Page 65 of The Billionaire's Demand

‘To us,’ she echoed.

For finally, after six anguished years, there was an ‘us’.

It was finally true.

And now it always would be.

Always.

Hand in hand, they strolled along the wide Thessaloniki seafront. They were not the only ones to do so, but to each other only they existed. A great peace filled Leandros. A peace of the heart, and of the mind, and of the soul itself.

Regret filled him, yes, and he knew it always would—for what he’d done six years ago, to himself and Eliana. Condemning them to the wasted years between. And yet for all that, far more overwhelming was the thankfulness that poured through him.

He paused, turning Eliana towards him now.

‘There’s a line somewhere in Shakespeare’s Othello, about how Othello “threw a pearl away”—and that is what I did. I threw you away...let you leave me without a fight...because I did not trust you—did not trust the love I knew you felt for me.’

He drew a breath, his eyes holding hers. They would never let her go again. ‘But I will trust it for ever now—and you, my heart, my love, can trust for ever, and for all eternity, my love for you.’

In the lamplight, he could see tears welling in her eyes, and he bent to kiss them away. Then he kissed her mouth as well. She slipped her hand from his, but only to wind it around his waist, strong, possessive.

His hands went to her shoulders. He lifted his mouth away, his eyes still pouring into hers. ‘Forgive me.’

His voice was low and husky. His eyes were saying all that that brief plea could not.

A cry broke from her, and her arms tightened around his waist.

‘Oh, my dearest, dearest one—we’ve been given each other again, and that is a gift past any price.’ A crooked smile curved her lips. ‘Even that of any pearl...’

He gave a laugh, releasing her shoulders. ‘You shall have pearls and rubies and diamonds and emeralds and sapphires and—’

She kissed him, and it silenced him. Then she spoke again.

‘Leandros...money—the want of it, the fear of it—drove us apart. With all my heart—with all my heart—I wish it had not been so. Had you been a poor man six years ago, and had my father always been poor, such that there would have been no call for me to protect him as I felt I had to do, then nothing would have stopped me marrying you. Believe me, I beg of you, that is the truth.’

It was his turn to kiss her, so he did. Gently and tenderly.

‘Always,’ he said.

He smiled down at her lovingly. Then his smile turned rueful.

‘How I wish,’ he said, ‘that I hadn’t promised Miki’s grandmother I wouldn’t keep you out late. All I want to do now...’ his voice was husky, and she knew why ‘...is whisk you off to my hotel room and make passionate love to you until dawn breaks.’

She gave a laugh, her hands tightening around him. ‘Me too,’ she said. ‘But first I must get back, sit down with Agnetha and talk with her.’ Her expression changed. ‘Are you sure, Leandros, that you’re happy with what you told me at the restaurant? About your plans for how we should settle matters?’

He kissed the tip of her nose—it was safer than kissing her lips, given that he could not, alas, whisk her back to his hotel room.

‘Absolutely. It will work out perfectly for all of us.’ A thought struck him. ‘Shall we take her and Miki out to lunch tomorrow and tell her together? We both know a good local fish restaurant here—and after our free bottle of fizz, I think we owe them some more custom.’

She laughed again. ‘But you insisted they put it on the bill—and left a huge tip too!’

‘Well, happiness makes you do things like that,’ he answered.

He would have bought a hundred bottles of domestic sparkling wine if it would have given him even a fraction of a fraction of the happiness that was possessing his whole being now.

He lifted her hands away from his waist—that was safer too...not to have her crushed against him. He slipped his hand into hers instead. Started walking forward again, along the seafront.

How long it had taken for him to arrive here—thanks to his own blindness and lack of trust, his fear and bitterness. But now he was here, holding the hand of the woman he loved—the woman he had always loved, would always love, till the last breath in his body and beyond—and no power in heaven or earth was going to separate them again.

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