Page 45 of The Billionaire's Demand

He did not know that either. Knew only that somehow, now, he did care.

His own words to her echoed.

‘Things change, Eliana. They’ve changed already between us. They could change again.’

Could they? Could they change again?

And do I want them to?

That was another unanswered question. So many unanswered questions...

So much confusion and complexity—how can I make sense of it all?

The sound of the doorbell was intrusive in the silence that had fallen between them. Was it welcome? Or the opposite? Whichever it was, he turned back into the room, pulling open the door to admit the butler and his minions.

The arrival of dinner needed to be attended to, and maybe he was glad of it. That exchange with Eliana had been too intense, going too deep into past and present. He needed respite from it—and maybe so did she.

She seemed glad to take her place at the table in their dining room while a resplendent meal was presented to them.

Leandros had specifically selected a menu that would enable their entrée—boeuf bourguignon—to be kept warm in chafing dishes, with chilled tarte au citron for dessert, so that he could dismiss the staff...not have them hover.

Yet the moment they were gone he felt silence threaten again. He dismissed it with resolve. He’d wanted an easier day, and wading into asking questions such as he had on the balcony was not conducive to that end. Now he wanted that sense of ease back again. Wanted the atmosphere lightened.

Wanted to feel again what he had felt during the day.

Companionable.

Deliberately, he raised his refilled champagne glass to Eliana across the table.

‘Bon appetit,’ he said. ‘I hope our dinner is as delicious as you have said it sounds.’

He made his voice light, replacing his flute and picking up his fork to start to do justice to the beautifully layered vegetable terrine that was their first course.

‘I’m not sure what all the layers are,’ he pondered, ‘except that one of them, judging by its colour, is definitely beetroot.’

‘There’s courgette in there somewhere,’ Eliana answered, and he was glad that her tone of voice was as light as his. ‘And perhaps asparagus?’

They went on identifying the multi-coloured, multi-textured layers. It was easy conversation, light and inconsequential. But it served its purpose. Lightened the atmosphere.

He glanced towards her. As ever, her beauty made his breath catch.

It comes to her naturally—she makes no effort, but it is there all the time.

Memory came—how struck he’d been when he’d first been courting her, wooing her, making her his own, by just how naturally beautiful she was. Unsophisticated, yes, unlike the females he usually ran with, but her beauty had been in her smile, her eyes, her sun-kissed hair... In the way she’d laughed, and dropped her gaze when he looked at her—not in a flirtatious way, or to entice him... Although sometimes he would catch her stealing a look at him from beneath her smoky lashes...a look of longing...

He’d liked that—had liked to bring the colour flushing to her soft cheeks when he’d paid her compliments, which she’d absorbed like a flower drinking in the warming rays of the sun...

I thought I’d found a woman different from any that I had known. One to fall in love with.

He hadn’t intended to fall in love at all. It had not been on his agenda—but Eliana had changed all that. With her in his life he’d no longer wanted to play the field, hadn’t been interested in the chic, sophisticated females he’d once focussed his attentions on. Eliana had swept him away—swept him totally away.

Until she’d walked away from him. Handed back his ring. Walked out of his life.

But now she’s back in it. I’ve let her in. Thinking I knew why.

His gaze rested on her now, and he felt again the confusion he’d felt in the night, when he’d realised the truth about her marriage...felt again, even more intensely, what had passed between them out on the balcony just now.

What do I want of her? What do I want at all?

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