‘But then why is she carrying on this way trying to upset me and wreck our marriage?’
‘I can only think I hurt her ego by not wanting her more than I wanted you. Obviously marrying you straight after the divorce offended her as well but we won’t be having any more trouble from that quarter,’ Gio asserted with conviction. ‘That lawyer will be removed from my team and Leandros doesn’t get on with Cal any better than I do, so there won’t be any leaked info from him with regard to our lives.’
Ready to toss the issue of Calisto and his brief marriage on a back burner, Billie was instead thinking about what Gio had said about the pre-nup agreement he had had her sign. ‘Why were you afraid of me leaving you again?’ she murmured.
‘My father left me, my mother left me and somehow you became even more important to me than they were,’ Gio framed with dogged determination but obvious difficulty in explaining that to her. ‘After I found my mother dead, I taught myself to close out emotions because it was the only way I could cope with the way my sisters’ lives and mine had imploded. I preferred to stay in control. I felt threatened whenever emotion tried to take over. I found the way I seemed to need you totally unnerving...’
Billie was so stunned by that speech that the best she could manage was, ‘Oh, dear...’
‘I couldn’t believe that you could try and send me away once I found you again.’
‘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.