Gio laughed softly. ‘Theo’s cute, isn’t he?’
‘Super cute,’ Calisto purred in agreement, flexing manicured scarlet fingertips on Billie’s arm to prevent her from moving away.
‘Excuse us for a moment,’ Dee interrupted in an undertone. ‘Billie, you need your veil fixed. It’s hanging by a thread.’
Relieved to have an excuse to escape, Billie followed her cousin to the other side of the foyer. She angled her head back to assist Dee’s efforts to anchor her veil and she was in the perfect position to catch Dee’s hissed enquiry, ‘Who on earth is the pushy blonde?’
As Billie spun to fill in the details Dee’s eyes got rounder and rounder. ‘She’s got a heck of a nerve coming today!’ she commented angrily. ‘No bride wants her predecessor as a guest!’
Billie coloured. ‘I don’t want to make a fuss about it when everybody else is quite happy.’
‘By everybody else, you mean Gio,’ Dee interpreted. ‘She’s spoiling your day and, like most men, he’s just taking the easy way out by doing nothing!’
‘He hates bitchiness and catfights. I’m not going to say anything,’ Billie intoned as if she were mouthing a soothing mantra she badly needed to absorb. ‘If Calisto can handle me then I can handle her.’
‘Whatever you think,’ Dee trilled, clearly unimpressed. ‘But I wouldn’t stand her being here like the spectre at the feast for longer than ten seconds.’
Billie greeted the other guests as they arrived with quiet poise. Several of Gio’s British business colleagues were attending as well as his lawyers and a large group of London-based Greeks. She was surprised that he had not invited any of his family to attend their wedding and worried that they might have refused to attend because they disapproved of Gio marrying a woman from so ordinary a background.
She had met Gio’s lawyers in Yorkshire when they had called at the hotel to present her with the pre-nuptial agreement. They had advised her to take independent advice before she signed but Billie really hadn’t had the time to consult anyone, being far too busy packing up the life she had lived for two years and discarding what she no longer required. In any case, Gio was anything but mean when it came to money and, regardless of what might happen between them in the future, she didn’t feel she needed documentary proof that he would always be fair. He had once mentioned that his father had been shamefully stingy in his monetary dealings with his mother after they had divorced and she was convinced he would never be guilty of committing the same sin.
As they ran out of guests to greet in the reception area beside the dining room, Billie saw Gio and Leandros approach Calisto. She watched that perfect face freeze and her scarlet-painted mouth open to deliver an obviously animated response before Billie forced herself to turn away and head for the cloakroom to freshen up. There was no denying that Calisto had cast a cloud over the day. Unfortunately, Calisto was Gio’s ex and still part of his social circle and Billie was stuck with that reality. Making heavy weather of the fact wasn’t going to change anything.
Billie was engaged in renewing her lipstick when the door slammed behind a new arrival and high heels smacked noisily across the tiles. Calisto appeared in the mirror beside Billie like the evil fairy. ‘Don’t waste your time feeling smug that Gio’s asked me to leave. He’s had long enough to regret our divorce and naturally he’s upset at having to marry you to get his son and even more upset to see you and I together...well, there is no comparison, is there?’ Calisto pointed out, lifting her chin to examine her perfect reflection with open admiration.
Billie turned away from the mirror, lifting her own chin in fear that she might have a slight suggestion of a double chin when she held her head at some angles and that was a humiliation she could not have borne in Calisto’s presence. ‘Gio divorced you?’
‘Only because I wouldn’t give him a baby,’ Calisto told her cheerfully. ‘But now that he’s got one...thank you so much for taking care of that problem for me. He can have me and his precious son and heir. You’ve given us a textbook solution to our dilemma.’
‘What on earth are you trying to say?’ Billie asked in genuine astonishment.
‘That triangles never work and it won’t be long before Gio takes his son off you and reclaims me as his wife,’ Calisto trilled with satisfaction. ‘You were his mistress and I’m afraid the background of his life is where a woman like you belongs.’
‘A woman like me?’ Billie prompted, her green eyes taking on a dangerous sparkle.