Page 63 of The Billionaire's Demand

‘He was a good man—a kind man—but...but unworldly. He didn’t even see how Damian’s father was netting him, getting control over what happened to the house. And the stress of losing all his money had already given him one stroke...’

Her gaze dropped to where the deeds to the villa lay on the table in front of her.

‘I’m glad,’ she said slowly, sadly, ‘that he never realised he was going to lose the house when he died...that it wouldn’t come to me.’

She heard Leandros speak. ‘But now it has.’

Her eyes flashed up. ‘You know I can’t possibly accept it! How could I? And what possible reason could you have for giving it to me?’

There was a veiling of his eyes. Yet they still rested on her like weights.

‘Do you not know, Eliana? Do you really not know?’

His words fell into silence. Around her she could hear noise from the kitchen, hear the waiter greeting the other diners starting to arrive, conversations beginning.

Could hear, inside her, the thudding of her heart. Which was like a hammer. Drumming in her pulse.

‘I want it,’ he spoke slowly and clearly, for all the veiling in his eyes, ‘to be my wedding present to you, Eliana.’

The drumming was deafening...drowning out everything. Making her feel faint. Making the room come and go around her.

She felt her hand taken, lifted. Heard Leandros speak again, his voice low. And what was in it was an intensity that broke her apart.

‘Six years ago you walked away from me, turned me down. This time—’ his fingers around hers spasmed ‘—don’t. Just...don’t. Don’t turn me down again.’ He paused, then spoke again, his voice husky, as if each word were painful. ‘I couldn’t bear it.’

Her face worked. Emotion was storming up in her, storming through the drumming of her blood. Leandros was speaking again, his words breaking through the deafening drumming of her blood, reaching for her. Finding her. Emotion was filling his words...so much emotion...

‘We found each other again in Paris. Don’t—Eliana don’t let us lose each other again! When you walked out on me that second time, it was like...it was like a knife in my throat. And I knew...knew...that what we’d first had, all those years ago, was there again.’ His voice dropped. ‘Maybe it had never gone away. Just been suffocated by my bitterness...’

She turned her fingers in his. Then she spoke, her voice low and halting—and painful.

‘I hurt you. I hurt you and I know I did. And I have never, for a single day, forgiven myself. I told you in Paris that, given a second chance, I’d make the same choice again—marry Damian. Because nothing would have been different if that second chance had come. If I hadn’t married Damian my father would still have been facing a financial ruin I could not have borne to impose on him, and—’

She stopped.

His expression had changed. Arrested.

‘And what?’ There was an edge in his voice, but the blade was not aimed at her.

She shut her eyes. That drumming was still in her ears, her heart, her pulse.

‘And your father would still have been threatening to disinherit you if you married me,’ she said.

Her eyes flew open. Suddenly it was her hand clenching his, crushing it with her intensity.

‘Leandros, did you never think how I felt when he told me that? Told me you’d be penniless if you married me? Dear God, Leandros, I loved you! How could I possibly have gone on with marrying you knowing it would estrange you from your father? Strip you of your inheritance? How could I have done that to you?’

He was staring at her. She wanted to cry out—cry out the dismay she’d felt when his father had made it so crystal-clear to her what marrying his son would do to Leandros.

‘So I didn’t, Leandros. I didn’t do it to you. I told you I didn’t want to marry you any longer and I let you say...let you say...’

‘Let me call you what I did. Venal and luxury-loving—another Manon.’ His voice was hollow. Shaken.

‘It was better that you did that. Better that you hated and despised me than felt I was only marrying Damian to protect my father. If you hated and despised me you could move on—set me aside.’

He let go her hand and it felt cold suddenly. But not as cold as the chill that filled her as he spoke again. Slowly, heavily. As if a weight were on his chest.

He drew a breath—a razored one. ‘My father only said that to test you. He’d warned me ever since I was a teenager that there would be women out there whose interest would not be in me, but my family’s wealth. He’d told me he would test any woman I wanted to marry. Test her to see what her reaction was. And I—I agreed with it.’

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