The Secret His Mistress Carried

Gio was her husband now and he was hers in so many ways that he had never been before, she conceded, trying to banish her worries. Together, she and Gio and Theo would be a family. They would also be part of a much bigger family, which she was praying would eventually accept her, even if it was only for Theo’s sake.

‘Who organised all this?’ Billie asked, shifting a hand to indicate the flowers and the candles and the opulent comfort of the room’s appointments. ‘Is the beach house in regular use?’

‘It hadn’t been used in quite some time,’ Gio admitted as he shed his shirt in a careless heap. ‘Leandros’ sister, Eva, is an interior designer and she agreed to do a rush job for me as a favour. She wasn’t sure she would make the deadline until the last minute and only finished this afternoon. The household staff saw to the rest.’

‘I love the candles and the flowers,’ Billie admitted.

‘I knew you would...you’ve always been such a romantic,’ Gio teased.

‘But you organised it so you must be a romantic too,’ she pointed out, absolutely blown away by the gradually dawning realisation that Gio had had the beach house set up for their wedding night solely in an attempt to please her.

‘I’ll never be romantic,’ he fielded wryly. ‘But I am bright enough to work out what’s required and deliver it, glyka mou.’

With the greatest difficulty, Billie dragged her attention from his washboard abs and the way his naturally golden skin sleekly delineated his ripcord musculature. He was gorgeous and yet he was with her and not with the equally gorgeous Calisto. For a split second she let that mystery unnerve her and then she squashed the thought flat, telling herself off for even thinking it. He was married to her now, with her, and Calisto was in the past. Gloriously unaware of her constant attacks of insecurity, Gio stepped out of his trousers and skimmed off his boxers in one fell swoop of impatience.

Her mouth ran dry, her heartbeat quickening. It had been so long since she had had the luxury of watching Gio strip. That day she had gone for lunch with him at his hotel and ended up in bed with him, he hadn’t even got undressed. Her face burned at the recollection.

‘What are you thinking about?’ Gio breathed, stalking across the bedroom to join her on the bed.

And she told him and, surprisingly, he laughed. ‘I wasn’t exactly the cool seducer, was I? I was as hot for you as a teenage boy having sex for the first time but I did at least use a condom.’

‘I got carried away too,’ she soothed, running gentle fingers along his angular jaw line. ‘But you’d best be careful. I’m not using any form of contraception.’

Gio tugged her down on the pillows beside him and leant over her. ‘Do I need to be careful? I missed out on you being pregnant with Theo and I would be pretty excited if you were to conceive again,’ he admitted, dark eyes shimmering gold in the candlelight.

That was the most confidence-boosting thing Gio could have said to her, Billie reflected dizzily. His interest in her having a second child took her by storm because it meant that he regarded their marriage as a long-term venture rather than an exercise to simply grant Theo his legal birthright.

‘I put on a lot of weight when I’m pregnant,’ she warned him.

‘And in all the best places,’ Gio husked, running an admiring finger across a bra cup overflowing with soft creamy flesh. ‘Theos, I love your body.’

‘Honestly?’ Billie prompted, loathing herself for pressing the point.

‘I can’t keep my hands off you, Billie,’ Gio groaned, flipping open the catch on her bra and filling his hands with the bounty he had been admiring. ‘I never could...’

Her wretched brain was still shooting in directions she didn’t want it to. It was urging her to ask why he had then chosen to marry a woman like Calisto and suddenly she couldn’t restrain that need to know any longer and she asked, ‘Then why did you marry a woman half my size?’

There was a sudden deathly silence. His head bent while he toyed with the warm soft curves he had bared, Gio glanced up at her from below his ridiculously long lashes. ‘For all the wrong reasons...and I paid the price,’ he admitted in a roughened undertone.

Billie wanted to dig deeper into the topic but she also knew that she didn’t want to spoil their wedding night with the shadow of past pain and loss. With an almighty effort she cleared her head of such morbid reflections and said nothing at all because regret had coloured every syllable he spoke. Regret was enough to satisfy her, wasn’t it? How much of a pint of blood did she need to satisfy her damaged ego? Enough blood to cause ructions in their shiny new marriage when Gio had already mentioned a desire for another child? She thought not, decided it was better to leave the past where it belonged and look to a brighter future.