Page 43 of The Billionaire's Demand

Companionable.

There was that word again—the one that kept coming to him.

Almost like we used to be.

The thought flickered in his head like a light that might or might not dispel the shadows.

‘Santé,’ she echoed, dipping her head to take a taste of the gently beading champagne.

‘I’ve taken the liberty of ordering dinner for us,’ he said. ‘I hope you don’t mind.’

He told her the choices he’d made, saying there was still time to change them, but she shook her head.

‘It all sounds delicious,’ she said. ‘Thank you. And thank you, too, for taking me to Giverny today.’

He glanced at her. ‘You don’t have to thank me,’ he said. ‘It’s all part of...’

He stopped. Part of what? Part of what he was offering her because of what he was getting in return? Like the clothes he’d bought her? This stay in a luxury hotel?

Put like that, he didn’t like the implication. Which didn’t make sense. It hadn’t troubled him when he’d put it to her in Thessaloniki over dinner. Outlining what he was offering her—what she would get out of it in return.

‘Yes,’ he heard her say quietly, acceptingly, ‘I know. But thank you all the same—for dinner tonight, and last night, and taking me to the opera, and to Giverny today, and Notre Dame and Sainte-Chapelle yesterday.’

He shook his head in negation. ‘I didn’t mean it like that.’ He paused. ‘I don’t want it to be like that.’

He had wanted it—but not any more. Now he knew he no longer simply wanted her gratitude for bringing her to Paris—and the reason he had brought her here.

For sex—that’s what you brought her here for. You spelt it out plainly enough.

Yet somehow, right now, it was an uncomfortable thought. He felt his mind sheer away. And not just because there was suddenly a sordid edge to it...to what he’d offered her.

Because even if she’s only accepted to get out of that wretched dump she has to live in and get her hands on a decent wardrobe again, so she can kickstart her way back into a luxe lifestyle, that doesn’t justify my offer. Because what does it say about me that I made such an offer? Doesn’t it just reduce me to her level?

His mouth twisted. Well, right now there wasn’t much likelihood of his making good on the reason he’d brought her to Paris. Not after last night. And it wasn’t just a question of enough soothing baths...

He’d hurt her physically. He hadn’t meant to—hadn’t even known he could, in that way—but that didn’t change the fact that he had done so.

‘I think,’ he said haltingly, knowing this was something he wanted to make clear to her, and finding the resolve to do it, ‘that from now...well, separate bedrooms.’

As he said it, there was instant conflict in his head. He’d said the right thing, the decent thing. But the moment he’d done so scorching memory had come—vivid...leaping into punishing hyper-consciousness...

She’d torn herself away from him, in his bed, almost at the very consummation of the inferno that had been consuming him—consuming her too. For she had lit that inferno by coming to him as she had, and he had gone up in flames, and so had she, with mutual desire burning them with the white heat of passion unleashed.

But from the moment of her shocking revelation to this moment now he’d assiduously, doggedly, refused to let into his head what had come before. Yet now it seared white-hot.

Gliding up to me, hair loose and wanton, body sensuous and irresistible to me, winding her arms around me, reaching for my mouth with hers...

He had been lost instantly, totally. That had been no self-sacrificing abasement, no offering herself to him as some kind of atonement. That had been Eliana just as he’d said he’d wanted her to be—eager, aroused, passionate. And he had been likewise. Instantly. Consumingly...

He slammed down hard on the memory. It was the situation now he was dealing with. A situation that made any repetition of what had happened last night completely out of the question.

‘So you can be comfortable,’ he said now.

She was looking at him questioningly, uncertainly. ‘Leandros, why...why are you being so nice to me?’

He frowned. ‘I’d be a brute not to be, in the circumstances. It appals me that I hurt you—’

She shook her head. ‘I don’t just mean separate bedrooms. I mean...well, all day today. And...and last night too. Making hot milk for me...all that... And you’re being nice to me now too.’

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