‘We don’t marry for love or companionship, as other people do. We marry for the good of our island. Think of my betrothal as a business arrangement. But you are my lover. You are the woman I want to be with.’

For an age Amy didn’t say anything. She simply looked into Helios’s eyes, searching for something—she didn’t know what.

He brought his face down to meet her lips, which had parted.

‘I mean it, Helios, we’re finished. I will never be your mistress.’ Her words were but a whisper.

‘You think?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then why are you still standing here? Why is your breath still warm on my face?’

Brushing his lips across the softness of her cheek, he gripped her bottom and ground her to him, letting her feel his desire for her.

The tiniest of moans escaped her throat.

‘See?’ He trailed kisses over her delicate ear. ‘You do want me. But you’re punishing me.’

You are formally invited to the Jubilee Gala of His Majesty King Astraeus of Agon as he commemorates 50 years on the throne. Join us as we celebrate

The Kalliakis Crown

Royal by birth, ruthless by nature

This warrior nation’s fierce Princes— Talos, Theseus and Helios—each have their own special gift to give their grandfather, the King. But none of them is expecting the three women who challenge their plans … and steal their hearts!

Discover the passion behind the palace doors … watch as destinies are forged … and get swept up in a torrent of emotion in this powerful new trilogy by Michelle Smart!

Don’t miss

Talos Claims His Virgin December 2015

Theseus Discovers His Heir January 2016

Helios Crowns His Mistress February 2016

The Kalliakis Crown Royal by birth, ruthless by nature

Helios Crowns

His Mistress

Michelle Smart

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MICHELLE SMART’s love affair with books started when she was a baby, when she would cuddle them in her cot. A voracious reader of all genres, she found her love of romance established when she stumbled across her first Mills & Boon book at the age of twelve. She’s been reading (and writing) them ever since. Michelle lives in Northamptonshire with her husband and two young Smarties.

This book is for Aimee—thank you for all the support and cheerleading over the years. You’re one in a million.

This book is also dedicated to Hannah and Sarah—the mojitos in this are for you!

xxx

Contents

Cover

Introduction

The Kalliakis Crown

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

EPILOGUE

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

‘DO YOU REALLY have to shave it off?’ Amy Green, busy admiring Helios’s rear view, slipped a cajoling tone into her plea.

Helios met her eye in the reflection of the bathroom mirror and winked. ‘It will grow back.’

She pouted. Carefully. The clay mask she’d applied to her face had dried, making it hard for her to move her features without cracking it. Another ten minutes and she would be able to rinse it off. ‘But you’re so sexy with a beard.’

‘Are you saying I’m not sexy without it?’

She made a harrumphing sound. ‘You’re always sexy.’

Too sexy for his own good. Even without a beard. Even his voice was sexy: a rich, low-pitched tone that sang to her ears, with the Agon accent which made it dance.

Impossibly tall and rangy, and incredibly strong, with dark olive colouring and ebony hair, currently tousled after a snatched hour in bed with her, Helios had a piratical appearance. The dangerous look was exaggerated by the slight curve of his strong nose and the faint scar running over its bridge: the mark of a fight with his brother Theseus when they were teenagers. Utterly without vanity, Helios wore the scar with pride. He was the sexiest man she’d ever met.

Soon the hair would be tamed and as smooth as his face would be, yet his innate masculinity would still vibrate through him. His rugged body would be hidden by a formal black evening suit, but his strength and vitality would permeate the expensive fabric. The playful expression emanating from his liquid dark brown eyes would still offer sin.

He would turn into Prince Helios Kalliakis, heir to the throne of Agon. But he would still be a flesh and blood man.

He lifted the cut-throat blade. ‘Are you sure you don’t want to do it?’

Amy shook her head. ‘Can you imagine if I were to cut you? I would be arrested for treason.’

He grinned, then gave the mirror a quick wipe to clear away the condensation produced from the steam of her bath.

Smothering a snigger, she stretched out her right leg until her foot reached the taps, and used her toes to pour a little more hot water in.

‘I’m sure deliberately steaming up the bathroom so I can’t see properly is also treasonous,’ he said with a playful shake of his head, striding lithely to the extractor fan and switching it on.

As with everything in his fabulous palace apartment it worked instantly, clearing the enormous bathroom of steam.

He crouched beside the bath and placed his gorgeous face close to hers. ‘Any more treasonous behaviour, matakia mou, and I will be forced to punish you.’

His breath, hot and laced with a faint trace of their earlier shared pot of coffee, danced against her skin.

‘And what form of punishment will you be forced to give me?’ she asked, the desire she’d thought spent bubbling back up inside her, her breaths shortening.

Those liquid eyes flashed and a smirk played on the bowed lips that had kissed her everywhere. It was a mouth a woman could happily kiss for ever.

‘A punishment you will never forget.’ He snapped his teeth together for effect and growled, before throwing her a look full of promise and striding back to the mirror. Half watching her in the reflection, Helios dipped his shaving brush into the pot and began covering his black beard with a rich, foamy lather.

Amy had to admit watching him shave as if he were the leading man in a medieval film fascinated her. It also scared her. The blade he used was sharp enough to slice through flesh. One twitch of the hand...

All the same, she couldn’t drag her eyes away as he scraped the cut-throat razor down his cheek. In its own way it had an eroticism to it, transporting her to a bygone time when men had been men. And Helios was all man.

If he wanted he could snap his fingers and an army of courtiers would be there to do the job for him. But that wasn’t his style. The Kalliakis family were direct descendants of Ares Patakis, the warrior whose uprising had freed Agon from its Venetian invaders over eight hundred years ago. Agon princes were taught how to wield weapons with the same dedication with which they were taught the art of royal protocol. To her lover, a cut-throat razor was but one of many weapons he’d mastered.

She waited until he’d wiped the blade on a towel to clean it before speaking again. ‘Do I take it that despite all my little hints you haven’t put a space aside for me tonight?’

Her ‘little hints’ had taken the form of mentioning at every available opportunity how much she would love to attend the Royal Ball that was the talk of the entire island, but she hadn’t seriously expected to get an invitation. She was but a mere employee of the palace museum, and a temporary employee at that.

And it wasn’t as if they would be together for ever, she thought with a strange stab of wistfulness. Their relationship had never been a secret, but it hadn’t been flaunted either. She was his lover, not his girlfriend, something she had known from the very start. She had no official place in his life and never would.

He placed the blade back to his cheek and swiped, revealing another line of smooth olive skin. ‘However much I adore your company, it wouldn’t be appropriate for you to attend.’

She pulled a face, inadvertently cracking the mask around her mouth. ‘Yes, I know. I am a commoner, and those attending your ball are the crème de la crème of high society.’

‘Nothing would please me more than to see you there, dressed in the finest haute couture money can buy. But it would be inappropriate for my lover to attend the ball where I’m to select my future wife.’

The deliciously warm bath turned cold in the beat of a moment.

She sat up.

‘Your future wife? What are you talking about?’

His reflected eyes met hers again. ‘The underlying reason for this ball is so that I can choose a wife.’

She paused before asking, ‘Like in Cinderella?’

‘Exactly.’ He worked on his chin, then wiped the blade on the towel again. ‘You know all of this.’

‘No,’ she said slowly, her blood freezing to match the chills rippling over her skin. ‘I was under the impression this ball was a pre-Gala do.’

In three weeks the eyes of the world would be on Agon as the island celebrated fifty years of King Astraeus’s reign. Heads of state and dignitaries from all around the world would be flying in for the occasion.

‘And so it is. I think the phrase is “killing two birds with one stone”?’

‘Why can’t you find a wife in the normal way?’ And, speaking of normal, how were her vocal cords performing when the rest of her body had been subsumed in a weird kind of paralysis?

‘Because, matakia mou, I am heir to the throne. I have to marry someone of royal blood. You know that.’

Yes, that she did know. Except she hadn’t thought it would be now. It hadn’t occurred to her. Not once. Not while they were sharing a bed every night.

‘I need to choose wisely,’ he continued, speaking in the same tone he might use if he were discussing what to order from the palace kitchen for dinner. ‘Obviously I have a shortlist of preferred women—princesses and duchesses I have met through the years who have caught my attention.’

‘Obviously...’ she echoed. ‘Is there any particular woman at the top of your shortlist, or are there a few of them jostling for position?’

‘Princess Catalina of Monte Cleure is looking the most likely. I’ve known her and her family for years—they’ve attended our Christmas Balls since Catalina was a baby. Her sister and brother-in-law got together at the last one.’ He grinned at the scandalous memory. ‘Catalina and I dined together a couple of times when I was in Denmark the other week. She has all the makings of an excellent queen.’

An image of the raven-haired Princess, a famed beauty who dealt with incessant press scrutiny on account of her ethereal royal loveliness, came to Amy’s mind. Waves of nausea rolled in her belly.

‘You never mentioned it.’

‘There was nothing to say.’ He didn’t look the slightest bit shamefaced.

‘Did you sleep with her?’

He met her stare, censure clear in his reflection. ‘What kind of a question is that?’

‘A natural question for a woman to ask her lover.’

Until that moment it hadn’t been something that had occurred to her: the idea that he might have strayed. Helios had never promised fidelity, but he hadn’t needed to. Since their first night together their lust for each other had been all-consuming.

‘The Princess is a virgin and will remain one until her wedding day whether she marries me or some other man. Does that answer your question?’

Not even a little bit. All it did was open up a whole heap of further questions, all of which she didn’t have the right to ask and not one of which she wanted to hear the answer to.

The only question she could bring herself to ask was ‘When are you hoping to marry the lucky lady?’

If he heard the irony in her voice he hid it well. ‘It will be a state wedding, but I would hope to be married in a couple of months.’

A couple of months? He expected to choose a bride and have a state wedding in a few months? Surely it wasn’t possible...?

But this was Helios. If there was one thing she knew about her lover it was that he was not a man to let the grass grow beneath his feet. If he wanted something done he wanted it done now, not tomorrow.

But a couple of months...?

Amy was contracted to stay in Agon until September, which was five whole months away. She’d imagined... Hoped...

She thought of King Astraeus, Helios’s grandfather. She had never met the King, but through her work in the palace museum she felt she had come to know him. The King was dying. Helios needed to marry and produce an heir of his own to assure the family line.

She knew all this. Yet still she’d shared his bed night after night and allowed herself to believe that Helios would hold off his wedding until her time on Agon was up.

Gripping the sides of the free-standing bath, she got carefully to her feet and stepped out. Hands trembling, she pulled a warm, fluffy towel off the rack and held it to her chest, not wanting to waste a second, not even to wrap it around herself.

Helios pulled his top lip down and brought the blade down in careful but expert fashion. ‘I’ll call you when the ball is finished.’

She strode to the door, uncaring that bathwater was dripping off her and onto the expensive floor tiles. ‘No, you won’t.’

‘Where are you going? You’re soaking wet.’

From out of the corner of her eye she saw him pat his towel over his face and follow her through into his bedroom, not bothering to cover himself.

She gathered her clothes into a bundle and held them tightly. A strange burning buzzed in her brain, making coherent thought difficult.

Three months. That was how long she’d shared his bed. In that time they’d slept apart on only a dozen or so occasions, when Helios had been away on official business. Like when he’d gone to Denmark and, unbeknownst to her, dined with Princess Catalina. And now he was throwing a ball to find the woman he would share a bed with for the rest of his life.

She’d known from the start that they had no future, and had been careful to keep her heart and emotions detached. But to hear him being so blasé about it...

She stood by the door that opened into the secret passageway connecting their apartments. There were dozens and dozens of such secret passageways throughout the palace; a fortress built on intrigue and secrets.

‘I’m going to my apartment. Enjoy your evening.’

‘Have I missed something?’

The fact that he looked genuinely perplexed only made matters worse.

‘You say it isn’t appropriate for me to come tonight, but I’ll tell you what isn’t appropriate—talking about the wife you’re hours away from selecting with the woman who has shared your bed for three months.’

‘I don’t know what your problem is,’ he said with a shrug, raising his hands in an open-palmed gesture. ‘My marriage won’t change anything between us.’

‘If you believe that then you’re as stupid as you are insensitive and misogynistic. You speak as if the women you are selecting from are sweets lined up in a shop rather than flesh and blood people.’ She shook her head to emphasise her distaste, watching as her words seeped in and the perplexity on Helios’s face darkened into something ugly.

Helios was not a man who received criticism well. On this island and in this palace he was celebrated and feted, a man whose words people hung on to. Affable and charming, his good humour was infectious. Cross him, however, and he would turn with the snap of two fingers.

If she wasn’t so furious with him Amy would probably be afraid.

He strode towards her, magnificently naked. He stopped a foot away and folded his arms across his defined chest. A pulse throbbed at his temple and his jaw clenched tightly.

‘Be careful in how you speak to me. I might be your lover, but you do not have a licence to insult me.’

‘Why? Because you’re a prince?’ She hugged the towel and the bundle of clothes even tighter, as if their closeness could stop her erratically thumping heart from jumping out of her chest. ‘You’re about to make a commitment to another woman and I want no part of it.’

Benedict, Helios’s black Labrador, sensed the atmosphere and padded over to her, his tongue lolling out as he sat on his haunches by her side and gave what looked like a disapproving stare at his master.

Helios noticed it too. He rubbed Benedict’s head, the darkness disappearing as quickly as it had appeared, an indulgent smile spreading over his face as he looked at Amy. ‘Don’t be so dramatic. I know you’re premenstrual, and that makes you more emotional than you would otherwise be, but you’re being irrational.’

‘Premenstrual? Did you really just say that? You really are on a different planet. God forbid that I should become “emotional” because my lover has had secret dates with other women and is about to take one of them for his wife and still expects me to warm his bed. But don’t worry. Pat me on the head and tell me I’m premenstrual. Pat yourself on the back and tell yourself you’ve done nothing wrong.’

Too furious to look at him any more, she turned the handle of the door and pushed it open with her hip.

‘Are you walking away from me?’

Was that laughter in his voice? Did he find this amusing?

Ignoring him, Amy raised her head high and walked up the narrow passageway that would take her to her own palace apartment.

A huge hand gripped her biceps, forcing her to twist around. He absolutely dwarfed her.

Regardless of the huge tug in her heart and the rising nausea, her voice was steady as she said, ‘Get your hands off me. We’re over.’

‘No, we’re not.’ He slid his hand over her shoulder to snake it around her neck. His breath was hot in her ear as he leaned down to whisper, ‘While you’re sulking tonight I will be thinking of you and imagining all the ways I can take you when the ball’s over. Then you will come to me and we will act them all out.’

Despite her praying to all the gods she could think of, her body reacted to his words and to his closeness the way it always did. With Helios she was like a starved child, finally allowed to feast. She craved him. She had desired him from the moment she’d met him all those months ago, with a powerful need that hadn’t abated with time.

But now the time had come to conquer the craving.

Pressing a hand to his solid chest, resisting the urge to run her fingers through the fine black hair that covered it, she pushed herself back and forced her eyes to meet his still playful gaze.

‘Enjoy your evening. Try not to spill wine down any princess’s dress.’

His mocking laughter followed her all the way to the sanctuary of her own apartment.

It wasn’t until she arrived in her apartment, which was spacious compared to normal accommodation but tiny when compared to Helios’s, and caught a glimpse of her reflection that she saw the clay mask was still on her face.

It had cracked all over.

* * *

Helios led his dance partner—a princess from the old Greek royal family—around the ballroom. She was a very pretty young woman, but as he danced with her and listened to her chatter he mentally struck her off his list. Whoever he married, he wanted to be able to hold a conversation with them about something other than the latest catwalk fashions.

When the waltz had finished he bowed gracefully and excused himself to join his brother Theseus at his table, ignoring all the pleading female eyes silently begging him to take their hand next.

Amy’s words about him treating the women here as sweets in a shop came back to him. He was man enough to admit they held the ring of truth. But if he had to choose someone to spend the rest of his life with and to bear his children, he wanted a woman as close to being perfect on his palate as he could taste.

If Amy could see the ladies in question and their eager eyes, the way they thrust their cleavages in his direction as they passed him, hoping to garner his attention, she would understand that they wanted to be tasted. They wanted him to find them exactly to his taste.

Theseus’s gaze was directed at their younger brother, Talos, who was dancing with the ravishing violinist who would play at their grandfather’s Jubilee Gala in three weeks.

‘There’s something going on there,’ Theseus said, swigging back his champagne. ‘Look at him. The fool’s smitten.’

Helios followed his brother’s gaze to the dance floor and knew immediately what he meant. The other couple of hundred guests in the room might as well not have been there for all the attention Talos and his dance partner were paying them. They had eyes only for each other and the heat they were producing...it was almost a visible entity. And strangely mesmerising.

Not for the first time Helios wished Amy could be there. She would adore waltzing around the great ballroom. For a conscientious academic she had a fun side that made her a pleasure to be with.

Theseus fixed his gaze back on Helios. ‘So what about you? Shouldn’t you be on the dance floor?’

‘I’m taking a breather.’

‘You should be taking it with Princess Catalina.’

Helios and his brothers had discussed his potential brides numerous times. The consensus was that Catalina would be a perfect fit for their family.

Only a generation ago, the marriages of the heirs to the Agon throne had been arranged. His own parents’ marriage had been arranged. It had been witnessing the implosion of their marriage that had led his grandfather King Astraeus to abandon protocol and allow the next generation to select their own spouses, providing they were of royal blood.

For this, Helios was grateful. He was determined that whoever he selected would have no illusions that their marriage would be anything but one of duty.

‘You think...?’ he asked idly, while his skin crawled at the thought of dancing another waltz with any more of the ladies in attendance, no matter how beautiful they were. Beautiful women were freely available wherever he went. Women of substance less so.

He glanced at his watch. Another couple of hours and this would be over. He would call Amy and she would come to him.

Now, she was a woman of substance.

A frisson of tension raced through him as he recalled their earlier exchange. He’d never seen her angry before. There’d been a possessiveness to that anger too. She’d been jealous.

Usually when a lover showed the first sign of possessiveness it meant it was time for him to move on. In Amy’s case he’d found it highly alluring. Her jealousy had strangely delighted him.

Helios had long suspected that she kept parts of herself hidden from him. She gave her body to him willingly, and revelled in their lovemaking as much as he did, but the inner workings of her clever mind remained a mystery.

She’d been different from his usual lovers from the very start. Beautiful and fiercely intelligent, she held his attention in a way no other woman ever had. Her earlier anger hadn’t repelled him, as it would have done coming from anyone else; it had intrigued him, peeling away another layer of the brilliant, passionate woman he couldn’t get enough of. When he was with her he could forget everything and live for the moment, for their hunger.

The seriousness of his grandfather’s illness clung to him like a barnacle, but when he was with Amy it became tamed, was less of a thudding beat of pain and doom. When he was with her he could cast aside the great responsibilities being heir to the throne brought and simply be a man. A lover. Her lover. She was a constant thrum in his blood. He had no intention of giving her up—marriage or no marriage.

‘Has anyone else caught your attention?’ Theseus asked him.

‘No.’

Helios had always known he would have to marry. There had never been any question about it. He had no personal feelings about it one way or another. Marriage was an institution within which to produce the next set of Kalliakis heirs, and he was fortunate to be in a position where he could choose his own bride, albeit within certain constraints. His parents hadn’t been so lucky. Their marriage had been arranged before his mother had been out of nappies. It had been a disaster. His only real hope for his own marriage was that it be nothing like theirs.

Princess Catalina, currently dancing with a British prince, caught his eye. She really was incredibly beautiful. Refined. Her breeding and lineage shone through. Her brother was an old school friend of his, and their meals together in Denmark had shown her to be a woman of great intelligence as well as beauty, if a little serious for his taste.

She had none of Amy’s irreverence.

Still, Catalina would make an excellent queen and he’d wasted enough time as it was. He should have selected a wife months ago, when the gravity of his grandfather’s condition had been spelt out to him and his brothers.

Catalina had been raised in a world of protocol, just as he had. She had no illusions or expectations of love. If he chose her he knew theirs would be a marriage of duty. Nothing more, nothing less. No emotional entanglements. Exactly as he wanted.

Making a family with her would be no hardship either. He was certain that with some will on both their parts a bond would form. Chemistry should ensue too. Not the same kind of chemistry he shared with Amy, of course. That would be impossible to replicate.

A memory of Amy heading barefoot down the dimly lit passageway, her clothes and towel huddled to her, her dark blonde hair damp and swinging across her golden back, her bare bottom swaying, flashed into his mind. She’d been as haughty as any princess in that moment, and he couldn’t wait to punish her for her insolence. He would bring her to the brink of orgasm so many times she would be begging him for release.

But this was neither the time nor the place to imagine Amy’s slender form naked in his arms.

With titanium will, he dampened down the fire spreading through his loins and fixed his attention on the women before him. For the next few hours Amy had to be locked away in his mind to free up his concentration for the job in hand.

Before he could bring himself to dance again he beckoned a footman closer, so he could take another glass of champagne and drink a large swallow.

Theseus eyed him shrewdly. ‘What’s the matter with you?’

‘Nothing.’

‘You have the face of a man at a wine-tasting event discovering all the bottles are corked.’

Helios fixed a smile on his face. ‘Better?’

‘Now you look like a mass murderer.’

‘Your support is, as always, invaluable.’ Draining his glass, he got to his feet. ‘Considering the fact I’m not the only Prince expected to marry and produce heirs, I suggest you get off your backside and mingle with the beautiful ladies in attendance too.’

He smirked at Theseus’s grimace. While Helios accepted his fate with the steely backbone his upbringing and English boarding school education had instilled in him, he knew his rebellious brother looked forward to matrimony with all the enthusiasm of a zebra entering a lion enclosure.

Later, as he danced with Princess Catalina, holding her at a respectable distance so their bodies didn’t touch—and having no compulsion to bridge the gap—his thoughts turned to his grandfather.

The King was not in attendance tonight, as he was saving his limited energy for the Jubilee Gala itself. It was for that great man, who had raised Helios and his brothers since Helios was ten, that he was prepared to take the final leap and settle down.

For his grandfather he would do anything.

Soon the crown would pass to him—sooner than he had wanted or expected—and he needed a queen by his side. He wanted his grandfather to move on to the next life at peace, in the knowledge that the succession of the Kalliakis line was secure. If time was kind to them his grandfather might just live long enough to see Helios take his vows.

CHAPTER TWO

WHERE THE HELL was she?

Helios had been back in his apartment for fifteen minutes and Amy wasn’t answering his calls. According to the head of security, she had left the palace. Her individual passcode showed that she’d left at seven forty-five; around the time he and his brothers had been welcoming their guests.

Trying her phone one more time, he strolled through to his bar and poured himself a large gin. The call went straight to voicemail. He tipped the neat liquid down his throat and, on a whim, carried the bottle through to his study.

Security monitors there showed pictures from the cameras that ran along the connecting passageways. Only Helios himself had access to the cameras’ feeds.

He peered closely at the screen for camera three, which faced the reinforced connecting door. There was something on the floor he couldn’t make out clearly...

Striding to it and unbolting the door, he stared down at a box. Crammed inside were bottles of perfume, jewellery, books and mementos. All the gifts he had given Amy during their time together as lovers. Crammed, unwanted, into a box and left on his doorstep.

A burst of fury tore through him, so sudden and so powerful it consumed him in one.

Before he had time to think what he was doing he raised his foot and brought it slamming down onto the box. Glass shattered and crunched beneath him, the sound echoing in the silence.

For an age he did nothing else but inhale deeply, trembling with fury, fighting the urge to smash what was left of the box’s contents into smithereens. Violence had been his father’s solution to life’s problems. It was something Helios had always known resided inside him too but, unlike in his father’s case, it was an aspect of himself he controlled.

The sudden fury that had just overtaken him was incomprehensible.

* * *

Acutely aware of how late she was, Amy slammed her apartment door shut and hurried down the stairs that led to the palace museum. Punching in her passcode, she waited for the green light to come on, shoved the door open and stepped into the private quarters of the museum, an area out of bounds to visitors.

Gazing longingly at the small staff kitchen as she passed it, she crossed her fingers in the hope that the daily pastries hadn’t already been eaten and the coffee already drunk. The bougatsas, freshly made by the palace chefs and brought to them every morning, had become her favourite food in the whole world.

Her mouth filled with moisture as she imagined the delicate yet satisfying filo-based pastries. She hoped there were still some custard-filled ones left. She’d hardly eaten a thing in the past couple of days, and now, after finally managing to get a decent night’s sleep, she’d woken up ravenous. She’d also slept right through her alarm clock, and the thought made her legs work even quicker as she climbed another set of stairs that led up to the boardroom.

‘I’m so sorry I’m late,’ she said, rushing through the door, a hand flat on her breathless chest. ‘I over...’ Her words tailed off as she saw Helios, sitting at the head of the large round table.

His elbows rested on the table, the tips of his fingers rubbing together. He was freshly shaven and, even casually dressed as he was, in a dark green long-sleeved crew-neck top, he exuded an undeniable power. And all the force of that power was at that very moment aimed at her.

‘Nice of you to join us, Despinis Green,’ he said. His tone was even, but his dark brown eyes resembled bullets waiting to be fired at her. ‘Take a seat.’

Utterly shaken to see him there, she blinked rapidly and forced herself to inhale. Helios was the palace museum’s director, but his involvement in the day-to-day running of it was minimal. In the four months she’d worked there, he hadn’t once attended the weekly Tuesday staff meeting.

She’d known when she’d stolen back into the palace late last night that she would have to face him soon, but she’d hoped for a few more days’ grace. Why did he have to appear today, of all days? The one time she’d overslept and looked awful.

Unfortunately the only chair available was directly opposite him. It made a particularly loud scraping sound over the wooden floor as she pulled it back and sat down, clasping her hands tightly on her lap so as not to betray their tremors. Greta, one of the other curators and Amy’s best friend on the island, had the seat next to her. She placed a comforting hand over hers and squeezed gently. Greta knew everything.

In the centre of the table was the tray of bougatsas Amy had hoped for. Three remained, but she found her appetite gone and her heart thundering so hard that the ripples spread to her belly and made her nauseous.

Greta poured her a cup of coffee. Amy clutched it gratefully.

‘We were discussing the artefacts we’re still waiting on for my grandfather’s exhibition,’ Helios said, looking directly at her.

The Agon Palace Museum was world-famous, and as such attracted curators from across the world, resulting in a medley of first languages amongst the staff. To simplify matters, English was the official language spoken when on duty.

Amy cleared her throat and searched her scrambled brain for coherence. ‘The marble statues are on their way from Italy as we speak and should arrive in port early tomorrow morning.’

‘Do we have staff ready to welcome them?’

‘Bruno will message me when they reach Agon waters,’ she said, referring to one of the Italian curators accompanying the statues back to their homeland. ‘As soon as I hear from him we’ll be ready to go. The drivers are on call. Everything is in hand.’

‘And what about the artefacts from the Greek museum?’

‘They will arrive here on Friday.’

Helios knew all this. The exhibition was his pet project and they’d worked closely together on it.

She’d first come to Agon in November, as part of a team from the British Museum delivering artefacts on loan to the Agon Palace Museum. During those few days on the island she’d struck up a friendship with Pedro, the Head of Museum. Unbeknownst to her at the time, he’d been impressed with her knowledge of Agon, and doubly impressed with her PhD thesis on Minoan Heritage and its Influences on Agon Culture. Pedro had been the one to suggest her for the role of curator for the Jubilee Exhibition.

The offer had been a dream come true, and a huge honour for someone with so little experience. Only twenty-seven, what Amy lacked in experience she made up for with enthusiasm.

Amy had learned at the age of ten that the happy, perfect family she’d taken for granted was not as she’d been led to believe. She wasn’t what she’d been led to believe. Her dad was indeed her biological father, but her brothers were only half-brothers. Her mum wasn’t her biological mother. The woman who’d actually given birth to her had been from the Mediterranean island of Agon.

Half of Amy’s DNA was Agonite.

Since that bombshell discovery, everything about Agon had fascinated her. She’d devoured books on its Minoan history and its evolution into democracy. She’d thrilled at stories of the wars, the passion and ferocity of its people. She’d studied maps and photographs, staring so intently at the island’s high green mountains, sandy beaches and clear blue seas that its geography had become as familiar as her own home town.

Agon had been an obsession.

Somewhere in its history was her history, and the key to understanding who she truly was. To have the opportunity to live there on a nine-month secondment had been beyond anything she could have hoped. It had been as if fate was giving her the push she needed to find her birth mother. Somewhere in this land of half a million people was the woman who had borne her.

For seventeen years Amy had thought about her, wondering what she looked like—did she look like her?—what her voice sounded like, what regrets she might have. Was she ashamed of what she’d done? Surely she was? How could anyone live through what Neysa Soukis had done and not feel shame?

She’d been easy to locate, but how to approach her...? That had always been the biggest question. Amy couldn’t just turn up at her door; it would likely be slammed in her face and then she would never have her answers. She’d considered writing a letter but had failed to think of what she could say other than: Hi, do you remember me? You carried me for nine months and then dumped me. Any chance you could tell me why?

Greek social media, which Greta had been helping her with, had proved fruitful. Neysa didn’t use it, but through it Amy had discovered a half-brother. Tentative communications had started between them. She had to hope he would act as a conduit between them.

‘Have you arranged transport for Friday?’ Helios asked, the dark eyes hard, the bowed, sensual mouth tight.

‘Yes. Everything is in hand,’ she said for a second time, as a sharp pang reached through her as she realised she would never feel those lips on hers again. ‘We’re ahead of schedule.’

‘You’re confident that come the Gala the exhibition will be ready?’

His voice was casual but there was a hardness there, a scepticism she’d never had directed at her before.

‘Yes,’ she answered, gritting her teeth to stop her hurt and anger leeching out.

He was punishing her. She should have answered one of his calls. She’d taken the coward’s way out and escaped from the palace in the hope that a few days away from him would give her the strength she needed to resist him. The best way—the only way—of beating her craving for him would be by going cold turkey.

Because resist him she must. She couldn’t be the other woman. She couldn’t.

But she hadn’t imagined that seeing him again would physically hurt.

It did. Dreadfully.

Before her job had been rubber-stamped, Helios had interviewed her himself. The Jubilee Exhibition was of enormous personal importance to him and he’d been determined that the curator with the strongest affinity to his island would get the job.

Luckily for her, he’d agreed with Pedro that she was the perfect candidate. He’d told her some months later, when they’d been lying replete in each other’s arms, that it had been her passion and enthusiasm that had convinced him. He’d known she would give the job the dedication it deserved.

Meeting Helios... He’d been nothing as she’d imagined: as far from the stuffy, pompous, ‘entitled’ Prince she’d expected him to be as was possible.

Her attraction to him had been immediate, a chemical reaction over which she’d had no control. It had taken her completely off guard. Yet she hadn’t thought anything of it. He was a prince, after all, both powerful and dangerously handsome. Never in her wildest dreams had she thought the attraction would be reciprocated. But it had been.

He’d been much more involved with the exhibition than she’d anticipated, and she’d often found herself working alone with him, her longing for him an ever-growing fire inside her that she didn’t have a clue how to handle.

Affairs in the workplace were a fact of life, even in the studious world of antiquities, but they were not something she’d ever been tempted by. She loved her work so much it took her entire focus. Her work gave her purpose. It grounded her. And working with the ancient objects of her own people, seeing first-hand how techniques and social mores had evolved over the years, was a form of proof that the past didn’t have to be the future. Her birth mother’s actions didn’t have to define her, even if she did feel the taint of her behaviour like an invisible stain.

Relationships of any real meaning had always been out of the question for her. How could she commit to someone if she didn’t know who she truly was? So to find herself feeling such an attraction, and to the man who was effectively her boss, who just happened to be a prince... It was no wonder her emotions had been all over the place.

Helios had had no such inhibitions.

Long before he’d laid so much as a finger on her he’d undressed her with his dark liquid eyes, time and again. Until one late afternoon, when she’d been talking to him in the smaller of the exhibition rooms, she on one side, he on the other, and he’d gone from complete stillness to fluid motion in the beat of a heart. He’d walked to her with long strides and pulled her into his arms.

And that had been it. She’d been his for the taking. And he’d been hers.

Their three months together had been a dream. Theirs had been a physically intense but surprisingly easy relationship. There had been no expectations. No inhibitions. Just passion.

Walking away should have been easy.

The eyes that had undressed her a thousand times now flickered to Pedro, giving silent permission for him to move the discussion on to general museum topics. There might be a special exhibition being organised, but the museum itself still needed to be run to its usual high standards.

Clearly unnerved—Helios’s mood, usually so congenial, was unsettling all the staff—Pedro raced through the rest of the agenda in double-quick time, finally mentioning the need for someone to cover for one of their tour guides that Thursday. Amy was happy to volunteer. Thursday was her only reasonably quiet day that week, and she enjoyed taking on the tours whenever the opportunity arose.

One of the things she loved so much about the museum was the collaborative way it was run, with everyone helping each other when needed. It was a philosophy that came from the very top, from Helios himself, even if today there was no sign of his usual amiability.

Only at the very end of the meeting did Pedro say, ‘Before we leave, can I remind everyone that menus for next Wednesday need to be handed in by Friday?’

As a thank-you for all the museum staff’s hard work in organising the exhibition, Helios had arranged a night out for everyone before the summer rush hit, all expenses paid. It was a typically generous gesture from him, and a social event Amy had been very much looking forward to. Now, though, the thought of a night out with Helios in attendance made her stomach twist.

There was a palpable air of relief when the meeting finished. Today there was none of the usual lingering. Everyone scrambled to their feet and rushed for the door.

‘Amy, a word please.’ Helios’s rich voice rose over the clatter of hurrying feet.

She paused, inches from the door, inches from escape. Arranging her face into a neutral expression, she turned around.

‘Shut the door behind you.’

She did as she was told, her heart sinking to her feet, then sat back in her original place opposite him but also the greatest distance possible away.

It wasn’t far enough.

The man oozed testosterone.

He also oozed menace.

Her heart kicked against her ribs. She clamped her lips together and folded her arms across her chest.

Yet she couldn’t stop her eyes moving to his, couldn’t stop herself gazing at him.

His silver chain glinted against the base of his throat. That chain had often brushed against her lips when he’d made love to her.

And as she stared at him, wondering when he was going to speak, his eyes studied her with the same intensity, making her mouth run dry and her hammering pulse race into a gallop.

His fingers drummed on the table. ‘Did you have a nice time at Greta’s?’

‘Yes, thank you,’ she replied stiffly, before she realised what he’d said. ‘How did you know I was there?’

‘Through the GPS on your phone.’

‘What? You’ve been spying on me?’

‘You are the lover of the heir to the throne of Agon. Our relationship is an open secret. I do not endanger what is mine.’

‘I’m not yours. Not any more,’ she spat at him, running from fear to fury in seconds. ‘Whatever tracking device you’ve put in my phone, you can take it out. Now.’

She yanked her bag onto the table, pulled out her phone and threw it at him.

His hand opened to catch it like a Venus flytrap catching its prey. He laughed. But unlike on Saturday, when he’d thought he’d been indulging her, the sound contained no humour.

He slid the phone back to her. ‘There’s no tracking device in it. It’s all done through your number.’

‘Well, you can damn well untrack it. Take it off your system, or whatever it’s on.’

He studied her contemplatively. His stillness unnerved her. Helios was never still. He had enough energy to power the whole palace.

‘Why did you leave?’

‘To get away from you.’

‘You didn’t think I would be worried?’

‘I thought you’d be too busy cherry-picking your bride to notice I’d gone.’

Finally a smile played on his lips. ‘Ah, so you were punishing me.’

‘No, I was not,’ she refuted hotly. ‘I was giving myself space away from you because I knew you’d still expect to sleep with me after an evening of wooing prospective brides.’

‘And you didn’t think you’d be able to resist me?’

Her cheeks coloured and Helios felt a flare of satisfaction that his thoughts had been correct.

His beautiful, passionate lover had been jealous.

Slender, feminine to her core, with a tumbling mane of thick dark blonde hair, Amy was possibly the most beautiful woman he’d ever met. A sculptor wouldn’t hesitate to cast her as Aphrodite. She made his blood thicken just to look at her, even dressed as she was now in an A-line navy skirt and a pretty yet demure lilac top.

But today there was something unkempt about her appearance that wasn’t usually there: dark hollows beneath her taupe eyes, her rosebud lips dry, her usual glowing complexion paler than was normal.

And he was the cause of it. The thought sent a thrill through him. Whatever punishment she had hoped to inflict on him by disappearing for a few days, it had backfired on her.

He would never let her know of the overwhelming fury that had rent him when he’d seen the box she’d left by his door.

Which reminded him...

He slid the thick padded envelope he’d placed on the table towards her. Smashing the box when his anger had got the better of him had caused the perfume bottles to spill and ruin the books, but the jewellery had been left undamaged.

Her eyes narrowed with caution, she extended an elegant hand to it and opened it gingerly. Her mouth tightened when she saw what was inside.

She dropped the envelope back on the table and got quickly to her feet. ‘I don’t want them.’

‘They’re yours. You insult me by returning them.’

She didn’t blink. ‘And you insult me by giving them back when you’re about to put an engagement ring on another woman’s finger.’

He got out of his chair and stalked over to her. With the chair behind her she had nowhere to retreat. He pulled her to him, enfolding her in his arms so that her head was pressed to his chest. He was too strong and she was too slender for her to wriggle out of his hold, and in any case he knew her attempts didn’t mean anything.

He could feel her heat. She wanted to be in his arms.

Her head was tilted back, her breaths quickening. He watched as the pupils of her eyes darkened and pulsed, as the grey turned to brown, with a passionate fury there that set his veins alight.

‘There is no need to be jealous,’ he murmured, pressing himself closer. ‘My marriage doesn’t change my feelings for you.’

Her left eye twitched, an affliction he’d never seen before. Her top teeth razed across her full bottom lip.

‘But it changes my feelings for you.’

‘Liar. You can’t deny you still want me.’ He brushed his cheek against hers and whispered into her ear, ‘Only a few days ago you screamed out my name. I still have your scratches on my back.’

She reared back. ‘That was before I knew you were looking for an immediate wife. I will not be your mistress.’

‘There is no shame in it. Generations of Agon monarchs have taken lovers after marriage.’ His grandfather had been the exception to the rule, but only because he’d been fortunate enough to fall in love with his wife.

Of the thirty-one monarchs who’d ruled Agon since 1203, only a handful had found love and fidelity with their spouses. His own father, although he’d died before he could take the throne, had had dozens of lovers and mistresses. He’d revelled in waving his indiscretions right under his loving wife’s nose.

‘And generations ago your ancestors chopped your enemies’ limbs off but you’ve managed to wean yourself off that.’

He laughed at her retort, running a finger over her chin. Even with her oval face free of make-up Amy was beautiful. ‘We don’t marry for love or companionship, as other people do. We marry for the good of our island. Think of it as a business arrangement. You are my lover. You are the woman I want to be with.’

His mother had been unfortunate in that she’d already loved his father when they had married, and it was that love which had ultimately destroyed her, long before the car crash that had taken both his parents’ lives.

He would never inflict the kind of pain his father had caused, not on anyone. He had to marry, but he was upfront about what he wanted: a royal wife to produce the next generation of Kalliakis heirs. No emotions. No expectations of fidelity. A union founded on duty and nothing more.

Amy stared at him without speaking for the longest time, searching for something. He didn’t know what she hoped to find.

He brought his face down to meet her lips, which had parted, but she pulled back so only the faintest of touches passed between them.

‘I mean it, Helios. We’re finished. I will never be your mistress.’ Her words were but a whisper.

‘You think?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then why are you still standing here? Why is your breath still warm on my face?’

Brushing his lips across the softness of her cheek, he gripped her bottom and ground her against him, letting her feel his desire for her. The tiniest of moans escaped her throat.

‘See?’ He trailed kisses over her delicate ear. ‘You do want me. But you’re punishing me.’

‘No, I...’

‘Shh...’ He placed a finger on her mouth. ‘We both know I could take you right now and you would welcome it.’

Heat flared from her eyes but her chin jutted up mutinously.

‘I am going to give you exactly five seconds of freedom. Five seconds to leave this room. If after those five seconds you are still here...’ he spoke very quietly into her ear ‘...I will lift up your skirt and make love to you right here and now on this table.’

She quivered, a small tell but one so familiar he knew the expression that would be in her eyes when he looked into them.

He was right. The taupe had further darkened; the pupils were even more dilated. The tip of her pink tongue glistened between her parted lips. He knew that if he placed his hands over her small but beautifully formed breasts he would feel her nipples strain towards him.

He released his hold on her and folded his arms across his chest.

‘One.’

She put a hand to her mouth and dragged it down over her chin.

‘Two.’

She swallowed. Her eyes never left his face. He could practically smell her longing.

‘Three... Four...’

She turned on her heel and fled to the door.

‘One week,’ he called to her retreating back. She was halfway out of the room and made no show of listening to him, but he knew she heard every word. ‘One week and you, matakia mou, will be back in my bed. I guarantee it.’

CHAPTER THREE

AMY GAZED AT the marble statues that had arrived on Agon by ship that morning and now sat in the grand entrance hall of the museum on their plinths. Three marble statues. Three kings at the height of their glory. All named Astraeus. The fourth, specially commissioned for the exhibition, would be transported from the sculptor’s studio in a week’s time. It would depict the current monarch, the fourth King Astraeus, as a young man in his prime.

Helios had personally commissioned it. She didn’t want to think of Helios. But she couldn’t stop.

He was everywhere. In every painting, every sculpture, every fragment of framed scripture, every piece of pottery. Everything was a reminder that this was all his. His people. His ancestors. Him.

Her attention kept flickering back to the statue of the second King Astraeus, a marble titan dating from 1403. Trident in hand and unashamedly naked, he had the same arrogant look with an underlying hint of ferociousness that Helios carried so well. If she had known nothing of the Agon royal dynasty, she would have known instinctively that her lover was a descendent of this man. Agon had been at peace for decades but their warrior roots dated back millennia, were ingrained in their DNA.

Helios had warrior roots in spades.

She had to stop thinking about him.

God, this was supposed to be easy. An affair with no promises and no need for compromise.

She’d been so tempted to stay in the boardroom with him. She’d ached to stay. Her body had been weighted down with need for him. But in the back of her mind had been an image of him exchanging his vows with a faceless woman who would become his wife.

Amy couldn’t be the other woman. Whatever kind of marriage Helios had in mind for himself, it would still be real. He needed an heir. He would make love to his wife.

She could never allow herself to be the cause of pain and humiliation in another. She’d seen first-hand the damage an affair could cause. After all, she was the result of an affair herself. She’d spent seventeen years knowing she was the result of something sordid.

She was nothing but a dirty secret.

* * *

Helios’s driver brought the car to a stop at the back of the palace, beside his private entrance. Dozens and dozens of schoolchildren of all shapes and sizes were picnicking on the lawn closest to the museum entrance: some playing football, some doing cartwheels and handstands. In the far distance a group were filing out of the Agon palace’s maze, which was famed as one of the biggest and tallest mazes in the world.

Helios checked the time. He was always too busy to spend as much time with the palace visitors as he would like.

He had a small window before he was due at a business meeting he’d arranged with his brothers. His brothers ran the day-to-day side of their investment business, but he was still heavily involved. Then there were his royal duties, which had increased exponentially since the onset of his grandfather’s illness. He was in all but name Prince Regent, the highest ranking ambassador for his beloved island. It was his duty to do everything he could to bring investment and tourists to his island, to spread his country’s influence on the world’s stage and keep his islanders safe and prosperous.

As he neared the children, with his courtiers keeping a discreet distance, their small faces turned to him with curiosity. As often happened, it took only one to recognise him before his identity spread like wildfire and they all came running up. It was one of the things he so liked about children: their lack of inhibition. In a world of politeness and protocol he found it refreshing.

One thing he and Catalina were in agreement about was the wish for a minimum of two children. They agreed on many things. Most things. Which was a good omen for their forthcoming marriage. On paper, everything about their union appeared perfect. But...

Every time he tried to picture the children they would create together his mind came up blank. The picture just would not form.

Despite her ravishing beauty, his blood had yet to thicken for her. But this was only a minor issue, and one he was certain would resolve itself the more time he spent with her. Tomorrow he would fly to Monte Cleure so he could formally ask her father for Catalina’s hand in marriage. It was only a formality, but one that couldn’t be overlooked.

At least times had moved on from such issues as a dowry having to be found and trade alliances and so on being written into the contract of any royal betrothal. Now all he had to worry about was his bride having blue blood.

He’d always found blue so cold.

He turned his attention on the English children and answered a host of questions from them, including, ‘Is it true your toilet is made of gold?’

His personal favourite was ‘Is it true you carry a sub-machine gun wherever you go?’

In answer to this he pulled from his pocket the penknife his grandfather had given him on his graduation from Sandhurst; an upgraded version of the one he’d been given on his tenth birthday. ‘No, but I always carry this.’

As expected, the children were agog to see it. It was termed a penknife only in the loosest sense; on sight anyone would recognise it for the deadly fighting instrument it truly was. Children loved it when he showed it to them. Their basic human nature had not yet been knocked out of them by the insane political correctness infecting the rest of the Western world.

‘Most Agonites carry knives with them,’ he said to the enthralled children. ‘If anyone wants to invade our island they know we will fight back with force.’

Their teacher, who had looked at the knife as if it had come personally from Eurynomos himself, looked most relieved as she glanced at her watch. Immediately she clapped her hands together. ‘Everyone into their pairs—it’s time for our tour.’

Today was Thursday... Amy was taking on some of the tours...

The hairs on the back of his neck lifted. He looked over at the museum entrance. A slender figure stood at the top of the steps. Even though she was too far away for him to see clearly, the increasing beat of his heart told him it was her.

He straightened, a smile playing on his lips. Only two days had passed since she’d called his bluff and walked out of the boardroom, leaving him with an ache in his groin he’d only just recovered from. He would bet anything she had suffered in the same manner. He would bet she’d spent the past two days jumping every time her phone rang, waiting for his call.

Her pride had been wounded when she’d learned he was taking a wife, but she would get over it. She couldn’t punish him for ever, not when she suffered as greatly as he did. Soon she would come crawling back.

After a moment’s thought, he beckoned for one of his courtiers and instructed him to pass his apologies to his brothers. They could handle the meeting without him.

The time was ripe to assist Amy in crawling back to him.

* * *

The Agon palace dungeons never failed to thrill, whatever the visitor’s age. Set deep underground, and reached by steep winding staircases at each end of the gloom, only those over the age of eight were permitted to enter. Inside, dim light was provided by tiny electrical candles that flickered as if they were the real thing, casting shadows wherever one stood. Unsurprisingly, the children today were huddled closely together.

‘These dungeons were originally a pit in which to throw the Venetian invaders,’ Amy said, speaking clearly so all twenty-three children on the tour could hear. ‘The Venetians were the only people to successfully invade Agon, and when Ares the Conqueror, cousin of the King at the time, led the uprising in AD 1205, the first thing he ordered his men to do was build these pits. King Timios, who was the reigning King and whom the Agonites blamed for letting the Venetians in, was thrown into the cell to my left.’

The children took it in turns to gawp through the iron railings at the tiny square stone pit.

‘The manacle on the right-hand wall is the original manacle used to chain him,’ she added.

‘Did he die in here?’ a young boy asked.

‘No,’ said a deep male voice that reverberated off the narrow walls before she could answer, making them all jump.

A long shadow cast over them and Helios appeared. In the flickering light of the damp passageway in which they stood his large frame appeared magnified, as if Orion, the famously handsome giant, had come to life.

What was he doing here?

She’d seen him only an hour ago, standing in the gardens talking to the school parties, as at ease with the children as he was in every other situation. That had been the moment she had forgotten how to breathe.

It will get better, she kept assuring herself. It’s still early days and still raw. Soon you’ll feel better.

‘King Timios was held in these cells for six months before Ares Patakis expelled him and, with the consent of the people, took the crown for himself,’ Helios said to the captivated children. ‘The palace was built over these dungeons so King Ares could have personal control over the prisoners.’

‘Did he kill anyone?’ asked the same bloodthirsty boy.

‘He killed many people,’ Helios answered solemnly. ‘But only in battle. Prisoners of war were released and sent back to Venice.’ He paused and offered a smile. ‘But only after having their hands chopped off. King Ares wanted to send a warning to other armies wishing to invade—Step on our shores and you will never wield a weapon again. That’s if they were lucky enough to live.’

The deeper they went into the dungeons, which were large enough to hold up to three hundred prisoners, the more questions were thrown at him as the children did their best to spook each other in the candlelit dimness.

It was with relief that Helios handled everything asked of him—his presence had made her tongue tie itself into a knot.

‘Have you ever killed anyone?’ an undersized girl asked with a nervous laugh.

He shook his head slowly. ‘But since I could walk and talk I’ve been trained to use knives, shoot arrows and throw a spear. My brothers and I are all military trained. Trust me, should any other nation try to invade us, Agonites are ready. We fight. We are not afraid to spill blood—whether it’s an enemy’s or our own—to protect what’s ours. We will defend our island to the death.’

Utter silence followed this impassioned speech. Twenty-three sets of wide eyes gazed up at Helios with a mixture of awe and terror. The teacher looked shell-shocked.

It had had the opposite effect on Amy.

His words had pushed through her skin to heat her veins. It had never so much been his looks, as gorgeous as he was, that had attracted her. It had been his passion. The Kalliakis family was a dynasty whose blood ran red, not blue. And no one’s blood ran redder than Helios’s. On the outside he was a true prince. Beneath his skin lay a warrior.

‘And that, children, proves that it’s not only Ares the Conqueror’s blood Prince Helios has inherited from his ancestor but his devotion to his homeland.’ Amy spoke quickly, to break the hush and to distract herself from the ache spreading inside her. ‘Now, who here would like to be adopted by the Prince? Any takers? No? Hmm... You surprise me. Come on, then, who wants to visit the museum gift shop?’

That brought them back to life; the thought of spending their money on gifts for themselves.

‘It’s a good thing you’ll never have to be a tour guide as your day job,’ Amy couldn’t resist saying to Helios as she climbed the stairs a little way behind the school party. ‘They’ll all have nightmares.’

He followed closely behind her. ‘They’re learning my family’s history. I was putting it into the context of the present day for them.’

‘Yes. They were learning about your history. There’s a big difference between hearing about wars and blood-spilling from centuries ago and having it put into the here and now, especially in the dungeons, of all places. They’re only ten years old.’

‘The world is full of bloodshed. That’s never changed in the history of mankind. The only way to stop it creeping to our shores is through fear and stability.’

Her hand tightened on the railing as she carried on climbing. ‘But Agon is stable. You have an elected senate. You are a democracy.’

‘The people still look to us, their royal family, for leadership. Our opinions matter. Our actions matter even more so.’

‘Hence the reason you’re marrying Princess Catalina,’ she stated flatly.

‘We are a prosperous, stable island nation, matakia mou, and it’s the hard work of generations of my family that has made it so. Until the entire world is stable we are vulnerable to attack in many different forms. We lead by example, and as a people we are united as one. Stability within the royal family promotes stability for the whole island. My grandfather is dying. My marriage will bring peace to him and act as security to my people, who will be assured that the future of my family is taken care of and by extension their own families too. They know that with a descendant of Ares Patakis on the throne their country is not only ready to defend itself but able to weather any financial storm that may hit our isles.’

Somewhere during his speech they’d both stopped climbing. Amy found herself facing him from two steps above, coming to eye level with him. His eyes were liquid, the shadows dancing over his features highlighting the strength of the angles and planes that made him so darkly handsome. Her fingers tingled with the urge to reach out and touch him...

‘I need to catch up with the children,’ she breathed, but her rubbery legs made no attempt to move.

‘They know where they’re going,’ he murmured, placing a hand on the damp wall to steady himself as he leaned in close.

His other hand caught her hip, jerking her to him. Delicious heat swirled through her; moisture pushed out the dryness in her mouth. Her skin danced and her lips parted as she moved her mouth to meet his...

She only just pulled away in time.

Swiping at his hand to remove it from her hip, she said, ‘I haven’t said goodbye to them.’

‘Then say your goodbyes.’ His eyes were alight with amusement. ‘Keep running, matakia mou, but know you can’t run for ever. Soon I will catch you.’

She didn’t answer, turning tail and racing to the top of the steep staircase, gripping tightly onto the rail, and then out into the corridor.

At least in the corridor she could breathe.

What had just happened? She’d been a breath away from kissing him. Did she have no pride? No sense of preservation?

She wanted to cry with frustration.

Whether Helios believed it or not, they were over. He was marrying someone else. It was abhorrent that she still reacted so strongly towards him.

There was only one thing she could do.

She had to leave.

As soon as the exhibition was officially opened, to coincide with the Gala in just over a fortnight, she would leave the palace and never come back.

* * *

After a long day spent overseeing the arrival of artefacts from the Greek museum Amy should have been dead on her feet, but the email she’d just received had acted like a shot of espresso to her brain.

After months of searching and weeks of tentative communication, Leander had agreed to see her. Tomorrow night she would meet her half-brother for the first time.

She looked at her watch. If she moved quickly she could run to Resina and buy herself a new dress to wear for their meal, before late-night shopping was over. She wouldn’t have time tomorrow, with Saturday being the museum’s busiest day.

After hurriedly turning her computer off and shuffling papers so her desk looked tidy, and not as if she’d abandoned it whilst in the middle of important work, she rushed out of her office and headed downstairs to see if Pedro was still about and could lock up.

She came to an abrupt halt.

There, in the museum entrance, talking to Pedro, stood Helios.

She wasn’t quick enough to escape. Both of them turned their faces to her.

‘Speak of the woman and she shall appear,’ said Pedro, beaming at her.

‘What have I done?’ she asked, squashing the butterflies in her stomach and feigning nonchalance.

Pedro grinned. ‘Don’t look so worried. Helios and I have been discussing your future.’

Within the confines of the museum the staff addressed Helios by his first name, at his insistence.

‘Oh?’ Her gaze fell on Helios. ‘I thought you were going to Monte Cleure,’ she said before she could stop herself.

‘My plane leaves in an hour.’

Her chest compressed in on itself. Stupidly, she’d looked up the distance between Agon and Monte Cleure, which came in at just over one thousand two hundred miles. Just over two and a half hours’ flying time. With the time difference factored in he would be there in time to share an intimate dinner with the Princess.

She pressed her lips together to prevent the yelp of pain that wanted to escape and forced her features into an expression of neutrality. Helios had so much power over her she couldn’t bear for him to know how deeply it ran.

Oblivious to any subtext going on around him, Pedro said, ‘I was going to leave this until tomorrow, but seeing as you’re here there’s no time like the present—’

‘We were saying how impressed we are with your handling of the exhibition,’ Helios cut in smoothly. ‘You have exceeded our expectations. We would like to offer you a permanent job at the museum when your secondment finishes.’

‘What kind of job?’ she asked warily. A week ago this news would have filled her with joy. But everything was different now.

‘Corinna will be leaving us at the end of the summer. We would like you to have her job.’

Corinna was second only to Pedro in the museum hierarchy.

‘There are far more qualified curators than me working here,’ she said non-committally, wishing Pegasus might fly into the palace at that very moment and whisk her away to safety.

‘Pedro is happy to train you in the areas where you lack experience,’ said Helios, a smile of triumph dancing in his eyes. ‘The important thing is you can do the job. Everyone here likes and respects you...curators at other museums enjoy collaborating with you. You’re an asset to the Agon Palace Museum and we would be fools to let you go.’

If Pedro hadn’t been there she would have cursed Helios for such a blatant act of manipulation.

‘What do you think?’ he asked when she remained silent. His dark eyes bored into her, a knowing, almost playful look emanating from them. ‘How do you like the idea of living and working here permanently?’

She knew exactly what he was doing and exactly what he was thinking. He knew how much she loved her job, his island and its people. Helios was working tactically. He thought that if he threw enough incentives at her she would be so overcome with gratitude she would allow him back into her bed.

She’d entered their relationship without any illusions of permanency. It had suited her as much as it had suited him. Desire was what had glued them together, and it scared her to know that despite all the protective barriers she’d placed around herself he’d still slipped inside. Not fully, but enough for pain to lance her whenever she thought of him and the Princess together. When she thought of her own future without him in her life.

How could she continue to be his lover feeling as she did now, even putting aside the fact of his imminent engagement?

His engagement had hammered home as nothing else could that she was good enough to share his bed but not good enough for anything more.

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