Page 37 of The Billionaire's Demand

He poured her a glass and handed it to her. Her fingers, he noticed, were careful not to touch his. He did not mind. It was not rejection, he knew, only self-conscious shyness.

A thought came to him, flickering in his mind.

That was the way she’d have been after our first night together, on our honeymoon...

Another thought, a realisation, came hard on its heels.

But this was our first night together...

It hung in his head for a moment—but there were too many other currents, too much confusion, too much shock circling around that truth and he would not deal with it. Not now. Not when he’d resolved, as he had just said to her, to take the day as it came. And right now it was coming with breakfast in bed, to be consumed enjoyably and leisurely.

Companionably.

That was what he felt, sitting back again with his own glass of orange juice. He let her be...let her get used to being here, like this, with him.

OJ consumed, he asked her what she might like to eat, then handed her a personal tray with croissants, butter pats and apricot jam, and a cup of coffee with hot milk. She placed it on her bedside table.

He got stuck in to his own breakfast—a more robust, seeded roll, with butter and a dollop of blackcurrant jam. He was hungry, and it went down quickly, and he reached for another.

At his side, Eliana was neatly getting through her croissant.

‘You can’t beat the French for breakfast in bed,’ he said, helping himself to yet another roll. ‘Though for a really substantial experience I’d always vote for a—what’s that expression?—a full English. Bacon and eggs, smoked kippers, devilled kidneys—the works!’ he said humorously.

He glanced at Eliana. She was more at ease now, he could tell, as if she was getting used to sitting here beside him. He wanted her to be at ease.

We’re starting afresh.

The words were in his head and he knew them to be true. Knew it with that same lightening of his spirit that had come as he had got out of bed, welcomed the new day, the new start.

What had gone before in their lives was still there—how could it not be? But last night had changed things. Though just how he still did not quite know for sure...

But he wasn’t going to work that out now.

For now, he was going to do just what he’d said—take the day as it came.

For now, that was all he wanted.

Eliana sat back on the padded seat on the deck of the river cruiser. They were heading down the Seine to Giverny, to see Monet’s famous gardens. The sun was warm on her, the breeze off the river as the cruiser gently made its way downstream pleasant on her face.

Outwardly, she and Leandros were spending the day much as they had the previous afternoon—sightseeing. And yet it felt fundamentally different. It was fundamentally different, she knew.

And it was not just because of what she had realised so undeniably the evening before, feeling Puccini’s heartrending music pierce her own blind heart, piercing so much repression and denial, declaring to her the truth about herself and about why she had agreed to come here with Leandros.

Yes, that had changed her completely—she knew it and accepted it.

But it isn’t just me who is changed.

Last night—as she had yielded willingly, wantonly, discovering in herself a passion and a sensuality to which she had given herself completely, knowing the truth about herself and accepting it, acknowledging it, instead of denying it and suppressing it—the revelation of her virginity had shocked Leandros to the core.

She bit her lip now, still troubled at how it had happened.

I didn’t think he’d find out—I didn’t realise just how...obvious...it would be!

Her marriage to Damian and the constrictions under which she had made it had no relevance to the truth she had faced up to as she’d sat in that loge at the opera and watched the two ill-fated lovers on the stage below, tormented and tormenting, destroying their own lives by the decisions they made. And yet, for all that, love had survived—even if the lovers themselves had not.

So it is with me.

She had given up on what she had once felt for Leandros six long years ago—buried it deep under the guilt she felt for what she had done. Yet it had survived despite what she’d done, despite the fateful decision she’d made all those years ago to abandon him, reject him.

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