrowed, consternation and disbelief running through her in a debilitating wave as she collided with his fiery gaze. That visual connection seemed to make the very blood in her veins move sluggishly even while her heartbeat quickened. In turmoil, she shivered. ‘You can’t be serious. You can’t mean that you would try to take Theo away from me?’
‘I will not allow him to stay here.’
Anger powered by a deep sense of fear smashed through the wall of Billie’s astonishment. ‘It doesn’t matter what you allow. I’m Theo’s mother and what you have to say has nothing to do with it!’
‘You’re wrong,’ Gio told her succinctly. ‘I have every right to object to the manner in which you care for my son and I will be happy to fully explain to the children’s authorities why I believe my son’s current living conditions are unacceptable.’
Gio was threatening her. Gio was actually telling her that he was prepared to report her to the social services for what he evidently saw as inadequate or neglectful childcare. The very thought made Billie shake with rage, a flush running across her cheekbones, her chin up, her green eyes defiant. ‘Well, maybe you’d be happy to tell me because quite frankly I don’t know what your problem is!’
‘You are living with a prostitute and leaving my child in her care. I will not tolerate that,’ he asserted with icy precision.
Off-balanced by that condemnation coming at her out of nowhere, Billie sank weakly down on the sofa, her legs suddenly giving way beneath her. It had not occurred to her that a routine investigation of her life would also dig up Dee’s biggest secret. Pale, her clear eyes reflecting her strain and distress, she stared back at Gio. ‘Dee’s a bartender now. She’s put her past behind her...’
‘I don’t put a time limit on a past like that, nor do I want such a woman in close contact with my son or taking care of him,’ Gio delivered with inflexible cool.
‘People make mistakes, people change, turn their lives around. Don’t be so narrow-minded!’ Billie urged, stricken, appalled that he had uncovered her cousin’s troubled history and leapt straight to a disparaging conclusion.
Dee had got involved with an older man in her teens and had dropped out of school and ended up as a drug addict on the streets. Dee had been brutally honest with Billie about her past and Billie had tremendous respect for the amount of work and effort the other woman had put into making a fresh start for her and the twins.
‘I’m glad for her sake that she’s turned her life around but I still don’t want her anywhere near my son,’ Gio growled without apology. ‘How do you know she’s not still turning tricks at the bar where she works at night?’
‘Because I know her and how much she values what she has now!’ Billie slammed back furiously.
‘I want my son out of this house right now,’ Gio admitted. ‘I want the two of you to move into my hotel with me until we get this situation sorted out.’
Wildly disconcerted by that demand, Billie stared back at him. ‘No,’ she said straight away.
‘Say no and take the consequences,’ Gio drawled softly, chillingly.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘That I will use whatever I have against you to make the case for gaining custody of my son,’ Gio advanced with measured force. ‘I will go to social services with my concerns and they are bound by law to investigate.’
‘I don’t believe I’m hearing this!’ Billie exclaimed jerkily, appalled by what he was telling her and cringing at the prospect of Dee being investigated once again by suspicious hypercritical officials, who would disinter the past that Dee had worked so hard to leave behind her. ‘You’re threatening me and my cousin!’
‘If it is in my son’s best interests, there’s nothing I won’t do for his benefit,’ Gio intoned harshly. ‘He is my primary concern here. I don’t care what it takes or who else it hurts but I will always do my absolute best for him by whatever means possible.’
‘How can you feel like that about a son you haven’t even met yet?’ Billie demanded shakily.
‘Because he has my blood in his veins. He is mine, he is a Letsos and I must fight his battles for him because it is my duty to do that while he is still too young to have a voice.’ Gio glanced down at the wafer-thin gold watch barely visible below his immaculate white shirt cuff. ‘You have fifteen minutes to pack.’
‘Leaving here is absolutely out of the question.’
‘No, it is your one chance to escape the penalty for defying me. If I leave this house without my son today, I will fight to win custody and I will use whatever means are at my disposal,’ Gio warned her with chilling bite.
Her eyes rounding, Billie’s upper lip parted company from her lower. ‘You’re not being reasonable!’
‘Why would I be? You’ve stolen the first fifteen months of my son’s life from me,’ Gio pronounced with lethal cool. ‘How can you be surprised that I refuse to allow you to steal one day more?’
In receipt of that caveat, Billie could feel the blood draining slowly from below her skin, shock smacking through her in a dizzy wave. He was angry, he was bitter, but he couldn’t possibly be thinking through what he was doing. ‘Are you crazy? Theo needs both of us,’ she told him tightly.
His lean, strong face clenched hard. ‘Of course he does...in a perfect world. And this, I need hardly remind you, is not a perfect world.’
‘Where are you planning to make time for a baby in your schedule?’ Billie demanded with scorn. ‘You won’t. You don’t really want him. You’re behaving as if Theo is some kind of a trophy.’
‘Pack,’ Gio urged, one long brown forefinger tapping his watch face. ‘You need only bring what you need for twenty-four hours. Naturally I will cover any necessities you need.’
Frozen to the spot, Billie stared at him, unwilling to believe that he could threaten everything she held dear in her life on the strength of what could only be a whim. ‘Gio—’
‘Not one word,’ Gio cut in fiercely. ‘I want my son. You’ve had all the time with him that you ever wanted. It’s my turn now and I’m taking it.’
Billie reached a sudden decision. She would go to the hotel and allow Gio the time and space to get acquainted with Theo. Surely that major concession would cool his temper and calm him down? Sadly, she couldn’t feel sure of the outcome. Gio’s anger was shockingly new to her and she could still feel that anger sizzling from him in invisible sparks that could ignite into an explosion. Right now, opposition would probably only make him angrier and given a few hours’ respite he would surely cool off and develop a more practical outlook, she reasoned frantically.
Billie withdrew a case from the hall cupboard and carried it up to her room. She packed the basics for herself and her son and then went downstairs to throw Theo’s feeding essentials into a holdall. In the kitchen she scribbled a note to Dee, telling her where she had gone and that she would phone.
‘Dee won’t be able to work tonight if I’m not here to babysit for her,’ Billie protested as she pulled on a light cotton jacket. Beneath the onslaught of Gio’s appraisal she suddenly felt like a complete mess and she turned her head away, stiff with self-loathing. Her toffee-coloured corkscrew curls were never going to compare to Calisto’s blade-straight blonde locks. Her hips were never going to be boyishly lean, nor would her boobs ever be dainty handfuls. Short of a body transplant, she was what she was. Wearing only a smattering of make-up, she looked very ordinary. It was ironic that she was so casually dressed because she hadn’t wanted Gio to think that she had made a special effort for him. It was not a comfort that looking less than her best now felt like striking an own goal.