Page 33 of The Billionaire's Demand

Cold was creeping over her now, and she felt her body shiver.

Then the quilt was being drawn over her, and her shoulder was being taken, and slowly, but insistently, Leandros was turning her towards him. Her knees were still drawn up, but she felt them slacken, felt the hectic pounding of her heart rate slow a fraction. Pain—a searing ache—still pierced her.

Leandros was beside her, a sheet pulled half across his waist. He was raised up on one elbow, on his side, and his other hand was carefully, gently, drawing her tumbled hair clear of her face.

He looked down at her.

‘I think you need to explain,’ he said.

Disbelief was still his dominant consciousness. Yet the evidence was pounding at him. Her scream, her cry of pain when he had entered her—and then... Thee mou, that smear of blood...

It isn’t possible—it just isn’t possible.

She was looking at him. Her features were no longer contorted, yet there was a pallor to her face that told she was still shaken. Her eyes were huge, distended, barely meeting his. But he wanted answers. Needed answers.

‘Eliana, you were married for six years—six years! How was I to think—?’ He broke off.

Words formed in his head, unspoken but vehement. What the hell kind of marriage had it been for those six long years? Clearly not the kind he had assumed it to be. Had raged that it would be...

And more of his assumptions had self-destructed as well. She’d given Damian no children—no grandson for his father. By choice? To avoid pregnancy? Or had there been chance of pregnancy...? No chance because either she or Damian had been incapable? Or—?

They’d never consummated their marriage.

But why?

He looked down at her. And as he did the explanation came to him. The one and only obvious and ineluctable explanation.

‘Damian was gay,’ he said.

His voice was flat.

But his emotions were not.

Somewhere very deep inside him, emotion was welling—turbid but powerful, seeking entrance to his consciousness, seeking the light. But this was not the time for it.

She hadn’t answered him, but her gaze had shifted, and he knew without a doubt that that was the reason for what had happened just now. The reason that, after six years of marriage, she was still a virgin...

Or had been.

Until a few brutal moments ago...

Compunction knifed through him. Had he known—had he had the slightest suspicion—he would never—

‘Eliana, I am sorry.’ His voice was vehement. ‘But I never dreamt—How could I? If you had only said... Dear God, I would have been...’

‘I didn’t know it would hurt,’ she said.

Her voice was low and her eyes slipped past his again.

‘Not like that.’ She swallowed, and now her eyes did meet his. ‘And I am sorry too... I... I’ve shocked you. Shocked myself.’

He saw her start to tremble, saw beneath her lashes tears start to bead. He drew her against him, holding her, as carefully as if she were the rarest porcelain. His breathing was ragged still, but his heart-rate was slowing now, his body subsiding. Passion spent before it even was. But that did not matter...did not exist. All that mattered—all that existed—was his careful holding of her, appalled by his unintentional hurting of her. She was bundled up beneath the protective quilt, his arm around her.

After a while, he spoke. ‘Would...would a warm bath help, do you think?’ he heard himself ask. ‘I can draw it for you. It might be...soothing.’

She swallowed, nodding faintly. ‘Thank you,’ she said, her voice still low.

He slid from the bed, seizing the bathrobe from the door and wrapping himself in it, heading into the en suite bathroom and turning on the bath taps to full. Not too hot, just warm and...soothing, as he had said. Would bath salts help? Surely they might. And the scent of them, too, would be soothing. What else? What else could he do? Carry her into the bathroom, that was what.

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