‘Only because of Theo and I thought you’d be furious about him. And because you hurt me before and I didn’t want to put myself out there for that again,’ Billie told him truthfully.
‘I did everything wrong, but then I would have done anything to get you back,’ Gio confided. ‘I shouldn’t have used Dee’s past as a weapon against you.’
‘No, you shouldn’t have.’ Billie didn’t pull her punches on that score. ‘You blackmailed me into moving to your hotel!’
‘I wanted you with me.’
‘And then abandoned me at the hotel,’ Billie reminded him stubbornly.
‘My feelings around you were getting on top of me,’ Gio breathed curtly. ‘I couldn’t handle them and I was getting angry and frustrated and I was afraid I might scare you off.’
‘I didn’t know you felt like that because until now you haven’t shared anything with me,’ she murmured ruefully.
Gio reached into his pocket and withdrew a ring box, from which he removed a gleaming diamond solitaire. ‘It’s five minutes after midnight and your twenty-third birthday, pethi mou. Happy birthday.’ He lifted her hand and threaded the beautiful ring onto her wedding finger. ‘It belonged to my grandmother and now it belongs to you. They enjoyed a very long and happy marriage; consequently it comes with a worthy history for us to follow.’
Billie gazed down at her beautiful ring with tears of joy glittering in her eyes because that family gift meant so much more to her than a ring that he might have bought.
‘I should have placed that ring on your finger two years ago but I didn’t know my own heart then,’ Gio confessed heavily. ‘I had never stopped to evaluate what you actually meant to me and by the time that I did, it was too late and you were gone. Even after I found you again and married you, I genuinely still didn’t appreciate that what I feel for you has to be love.’
‘Love?’ Billie exclaimed, jolted by surprise from her blissful perusal of her engagement ring.
‘I do love you,’ Gio declared with an endearing amount of self-consciousness about making such a statement. ‘I probably always loved you but it was a very selfish love, so I didn’t recognise it for what it was and neither could you have done.’
Billie was bemused. ‘Gio...you just called yourself selfish...’
Gio frowned. ‘I couldn’t avoid that deduction after I found your exam certificates and all the courses which you had done while we were together two years back... I didn’t know about even one of them,’ he decried. ‘I wish you’d told me.’
Billie was flushed. ‘I was too embarrassed. You have a degree and there I was studying for the most basic qualifications,’ she pointed out. ‘My goodness, is that why you took me to that stupid art gallery tonight?’
‘I thought you’d enjoy it,’ Gio admitted.
‘I only took the course because of that Canaletto thing,’ she muttered ruefully. ‘But to be frank, it’s all a bit highbrow for me.’
‘I’m not into art either. I wouldn’t change a single thing about you. I’m proud of you and happy 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.’