‘Oh...’ she mumbled afterwards, her body as languorous as a floating beach ball.
Gio’s phone was screeching in his pocket. Scanning her dreamy face, he switched it off with an unsteady hand. Strangely, although he was still taut with sexual arousal, the inner tension driving him had dissolved. He felt like himself again for the first time in four days and snapped straight into rescue mode, propelling Billie off the bed, repositioning her bodice, brushing down the skirt of her gown before urging her into the bathroom where he stared in all male helplessness at the crushed veil hanging askew, the curls positively rioting round it and the smudges of the lipstick he had dislodged.
‘Good grief,’ Billie groaned, catching her mangled reflection. ‘Gio, you’re a menace.’
Gio washed with enviable cool and ran a comb through his tousled hair. A sharp knock sounded on the bedroom door and it opened the merest crack. ‘The cars have arrived, Mr Letsos. We cannot be late...’ It was Damon Kitzakis’ voice.
‘I’ll get your friend to help you,’ Gio breathed in sudden decision.
Billie was in full bridal panic mode, scanning her swollen mouth and tumbled hair and veil with withering scorn. You should have said no, she told herself furiously. Why didn’t you say no? Why had she, once again, failed to call a halt? Sex had always been a slippery slope with Gio. She couldn’t keep her hands off him, she couldn’t resist his passion but she was convinced that he would respect her more if she was less spontaneous and more restrained. Yet he had received no satisfaction whatsoever from what they had done, she acknowledged in surprise as she waged a frantic war on her rebellious curls and hurriedly repaired her make-up.
Gio reappeared in the bathroom doorway, lean, strong face taut. ‘Damon thought it best that your cousin, her children and Irene and Theo leave immediately for the church. You’re travelling with Leandros and me.’
Billie turned from the mirror. ‘But you and your best man are supposed to arrive first.’
‘You can wait in the church porch for ten minutes, koukla mou,’ Gio pointed out, lustrous dark eyes gleaming with sudden amusement. ‘Why do you take all these silly little rules so seriously?’
Billie went pink and lifted her chin. ‘I assume all brides do the same.’
Gio closed a hand over hers and pulled her towards the lift, sweeping her off her feet before she could reach the pavement and depositing her in a vast tumbling heap of lace and chiffon into the stretch limousine waiting by the kerb.
Billie forced a smile when Leandros Conistis looked at them both in frank astonishment. The heat of almost unbearable embarrassment engulfed her in a burning tide because she had never forgotten her one and only meeting with Gio’s best friend and the incredulous look on his face that evening when he had realised that she had never heard of Canaletto.
Leandros tossed a handkerchief at Gio. ‘You have lipstick on your face.’
Billie’s mortification did not abate at that aside; indeed it worsened. Now the other man would think that she was not only stupid but also a slut with no idea of how to behave like a dignified bride. Even though she knew she was being ridiculously oversensitive, she could not overcome her attack of self-consciousness. Dee helped her climb out of the limousine and ushered her into the porch where she admired the pearl set, teased her cousin about what she saw as Gio’s wildly romantic gesture at showing up at the apartment before the wedding and then fussed with the skirts of Billie’s gown before checking that her daughter, Jade, was still carrying her basket and flowers and Davis, his lucky horseshoe.
Walking down the aisle of the half-empty church some minutes later, her hand resting lightly on her cousin’s arm, Billie was earnestly instructing herself that she was not living a fairy tale and striving not to react to the lean dark charisma of Gio’s sheer beauty as he looked down the aisle, brilliant dark eyes glimmering gold.
‘This is your dream,’ Dee whispered unhelpfully at that exact same moment. ‘Stop fretting...enjoy your moment in the sun.’
Billie recalled the vanishing act that Gio had pulled in Yorkshire, her own frustrated rage, and breathed in deep. So, he wasn’t straightforward, he was complex, secretive and arrogant, but as she focused on his tall, dark, powerful figure at the altar her heart sang its own deeply revealing signature tune. That was when she recognised and accepted the truth—the truth that vanity had made her deny. Gio was the man she loved, very probably would always be the man she loved, regardless of what he did in the future, because she was very steady in her affections.
Acknowledging the strength of her feelings was like breaking free of a constricting band round her chest. She had never got over Gio and now he was back and they had a child and she was about to become his wife. Instead of expecting, indeed almost inviting the roof to fall in on her, wasn’t it time she went for a little positive thinking? And it was at that instant of sunny, optimistic thought with her emotions on a high that her eyes zeroed in on the blue-eyed blonde keenly studying her two pews back from the front. Her heart and her body froze in concert and even her feet became reluctant to do her bidding. Dee had to use momentum to move Billie on down the aisle.
Calisto was a guest at their very small wedding. Billie was in shock. What did Calisto’s presence today of all days mean? Her hand trembled as Gio slid the ring onto her wedding finger. Her skin was clammy with shock, her knees in a rigid hold. In her mind’s eye she was seeing not the priest but Calisto, her tiny proportions sheathed in a killer-blue fitted dress and lace jacket, a jaunty little feather confection adorning her head, waterfall-straight platinum-pale hair falling to her shoulders, framing a face of such perfection that angels would weep to look at it. In print she had been a beauty; in the flesh she was downright dazzling, setting a standard that Billie could never hope to reach. A deep chill spread through Billie like an unexpected frost on a summer day.
‘What’s your ex-wife doing here?’ Billie whispered shakily on the church steps as the society photographer and his assistant got them to pose with linked hands.
Gio massaged the tender skin of her wrist with his thumbs, sending a delicious little thrill of awareness trickling through her tense body. ‘Haven’t a clue, but it wouldn’t have been polite to ask her to leave.’
‘Perhaps not.’ Billie was in two minds about what being polite entailed in such circumstances. ‘But how did she know about the wedding?’
Gio sent her a frowning glance. ‘Naturally I told her about it. It would’ve been bad manners to let her find out from anyone else. Cal probably thinks that showing up is the socially “hip” thing to do. She likes to be “hip”,’ he completed drily.
Billie was sharply disconcerted by the news that Gio was still on good enough terms with his former wife to have automatically informed her of his remarriage. The comfortable way he referred to Calisto with the fond diminutive ‘Cal’ bothered her even more although she was quick to question her own reaction. Not all ex-wives and husbands loathed each other and it was perfectly possible that Calisto had turned up simply out of curiosity. And who could blame her for that? Gio and Calisto had only been divorced for a couple of months at most. She glanced across to where Calisto stood in animated conversation with Leandros and two other Greek friends.
‘She’s very friendly with everyone,’ Billie remarked gingerly, quite frankly envying the blonde’s confident assumption of her welcome. Calisto evidently didn’t feel the slightest bit uncomfortable attending her ex-husband’s wedding and Billie struggled to be equally accepting of the blonde’s presence.
‘Cal is Leandros’ first cousin,’ Gio advanced. ‘And one of my lawyers is her stepbrother. She probably knows virtually everybody here.’
Dismay at those previously unknown close connections assailed Billie and her unease only increased when she saw Calisto climb with a tinkling girlish giggle into a limo with the three men. A wedding breakfast