‘No!’ Billie proclaimed instantly.
‘And while the marriage may appear to be little more than a legal formality to you,’ Gio continued in the same reasonable tone, ‘it is essential that it appears to be a normal marriage.’
Billie closed her arms round herself again, feeling threatened, cornered, bewildered, fighting that disorientation on every level as her chin tilted and her green eyes flared bold and bright as emeralds. ‘But why should it have to appear normal?’ she demanded.
‘Do you want our son to feel guilty when he’s older that you were forced to marry me for his benefit?’ Gio enquired.
Billie frowned. ‘Of course not—’
‘Making it seem normal is a whitewash. There’s nothing I can do about that,’ Gio swore, manipulating the argument to the very best of his ability, flexing a level of cunning he had never utilised on Billie before. ‘The more people who accept that the marriage is normal, the fewer the awkward questions that will be asked and the less comment it will create.’
‘Nobody’s going to accept that you freely chose to marry your mistress!’ Billie slashed back at him angrily, hating to use that label on herself but willing to use it if it forced him to see sense.
‘But we are the only people who know that you were my mistress. We didn’t broadcast the fact and now we can be grateful that we kept a low profile. Ne...yes, you’ve had my child,’ Gio conceded, sliding fluidly upright and moving towards her. ‘All that proves is that we had a relationship.’
Billie clashed with spectacular dark eyes and her heart raced. ‘All that proves is that we had, at least, a one-night stand.’
‘Diavelos...you’re not a one-night-stand woman and no man looking at you could believe that one night would be enough, pouli mou,’ Gio purred soft and low, closing his hands firmly over hers to draw her close to his lean, powerful body. ‘You will be my wife, the mother of my son. You will have nothing to be embarrassed about...’
It was a seductive image because Billie had always been embarrassed about the reality of her relationship with Gio. He had not been her knight on a white horse and she had not been his one true love. Her power had never stretched beyond the bedroom door and that was a demeaning truth that Billie had always felt shamed by, for what sort of woman settled for that kind of half-relationship? Her hands trembled in the grasp of his. A whitewash, he called it. But to the woman whose heart he had broken, and in spite of the fact that love wasn’t involved, it still seemed more like a fairy tale to be offered what he had once tacitly refused to offer her.
‘I can’t leave Dee or the shop to go to Greece,’ Billie told him abruptly. ‘It’s impossible. The shop is my livelihood and I can’t just up and leave it...’
Gio closed his arms round her. Freed, one of her hands skimmed up over his muscular torso and came to rest uncertainly on a broad shoulder while the other lifted of its own volition to delve into his cropped black hair. ‘I’ll look after everything,’ he told her.
‘I have to have my independence,’ Billie muttered unsteadily, her mouth drying and her breathing quickening as he ran the tip of his tongue along the closed seam of her lips. Her mouth tingled, stinging tightness pinching her nipples to send a current of liquefied heat into her pelvis. ‘Listen to me, Gio,’ she urged even as her fingers massaged his well-shaped skull, fluffing up the short strands of hair that were never allowed to amount to curls.
Gio rocked his hips lightly against hers and she tensed, suddenly insanely aware of his arousal and her own. ‘Theo’s my son. It’s my duty to look after both of you.’
With a mighty effort of self-control, Billie yanked herself back from Gio and temptation. He could always make her want him but she could not afford to be stretched thin by that fierce wanting while she was trying to concentrate on the need to conserve her own life. With a slight shudder of loss, she straightened her slight shoulders and breathed in deep and slow to compose her scattered wits.
‘Sell the shop or let me hire a manager for it. You decide which option will suit you best,’ Gio urged, his lean dark features taut with impatience.
Billie looked at him with wide eyes of disbelief. ‘Gio...I worked very hard to build up my business. You can’t expect me to walk away from it.’
‘Not even for Theo?’ Gio prompted, glancing down at the little boy now clinging precariously to his jeans-clad leg and gazing up at both of them. ‘Our son needs both of us and will do for some time. I want a normal family rapport with him. At the very least you will have to relocate your life to London, so that I can have regular access to him.’