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.