‘Like what?’
‘Like we’re still...you know,’ she completed, eyelashes lowering.
‘Like I still want to be inside you?’ Gio queried thickly. ‘But I do and right at this very minute I’m aching for you...’
A tiny clenching sensation in a place she refused to think about forced Billie to shift uneasily on the seat. ‘I really didn’t need to know that, Gio. That was a very inappropriate comment to make—’
Gio skated a long forefinger down over the back of the hand she had tautly braced to the leather seat. ‘At least it was honest and you’re not being honest—’
‘I’m not coming back to you!’ Billie interrupted loudly. ‘I’ve got another life now—’
‘Another man?’ Gio slotted in, deep accented voice raw with unspoken vibrations.
And Billie seized on that convenient excuse like a drowning swimmer thrown a lifebelt. ‘Yes. There’s someone else.’
Every lean, long line of Gio’s big body tensed. ‘Tell me about him.’
Billie was thinking about her son. ‘He’s extremely important to me and I would never do anything to hurt or upset him.’
‘There’s nothing I won’t do to get you back,’ Gio warned as the limousine drew up outside his country-house hotel and the chauffeur leapt out to open the door. He also grasped at that same moment that he was not as law-abiding as he had always assumed because he knew that he was willing to break rules in order to get Billie back.
Billie stole a reluctant glance at his lean, hard face, clashing with the golden glitter of his stunning eyes. She froze in consternation at that expression of menace she had never seen there before. ‘Is there some reason you can’t let me be happy without you?’ she asked suddenly. ‘I think I’ve paid my dues, Gio.’
Gio’s nostrils flared at that declaration, exasperation roughening the edges of an anger he knew he had no right to express. If she had another man, she would naturally get rid of him because he refused to credit that any other man could set her on fire the way he did. But nothing could assuage his bone-deep ferocious reaction to being forced to imagine Billie in bed with someone else. Billie had always been his alone, indisputably his.
As they crossed the foyer of the opulent hotel a familiar voice hailed Billie and she stopped dead and flipped round with a smile as a tall blond man in expensive country casuals moved towards her eagerly to greet her.
‘Simon, how are you?’ she said warmly.
‘I’ve got an address for you.’ Simon dug into his wallet to produce a piece of paper. ‘Got a pen?’
Billie realised her bag had been left behind at the shop and looked expectantly at Gio. ‘Pen?’ she pressed.
Totally unaccustomed to being ignored while others went about their business around him, Gio withdrew a gold pen from his pocket with pronounced reluctance, his beautiful obstinate mouth sardonic.
Simon borrowed the pen and wrote the address on the back of a business card. ‘There’s a heap of stuff there you’ll like and it won’t cost you much either. The seller just wants the house cleared.’
Impervious to the reality that Gio was standing by her side like a towering and forbidding pillar of black ice, Billie beamed at the taller man. ‘Thanks, Simon. I really appreciate this.’
Simon studied her with the same appreciation Gio had often seen on male faces around Billie and his perfect white teeth gritted. ‘Maybe you’ll let me treat you to lunch here some day soon?’
Gio shot an arm like a statement round Billie’s slender spine. ‘Regrettably she’s already taken.’
Ignoring that intercession, Billie reddened but kept on valiantly smiling. ‘I’d like that, Simon. Call me,’ she suggested while knowing that she was only encouraging the other man to make a point for Gio’s benefit and feeling guilty about that because Gio was making her behave badly as well.
‘What was that all about?’ Gio demanded grittily as he urged her into the lift.
‘Simon’s an antique dealer. He tips me off about house clearances. I know a lot of dealers. That’s how I built up my business,’ Billie advanced with pride.
‘You can open a shop in London. I’ll pay for it,’ Gio told her grimly.
Unimpressed, Billie glanced wryly at him. ‘Well, in a roundabout way you paid for this one and my house, so I don’t think it would be right for you to pay anything more.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘I sold a piece of jewellery for cash. It was something you gave me.’
Gio frowned. ‘You left everything I ever gave you behind.’