Page 39 of The Billionaire's Demand

A childless one.

He looked at her. ‘Did you never think to give Jonas the grandchild he was set on? Even if Damian was gay, there was always the choice of conceiving through IVF and so on.’

She shook her head. ‘Damian didn’t want that,’ she said.

She spoke calmly enough, but her expression was evasive. Leandros studied it.

‘And you didn’t want a child either?’ he asked. ‘A child would have ensured that you would still be part of Jonas’s family now—he would not have cast you off as he has. Reduced you to the poverty I found you in.’

She didn’t answer. The waitress came up with their dishes, placing them down in front of them, then heading off again. The moment passed, and Leandros let it. What point was there in probing Eliana’s marriage? He would not disturb the day. There had been revelations enough last night—confusion and complexities. Today he wanted only ease and peace and Eliana at his side.

To pass the day as they were doing.

Companionably.

That word came again, just as it had come to him over breakfast, and then as they’d headed down river to take their leisurely, easy, peaceful cruise to Giverny, to explore the magical gardens of Monet’s water lilies away from the cares and troubles of life, whether past or present.

He got stuck into his steak frites—simple, traditional French food—and washed it down with table wine, robust and drinkable. Eliana was eating fish, nothing delicate or sauced, but a grilled fillet of white fish, served with pommes parmentier and green beans.

He turned the conversation back to Monet, and to what they had seen.

‘Though the water garden is extraordinary, and of course the famous Japanese-style bridge, and all the even more famous waterlilies, I don’t like that it’s separated from the house and the immediate garden of the house. Going through that linking tunnel was a disappointment.’

‘Yes, I agree. It would be much better to have a house whose gardens encircled it—but then Monet had to buy what became the water garden from a neighbour, so I suppose that limited him.’

Leandros looked across at her. ‘What kind of house and garden would you ideally like?’

The moment he spoke he regretted it. She would answer and say it was her father’s villa, and that was lost to her.

Unless her next husband bought it back for her.

Next husband?

He had taunted her with being on the lookout for another rich husband to ensure she never had to face the poverty she’d always been determined not to experience—had bribed her, if it came to that, into agreeing to coming to Paris with him by saying he’d kit her out with a wardrobe suitable for ensnaring another rich husband—or even merely a rich lover.

And I’d move on once I had done with her.

He felt his jaw clench. Had he really thought that? Said that? Taunted her with it?

And I taunted her last evening, calling her Manon for betraying and rejecting a poor lover for a rich protector.

No—he would not go down that path again. Not now—not today.

Things had changed between them. Just how he did not know, and he did not want to. Not right now. Not today.

Nor the next day either. Or the one after that.

For now...

Just take the day as it comes.

And he knew—as he had known that morning, and knew now as he sat here with her, companionably, over lunch at this simple restaurant, eating a simple meal, having wandered in the gardens at Monet’s house, with the afternoon and the rest of the day before them—that it was enough.

Eliana set her knife and fork down on the plate, feeling replete, reaching for her glass of wine. Dappled sunshine shone through the vines shading the terraced seating area and played on her face. Her mood was strange—yet peaceful. Despite Leandros asking her those questions.

Had she wanted to answer them?

All but one.

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