Читать книгу One Night: Blissful Seduction: The Secret His Mistress Carried / Secrets, Lies & Lullabies / To Sin with the Tycoon - Линн Грэхем, Heidi Betts - Страница 12
ОглавлениеRESTIVE 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.
‘I’ll hire a babysitter for your cousin.’
‘I can’t let her down like this, Gio. It took so long for her to find a job with hours that suited.’
‘I said I’ll take care of it and I will,’ Gio incised, grabbing her case from the hall and yanking open the front door, determined to let nothing come between him and his ultimate objective. ‘Trust me.’
His chauffeur was waiting on the step to collect her case. After a moment’s hesitation, Billie passed over her holdall as well, snatched a tiny jacket off the handles of the pram below the stairs and went up to lift Theo out of his cot. Trust me! Perhaps the strangest thing was that she did trust Gio because he had told her the truth even when she didn’t want to hear it and he had never broken his word to her.
Her son was sleepy and warm as toast. She nuzzled her cheek against his smooth skin and breathed in his glorious baby scent before threading his short little arms into the jacket. Even in the very dark mood he was in, Gio had stated that their son needed both of his parents, she reminded herself staunchly. He wasn’t trying to split them up; he was only making threats to make her listen and do what he wanted. Possibly all he really wanted was a couple of days with free access to Theo so that he could get to know him and he couldn’t have that opportunity without including Billie in the arrangements.
A built-in safety seat for a child sat in the rear seat of the limousine. Billie settled Theo in and did up the buckle while her son craned his head to stare at Gio with big brown eyes. Silence fell while the two of them sized each other up. Gio had a cell phone in his hand and the light danced across the metallic finish. Theo stretched out a hand to grab the phone and Billie was incredulous when Gio handed it over.
‘You can’t give him that!’ Billie exclaimed as the phone went straight into Theo’s mouth to be chewed. ‘He tries to eat everything.’
Billie filched the phone back. Theo looked at his empty hand and wailed while Billie passed the phone back to Gio out of her son’s view. She dug a toy out of the holdall to give her son. He studied it with a jutting lower lip and threw it down.
‘He wants the phone back,’ Gio breathed in wonderment.
‘Of course he does...it’s got lots of buttons. The brightest, shiniest new toy always gets his interest.’
They drew up outside the hotel. Billie climbed out and leant back into the car to unbuckle Theo but Gio was one step ahead of her and was already hoisting Theo into his arms. She followed them into the hotel. Theo loved new places just as much as new toys and his curly dark head was turning this way and that with keen interest. Billie stepped into the lift. Theo beamed at her from the vantage point of his father’s arms, clearly very pleased with the exchange.
Billie was surprised to enter a different suite from the one that Gio had previously used. ‘Have you changed to another floor?’
‘Of course, we needed more space,’ Gio pointed out while Theo frantically wriggled in his arms. With a sigh, Gio gave way and gently lowered Theo to the wooden floor. The little boy crawled off at high speed, grabbed at the leg of a fancy sofa and hauled himself upright, grinning with satisfaction.
‘Theo’s a clever boy,’ Billie praised warmly.
Her son’s sturdy little legs began to wobble and he toppled down onto his bottom in a sudden loss of balance and burst into floods of tears. Gio scooped him up again and held him high above his head. In his usual mercurial fashion, Theo forgot his moment of misery and burst out laughing instead at finding himself airborne. Gio made aeroplane noises like a little boy and whirled his son energetically round the room while Billie watched with a dropped jaw, not entirely sure that she could credit what she was seeing. Gio, shedding his dignity and distance, Gio smiling with unabashed enjoyment.
‘It’s time he had lunch,’ Billie remarked.
The game between father and son concluded. A high chair was delivered along with the case and Billie started to feed Theo, who wanted to feed himself and complained vociferously between mouthfuls until she finally gave him the spoon. Theo stuck the spoon in the carton of yogurt with a victorious smile. Billie was still in a daze, her mind still engaged in replaying Gio acting as she had never before seen him act. Only an hour earlier, he had been threatening her with an adverse report to social services.
It had been an utterly ruthless threat that had chilled Billie to the marrow. A couple of years earlier, before Dee began getting her life straightened out, Dee’s children had been put into care. Although she had got the twins back again and no longer even received visits to check on her progress, any allegation of negligent childcare made against the household where Dee lived would certainly result in a full investigation being made by the authorities. Billie could not bear the threat of that happening to her cousin again. It would flatten Dee’s confidence, make her feel like an unfit mother again and if people realised that social services were checking up on her it would rouse local gossip. There was very little that Billie would not have done to protect Dee from such a development.
Yet the same male who had voiced that chilling threat had shown an entirely different side of himself to their son. With Theo, Gio had been playful, uninhibited, almost joyful, three traits she would never ever have associated with Gio’s cool, calm and reserved nature. She recognised that Gio’s interest in his son was considerably more powerful than she had ever dreamt it would be and she wondered uneasily where that left her in the triangle. He had said he wanted his son. What exactly did that mean?
Gio strode into one of the rooms leading off the spacious reception room and reappeared in jeans and a trendy striped cotton sweater. Billie couldn’t drag her eyes from his lean, dark, devastating face as he watched entranced while Theo piled up his bricks and smashed them down again, giggling at the noise he was making. The tight jeans delineated every muscle in Gio’s long, powerful thighs and narrow hips as he squatted down on the floor beside Theo. Billie’s gaze ran over his washboard-flat stomach to the bulge below his belt and she averted her eyes, as hot and cold as someone with a fever. And mortifyingly, she knew precisely what was wrong with her. The kind of craving she had for Gio didn’t go away, didn’t take a back seat when you wanted it to, didn’t fade when you knew it should; it just went on and on, the gift that kept on giving.
Sometimes wanting Gio had felt like a life sentence to Billie. Her pregnancy had only accelerated her exit from his life because she had been afraid that he might guess her secret. She had believed that that would be the ultimate humiliation because she had assumed that Gio would foist all the blame on her for her inconvenient pregnancy and make her feel dreadful as well as guilty and unworthy. Yet now he was telling her differently, insisting that he would never have suggested she have a termination.
Yet how much faith could she have in what Gio was currently saying? Gio, after all, was speaking with the benefit of hindsight, aware that his dynastic marriage was destined to fail. But two years ago that marriage had been very important to him and Billie’s pregnancy would have been a severe embarrassment at the very least. What on earth had he meant when he had sworn he would never have married had he known about Billie’s pregnancy?
It would never have occurred to Billie then that she could set the clock forward by two years and would see Gio, down on his jeans-clad knees, creating a precarious tower of bricks for Theo’s benefit and actually laughing when Theo smacked it down with a chubby fist.
‘You said you wanted Theo,’ Billie murmured quietly, having finally worked up the courage to press for answers. ‘What does that mean exactly?’
‘That now that I’ve found him, I’m not walking away again,’ Gio intoned, level dark golden eyes resting on her above Theo’s head. Such beautiful eyes he had that even thinking was a challenge when she looked at them.
‘No...er obviously,’ she managed gruffly, ‘you want to get to know him and stay in contact.’
Keeping very still, Gio lifted an ebony brow. ‘I want much more than that.’
‘How much more?’ she pressed, struggling to breathe while level with those stunning eyes of his.
A sardonic smile curled Gio’s wide sensual mouth. ‘I don’t like half measures...I want it all.’
‘And what does “all” encompass?’ Billie asked shakily.
Gio surveyed her with grim amusement. He had thought she would work it out for herself. He was ready to give her what she had always wanted from him and what he had never dreamt of offering before. Now he had very sound reasons for offering and anything else he gained as a by-product did not have to be measured or considered. The ever-ready pulse at his groin grew heavy while his attention roved to the deep valley between her full breasts, which was tantalisingly visible every time she angled her head down to speak to him. He wanted to rip her clothes off and slide between her thighs and stay there until he had worked off the powerful hunger riding him.
‘Gio...?’ she prompted, crystalline green eyes very serious.
‘I want it all...as in marriage,’ Gio filled in smoothly, long fingers smoothing back the curls on Theo’s brow as his son slumped back against him for support. ‘It’s the only serviceable option we have.’
