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.

The Kalliakis Crown

Talos Claims His Virgin

Theseus Discovers His Heir

Helios Crowns His Mistress

Michelle Smart

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-08163-4

THE KALLIAKIS CROWN

Talos Claims His Virgin © 2015 Michelle Smart Theseus Discovers His Heir © 2016 Michelle Smart Helios Crowns His Mistress © 2016 Michelle Smart

Published in Great Britain 2018

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

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Table of Contents

Cover

About the Author

Title Page

Copyright

Talos Claims His Virgin

Back Cover Text

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

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

EPILOGUE

Theseus Discovers His Heir

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

Helios Crowns His Mistress

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

About the Publisher

Talos Claims His Virgin

Michelle Smart

Prince’s scandalous night with the innocent

Talos Kalliakis, the youngest Prince of Agon, has found the perfect gift for King Astraeus’s jubilee gala—the talents of exquisite violinist Amalie Cartwright. The warrior prince crossed Europe to find his perfect candidate, and he won’t take no for an answer!

But rumor has it that Amalie won’t perform, and now Talos has her hidden away in his villa, where sources suggest he’s claimed the most private of performances. With tensions running high, surely it can’t be long before they start changing their tune…to the royal wedding march!

This book is dedicated to Amalie,

who’s been on this journey with

me every step of the way. xxx

CHAPTER ONE

TALOS KALLIAKIS DIPPED his head and rubbed the nape of his neck. The consultant’s words had cut through to his marrow.

Looking back up to stare at his two brothers, he read the sorrow on their faces.

Astraeus Kalliakis—the King of Agon, their grandfather—was dying.

Helios, the eldest of the three brothers and heir to the throne, folded his arms and took a visible deep breath before breaking the silence. ‘We need to bring the Jubilee celebrations forward.’

The whole of Agon was gearing up to celebrate Astraeus’s fifty years on the throne. Everything was planned for the end of summer, six months away. The consultant oncologist had said in no uncertain terms he wouldn’t last that long.

Talos cleared his throat before speaking. His vocal cords had never felt so raw. ‘I suggest we concentrate on the Jubilee Gala and cancel the rest of the celebrations—they’re all superfluous. Let’s make the gala a true celebration of his life.’

‘Agreed,’ said Theseus, the middle brother, nodding. ‘We should set the date for April—three months from now. It will be a push, but between us and the courtiers we can do it and do it well.’

Any later and there was every possibility their grandfather would not be there for it. Two months of intense chemotherapy would buy him time and shrink the tumours riddling his organs. But they would not cure him. It was too late for that.

Two months later

Talos Kalliakis headed through the back of the theatre that housed the Orchestre National de Paris, noting the faded, peeling wallpaper, the threadbare carpet that had to be older than his thirty-three years, the water-stained ceiling... No wonder the building was on the verge of being condemned. Of all the orchestral homes he’d visited in the past two months, the facilities here were by far the worst.

But he wasn’t here for the facilities. He’d come here on a whim, when he’d been left disappointed by the violinists from all of France’s other major orchestras, as he’d been left underwhelmed by those from the major orchestras of Greece, Italy, Spain and England.

Time was running out.

What he had assumed would be a simple task had turned into a marathon of endurance.

All he wanted to find was that one special musician, someone who could stroke a bow over the bridge of their violin and make his heart soar the way his grandmother had when she’d been alive. He would never claim to have a musical ear, but he was certain that when he heard it he would know.

The chosen violinist would be rewarded with the honour of playing his grandmother’s final composition, accompanied by his or her own orchestra, at his grandfather’s Jubilee Gala.

At that moment approximately a dozen Orchestre National de Paris violinists were lining up, ready to audition for him.

He just wanted it to be over.

The weak, impatient part of himself told him to settle on anyone. Everyone who had auditioned for him thus far had been professional, note-perfect, the sounds coming from their wooden instruments a delight to anyone’s ear. But they hadn’t been a delight to his heart, and for once in his life he knew he had to select the right person based on his heart, not his head.

For his grandfather’s Jubilee Gala he wouldn’t—couldn’t—accept anything or anyone but the best. His grandfather deserved no less. His grandmother’s memory deserved no less.

Flanked by the orchestra directors, an assistant and his own translator, they turned single file down a particularly narrow corridor. It was like being in an indoor, dank version of the glorious maze in the Agon palace gardens.

The violinists were lined up backstage; the rest of the musicians sat in the auditorium. He would already be seated at the front of the auditorium himself if roadworks hadn’t forced his driver to detour to the back of the theatre rather than drop him at the front.

His mind filled with the dozen other things he needed to be getting on with that he’d had to let slip these past two months. A qualified lawyer, he oversaw all sales, mergers and buyouts with regard to the business empire he’d forged with his two brothers. He didn’t always use his legal skills to get his own way.

Theseus, the middle Kalliakis brother, had identified an internet start-up seeking investment. If projections were correct, they would quadruple their investment in less than two months. Talos, though, had suspicions about the owners...

His thoughts about unscrupulous techies were cut away when a faint sound drifted out of a door to his left.

He paused, raising a hand in a request for silence.

His ears strained and he rested his head against the door.

There it was.

The only piece of classical music he knew by name.

A lump formed in his throat—a lump that grew with each passing beat.

Wanting to hear more clearly, but not wanting to disturb the violinist, he turned the handle carefully and pressed the door open.

An inch was enough to bring the solemn yet haunting music to life.

His chest filled, bittersweet memories engulfing him.

He’d been seven years old when his parents had died. The nights that had followed, before his brothers had been flown back from their English boarding school—he’d been only a year away from joining them there—had left him inconsolable.

Queen Rhea Kalliakis, the grandmother he’d adored, had soothed him the only way she knew how. She’d come into his room, sat on the edge of his bed and played the ‘Méditation’ from Jules Massenet’s Thaïs.

He hadn’t thought about this particular piece of music for over twenty-five years.

The tempo was different from the way his grandmother had played it, slower, but the effect was the same. Painful and yet soothing, like balm on a wound, seeping through his skin to heal him from the inside out.

This one had it—the special, elusive it.

‘That is the one,’ he said, addressing the orchestra directors collectively. His translator made the translation in French for them.

The sharp-faced woman to his left looked at him with a searching expression, as if judging whether he was serious, until her eyes lit up and, in her excitement, she flung the door open.

There, in the corner of the room, her violin still under her chin but her bow flailing in her right hand, stood a tall, lithe girl—woman. She had the distinct look of a rabbit caught in the headlights of a speeding car.

* * *

It was those eyes.

She had never seen anything like them before, nor such intensity.

The way they had fixed on her... Like lasers. Trapping her.

Amalie shivered to think of them.

She shivered again when she stepped out of the theatre exit and into the slushy car park. Keeping a firm grip on her violin case—she really needed to get the strap fixed—she tugged her red-and-grey striped beanie hat over her ears.

A long black car with darkened windows entered the car park and crunched its way through the snow to pull up beside her.

The back door opened and a giant got out.

It took a beat before her brain comprehended that it wasn’t a giant but Talos Kalliakis.

Intense, striking eyes—were they brown?—fixed on her for the second time in an hour. The effect was as terrifying and giddying the second time around. More so.

When the door of the practice room had swung open and she’d seen all those faces staring at her she’d wanted to shrink into a corner. She hadn’t signed up for the audition, but had been told to attend in case the orchestra as a whole was needed. She’d happily hidden away from the action in the room behind the auditorium; there, but not actually present.

Those eyes...

They had rested on her for so long she’d felt as if she’d been stuck in a time capsule. Then they had moved from her face and, without a bonjour or au revoir, he’d disappeared.

There hadn’t been time for her to appreciate the sheer size of the man.

She was tall for a woman—five foot eight. But Talos towered over her, a mass of height and muscle that not even his winter attire could hide.

Her mouth ran dry.

He wore his thick ebony hair slightly too long, messy at the front and curling over the collar of his long black trench coat. Dark stubble, also thick, abounded over his square jawline.

Despite the expensive cut of his clothing, right down to what were clearly handmade shoes, he had a feral air about him, as if he should be swinging through vines in a jungle whilst simultaneously banging his chest.

He looked dangerous. Wildly dangerous. The scar on his right eyebrow, which seemed to divide it into two, only added to this sense.

He also looked full of purpose.

He took the few steps towards her with long strides, an outstretched hand and an unsmiling face. ‘Amalie Cartwright, it is a pleasure to meet you,’ he said in perfect English.

How did he know she was bilingual?

God but the man was enormous. He had to be a good six and a half feet. Easily.

Swallowing frantically to moisten her mouth, Amalie switched her violin case to her left hand and extended her right to him. It was immediately engulfed in his strong, darkly bronzed hand. It was like being consumed by a giant paw. Even through the wool of her gloves she could feel the heat from his uncovered hand.

‘Monsieur Kalliakis,’ she murmured in response.

She tugged her hand free and hugged it around her violin case.

‘I require your attention. Please, get in the car,’ he said.

I require your attention? If she hadn’t been so unsettled by him and the deepness of his voice—a low bass both throaty and rich that matched his appearance perfectly—she would have been tempted to laugh at his formality.

With a start she remembered he was a prince. Royalty. Should she curtsey or something? He’d disappeared from the practice room before they could be formally introduced.

She cleared her throat and took a tiny step back. ‘My apologies, monsieur, but I don’t believe there is anything for us to discuss.’

‘I assure you there is. Get in the car. It is too cold to have this discussion out here.’

He spoke as only a man used to throwing his weight around could.

‘Is this about the solo? I did explain to your assistant earlier that I have a prior engagement for the gala weekend and won’t be able to attend. My apologies if the message never reached you.’

The assistant, a middle-aged man with an air of implacability about him, had been unable to hide his shock when she’d said she couldn’t do it. The orchestra directors had simply stared at her with pleading eyes.

‘The message did reach me—which is why I turned back from the airport and returned here, so I could discuss the matter with you directly.’

His displeasure was obvious, as if it were her fault his plans had been ruined.

‘You will need to cancel your engagement. I wish for you to play at my grandfather’s gala.’

‘I wish I could as well,’ she lied. A lifetime of dealing with forceful personalities had prepared her well for this moment. No personality came more forceful than her mother’s. ‘But, no. It is not something I can get out of.’

His brow furrowed in the manner of someone who had never had the word no uttered within his earshot. ‘You do realise who my grandfather is and what a huge opportunity this is for your career?’

‘Yes, he is the King of Agon—and I do understand what a great honour it is to be selected to play for him—’

‘And the majority of the world’s great statesmen who will be there—’

‘But there are many other violinists in this orchestra,’ she continued, speaking over him as if he had not just interrupted. ‘If you audition them, as you had planned, you will find most are far more talented than me.’

Of course she knew what a huge event the gala was going to be. Her fellow musicians had spoken about little else for weeks. Every orchestra in Europe had been alerted to the fact that Prince Talos Kalliakis was searching for a solo violinist. When it had been confirmed yesterday that he was coming to audition the violinists at the Orchestre National de Paris there had been an immediate mass exodus as every female musician in the orchestra had headed to Paris’s beauty parlours for highlights and waxing and all other manner of preening.

The three Princes of Agon were considered Europe’s most eligible bachelors. And the most handsome.

Amalie had known she wouldn’t audition, so hadn’t bothered to join the exodus.

If she’d known for a second that Talos had been listening at the door to her practice she would have hit as many bum notes as she could without sounding like a screeching cat.

There was no way—no way in the world—she could stand on the stage at the Jubilee Gala and play for the world. No way. She couldn’t. The mere thought of it was enough to bring her out in a cold sweat.

The chill of the wind was picking up. She scrunched her toes inside her cold boots, which were getting wetter by the second as the icy snow seeped through the tiny seams and spread to her socks. The back of Talos’s car looked very snug and warm. Not that she would find out for herself. The chill in his eyes perfectly matched the weather whipping around them.

‘Excuse me, monsieur, but I need to go home. We have a concert tonight and I have to be back here in a few hours. Good luck finding your soloist.’

The hardness of his features softened by the slightest of margins, but his eyes—she’d been right, they were brown: a light, almost transparent brown, with the blackest of rims—remained hard.

‘We will talk again on Monday, despinis. Until then I suggest you think hard about what you are giving up by refusing to take the solo.’

‘Monday is our day off. I will be in on Tuesday, if you wish to speak to me then, but there will be nothing for us to talk about.’

He inclined his head. ‘We shall see. Oh—and when we next meet you may address me by my formal title: Your Highness.’

This time her lips tugged into a smile—one she had no control over. ‘But, monsieur, this is France. A republic. Even when we had a royal family, male heirs to the throne were addressed by the title of “Monsieur”, so I am addressing you correctly. And I feel I should remind you of what happened to those who boasted of having royal blood—they had their heads chopped off.’

* * *

Amalie took her seat on the stage, in the second row from the back, nicely encased amongst the orchestra’s other second violins. Exactly where she liked to be. Hidden from the spotlight.

While she waited for Sebastien Cassel, their guest conductor, to make his indication for them to start she felt a prickling on her skin.

Casting her eyes out into the auditorium, she saw the projected ticket sales had been correct. She doubted they were even at half capacity.

How much longer could this go on?

Paris was a city of culture. It had accommodated and celebrated its orchestras for centuries. But the other orchestras weren’t housed in a flea pit like the Théâtre de la Musique; a glorified music hall. Once, it had been full of pomp and glory. Years of neglect and underinvestment had left it teetering perilously, almost into the red.

A large figure in the stalls to her right, in the most expensive seats in the house, made her blink and look twice. Even as she squinted to focus more clearly the thumping of her heart told her who the figure was and explained the prickling sensation on her skin.

Immediately her thoughts flickered to Prince Talos. There was something about that man and the danger he exuded that made her want to run faster than if a thousand spotlights had been aimed at her. His breathtaking physical power, that gorgeous face with the scar slashing through the eyebrow, the voice that had made her blood thicken into treacle...

Juliette, the violinist she sat next to, dug a sharp elbow into her side.

Sebastien was peering at them, his baton raised.

Amalie forced her eyes to the score before her and positioned herself, praying for her fingers to work.

Being at the back of the eighty-strong number of musicians usually made her feel invisible—just another head in the crowd, with the spotlight well and truly away from her. She couldn’t bear having the spotlight pointed at her, had actively avoided it since the age of twelve. More than that: she had cowered from it.

She couldn’t see him clearly—indeed, she didn’t even know for certain that it was him sitting in the stalls—but she couldn’t shake the feeling that someone in the audience had their eyes fixed firmly on her.

* * *

Talos watched the evening unfold. The orchestra was a professional unit and played with a panache even the most musically illiterate could appreciate.

But he wasn’t there to listen.

Once the concert had finished he had a meeting with the owner of this ramshackle building.

He’d originally planned to take his jet back to Agon and visit his grandfather, relieved that his two-month search for a violinist was over. Amalie Cartwright’s belligerence had put paid to that.

Looking at her now, the fingers of her left hand flying over the strings of her violin, he could not believe her rudeness. Her thin, pretty face, with a sprinkling of freckles over the bridge of her straight nose, gave the illusion of someone dainty, fragile, an image compounded by a form so slender one could be forgiven for worrying about her being blown over in a breeze. She had the elegance so many Parisian women came by with seemingly no effort. He’d seen that earlier, even when her rich brown hair had been hidden under the hat she’d worn to keep the chill in the air at bay.

But looks could be deceiving.

She’d dismissed performing the solo at his grandfather’s gala and, by extension, had insulted the Kalliakis name. And her jibe about the French royal family having their heads removed had been a step too far.

Amalie Cartwright would take the solo. He would make sure of it.

And what Talos Kalliakis wanted, he got. Always.

CHAPTER TWO

AMALIE BURIED HER HEAD under the pillow and ignored the ringing of her doorbell. She wasn’t expecting any visitors or a delivery. Her French mother wouldn’t dream of turning up unannounced so early in the morning—anything earlier than midday she considered to be the middle of the night—and her English father was on tour in South America. Whoever it was could come back another time.

Whoever it was clearly had no intention of coming back another time.

The ringing continued, now accompanied by the banging of fists.

Cursing in English and French, she scrambled out of bed, shrugged a thick robe over her pyjama-clad body and, still cursing, hurried down the stairs to open the front door.

‘Good morning, despinis.’

And with those words Talos Kalliakis brushed past her and entered her home.

‘What the...? Excuse me—you can’t just let yourself in,’ she said, rushing after him while he swept through her narrow house as if he owned it.

‘I told you I would be speaking with you today.’

His tone was neutral, as if he were oblivious to her natural shock and anger.

‘And I told you this is my day off. I would like you to leave.’

He stepped into the kitchen. ‘After we have spoken.’

To reiterate his point he set his briefcase on the floor, removed his long black trench coat, which he placed on the back of a chair at her small kitchen table, and sat himself down.

‘What are you doing? I didn’t invite you in—if you want to speak to me you will have to wait until tomorrow.’

He waved a dismissive hand. ‘I will take ten minutes of your time and then I will leave. What we need to discuss will not take long.’

Amalie bit into her cheek and forced her mind to calm. Panicked thinking would not help. ‘This is my home and you are trespassing. Leave now or I will call the police.’

He didn’t need to know that her mobile phone was currently atop her bedside table.

‘Call them.’ He shrugged his huge shoulders, the linen of his black shirt rippling with the movement. ‘By the time they get here we will have concluded our conversation.’

She eyed him warily, afraid to blink, and rubbed her hands up her arms, backing away, trapping herself against the wall. What could she use as a weapon?

This man was a stranger and the most physically imposing man she had met in her life. The scar that slashed through his eyebrow only compounded the danger he oozed. If he were to...

She wouldn’t be able to defend herself using her own strength. It would be like a field mouse fighting a panther.

His top lip curved with distaste. ‘You have no need to worry for your safety—I am not an animal. I am here to talk, not to assault you.’

Would the panther tell the field mouse he intended to eat her? Of course not. He would insist it was the last thing on his mind and then, when the little field mouse got close enough...snap!

Staring into his striking eyes, she saw that, although cold, they contained no threat. A tiny fraction of her fear vanished.

This man would not harm her. Not physically, at any rate.

She dropped her gaze and rubbed her eyes, which had become sore from all that non-blinking.

‘Okay. Ten minutes. But you should have called first. You didn’t have to barge your way into my home when I was still sleeping.’

An awareness crept through her bones. While he was freshly showered, shaved—minimal stubble today—and dressed, she was in old cotton pyjamas and a dressing gown, and suffering from a severe case of bed hair. Talk about putting her at an immediate disadvantage.

He looked at his watch. ‘It is ten a.m. A reasonable time to call on someone on a Monday morning.’

To her utter mortification, she could feel her skin heat. It might not be his problem that she’d had hardly any sleep, but it was certainly his fault.

No matter how hard she’d tried to block him from her mind, every time she’d closed her eyes his face had swum into her vision. Two nights of his arrogant face—there, right behind her eyelids. His arrogant, handsome face. Shockingly, devilishly handsome.

‘This is my day off, monsieur. How I choose to spend it is my business.’ Her mouth had run so dry her words came out as a croak. ‘I need a coffee.’

‘I take mine black.’

She didn’t answer, just stepped to the other side of the kitchen and pressed the button on the coffee machine she had set before she went to bed. It kicked into action.

‘Have you thought any more about the solo?’ he asked as she removed two mugs from the mug tree.

‘I told you—there’s nothing for me to think about. I’m busy that weekend.’ She heaped a spoonful of sugar into one of the mugs.

‘I was afraid that would be your answer.’

His tone was akin to a teacher disappointed with his star pupil’s exam results. Something about his tone made the hairs on her arms rise in warning.

Water started to drip through the filter and into the pot, drip by hot drip, the aroma of fresh coffee filling the air.

‘I am going to appeal to your better nature,’ Talos said, staring at Amalie, whose attention was still held by the slowly falling coffee.

She turned her head a touch. ‘Oh?’

‘My grandmother was a composer and musician.’

A short pause. ‘Rhea Kalliakis...’

‘You have heard of her?’

‘I doubt there’s a violinist alive who hasn’t. She composed the most beautiful pieces.’

A sharp pang ran through him to know that this woman appreciated his grandmother’s talents. Amalie couldn’t know it, but her simple appreciation only served to harden his resolve that she was the perfect musician for the role. She was the only musician.

‘She completed her final composition two days before her death.’

She turned from the coffee pot to face him.

Amalie Cartwright had the most beautiful almond-shaped eyes, he noted, not for the first time. The colour reminded him of the green sapphire ring his mother had worn.

That ring now lay in the Agon palace safe, where it had rested for the past twenty-six years, waiting for the day when Helios selected a suitable bride to take guardianship of it. After their grandfather’s diagnosis, that day would be coming much sooner than Helios had wanted or expected. Helios needed to marry and produce an heir.

The last time Talos had seen the ring his mother had been fighting off his father. Two hours later the pair of them had been dead.

He cast his mind away from that cataclysmic night and back to the present. Back to Amalie Cartwright—the one person who could do justice to Rhea Kalliakis’s final composition and with it, bring comfort to a dying man. A dying king.

‘Is that the piece you wish to have played at your grandfather’s gala?’

‘Yes. In the five years since her death we have kept the score secure and allowed no one to play it. Now we—my brothers and I—believe it is the right time for the world to hear it. And at what better occasion than my grandfather’s Jubilee Gala? I believe you are the person to play it.’

He deliberately made no mention of his grandfather’s diagnosis. No news of his condition had been released to the public at large and nor would it be until after the gala—by decree from King Astraeus, his grandfather, himself.

Amalie poured the freshly brewed coffee into the mugs, added milk to her own, then brought them to the table and took the seat opposite him.

‘I think it is a wonderful thing you are doing,’ she said, speaking in measured tones. ‘There isn’t another violinist alive who wouldn’t be honoured to be called upon to do it. But I am sorry, monsieur, that person cannot be me.’

‘Why not?’

‘I told you. I have a prior engagement.’

He fixed her with his stare. ‘I will double the appearance fee. Twenty thousand euros.’

‘No.’

‘Fifty thousand. And that’s my final offer.’

‘No.’

Talos knew his stare could be intimidating, more so than his sheer physicality. He’d performed this stare numerous times in front of a mirror, looking to see what it was that others saw, but had never recognised what it might be. Whatever it was, one throw of that look was enough to ensure he got his own way. The only people immune to it were his brothers and grandparents. Indeed, whenever his grandmother had seen him ‘pull that face’, as she had referred to it, she’d clipped his ear—but only hard enough to sting.

He missed her every day.

But apart from those members of his family he had never met anyone immune to his stare. Until now.

From Amalie there was not so much as a flicker, just a shake of her head and her long hair, which was in dire need of a good brush, falling into her eyes. She swiped it away.

Talos sighed, shook his head regretfully and rubbed his chin, making a great show of disappointment.

Amalie cradled her mug and took a sip of the hot coffee, willing her nerves to stay hidden from his piercing gaze.

All her life she’d had to deal with huge personalities and even huger egos. It had taught her the importance of keeping her emotions tucked away. If the enemy—and at that very moment Talos was an enemy to her, she could feel it—detected any weakness then they would pounce. Never make it easy for them. Never give them the advantage.

She had never found it so hard to remain passive. Never. Not since she’d been twelve and the nerves she’d fought so hard to contain had taken control of her. The fear and humiliation she’d experienced on that occasion felt as strong today as they had then.

But there was something about this man that did things to her; to her mind, to her senses. Inside her belly, a cauldron bubbled.

Talos reached for his briefcase, and for one tiny moment she thought she had won and that he would leave. Except then he placed it on the table and opened it.

‘I have tried appealing to your better nature. I have tried appealing to your greed. I have given you numerous chances to accept the easy way...’ He removed a sheaf of papers and held them up for her to see. ‘These are the deeds to the Théâtre de la Musique. You are welcome to read through them. You will see they confirm me as the new owner.’

Stunned into silence, all Amalie could do was shake her head.

‘Would you like to read them?’

She continued shaking her head, staring from the documents in his hand to his unsmiling face.

‘How is it possible?’ she whispered, trying to comprehend what this could mean—for her, for the orchestra...

‘I put my offer in on Saturday evening. The purchase was completed an hour ago.’

‘But how is this possible?’ she repeated. ‘This is France. The home of bureaucracy and red tape.’

‘Money and power talk.’

He placed the deeds back in his briefcase and leaned forward, bringing his face to within inches of hers. Any closer and she’d be able to feel his breath on her face. ‘I am a prince. I have money—a lot of it—and I have power. A lot of it. You would be wise to remember that.’

Then he leant back in his chair and drank his coffee, all the while his laser eyes burned into her.

She squeezed her mug, suddenly terrified to lose her grip on it. The implications were forming an orderly queue in her brain.

‘Now I am the owner of the theatre I am wondering what I will do with the building and the orchestra it houses. You see, the previous owner was so struck with greed at the amount I offered he made no stipulations for the sale...’ He drained the last of his coffee and pushed his mug away so it rested against hers. ‘Take the solo, despinis, and I will throw so much money at the theatre the crowds will come flocking back and your orchestra will be the toast of Paris. Refuse and I will turn it into a hotel.’

The jostling in her brain stopped. The implications came loud and clear, with clanging bells and ringing sirens.

‘You’re blackmailing me,’ she said starkly. ‘You’re actually trying to blackmail me.’

He shrugged indifferently and pushed his chair back. ‘Call it what you will.’

‘I call it blackmail. And blackmail is illegal.’

‘Tell it to the police.’ He displayed his white teeth. ‘However, before you call them I should advise you that I have diplomatic immunity.’

‘That is low.’

‘I can and will go even lower. You see, little songbird, I have the power to ensure you never play the violin professionally again. I can blacken your name, and the names of all those you play with, so that no orchestra—not even a provincial amateur one—would touch you.’

The bubbling cauldron moved from her belly to her head, her brain feeling as if it were boiling with poison. Never had she felt such hate towards another human.

‘Get out of my house.’

‘Worry not, little songbird, I am ready to leave now.’ He looked at his watch. ‘I will return in six hours. You can give me your considered answer then.’

Her considered answer?

He was threatening to destroy her career, and the careers of her friends and colleagues, and he wanted her considered answer?

The cauldron toppled, sending a surge of fire pulsing through her, bringing her to her feet and to his side. Even with him seated and Amalie on her feet the physical imbalance between them was all too apparent. Fear and anger collided in her and she grabbed his arm, as if the force of her will could drag him to his feet and out of her home.

‘I said get out of my house!’ she shouted, pulling at him, uncaring that holding his arm was akin to holding a steel boulder. ‘I don’t care if you’re a stupid prince or about your stupid diplomatic immunity—get out!’

With reflexes that would put a cat to shame, Talos yanked her wrists together and pinned the pair of them inside one of his giant hands.

‘So you do have fire under that pale skin,’ he murmured. ‘I did wonder.’

‘Let go of me right now,’ she demanded, panic pulsing through her which only increased when he twisted—pirouetted—her around to sit on his lap, keeping a firm hold on her wrists.

Instinct made her lift her leg and kick back at him. The heel of her bare foot connected with his shin, the pain lancing through her immediate.

For Talos, she might as well have been a toddler doing their worst. He gave absolutely no reaction to her kick other than to wrap his free arm around her waist to secure her to him, ensnaring her even more effectively.

‘I feel that hurt you more than it did me,’ he said, holding her trapped hands up to examine them. ‘Such elegant fingers... Now, are you going to be a good girl and behave yourself if I let you go?’

‘If you call me a good girl again I’ll...’

‘What? Kick me again?’

She bucked, but it was a futile gesture. It was like being trapped in steel.

Except it wasn’t steel. It was solid man. And his fingers were digging not unpleasantly into the side of her waist.

‘You’re scaring me.’ It was part truth. Something was scaring her. Terrifying her.

‘I know, and I apologise. I will let you go when you assure me that you have your emotions under control and will not lash out at me again.’

Strangely, the deep, rough timbre of his voice had the desired effect, calming her enough to stop her struggling against him.

Clamping her lips together, she forced herself to breathe, and as she did so she inhaled a darkly masculine scent. His scent.

She swallowed the moisture that filled her mouth, suddenly aware of his breath, hot in her hair. Every one of her senses was heightened.

She couldn’t choke another breath in. Her heart was beating so hard she could hear it echo in her ears. And in the silence that ensued she felt Talos’s huge form stiffen too, from the strong thighs she was sat upon to the giant hands holding her in their snare.

She could no longer hear or feel his breath.

The only sound in her ears was the thrumming of her blood.

And then he released her hands and pushed her to her feet.

On legs that trembled, she shot to the other side of the kitchen.

Now she could breathe, but her breaths were ragged, her chest hurting with the exertion.

For his part, Talos calmly shrugged his muscular arms into his trench coat, wrapped his navy scarf around his neck and clasped his briefcase.

‘Six hours, despinis. I will respect your decision—but know that should your answer continue to be negative the consequences will be real and immediate.’

* * *

Amalie’s phone vibrated.

She pounced on it. ‘Maman?’

‘Chérie, I have found out some things.’

That was typical of her mother—getting straight to the point. There didn’t exist a sliver of silence that her mother’s voice couldn’t fill.

‘I could not reach Pierre directly.’

She sounded put out—as if Pierre Gaskin should have been holding on to his phone on the remote chance that Colette Barthez, the most famous classical singer in the world, deigned to call him.

‘But I spoke to his charming assistant, who told me he arrived late to the office this morning, gave every employee five hundred euros and said he was taking the next three months off. He was last seen setting his satnav to take him to Charles de Gaulle,’ she added, referring to France’s largest airport.

‘So it looks as if he has sold it, then,’ Amalie murmured.

Only two weeks ago Pierre Gaskin—the owner or, as she now firmly believed, the former owner of the Théâtre de la Musique—had been struggling to pay the heating bill for the place.

‘It looks that way, chérie. So tell me,’ her mother went on, ‘why has Prince Talos brought the theatre? I didn’t know he was a patron of the arts.’

‘No idea,’ she answered, her skin prickling at the mention of his name. She kneaded her brow, aware that this must be something like her tenth lie of the weekend.

What a mess.

She hadn’t told her mother anything of what had happened that weekend—she didn’t have the strength to handle her reaction on top of everything else—had only asked her to use her contacts to see if there was any truth that the theatre had been sold to Talos Kalliakis.

Now she had the answer.

Talos hadn’t been bluffing. But then she hadn’t really thought he had been, had turned to her mother only out of a futile sense of having to do something rather than any real hope.

‘I knew his father, Prince Lelantos...’

Her mother’s voice took on a dreamlike quality. It was a sound Amalie recognised, having been her mother’s confidante of the heart since the age of twelve.

‘I sang for him once. He was such a...’ she scrambled for the right word ‘...man!’

‘Maman, I need to go now.’

‘Of course, chérie. If you meet Prince Talos again, send him my regards.’

‘I will.’

Turning her phone off and placing it on the table, Amalie drew her hands down her face.

There was only one thing left that she could do. She was going to have to tell Talos Kalliakis the truth.

CHAPTER THREE

WHEN TALOS PUNCHED his finger to the bell of Amalie’s front door he knew she must have been waiting for him. She pulled the door open before his hand was back by his side.

She stared at him impassively, as if what had occurred between them earlier had never happened. As if she hadn’t lost her calm veneer.

Without a word being exchanged, he followed her into the kitchen.

On the table lay a tray of pastries and two plates. A pot of coffee had just finished percolating. Amalie was dressed for her part, having donned a pair of black jeans that hugged her slender frame and a silver scoop-necked top. Her straight dark hair had been brushed back into a loose bun at the nape of her slender neck. She wore no make-up, and the freckles across her nose were vivid in the harsh light beaming from above them.

It was clear to him that she had seen reason. And why on earth would she not? She was a professional musician. He shouldn’t have to resort to blackmail.

Time was running out. For the gala. For his grandfather. The chemotherapy he was undergoing had weakened him badly. There were days when he couldn’t leave his bed—barely had the strength to retch into a bucket. Other days Talos found him in good spirits, happy to sit outside and enjoy the Agon sunshine in the sprawling palace gardens.

Talos remembered again that he had planned to return home after the auditions on Saturday and spend the rest of the weekend with his grandfather. Instead he’d been compelled to force through—and quickly—the purchase of that awful Parisian building. And for what? Because the only professional violinist he’d found capable of doing justice to his grandmother’s final composition was playing hardball.

No one played hardball with Talos Kalliakis. No one. To find this slender thing standing up to him...

But she had seen reason. That was all that mattered now.

He allowed himself a smile at his victory, and sat in the chair he’d vacated only six hours before.

Defeat had never crossed his mind. It was regrettable that he’d had to resort to blackmail to get his own way but time was of the essence. The Jubilee was only a month away. There was still time for her to learn the piece to performance standard and for her orchestra to learn the accompanying music. He wanted them note-perfect before they took to the palace stage.

Amalie’s arm brushed against his as she placed a mug in front of him. He found his attention caught by her fingers, as it had been earlier, when he’d had them trapped in his hand. It was the nails at the end of those long, elegant fingers that had really struck him. The nails of her left hand were short and blunt. The nails of her right hand were much longer and shapely. He’d puzzled over those nails all day...over what they reminded him of.

He’d also puzzled over the reaction that had swept through him when he’d pinned her to his lap after her anger had rushed to the surface.

Talos was a man who enjoyed the company of beautiful women. And beautiful women liked him. Women he didn’t know would catch his eye and hold it for a beat too long. When they learned who he was their gazes would stay fixed, suggestion and invitation ringing from them.

Never had he met a woman who so obviously disliked him. Never had he met anyone—man or woman—outside his immediate family who would deny him anything he wanted.

Amalie Cartwright was a pretty woman in her own unique way. The defiant attitude she’d displayed towards him infuriated and intrigued him in equal measure.

What, he wondered, would it be like to light the fire he’d glimpsed that morning in a more intimate setting?

What would it take to twist that fire and anger into passion?

He had felt the shift in her when her whole body had stilled and her breath had shortened and then stopped. The same time his own breath had stopped. One moment he’d been staring at her fingers with bemusement, the next his body had been filled with an awareness so strong it had knocked the air out of him.

He’d never experienced a reaction like it.

And now, watching her take the same seat as she had that morning, he could feel that awareness stirring within him again.

The following month held infinite possibilities...

‘Monsieur,’ she said once she had settled herself down and placed her green gaze on him, ‘earlier you appealed to my better nature—’

‘Which you disregarded,’ he interjected.

She bowed her head in acknowledgement. ‘I had my reasons, which I am going to share with you in the hope of appealing to your better nature.’

He regarded her carefully but kept silent, waiting for her to speak her mind. Surely she wasn’t trying another angle to turn the solo down?

‘I’m sorry but I lied to you—I do not have a prior engagement on the gala weekend.’ She gnawed on her bottom lip before continuing. ‘I suffer from stage fright.’

The idea was so ludicrous Talos shook his head in disbelief and laughed.

‘You?’ he said, not bothering to hide his incredulity. ‘You—the daughter of Colette Barthez and Julian Cartwright—suffer from stage fright?’

‘You know who I am?’

‘I know exactly who you are.’ He folded his arms, his brief, incredulous mirth evaporating. ‘I made it my business to know.’

He caught a flash of truculence in those green eyes, the first sign that the calm façade she wore was nothing but a front.

‘Your French mother is the most successful mezzo-soprano in the world. I admit I hadn’t heard of your father before today, but I understand he is a famous English violinist. I also learned that your father once played at Carnegie Hall with my grandmother, when he was first establishing himself.’

He leaned forward to rest his chin on his hands.

‘You were a noted child prodigy until the age of twelve, when your parents removed you from the spotlight so you could concentrate on your education. You became a professional musician at the age of twenty, when you joined the ranks of the Orchestre National de Paris as a second violin—a position you still hold five years on.’

She shrugged, but her face remained taut. ‘What you have described is something any person with access to the internet could find out in thirty seconds. My parents didn’t remove me from the spotlight because of my education—that is what my mother told the press, because she couldn’t bear the shame of having a daughter unable to perform in public.’

‘If you are “unable to perform in public”, how do you explain the fact that you perform in public at least once a week with your orchestra?’

‘I’m a second violin. I sit at the back of the orchestra. We have an average of eighty musicians playing at any given performance. The audience’s eyes are not on me but on the collective orchestra. It’s two different things. If I play at your grandfather’s gala everyone’s eyes will be on me and I will freeze. It will bring humiliation to me, to my mother—and to your grandfather. Is that what you want? To have the world’s eyes witness your star performer frozen on stage, unable to play a note?’

The only person who wouldn’t be ashamed of her was her father. She might have referred to it as a joint decision by her parents, but in truth it had been her father who’d gone against her mother’s wishes and pulled her out of the spotlight. He’d been the one to assure her that it was okay to play just for the love of the music, even if it was only in the privacy of her own bedroom.

Talos’s eyes narrowed, a shrewd expression emanating from them. ‘How do I know you aren’t lying to me right now?’

‘I...’

‘By your own admission you lied about being busy on the gala weekend.’

‘It was a lie of necessity.’

‘No lie is necessary. If you can’t handle eyes on you when you play, how were you able to join the orchestra in the first place?’

‘It was a blind audition. Everyone who applied had to play behind a screen so there could be no bias. And, before you ask, of course I practise and rehearse amongst my colleagues, But that is a world away from standing up on a stage and feeling hundreds of eyes staring at you.’

He shook his head slowly, his light brown eyes unreadable. ‘I am in two minds here. Either you are speaking the truth or you are telling another lie.’

‘I am speaking the truth. You need to find another soloist.’

‘I think not. Nerves and stage fright are things that can be overcome, but finding another soloist who can do justice to my grandmother’s final composition is a different matter.’

Never mind that time had almost run out. He could spend the rest of his life searching and not find anyone whose playing touched him the way Amalie’s had in those few minutes he had listened to her.

Talos had never settled for second best in his life and he wasn’t about to start now.

‘What do you know about my island?’ he asked her.

She looked confused at the change of direction. ‘Not much. It’s near Crete, isn’t it?’

‘Crete is our nearest neighbour. Like the Cretans, we are descended from the Minoans. Throughout the centuries Agon has been attacked by the Romans, the Ottomans and the Venetians—to name a few. We repelled them all. Only the Venetians managed to occupy us, and just for a short period. My people, under the leadership of the warrior Ares Patakis, of whom I am a direct descendent, rose against the occupiers and expelled them from our land. No other nation has occupied our shores since. History tells our story. Agonites will not be oppressed or repressed. We will fight until our last breath for our freedom.’

He paused to take a sip of his coffee. He had to hand it to her: she had excellent taste.

‘You are probably wondering why I am telling you all this,’ he said.

‘I am trying to understand the relevance,’ she admitted thoughtfully.

‘It is to give you an awareness of the stock that I, my family and our people come from. We are fighters. There isn’t an Agonite alive who would back down in the face of adversity. Stage fright? Nerves? Those are issues to be fought and conquered. And with my help you will conquer them.’

Amalie could imagine it only too well. Talos Kalliakis ready for battle, stripped to nothing but iron battle gear, spear in hand. He would be at the front of any fight.

It was her bad fortune that he had chosen to fight her.

But her stage fright wasn’t a fight. It was just a part of her, something she had long ago accepted.

Her life was nice and cosy. Simple. No drama, no histrionics. She refused to allow the tempestuousness of her childhood seep its way into her adult life.

‘I have arranged with your directors for you to come to Agon in a couple of days and to stay until the gala. Your orchestra will start rehearsals immediately and fly out a week before the gala so you can rehearse with them.’

Her pledge to be amiable evaporated. ‘Excuse me, but you’ve done what?’

‘It will give you a month in Agon to acclimatise...’

‘I don’t need to acclimatise. Agon is hardly the middle of a desert.’

‘It will also give you a month to prepare yourself perfectly for the solo,’ he continued, ignoring her interruption, although his eyes flashed another warning at her. ‘No distractions.’

‘But...’

‘Your stage fright is something that will be overcome,’ he said, with all the assurance of a man who had never been struck with anything as weak as nerves. ‘I will see to it personally.’

He stopped speaking, leaving a pause she knew she was supposed to fill, but all she could think was how badly she wanted to throw something at him, to curse this hateful man who was attempting to destroy the comfortable, quiet life she had made for herself away from the spotlight.

‘Despinis?’

She looked up to find those laser eyes striking through her again, as if he could reach right in and see what she was thinking.

‘Do you accept the solo?’ His voice hardened to granite. ‘Or do I have to make one hundred musicians redundant? Do I have to destroy one hundred careers, including your own? Have no doubt—I will do it. I will destroy you all.’

She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, trying to extinguish the panic clawing at her throat.

She believed him. This was no idle threat. He could destroy her career. She had no idea how he would do it, she knew only that he could.

If she didn’t loathe him so much she would wonder why he was prepared to take such dark measures to get her agreement. As it was, she couldn’t give a flying viola as to his reasons.

If she didn’t comply he would take away the only thing she could do.

But how could she agree to do it? The last time she’d performed solo she’d been surrounded by her parents’ arty friends—musicians, actors, writers, singers. She’d humiliated herself and her mother in front of every one of them. How could she stand on a stage with dignitaries and heads of state watching her and not be shredded by the same nerves? That was if she even made it on to the stage.

The one time she’d tried after the awful incident had left her hospitalised. And what she remembered most clearly about that dreadful time was her father’s fury at her mother for forcing her. He’d accused her of selfishness and of using their only child as a toy.

A lump formed in Amalie’s throat as she recalled them separating mere weeks later, her father gaining primary custody of her.

She was lucky, though. If times got really hard she knew she could rely on both her parents to bail her out. She would never go hungry. She would never lose her home. Her colleagues weren’t all so fortunate. Not many of them were blessed with wealthy parents.

She thought of kindly Juliette, who was seven months pregnant with her third child. Of Louis, who only last week had booked a bank-breaking holiday with his family to Australia. Grumbling Giles, who moaned every month when his mortgage payment was taken from his account...

All those musicians, all those office workers...

All unaware that their jobs, security and reputations hung in the balance.

She stared at Talos, willing him to feel every ounce of her hate.

‘Yes, I’ll come. But the consequences are something you will have to live with.’

* * *

Amalie gazed out of the window and got her first glimpse of Agon. As the plane made its descent she stared transfixed as golden beaches emerged alongside swathes of green, high mountains and built-up areas of pristine white buildings... And then they touched down, bouncing along the runway before coming to a final smooth stop.

Keeping a firm grip on her violin, she followed her fellow business-class passengers out and down the metal stairs. After the slushy iciness of Paris in March, the temperate heat was a welcome delight.

From the economy section bounded excited children and frazzled parents, there to take advantage of the sunshine Agon was blessed with, where spring and summer came earlier than to its nearest neighbour, Crete. She hadn’t considered that she would be going to an island famed as a holiday destination for families and historical buffs alike. In her head she’d thought of Agon as a prison—as dark and dangerous as the man who had summoned her there.

Amalie had travelled to over thirty countries in her life, but never had she been in an airport as fresh and welcoming as the one in Agon. Going through Arrivals was quick; her luggage arriving on the conveyor belt even quicker.

A man waited in the exit lounge, holding up her name on a specially laminated board. Polite introductions out of the way, he took the trolley holding her luggage from her and led the way out to a long, black car parked in what was clearly the prime space of the whole car park.

Everything was proceeding exactly as had been stated in the clipped email Talos’s private secretary had sent to her the day before. It had contained a detailed itinerary, from the time a car would be collecting her from her house all the way through to her estimated time of arrival at the villa that would be her home for the next month.

As the chauffeur navigated the roads she was able to take further stock of the island. Other than expecting it to be as dangerous as the youngest of its princes, she’d had no preconceptions. She was glad. Talos Kalliakis might be a demon sent to her from Hades, but his island was stunning.

Mementoes of Agon’s early Greek heritage were everywhere, from the architecture to the road signs in the same common language. But Agon was now a sovereign island, autonomous in its rule. The thing that struck her most starkly was how clean everything was, from the well-maintained roads to the buildings and homes they drove past. When they went past a harbour she craned her neck to look more closely at the rows of white yachts stationed there—some of them as large as cruise liners.

Soon they were away from the town and winding higher into the hills and mountains. Her mouth dropped open when she caught her first glimpse of the palace, standing proudly on a hill much in the same way as the ancient Greeks had built their most sacred monuments. Enormous and sprawling, it had a Middle Eastern flavour to it, as if it had been built for a great sultan centuries ago.

But it wasn’t to the palace that she was headed. No sooner had it left her sight than the chauffeur slowed down, pausing while a wrought-iron gate inched open, then drove up to a villa so large it could have been a hotel. Up the drive he took them, and then round to the back of the villa’s grounds, travelling for another mile until he came to a much smaller dwelling at the edge of the extensive villa’s garden—a generously sized white stone cottage.

An elderly man, with a shock of white hair flapping in the breeze above a large bald spot, came out of the front door to greet them.

‘Good evening, despinis,’ he said warmly. ‘I am Kostas.’

Explaining that he ran the main villa for His Highness Prince Talos, he showed her around the cottage that would be her home for the month. The small kitchen was well stocked and a daily delivery of fresh fruit, breads and dairy products would be brought to her. If she wished to eat her meals in the main villa she only had to pick up the phone and let them know; likewise if she wished to have meals delivered to the cottage.

‘The villa has a gym, a swimming pool, and spa facilities you are welcome to use whenever you wish,’ he said before he left. ‘There are also a number of cars you can use if you wish to travel anywhere, or we can arrange for a driver to take you.’

So Talos didn’t intend to keep her prisoner in the cottage? That was handy to know.

She’d envisaged him collecting her from the airport, locking her in a cold dungeon and refusing to let her out until she was note-perfect with his grandmother’s composition and all her demons had been banished.

Thinking about it sent a tremor racing up her spine.

She wondered what great psychiatrist Talos would employ to ‘fix’ her. She would laugh if the whole thing didn’t terrify her so much. Whoever he employed had better get a move on. She had exactly four weeks and two days until she had to stand on the stage for the King of Agon’s Jubilee Gala. In those thirty days she had to learn an entirely new composition, her orchestra had to learn the accompanying score, and she had to overcome the nerves that had paralysed her for over half her lifetime.

CHAPTER FOUR

THE MORNING CAME, crisp and blue. After a quick shower Amalie donned her favourite black jeans and a plum shirt, then made herself a simple breakfast, which she took out to eat on her private veranda. As she ate yogurt and honey, and sipped at strong coffee—she’d been delighted to find a brand-new state-of-the-art coffee machine, with enough pods to last her a year—she relaxed into a wicker chair and let the cool breeze brush over her. After all the bustle of Paris it felt wonderful to simply be.

If she closed off her mind she could forget why she was there...pretend she was on some kind of holiday.

Her tranquillity didn’t last long.

After going back inside to try another of the coffee-machine pods—this time opting for the mocha—she came back onto the veranda to find Talos sitting on her vacated chair, helping himself to the cubes of melon she’d cut up.

‘Good morning, little songbird,’ he said with a flash of straight white teeth.

Today he was dressed casually, in baggy khaki canvas trousers, black boots and a long-sleeved V-necked grey top. He was unshaven and his hair looked as if it had been tamed with little more than the palm of a hand. As she leaned over the table to place her mug down she caught his freshly showered scent.

‘Is that for me?’ he asked, nodding at the mug in her shaking hand.

She shrugged, affecting nonchalance at his unexpected appearance. ‘If you don’t mind sharing my germs.’

‘I’m sure a beautiful woman like you doesn’t have anything so nasty as germs.’

She raised a suspicious eyebrow, shivering as his deep bass voice reverberated through her skin, before turning back into the cottage, glad of an excuse to escape for a moment and gather herself. Placing a new pod in the machine, she willed her racing heart to still.

He’d startled her with his presence, that was all. She’d received an email from his private secretary the evening before, while eating the light evening meal she’d prepared for herself, stating that the score would be brought to her at the cottage mid-morning. There had been nothing mentioned about the Prince himself bothering to join her. Indeed, once she’d realised she wasn’t staying in the palace she’d hoped not to see him again.

When she went back outside he was cradling the mug, an expression of distaste wrinkling his face. ‘What is this?’

‘Mocha.’

‘It is disgusting.’

‘Don’t drink it, then.’

‘I won’t.’ He placed it on the table and gave it a shove with his fingers to move it away from him. He nodded at her fresh cup. ‘What’s that one?’

‘Mocha—to replace the one you kidnapped. If you want something different, the coffee machine’s in the kitchen.’ The contract she’d signed had said nothing about making coffee for him.

That evil contract...

She dragged her thoughts away before her brain could rage anew. If she allowed herself to fume over the unfairness, her wits would be dulled, and she already knew to her bitter cost that she needed her wits about her when dealing with this man.

As she sat herself in the vacant chair, unsubtly moving it away from his side, Talos reached for an apple from the plate of fruit she’d brought out with her. Removing a stumpy metal object from his trouser pocket, he pressed a button on the side and a blade at least five inches long unfolded. The snap it made jolted her.

Talos noticed her flinch. ‘Does my knife bother you?’

‘Not at all. Did you get that little thing when you were a Boy Scout?’

Her dismissive tone grated on him more than it should have. She grated on him more than she should.

‘This little thing?’ He swivelled the chair, narrowed his eyes and flicked his wrist. The knife sliced through the air, landing point-first in the cherry tree standing a good ten feet from them, embedding itself in the trunk.

He didn’t bother hiding his satisfaction. ‘That little thing was a present from my grandfather when I graduated from Sandhurst.’

‘I’m impressed,’ she said flatly. ‘I always thought Sandhurst was for gentlemen.’

Was that yet another insult?

‘Was there a reason you came to see me other than to massacre a defenceless tree?’ she asked.

He got to his feet. ‘I’ve brought the score to you.’

He strode to the cherry tree, gripped the handle of the knife and pulled it out. This knife was a badge of honour—the mark of becoming a man, a replacement for the Swiss Army penknife each Kalliakis prince had been given on his tenth birthday. There was an apple tree in the palace gardens whose trunk still bore the scars of the three young Princes’ attempts at target practice two decades before.

Back at the table, aware of wary sapphire eyes watching his every movement, he wiped the blade on his trousers, then picked up his selected apple and proceeded to peel it, as had been his intention when he’d first removed the knife from his pocket. The trick was to peel it in one single movement before the white of the inside started to brown—a relic from his childhood, when his father would peel an apple before slicing it and eating the chunks, and something he in turn had learned from his father. Of course Talos’s father hadn’t lived long enough to see any of his sons master it.

Carrying a knife was a habit all the Kalliakis men shared. Talos had no idea what had compelled him to throw it at the tree.

Had he been trying to get a rise out of her?

Never had he been in the company of anyone, let alone a woman, to whom his presence was so clearly unwelcome. People wanted his company. They sought it, they yearned to keep it. No one treated him with indifference.

And yet this woman did.

Other than that spark of fire in her home, when he’d played his trump card, she’d remained cool and poised in all their dealings, her body language giving nothing away. Only now, as he pushed the large binder that contained the solo towards her, did she show any emotion, her eyes flickering, her breath sharpening.

‘Is this it?’ she asked, opening the binder to peer at what lay inside.

‘You look as if you’re afraid to touch it.’

‘I’ve never held anything made by a royal hand.’

He studied her, curiosity driving through him. ‘You look respectfully towards a sheet of music, yet show no respect towards me, a prince of this land.’

‘Respect is earned, monsieur, and you have done nothing to earn mine.’

Why wasn’t she scared of him?

‘On this island our people respect the royal family. It comes as automatically as breathing.’

‘Did you use brute force to gain it? Or do you prefer simple blackmail?’

‘Five hundred years ago it was considered treason to show insolence towards a member of the Agon royal family.’

‘If that law were still in force now I bet your subjects’ numbers would be zero.’

‘The law was brought in by the senate, out of gratitude to my family for keeping this island safe from our enemies. My ancestors were the ones to abolish it.’

‘I bet your subjects partied long into the night when it was abolished.’

‘Do not underestimate the people of this island, despinis,’ he said, his ire rising at her flippant attitude. ‘Agonites are not and never will be subjects. This is not a dictatorship. The Kalliakis family members remain the island’s figureheads by overwhelming popular consent. Our blood is their blood—their blood is our blood. They will celebrate my grandfather’s Jubilee Gala with as much enthusiasm as if they were attending a party for their own grandfather.’

Her pale cheeks were tinged with a light pinkness. She swallowed. ‘I didn’t mean to insult your family, monsieur.’

He bowed his head in acceptance of her apology.

‘Only you.’

‘Only me?’

Her sapphire eyes sparked, but there was no light in them. ‘I only meant to insult you.’

‘If the palace dungeons hadn’t been turned into a tourist attraction I would have you thrown into them.’

‘And it’s comments like that which make me happy to insult you. You blackmail me into coming here, you threaten my career and the careers of my friends, and you make me sign a contract including a penalty for my not performing at your grandfather’s gala: the immediate disbandment of the Orchestre National de Paris... So, yes, I will happily take any opportunity I can to insult you.’

He stretched out his long legs and ran his fingers through his hair. ‘It’s comments like that which make me wonder...’

Her face scrunched up in a question.

‘You see, little songbird, I wonder how a woman who professes to have stage fright so bad she cannot stand on a stage and play the instrument she was born to play has the nerve to show such disrespect to me. Do I not frighten you?’

She paused a beat before answering. ‘You are certainly imposing.’

‘That is not an answer.’

‘The only thing that frightens me is the thought of standing on the stage for your grandfather’s gala.’ A lie, she knew, but Amalie would sooner stand on the stage naked than admit that she was terrified of him. Or terrified of something about him. The darkness. His darkness.

‘Then I suggest you start learning the music for it.’ He rose to his feet, his dark features set in an impenetrable mask. ‘I will collect you at seven this evening and you can fill me in on your feelings for it.’

‘Collect me for what?’

‘Your first session in overcoming your stage fright.’

‘Right.’

She bit her lip. Strangely, she’d envisaged Talos bringing an army of shrinks to her. That was what her mother had done during Amalie’s scheduled visits after her parents’ divorce. Anything would have been better than Colette Barthez’s daughter being photographed at the door of a psychiatrist’s office. The press wouldn’t have been able to do anything with the pictures, or print any story about it, her mother had seen to that, but secrets had a way of not remaining secret once more people knew about them.

‘Wear something sporty.’

‘Sporty?’ she asked blankly.

‘I’m taking you to my gym.’

She rubbed at an eyebrow. ‘I’m confused. Why would we see a shrink at your gym?’

‘I never said anything about a shrink.’

‘You did.’

‘No, little songbird, I said I would help you overcome your stage fright.’

‘I didn’t think you meant it literally.’ For the first time in her life she understood what aghast meant. She was aghast. ‘You don’t really mean that you’re planning to fix me?’

He gazed down at her, unsmiling. ‘Have you undertaken professional help before?’

‘My mother wheeled out every psychiatrist she could get in France and England.’

‘And none of them were able to help you.’ It was a statement, not a question. ‘You have a huge amount of spirit in your blood. It is a matter of harnessing it to your advantage. I will teach you to fight through your nerves and conquer them.’

‘But...’

‘Seven o’clock. Be ready.’

He strode away, his huge form relaxed. Too relaxed. So relaxed it infuriated her even more, turning her fear and anger up to a boil. Without thinking, she reached for a piece of discarded apple core and threw it at him. Unbelievably, it hit the back of his neck.

He turned around slowly, then crouched down to pick up the offending weapon, which he looked at briefly before fixing his eyes on her. Even with the distance between them the darkness in those eyes was unmistakable. As was the danger.

Amalie gulped in air, her lungs closing around it and refusing to let go.

Do I not frighten you...?

Frightened didn’t even begin to describe the terror racing through her blood at that moment—a terror that increased with each long step he took back towards her.

Fighting with everything she possessed to keep herself collected, she refused to turn away from his black gaze.

It wasn’t until he loomed over her, his stare piercing right through her, that she felt rather than saw the swirl flickering in it.

‘You should be careful, little songbird. A lesser man than me might take the throwing of an apple core as some kind of mating ritual.’

His deep, rough voice was pitched low with an underlying playfulness that scared her almost more than anything else.

The thing that terrified her the most was the beating of her heart, so loud she was certain he must be able to hear it. Not the staccato beat of terror but the raging thrum of awareness.

He was so close she could see the individual stalks of stubble across his strong jawline, the flare of his nostrils, and the silver hue of the scar lancing his eyebrow. Her hand rose, as if a magnet had burrowed under her skin and was being drawn to reach up and touch his face...

Before she’d raised it more than a couple of inches, Talos leaned closer and whispered directly into her ear. ‘I think I do frighten you. But not in the same way I frighten others.’

With that enigmatic comment he straightened, stepped away from her, nodded a goodbye, and then headed back to his villa.

Only when he was a good fifteen paces away did her lungs relax enough to expel the stale air, and the remnants of his woody, musky smell took its place, hitting her right in the sinuses, then spreading through her as if her body was consuming it.

* * *

If Amalie’s long-sleeved white top that covered her bottom and her dark blue leggings strayed too far from the ‘sporty’ brief he’d given her, Talos made no mention of it when she opened her door to him at precisely seven that evening. He did, however, stare at the flat canvas shoes on her feet.

‘Do you not have any proper trainers?’

‘No.’

He gave a sound like a grunt.

‘I’m not really into exercise,’ she admitted.

‘You are for the next thirty days.’

‘I find it boring.’

‘That’s because you’re not doing it right.’

It was like arguing with a plank. Except a plank would be more responsive to her argument.

But a plank wouldn’t evoke such an immediate reaction within her. Or prevent her lungs from working properly.

For his part, Talos was dressed in dark grey sports pants that fitted his long, muscular legs perfectly, and a black T-shirt that stretched across his chest, showcasing his broad warrior-like athleticism.

The stubble she remembered from the morning was even thicker now...

It was like gazing at a pure shot of testosterone. The femininity right in her core responded to it, a slow ache burning in her belly, her heart racing to a thrum with one look.

He walked her to his car; a black Maserati that even in the dusk of early evening gleamed. She stepped into the passenger side, the scent of leather filling her senses.

She’d never known anyone fill the interior of a car the way Talos did. Beside him she felt strangely fragile, as if she were made of porcelain rather than flesh and blood.

She blinked the strange thought away and knotted her fingers together, silently praying the journey would be short.

‘How did you find the composition?’ he asked after a few minutes of silence.

‘Beautiful.’

It was the only word she could summon. For five hours she had worked her way through the piece, bar by bar, section by section. She was a long way from mastering it, or understanding all its intricacies, but already the underlying melody had made itself known and had her hooked.

‘You are certain you will be ready to perform it in a month’s time?’

Opportunity suddenly presented itself to her gift-wrapped. ‘A composition of this complexity could take me months to master. You would do far better to employ a soloist who can get a quicker handle on it.’

He was silent for a moment, and when he spoke there was an amused tinge to his voice. ‘You don’t give up, do you?’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘Oh, I think you do. I remind you, despinis, that you signed a contract.’

‘And you said you would get me help.’

‘I said I would help you and that is what I am doing.’

He brought the car to a stop at the front of a large cream building and faced her. Even in the dark she could see the menace on his features.

‘I will accept no excuses. You will learn the composition and you will play it at the gala and you will do it justice. If you fail in any of those conditions then I will impose the contracted penalty.’

He didn’t have to elaborate any further. The ‘contracted penalty’ meant turning the theatre into a hotel and causing the disbandment of the orchestra. That penalty loomed large in her mind: the threat to ruin every member of the orchestra’s reputation...her own most especially.

‘Understand, though,’ he continued, ‘that I am a man of my word. I said I would ensure that you are mentally fit to get on the stage and play, and that is what I will do. Starting now.’

He got out of the car and opened the boot, pulling out a black sports bag. ‘Follow me.’

Not having any choice, she followed him into the building.

The first thing that hit her was the smell.

She’d never been in a men’s locker room before, but this was exactly what she’d imagined it would smell like: sweat and testosterone.

The second thing to hit her was the noise.

The third thing was the sight of a man with a flat nose, standing behind the reception desk at the entrance, spotting Talos and getting straight to his feet, a huge grin spreading over his face.

The two men greeted each other with bumped fists and a babble of Greek that ended with Talos giving the man a hearty slap on the back before indicating to Amalie to follow him. As they walked away she couldn’t help but notice the blatant adoration on the flat-nosed man’s face. Not a romantic adoration—she’d witnessed that enough times from her mother to know what it looked like—but more a look of reverence.

Past the reception area, they slipped through a door and entered the most enormous room.

Silently she took it all in: the square ring in the corner, the huge blue mats laid out in a square in another, the punching bags dangling at seemingly random places...

‘Is this a boxing gym?’

He raised a hefty shoulder. ‘I’ve boxed since my childhood.’

‘I can’t box!’

He gazed down at her hands. ‘No. You can’t. Throwing a punch at even the softest target has the danger of breaking a finger.’

She hadn’t thought of that—had been too busy thinking that she’d never hit anyone or anything in her life and had always considered boxing to be the most barbaric of sports. It was fitting to learn that it was Talos’s sport of choice. Her encounters with him were the closest she’d ever come to actually hitting someone.

He pointed to the corner with the blue mats. A tall, athletic blonde woman was chatting to a handful of men and women, all decked out in proper sports gear. ‘That is Melina, one of the instructors here. I’ve signed you up for her kickboxing workout.’

Amalie sighed. ‘How is enduring a kickboxing workout supposed to make me mentally fit for the stage?’

Without warning he placed his hands on her shoulders and twisted her around, so her back was to him. His thumbs pressed into the spot between her shoulder blades.

‘You are rife with tension,’ he said.

‘Of course I am. I’m here under duress.’

She tried to duck out from his hold but his grip was too strong. He was too strong. His thumbs felt huge as they pressed up the nape of her neck. And warm. And surprisingly gentle, despite the strength behind them.

‘The workout will help relieve tension and fire up your endorphins.’ He laughed—a deep rumble that vibrated through her pores—and released his hold on her. ‘All you will do is kick and punch into the air. If it helps, you can pretend I’m standing in front of you, receiving it all.’

She turned back to face him. ‘That will help.’

The glimmer of humour left him. ‘Your aggression needs an outlet.’

‘I’m not aggressive!’ At least she never had been before. Talos brought something out in her that, while not violent in the sense she’d always associated aggression with, made her feel as if a ferocity had been awoken within her, one that only reared up when she was with him. Or thinking about him. Or dreaming about him...

This workout might just prove to be a blessing after all.

‘Maybe not, but the tension you have within you comes from somewhere...’

‘That’ll be from being here with you,’ she grumbled.

‘And once you have learned to expel it your mind will be calmer.’

‘What about my body? I haven’t exercised in for ever.’

His eyes swept up and down her body, taking in every part of her. It felt like a critical assessment of her physique and she squirmed under it. She waited for his verbal assessment but it never came.

‘I will introduce you to Melina,’ he said, striding away to the growing crowd around the instructor.

Melina’s eyes gleamed when she spotted Talos, then narrowed slightly when she caught sight of Amalie, hanging back a little behind him.

Introductions were made and then Talos left them to it, heading to the ring in the corner, where a sparring bout had just started between two teenage boys. After a quick conversation with their trainer, Simeon, he left the main hall and went into the adjoining gym to start his own workout. He might spar later with Simeon, but first he wanted to warm his body up and get his muscles moving.

It felt as if it had been an age since he’d worked out, although it had only been one day.

Moving through the equipment, following the routine that had served him well since his army days, he found his concentration levels weren’t as sharp as usual. Through the glass wall dividing the gym from the main hall he could see the kickboxing workout underway, and noted how Amalie had placed herself at the back of the pack, how self-conscious her movements were.

He didn’t usually enjoy using the treadmill, but today he stayed on it for longer than normal, watching her. The warm-up was over and the session had begun in earnest. As the session progressed her movements went from tentative to a little less so. He could see the concentration on her face as she tried to copy what everyone around her was doing—the way she pivoted on the heel of her left foot before throwing an imaginary hook, the way she put her fists by her face, shifted her weight to her right foot, then brought her left knee up to her chest before kicking out.

She had an excellent centre of gravity, he noted. And for someone who professed to never exercise, her body was delectable, the leggings and long T-shirt she wore showing off her slender form to perfection.

She must have sensed his eyes upon her, for suddenly her gaze was on him, a scowl forming on her pretty face.

He didn’t normally find a woman’s anger cute, but with Amalie it was like being glared at by a harmless kitten.

Harmless kitten or not, the jabs and kicks she gave from that moment on brought to mind the image of a wildcat. She cut through the air with one particularly vicious right hook and he knew with deep certainty that it was his face she’d imagined her fist connecting with.

He reached for his towel and wiped his brow, inhaling deeply, trying to control the burn seeping through him. Watching Amalie work out had a strange hypnotic quality to it—as if she had magical powers pulling his attention to her.

It was time to take his attention elsewhere.

He was at the punching bags when her workout finished. He kept his focus on the bag before him, aware of her approach.

He would have been aware of her even if she hadn’t cleared her throat to announce her presence by his side. Tendrils of sensation prickled his skin, and when he turned his attention from the punching bag to her, saw the dampness of her hair and the heightened colour of her cheeks, all he could think about was how she would look under the flames of passion.

‘What did you think?’ he asked.

Something resembling a smile spread across her face. ‘Once I focused and imagined all my punches connecting with your face and all my kicks hitting your abdomen, it was great.’

He laughed. ‘And how do you feel now?’

She considered the question, her lips pouting. ‘I feel...good.’

‘Is this the point where I say I told you so?’

She rolled her eyes. ‘Are we going to be here much longer? Only I could really do with a shower. And something to eat.’

An image flashed into his mind of her standing naked under hot running water.

‘There are showers here, with everything you need.’

‘But then I’ll have to change back into these sweaty things.’

‘We have a selection of gym wear on sale too—I did say you would need suitable clothes to work out in. Choose some—and get yourself a decent pair of training shoes.’

‘I haven’t got any money on me.’

‘Not a problem.’ He looked over her head and beckoned someone.

A slight young girl of no more than sixteen appeared. Talos said something to her, then addressed Amalie again. ‘This is Tessa. She will take you to our clothes store and then show you where the ladies’ showers are. I’ll meet you upstairs in the café when you’re done.’

As soon as they’d headed off he focused back on the punching bag, trying to put aside the images of her naked that insisted on staying at the forefront of his mind.

He threw a particularly hard upper cut at the bag.

This was a singularly unique position he’d put himself in.

Amalie was incredibly desirable. He couldn’t pinpoint what exactly it was, but it was as if she had some kind of aura that seeped into his skin and set a charge off inside him. Everything felt so much more heightened. He felt an awareness not only of her but also the chemical components that were making him feel off the scale. Put simply: being with her made him feel as sexy as hell.

Under any other circumstances he wouldn’t hesitate to seduce her. Just imagining those long limbs wrapped around him put him on the path to arousal.

Her awareness of him was strong too—as starkly obvious as her loathing. Lust and loathing... An explosive combination.

But these were not normal circumstances. He had to get her mentally prepared to take on the biggest solo of her life. It was the whole reason she was there. Something told him she wasn’t the type of woman to go for the casual affairs he insisted on. Throwing sex into the mix could be like throwing a match into a situation that was already combustible.

He threw one last punch, then took a seat on the bench and, breathing heavily, undid the wraps around his hands, which he always put on even if only sparring with the punching bag. Experience had taught him how brittle the bones in the human hand were. The pain of breakage was negligible, but unless the hand was rested enough to allow the bones to heal it wouldn’t set properly, and the boxer would be unable to punch at full power.

Resting a broken hand was as frustrating as desiring a beautiful woman, knowing she desired you too, but knowing you couldn’t ever act on it.

CHAPTER FIVE

DESPITE THE LATENESS of the evening, the café upstairs was busy. Amalie had found a small table against the wall, where she could wait for Talos. Aware of the curious glances being thrown her way she pretended to examine the menu.

Testosterone abounded in the café. The vast majority of the patrons were male, all of them muscular, a fair few displaying broken noses and scarred faces. But their muscular physiques were dwarfed when Talos entered the room.

He spotted her immediately, and as he made his way over people stopped him to shake hands or bump fists.

She was glad his attention was taken, if only for a few moments. She pressed a hand to her chest and inhaled as much air into her tight lungs as she could get. The green sports pants and matching T-shirt she’d taken from the gym’s sports clothing outlet suddenly felt very close against her skin. Constricting.

He’d changed into a pair of tight-fitting black jeans and a navy blue T-shirt, and had his sports bag slung over his shoulder.

He was a mountain man, and whatever he wore only emphasised his muscularity. Whether he was in a business suit, workout gear or something casual, she couldn’t shake the feeling that he would be equally at home with nothing but a loin cloth wrapped around his waist.

‘I thought subjects were supposed to kneel before royalty,’ she said when he finally joined her.

A smirk appeared on his lips. ‘If you want to get on your knees before me, I won’t complain.’

She glared at him.

He settled his huge frame onto the chair opposite her. ‘You have to admit your comment was an open invitation.’

‘Only to someone with a dirty mind...’ she said, but her voice trailed into a mumble as the imagery his comment provoked, startling and vivid, sent a pulse searing through her blood strong enough to make her entire face burn.

The fresh scent of his shower gel and the woody musk of his aftershave played under her nose, filling her senses. He still hadn’t shaved, his stubble thick and covering his jawline in its entirety.

Certain she’d handed him another gold-plated open invitation, she cast her eyes down before he had a chance to read what was in them.

Instead of the expected quip, he asked in an amused tone, ‘What would you like to order?’

As he spoke, he folded his arms onto the table, his biceps bulging with the motion. She should have stayed looking at his face.

Since when did blatant machismo testosterone do it for her?

The male musicians she worked with—especially her fellow violinists—were, on the whole, sensitive creatures physically and emotionally. There were always exceptions to the rule, such as Philippe, one of the Orchestre National de Paris’s trombone players. Philippe was blond, buff and handsome, and he flirted openly with any woman who caught his eye. He was rumoured to have bedded half the female musicians in the orchestra.

But not Amalie, who found his overt masculinity a complete turn-off. The few boyfriends she’d had had been slight, unthreatening men, with gentle natures and a deep appreciation of music. Their evenings together had been spent discussing all things to do with music and the arts in general, with the bedroom not even an afterthought.

So why did Talos, whose physique and masculinity were ten times as potent as anything Philippe could even dream of having, make her feel all hot and squidgy just to look at him? None of her boyfriends had made her feel like he did—as if she wanted nothing more than to rip his clothes off.

‘I don’t read Greek,’ she answered, dragging her vocal cords into working order. ‘I wouldn’t know what to choose.’

‘We don’t serve traditional Greek fare here,’ he said. ‘It’s mostly high-carb and high-protein foods like pasta and steak.’

‘Do they have burgers?’

He grinned.

‘What’s so funny?’

‘After a hard workout I go for a burger every time.’

‘With cheese?’

‘It’s not right without the cheese.’

‘And chips?’

‘It wouldn’t be a complete meal without them.’

‘Cheeseburger and chips for me, then, please.’

‘Drink?’

‘Coke?’

His sensuous lips widened into a full-blown grin that was as sinful as the food she wanted. ‘Two cheeseburgers and chips, and two Cokes coming up.’

He got up from his seat, walked to the counter, fist-bumped the teenage boy working there and gave their order.

‘It won’t take long,’ he said when he sat back at the table.

‘Good. I am starving.’

‘I’m not surprised after that workout you did.’

‘It doesn’t help that I forgot to have any dinner before we left.’

‘How can you forget a meal?’ He looked at her as if she’d confessed to forgetting to put her underwear on.

She shrugged. ‘It happens. If I’m concentrating and lost in the music it is easy for me to forget.’

‘It’s no wonder you’re a slip of thing.’

‘I make up for it,’ she said defensively. ‘I might not eat at regular times, but I always eat.’

He eyed her, his look contemplative. Before he could say whatever was on his mind their food was brought over by yet another teenager.

‘That was quick,’ Amalie marvelled. Her famished belly rumbled loudly as she looked at the heaped plate. She didn’t think she’d ever seen so many chips on a plate, or a burger of such epic proportions.

‘We run a tight ship here.’

‘That’s not the first time you’ve said “we”,’ she said, picking up a thick golden chip that was so hot she dropped it back onto the plate. ‘Are you involved in this place somehow?’

‘This is my gym.’

She gazed at him, trying to stop her face wrinkling in puzzlement. ‘But you have a gym in your villa.’

‘And there’s one at the palace too.’ He picked up his burger and bit into it, devouring almost a quarter in one huge mouthful.

She shook her head. ‘So why this place too?’

He swallowed, his light brown eyes on hers. ‘This is a boxing gym. Sparring is no fun when you’re on your own.’

‘So you bought a gym so you could have some company?’

‘There were a lot of reasons.’

‘Do you run it?’

‘I employ a manager. Enough questions—eat before your food gets cold.’

‘Okay, but do me a favour and never tell my mother what I’m about to eat.’

His brow furrowed. ‘Why? Would she disapprove?’

Amalie had already bitten into a chip, possibly the crispest and yet fluffiest chip she had ever tasted. She chewed, then swallowed it down with some Coke before answering. ‘My mother is a gastronomy snob. She considers any food with English or American origin to be tantamount to eating out of a rubbish bin.’

‘Yet she married an Englishman.’

‘That’s true,’ she agreed, casting her eyes down. Her parents had been divorced for half her lifetime, yet the guilt still had the power to catch her unawares.

Talos picked up on an inflection in her tone. ‘Was it a bad divorce?’

‘Not at all. It was very civilised.’

‘But traumatic for you?’

‘It wasn’t the easiest of experiences,’ she conceded, before picking up her burger and taking a small bite.

It was with some satisfaction that he saw her eyes widen and her nod of approval.

‘That is good,’ she enthused when her mouth was clear.

‘Maybe not the gastronomical heights your mother would approve of, but still high-quality,’ he agreed.

‘I think this might be the best burger I’ve ever had.’

‘You mean you’ve eaten a burger before?’ he asked, feigning surprise. ‘Your mother will be shocked.’

‘I hide all my convenience food when I know she’s coming over.’

He grinned and took another bite of his burger. The workout had clearly done Amalie the world of good; most of her primness had been sweated out of her. She almost looked relaxed.

They ate in silence for a few minutes. It gratified him to see her eat so heartily; he had imagined from her slender frame and self-confessed lack of exercise that she would eat like a sparrow.

He tried to imagine eating with another woman here and came up blank.

In normal life this gym was his sanctuary—not somewhere he would bring a date, even if his date liked to work out. For the same reason he refused to make overtures to any of the women who worked here. Regardless of the fact that most of his female staff were, like the majority of his employees, teenagers, and so automatically off limits, he didn’t want the messiness that inevitably came about when he ended a relationship to spill into his sanctuary.

Melina, his kickboxing instructor, had blatantly flirted with him when she’d first started work here and—despite her being in her mid-twenties, and attractive to boot—he’d frozen out all her innuendoes until she’d got the message.

The endorphins released during a vigorous workout always made him crave sex, but he disciplined himself with the iron will Kalliakis men were famed for. Except for his father. The Kalliakis iron will had skipped a generation with Lelantos... Lelantos had been weak and venal—a man who had allowed his strong libido and equally great temper to control him.

It killed Talos to know that of the three Kalliakis Princes, he was the most like their father.

The difference was that he had learned to control his appetites and the volatile temperament that came with it. Boxing had taught him to harness it.

Tonight, though, the endorphins seemed to have exploded within him, and the primal urge to sate himself in a willing woman’s arms was stronger than ever. And not just any woman. This woman.

Theos, just watching Amalie eat made him feel like throwing her over his shoulder, carrying her to the nearest empty room and taking her wildly.

‘Do you consider yourself French or English?’ he asked, wrenching his mind away from matters carnal. He needed to concentrate on getting her mentally fit to play at his grandfather’s gala, not be imagining ripping her clothes off with his teeth.

‘Both. Why?’

‘You speak English with a slight accent. It made me curious.’

‘I suppose French is my first language. I grew up bilingual, but I’ve never lived full-time in England. My father’s always kept a home there, but when I was a child we used it more for holidays and parties than anything else.’

‘Was that because of your mother’s influence?’

‘I assume so. My mother definitely wore the trousers in that marriage.’ A slight smile, almost sad, played at the corners of her lips.

‘I have heard that she’s a forceful woman.’

He’d heard many stories about Colette Barthez, not many of them complimentary. It was strange to think that the woman before him—a woman who tried desperately to fade into the background—was a child from the loins of the biggest diva on the planet. He had to assume she took after her father who, he’d learned, was regarded as a quintessential Englishman, with a dry humour and calm manner.

Amalie chewed on a chip, disliking the implication in his words and the way he’d delivered them. She, better than anyone, knew just how ‘forceful’ her mother could be in getting her own way, but that didn’t stop her loving her and despising the people who would put her down.

‘You don’t become the most successful and famous mezzo-soprano in the world without having a strong will and a thick hide. If she were a man she would be celebrated.’

The scarred eyebrow rose in question.

She shook her head and pushed her plate to the side. ‘She sold out Carnegie Hall and the Royal Albert Hall three nights in a row last year, but every article written about those concerts just had to mention her three ex-husbands, numerous lovers and so-called diva demands.’

The black scarred brow drew forward. ‘That must be very hurtful for her to read,’ he said, his tone careful.

‘If it was the French media it would devastate her, but in France she’s revered and treated as a national icon. With the rest of the world’s press, so long as they aren’t criticising her voice or performance, she doesn’t care—she truly does have the hide of a rhinoceros.’

But not when it came to love. When it came to affairs of the heart, her mother felt things deeply. Bored lovers had the power to shatter her.

‘But they upset you?’ he said, a shrewdness in his eyes.

‘No one wants to read salacious stories about their mother,’ she muttered, reaching for one more chip and popping it in her mouth before she could unloosen her tongue any further.

Her family and personal life were none of his concern, but she felt so protective when it came to her mother, who was passionate, funny, loving, predatory, egotistical and a complete one-off. She drove her up the wall, but Amalie adored her.

‘That is true,’ Talos agreed. ‘My family also live under the spotlight. There are occasions when it can burn.’

She leaned back in her chair and stared at him through narrowed eyes. ‘If you know how much the spotlight can burn, why would you push me back under it when you know it hurts me so much?’

‘Because you were born to play under it,’ he replied, his deep bass voice no-nonsense.

And yet she detected a whisper of warmth in those light brown eyes she hadn’t seen before.

‘It is my job to put you back under it without you gaining any new scars.’

‘But the scars I already have haven’t healed.’

There was no point in shying away from it. She’d seen enough psychologists in her early teens to know that she’d been scarred, and that it was those scars still preventing her from stepping onto a stage and performing with eyes upon her.

‘Then I will heal them for you.’

A shiver ran through her as an image of his mouth drifting across her skin skittered into her mind, shockingly vivid... Talos healing her in the most erotic manner. It sent a pulse of heat deep into her abdomen.

She blinked rapidly, to dispel the unbidden image, and was grateful when another member of the gym chose that moment to come over to their table and chat with him.

Passion was something she’d always avoided. After her parents’ divorce she’d spent her weekend and holiday visitations watching her mother bounce from lover to lover, marrying two of them for good measure, engulfed in desire’s heady flames, trying to recapture the magic of her first marriage. Watching her get burned so many times had been pain itself. The guilt of knowing she was responsible for her mother’s heartache—and her father’s—had only added to it.

Her father had never brought another woman home, let alone remarried. Though he would always deny it with a sad smile, the torch he carried for her mother was too bright to extinguish.

If it hadn’t been for that horrendous incident in front of her parents and their friends and its aftermath, when their child prodigy could no longer perform like the dancing seal she’d become, her parents would still be together today—she was certain of it. On the occasions when they were forced together, Amalie would watch them skirt around each other; her mother showing off her latest lover with something close to flamboyant desperation, her father accepting this behaviour with a wistful stoicism.

Amalie liked her quiet, orderly, passionless life. It was safe.

Talos Kalliakis made her feel anything but safe.

* * *

Talos rapped loudly on the cottage door for the second time, blowing out a breath of exasperated air. Just as he was about to try the handle and let himself in the door swung open and there Amalie stood, violin in hand and a look of startled apology on her face.

‘Is it that time already?’ she said, standing aside to let him through. ‘Sorry, I lost track of time.’

He followed her through to the cosy living room. The baby grand piano sat in the corner, covered with sheets of paper and an old-fashioned tape recorder. Next to it stood a music stand.

She looked what could only be described as lively—as if she had springs under her feet. In the four days she’d been in Agon he’d never seen her like this.

‘Would you mind if I give the workout a miss tonight?’ she asked, her green sapphire eyes vibrant and shining. ‘I’ve reached an understanding with the score and I want to solidify it in my mind before I lose the moment.’

‘You are making headway?’ It amused him to hear her discussing the score as if it were a living entity.

‘Something has clicked today. I’ve made a recording of the piano accompaniment—I am so grateful your grandmother wrote an accompaniment for the piano as well as for a full orchestra—and playing along to it is making all the pieces come together.’

‘Are you ready to play it for me?’

Her eyes rounded in horror. ‘Absolutely not.’

‘You’re going to have to play it for me soon,’ he reminded her. The countdown was on, the gala only three weeks and six days away.

‘Let me master the composition before we discuss that.’

He eyed her contemplatively. ‘You have until Friday.’

She’d accompanied him to his gym three nights in a row, her workouts intense and focused. Wanting her concentration to be used in figuring out the score, he’d deliberately steered any small talk between them away from the personal. Other than chauffeuring her to and from the gym, he’d left her to it.

A dart of panic shot from her eyes. ‘I won’t be ready by Friday.’

‘Friday will give us three weeks to get you performance-ready. I know nothing of music. It makes no difference to me if you make mistakes at this early stage; I won’t notice them. What concerns me is getting you used to playing solo in front of people again. We need to work on that as much as you need to work on the score itself.’

A mutinous expression flashed over her face before her features relaxed a touch and she nodded.

‘You can have tonight off, but tomorrow you go back to the gym.’

‘Has anyone ever told you that you’re a slave-driving ogre?’

‘No one has dared.’

She rolled her eyes. ‘I want to get on—you can leave now.’

‘And no one has ever dared tell me when I should leave before.’

‘You must be getting old, because your memory is failing—I’ve told you to leave before, at my home in Paris when you barged your way in.’

‘Ah, yes. I distinctly remember you tried using physical force to expel me.’

His loins tightened as memories of her soft, lithe body splayed on his lap while he controlled the flare of fire and passion that had exploded out of her assailed him anew. He cast a long, appreciative look up and down her body, taking in the short black skirt over sheer black tights and the short-sleeved viridian-green shirt unbuttoned to display a hint of cleavage...

‘Would you like to use force to expel me now?’

She cuddled her violin to her chest as if for protection and took a step back.

‘Imagine how fit all those workouts will make you,’ he purred in a deliberately sensual tone, enjoying the colour heightening her cheekbones. ‘Next time you choose to fight me with your body you might have a chance of overpowering me.’

‘We both know I could train twenty-four hours a day, every day for a decade, and still not be strong enough to overpower you.’

‘If you would like to put that theory into practice you only have to say.’ He dropped his voice and stared straight into her almond eyes. Theos, she was temptation itself. ‘I’m not averse to a beautiful woman trying to dominate me. Something tells me the results would be explosive.’

Other than the colour on her face, she showed no reaction. For the briefest of moments Talos wondered if his assumption that the attraction he felt for her was mutual was wrong—then he saw her swallow and swipe a lock of hair from her forehead.

‘Enjoy your music,’ he said, stepping out of the room with one last grin.

As he shut the cottage front door behind him he ruefully conceded that trying to get a rise out of the beautiful musician living in his guest house had served no purpose other than to fuel the chemistry swirling between them.

He would need an extra-long workout to expel the energy fizzing in his veins.

CHAPTER SIX

AMALIE DID SOMETHING SACRILEGIOUS. In a fit of temper, she threw the precious score onto the floor.

Immediately she felt wretched. It wasn’t the poor score’s fault that all the good feelings that had grown throughout the day had vanished. It was the composer’s rotten grandson who had caused that with his rotten innuendoes.

Focus, Amalie, she told herself sternly.

But it was hard to focus on the sheets of wonderful music before her when all she could think about was wrestling Talos’s clothes off him and seeing for herself if he was as divine naked as he was when clothed.

That body...

It would be hard. Every inch of it. But what would his skin feel like? Would it be hard too? Or would it be smooth? How would it feel against her own skin?

Focus!

It was none of her business what Talos Kalliakis’s skin felt like, or how hard his body was, or to discover if it was true that the size of a man’s feet was proportionate to the size of his...

Focus!

Talos had enormous feet. And enormous hands...

He also had a smile that churned her belly into soft butter.

‘Stop it!’ This time she shouted the words aloud and clenched her fists.

She’d woken that morning with a sense of dread that the gala was now less than four weeks away. If she didn’t master the composition, then it didn’t matter what tricks Talos had up his sleeve to get her performing onstage—she would be humiliated regardless. Right at that moment all that mattered was the composition.

Sitting herself on the floor, she hitched her skirt to the top of her thighs, crossed her legs and closed her eyes. There she sat for a few minutes, concentrating on nothing but her breathing—a technique taught to her by her father, who had confessed in a conspiratorial manner that it was the breathing technique her mother had learnt when she’d been in labour with Amalie. By all accounts her mother had ignored the midwife’s advice and demanded more drugs.

The thought brought a smile to her face and pulled her out of the trance-like state she’d slipped into.

The edginess that had consumed her since Talos’s brief visit had subsided a little, enough for her to put the sheets of music back onto her stand and press ‘play’ on the tape recorder.

As she waited for the backing music to begin she couldn’t help thinking she should have gone for a workout, which would have cleared her angst so much better than any meditation technique.

She nestled her violin under her chin and as the first notes of the accompaniment played out she counted the beats and began to play.

Soon she was immersed in the music, so much so that when a loud rap on the front door echoed through to the living room she had to physically pull herself out of it. A quick glance at her watch showed she’d been playing for two and a half hours.

She yanked the door open just as Talos raised his knuckles for another rap.

‘Have you never heard the word patience before?’ she scolded.

He grinned and held up a large cardboard box, the motion causing a warm waft of scent to emit from it. ‘I’m too hungry for patience, little songbird. I bring us food.’

Us?

The divine smell triggered something in her belly, making it rumble loudly. With a start she realised she’d forgotten to eat the tray of food a member of his villa’s staff had brought to the cottage for her earlier that evening.

Since their first trip to his gym, lunch and dinner had been brought to her on Talos’s orders. She knew it was only the fear that she would become anaemic or something, and faint from hunger onstage, that prompted him to do it, rather than any regard for her, but his concern touched her nonetheless.

The tray from earlier was still on the dining table, untouched. A warm, almost fluffy feeling trickled through her blood that he’d noticed.

Hesitating for only a moment, she let him in and headed to the kitchen, grabbed a couple of plates and some cutlery, and took them through to the dining area of the living room.

What was she supposed to do? Insist that he leave when he’d gone to the trouble of bringing her food, just because she kept having erotic thoughts about him? It would be incredibly rude. He might have used blackmail to get her here, but since then he’d treated her decently. He’d treated her well. Thoughtfully. She wasn’t a prisoner, as she’d feared she would be, but had his whole household staff at her disposal for whatever she wanted or needed.

More than any of that, she would be spending a lot more time with him in the coming weeks. She had to get used to feeling off-centre when she was with him. She had to. She refused to become a gibbering idiot in his presence.

Talos held aloft a bottle of rosé retsina. ‘Glasses?’

Once they were settled at the table, Talos busy removing the foil lids of the dozen boxes spread out before them, she said, ‘I didn’t think there would be any takeaways open on a Sunday night.’

One of the chattier members of Talos’s staff had warned her yesterday to get anything she needed on Saturday, as the island mostly shut down on a Sunday.

‘There aren’t—I got the chefs at the palace to cook for us.’

Oh, yes. He was a prince. In Paris his royalty was something she’d been acutely aware of. Here, in the relaxed atmosphere of Agon, it was an easy thing to forget.

‘And they have proper takeaway boxes to hand?’

‘The palace kitchens are ten times the size of this cottage and cater for all eventualities,’ he answered lightly, pouring the retsina.

‘Didn’t you go to the gym?’ He’d showered and changed into a pair of black chinos and a dark blue polo shirt since he’d turned up at the cottage earlier, so he’d clearly done his workout, but she couldn’t see how he’d have had time to go the gym and the palace in the short time he’d been gone.

‘As you weren’t doing the kickboxing class I worked out at the palace gym. It gave me a chance to catch up with my brothers and my grandfather.’

That would be the King and the two other Kalliakis Princes.

‘I thought you went to your gym every night?’

‘I work out every night, but not always at the gym. I try and make it there a couple of times a week when I’m in the country.’

‘Have you been putting yourself out for me, then?’

‘You’re my current project,’ he said with a wolfish grin. ‘As long as I get you on that stage for the gala I don’t care if I have to be inconvenienced.’

That was right. She was his pet project. She had to remember that anything nice he did was with an ulterior motive and not for her.

She took a sip of retsina, expecting to grimace at the taste, which she’d always found rather harsh. It was surprisingly mellow—like an expensive white wine but with that unmistakable resinous tang.

‘You approve?’ he asked.

She nodded.

‘Good. It is our island’s vintage.’

‘Do you make it?’

‘No—we rent out our land to a producer who makes it under the island’s own label.’

The food looked and tasted as divine as its aroma. Amalie happily dived into kleftiko—the most tender slow-cooked lamb on the bone she’d ever eaten—and its accompanying yemista—stuffed baked tomatoes and peppers—eating as much as she could fit into her stomach. She hadn’t realised how hungry she was.

As during their shared meal at his gym, Talos ate heartily. When he’d finished wolfing down every last scrap on his plate, and emptying the takeaway boxes of every last morsel, he stuck his fork into the few leftovers on her plate.

‘For a prince, you don’t behave in a very regal fashion,’ she observed drily.

‘How is a prince supposed to behave?’

She considered, before answering, ‘Regally?’

He burst into laughter—a deep, booming sound that filled the small cottage. ‘I leave the regal behaviour to my brothers.’

‘How do you get away with that?’

‘They’re the heir and the spare.’ He raised a hefty shoulder into a shrug. ‘Helios will take over the throne when my grandfather...’

Here, his words faltered—just a light falter, that anyone who wasn’t observing him closely would likely have missed. But she was observing him closely—was unable to tear her eyes away from him. It wasn’t just the magnetic sex appeal he oozed. The more time she spent with him, the more he fascinated her. The man behind the magnetism.

‘When the day comes,’ he finished smoothly. ‘Theseus has been groomed for the role too, for the remote eventuality that something untoward should happen to Helios.’ He must have caught her shock at his unemotional analysis because he added, ‘No one knows what’s around the corner. Our father was heir to the throne, but life threw a curveball at him when he was only a couple of years older than I am now.’

The car crash. The tragedy that had befallen the Kalliakis family a quarter of a century before, leaving the three young Princes orphaned. Looking at the huge man sitting opposite her, she found it was almost impossible to imagine Talos as a small child. But he had been once, and had suffered the most horrendous thing that could happen to any child: the death of not one but both parents.

The sudden temptation to cover his giant hand and whisper her sympathies was smothered by the equally sudden hard warning in his eyes—a look impossible to misinterpret. I do not want your sympathies. This subject is not open to discussion.

Instead she said, ‘Did your brothers get favourable treatment?’

He relaxed back immediately into a grin. ‘Not at all. I got all the preferential treatment. I was the happy accident. I was raised without any expectations—a prince in a kingdom where the most that is expected of me is to protect my brothers if ever the need arises. Even my name denotes that. In ancient mythology Talos was a giant man of bronze. There are a number of differing myths about him, but the common theme is that he was a protector.’

Goosebumps broke out over her flesh.

Something told her this big brute of a man would be a fierce protector—and not simply because of his physique.

Cross him or those he loved and you would know about it.

She cleared her throat. ‘Aren’t older siblings supposed to protect the youngest, not the other way round?’

His smile broadened. ‘Usually. But I was such a large newborn my parents knew my role would be to protect my brothers from anyone who would do harm to them or our lands.’

‘And have you had to do much in the way of protection?’ she asked.

‘When I was a child it seemed my role was to protect them from each other,’ he said with another laugh. ‘They used to fight constantly. We all did.’

‘Do you get on now?’

‘We all still fight, but nowadays it is only verbally. We are brothers, and we get on and work well together. We protect each other. That said, they are both big enough and ugly enough to take care of themselves.’

Amalie felt a pang of envy. She would have loved a sibling of her own. Any kind of playmate would have been wonderful. Anything would have been better than a childhood spent travelling the world with her parents on their various tours, educational tutors in tow, the only child in a world full of adults.

‘Even so, aren’t princes supposed to travel with a retinue of protectors at all times? And have lots of flunkeys?’ In Paris he’d arrived at her home alone both times. And the only staff he’d brought to the Théâtre de la Musique had been clerical.

‘It would take a very brave person to take me on—don’t you think, little songbird?’

She felt her cheeks turn scarlet. She wished he would stop addressing her as little songbird—hated the rush of warmth that flushed through her whenever he called her it. Instinct told her that to acknowledge it would be like waving a red flag to a bull.

‘Helios always travels with protection—Theseus less so.’ Something sparked in his eyes, as if he were asking a question of himself. ‘If you would like to see me behave in a more regal fashion you can accompany me to the ball at the palace next weekend.’

‘What ball?’

‘It’s something Helios is hosting—a private pre-gala celebration. There will be royal flunkeys and footmen everywhere, princes and princesses from around the world—and I, little songbird, will be in my most princely attire.’

‘And you want me to go with you?’ Was he asking her to go as his date?

‘It will give me a chance to show you how princely I really am,’ he teased.

‘If it’s such a formal affair, why haven’t you already got someone to take with you?’

‘If I took anyone else she would take it as a sign that I was serious about her and expect me to drop to one knee.’

‘Do I take it that means you’re not enamoured of the thought of marriage?’

Disgust crossed his face, as if she’d suggested he dunk his head into a vat of slime.

‘You’re a prince. Aren’t you supposed to marry and produce heirs?’

‘Helios will produce all the heirs Agon needs. Theseus will marry and produce some more as backup. Leaving me free to continue my bachelor lifestyle for eternity.’

‘The eternal playboy?’

‘I dislike that term,’ he said, his eyes narrowing. ‘It implies a certain disrespect towards women.’

She had to laugh. ‘Don’t tell me you’re a feminist?’

‘My grandmother was the strongest person I’ve ever known. If I was to disrespect any woman or make judgements on the basis of her gender I am certain my grandmother would hunt me down in my dreams to give me a dressing-down.’

‘She sounds like a formidable woman.’

Talos nodded. Without his grandmother’s loving but steely influence—especially when he’d hit his teenage years and gone completely off the rails—he knew he wouldn’t be half the man he was today.

‘She was a pillar of strength,’ he said, raising his glass of retsina. ‘And I think she would approve of you playing her final composition.’

She made a snorting sound. ‘Why would you think that?’

‘Because you have the same steel core she had.’

Amalie’s eyes widened, and then she frowned, a V forming in the centre of her brow. ‘I can’t perform in front of people. My core is made of blancmange.’

‘But, little songbird, you are the only person other than my family who dares stand up to me.’

Even now she was disagreeing with him.

For the first time he understood why Theseus had taken a two-year sabbatical after he’d completed his time at Sandhurst. The travelling part he’d always understood, but Theseus’s insistence on travelling under an assumed name had been something he’d never got. Talos was proud to be a Kalliakis—proud of their family reputation as fighters, proud of his nation’s people and culture. He saw himself as a protector of their proud island and had seen Theseus’s insistence at disguising his identity as a snub to the Kalliakis name.

Now he understood how it must have felt for his brother to be treated as someone...normal. Theseus had shared many of his tales about the personal freedom he’d found in his time away, but only now did Talos understand why it had been such a special time for him.

Amalie was the first person since childhood to treat him like a normal person. She had no qualms about disagreeing with him on any subject. As he thought back over the past few days he realised that she simply didn’t pander to him. He could be anyone.

Which meant that when she smiled at him—which, admittedly, was rarely—it was because she meant it. When those stunning green eyes became stark, their pupils enlarged, showing her desire for him—little tells she would hate to know he recognised—it was for him.

He’d never bedded a woman and been one hundred per cent certain whether she was in his arms out of desire for him or the aphrodisiac quality of his title. It had never bothered him—indeed, the idea that he could bed any woman he chose held an aphrodisiac quality of its own—but the mistrust had always been there, unacknowledged yet simmering away in the depths of his consciousness.

If he were to make love to Amalie there was no question that her responses would be authentic. If she made love to him it would be for him.

The temptation to lean over the table, cup that beautiful heart-shaped chin in his hand and taste those delectable lips was so strong he dug his toes into his boots to keep his feet grounded to the floor.

Theos, it was a temptation that grew harder to resist the more time he spent with her. His will power and control were legendary, and yet he was having to remind himself of all the reasons he had to hone them to greater strengths when with this woman.

Making love to Amalie could be disastrous. He was supposed to be getting her fit to play at his grandfather’s gala, not plotting to get those lithe limbs wrapped around his waist...

He looked at his watch and got sharply to his feet. ‘I need to head back. I’m flying to New York in the morning but I’ll be back Thursday evening. I’ll get Kostas to take you to Natalia’s—she’ll make a ball dress for you.’

‘I haven’t agreed to come,’ she protested.

‘I am a prince of the land, little songbird,’ he answered with a grin. ‘If you defy my wishes I will have you locked in the palace dungeons.’

‘You’ve already said the dungeons are only a tourist attraction.’

He winked at her. ‘It will take me two minutes to appropriate the keys for them.’

He laughed at the scowl she bestowed upon him.

‘I’ll see myself out. Kali̱nýchta, little songbird.’

He might not have any intention of acting on the absurdly strong chemistry growing between them, but he could damn well enjoy her company for one evening of entertainment.

CHAPTER SEVEN

A LOUD RAP on the front door broke Amalie out of the spell she was under.

She froze, violin under her chin, bow bouncing lightly on the E string. There was only one person she knew who so vividly announced his presence with just a knock on the door.

The five days of peace without Talos had come to an end. He’d returned to Agon the previous evening but she’d had a lucky escape in that he hadn’t bothered with her. That hadn’t stopped her spending the entire evening at his gym, looking over her shoulder, waiting for him to appear. And that sinking feeling when she’d been driven back to the cottage without him having made an appearance had not been disappointment.

‘Hello, little songbird,’ he said now, with a lazy smile on his face, the mid-afternoon sun shining down on him, enveloping him in a hazy, warm aura that made her stomach flip left, right and centre. ‘Have you missed me?’

‘Like a migraine,’ she answered with a roll of her eyes, turning back into the cottage and leaving him to shut the door and follow her in, his low laughter at her quip reverberating through her.

‘Have you had a good week?’ he asked, stepping into the living room.

‘It’s been very peaceful, thank you. And yours?’

‘Incredibly boring.’

‘That’ll teach you to be a lawyer.’

Today he actually looked lawyerly. Well, more like Tarzan dressed up as a lawyer, the crisp white shirt, open at the neck, rippling over his muscular chest, and charcoal trousers emphasising the length and power of his thighs. No matter what he wore he would still emit enough testosterone to fill a dozen buckets.

‘It’s a living,’ he said, deadpan.

She couldn’t help it. She laughed. She doubted Talos Kalliakis had needed to work a single day in his life.

‘What does a man have to do to get a coffee round here?’ he asked.

‘Go to the kitchen and work the coffee machine.’

‘But I am royalty. I shouldn’t be expected to make my own coffee.’

‘I’ll have a mocha while you’re there,’ she said, only just stopping herself throwing a wink at him.

His irreverence was contagious.

His nose wrinkled. ‘I have serious doubts about your taste, knowing you drink that muck.’

She had serious doubts about her taste too. Always she’d steered herself in the direction of safe, dependable men, those with whom she could have a nice, safe, dependable life.

There was nothing safe about Talos.

That little fact didn’t stop her thinking about him constantly.

It didn’t stop her heart from hammering at a prestissimo pace by virtue of just being under the same roof as him.

Luckily he took himself off to the kitchen, allowing her a few minutes to compose herself. When he returned, carrying their coffees, she’d put her violin away and sat herself in an armchair.

He placed their cups on the table and sprawled onto the sofa. ‘I hear you’ve been going to the gym every day.’

‘I was under orders, remember?’

He grinned. ‘Melina thinks it is a shame you can’t actually fight someone in a kickboxing match.’

Likely Melina would volunteer herself for that honour. Whilst not unfriendly, there was a definite coolness in the instructor’s attitude towards her.

‘I enjoy it,’ she admitted.

The atmosphere at Talos’s gym was different from anything she’d experienced before. There was a real collective feel about it, with everyone there prepared to help everyone else. Yes, there were some big egos, but it was a different kind of egotism from the sort she was used to in the classical music world—earthier, somehow. Considering she was one of the only women there, she never felt threatened, and she didn’t think it was because everyone knew she was Talos’s guest. The atmosphere of the gym itself engendered respect in all its patrons.

‘Good. And how are you getting on with the score?’

‘Well...I think.’

He quirked his scarred brow. ‘You think?’

‘I have no way of knowing if I’m playing it as your grandmother intended.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘My interpretation of the tempo she played it at might be different from her interpretation.’

He shrugged. ‘You played the “Méditation” from Thaïs at a slower tempo than she played it, but it sounded equally beautiful.’

Talos noted the colour flush over her face, the flash of embarrassed pride that darted from her eyes.

He sat forward and rested his arms on his thighs. ‘It is time for you to play for me.’

Her colour faded as quickly as it had appeared. She seemed to cower in her seat.

‘I did say I would listen to you play today.’

She brightened. ‘I’ve recorded myself playing it. You can listen to that.’

He cocked his head and sighed theatrically. ‘I can see that working well at the gala—we’ll introduce our star soloist and wheel on a tape recorder with a wig.’

She spluttered a sound of nervous laughter.

He softened his voice, wanting to put her at ease. ‘It is only you and me. It doesn’t matter how many mistakes you make—all that matters is that today you play for me.’

There were three weeks and one day until the gala.

Judging by the terror vibrating off Amalie’s frame, he would need every one of them.

He’d spent the four days in New York getting as much work done as he could, organising his staff and generally ensuring that he’d need to do minimal travelling until the gala was over. The business was being neglected by all three Kalliakis princes but what alternative did they have? All of them wanted to spend as much time with their grandfather as they could, to be there when he was having a good spell and craving their company. They were fortunate that their staff were the best of the best and could run much of the business with minimum input from them.

This trip away had been different from any other. He was always impatient to spend as much time on Agon as he could, but during this trip he’d found himself thinking of home far more frequently than normal. Thinking of her in his little guest cottage. He’d arrived back early yesterday evening and the temptation to pay her an immediate visit had shocked him with its intensity.

He’d resisted and headed to the palace. There, he’d shared a meal with his brothers, both of whom had been in foul tempers and had declined to answer any questions about their respective bad moods. Both had excused themselves the moment they’d finished eating. Shrugging his shoulders at their odd behaviour, Talos had sought out his grandfather, spending a pleasant couple of hours playing chess with him until a sudden bout of tiredness had forced his grandfather to call a halt.

It unnerved him how quickly his grandfather could fall into exhaustion—one minute sitting upright, laughing, holding a conversation; the next his chin drooping, his eyes struggling to stay open, his speech slurring...

Talos could feel the time ebbing away. He could see it too. He’d only been four days in New York and his grandfather had lost even more weight, the large, vital man now a shadow of his former self.

The woman before him had the power to make his grandfather’s last days the sweetest they could be. She could bring his beloved Rhea’s final composition to life. She was the only person in the world who could do it justice.

He watched Amalie struggle for composure, feeling a strange tugging in his chest when she visibly forced herself to her feet and over to the baby grand piano, where she’d left her violin.

Not looking at him, she removed it from its case and fiddled with the strings, tuning them as his grandmother had always done before playing for him.

Moving her music stand behind the piano, as if she were using the piano for protection, she arranged the sheets of music until she was satisfied with how they stood, then rested her violin under her chin.

About to hit the first note, she halted, bow upright, and stared at him. ‘I’ve almost memorised it. I won’t need the sheet music when I do the gala.’

It was the first time he’d heard her utter her intentions to actually perform at the gala. He wondered if she was aware of what she’d just given away—how in the nine days she had been on his island her mind-set had already altered.

He raised his hands and pulled a face to indicate his nonchalance about such matters. What did he care if she played with the music in front of her or not? All he cared was that she played it.

‘I’ll play without the accompaniment.’

‘Stop stalling and play.’

She swallowed and nodded, then closed her eyes.

Her bow struck the first note.

And bounced off the string.

He watched her closely. The hand holding the violin—the hand with the short nails, which he suddenly realised were kept that length to stop them inadvertently hitting the strings when playing—was holding the instrument in a death grip. The hand holding the bow was shaking. It came to him in flash why her nails seemed so familiar. His grandmother had kept her nails in the same fashion.

‘Take some deep breaths,’ he instructed, hooking an ankle over his knee, making sure to keep his tone low and unthreatening.

She gave a sharp nod and, eyes still closed, inhaled deeply through her nose.

It made no difference. The bow bounced off the strings again.

She breathed in again.

The same thing happened.

‘What are you thinking of right now?’ he asked after a few minutes had passed, the only sound the intermittent bounce of her bow on the strings whenever she made another attempt to play. Her distress was palpable. ‘What’s in your head?’

‘That I feel naked.’

Her eyes opened and blinked a couple of times before fixing on him. Even with Amalie at the other end of the room he could see the starkness in her stare.

‘Do you ever have that dream where you go somewhere and are surrounded by people doing ordinary things, and you look down and discover you have nothing on?’

‘I am aware of people having those dreams,’ he conceded, although it wasn’t one he’d personally experienced.

No, his dreams—nightmares—were infinitely darker, his own powerlessness represented by having to relive that last evening with his parents, when he’d jumped onto his father’s back and pounded at him with his little fists.

His father had bucked him off with such force that he’d clattered to the floor and hit his head on the corner of their bed. In his dreams he had to relive his mother holding him in her arms, soothing him, kissing his sore, bleeding head and wiping away his tears which had mingled with her own.

It was the last time he’d seen them.

He hadn’t been allowed to see them when they’d lain in state. The condition of their bodies had been so bad that closed caskets had been deemed the only option.

And that was the worst of his nightmares—when he would walk into the family chapel and lift the lids of their coffins to see the ravages the car crash had wreaked on them. His imagination in those nightmares was limitless...

‘Try and imagine it, because it’s the closest I can come to explaining how I feel right now,’ she said, her voice as stark as the panic in her eyes.

For the first time he believed—truly believed—that her fear was genuine. He’d always believed it was real, but had assumed she’d been exaggerating for effect.

This was no exaggeration.

‘You feel naked?’ he asked evenly. He, more than anyone, knew how the imagination could run amok, the fear of the unknown so much worse than reality. He also knew how he could help her take the first step to overcome it.

‘Yes,’ she whispered.

The strange distance Amalie had seen settling over him had dissipated, and his attention on her was focused and strong.

‘Then there is only one solution. You must be naked.’

‘What...?’

But her solitary word hardly made it past her vocal cords. Talos had leant forward and was pulling his shoes and socks off.

What was he doing?

His hands went to his shirt. Before she could comprehend what she was seeing he’d deftly undone all the buttons.

‘What are you doing?’

He got to his feet.

If she hadn’t already pressed herself against the wall she would have taken a step back. She would have turned and run.

But there was nowhere for her to run to—not without getting past him first.

‘The only way you’re going to overcome your fear of nakedness is to play naked.’

His tone was calm, at complete odds with the panic careering through her.

She could not dislodge her tongue from the roof of her mouth.

He shrugged his arms out of his shirt and hung it on the back of a dining chair.

His torso was magnificent, broad and muscular, his skin a golden bronze. A light smattering of black hair covered his defined pecs, somehow tempering the muscularity.

As nonchalant as if he were undressing alone for a shower, he tugged at the belt of his trousers, then undid the button and pulled the zip down.

‘Please, stop,’ she beseeched him.

He fixed her with a stare that spoke no nonsense, then pulled his trousers down, taking his underwear with them. Stepping out of them, he folded and placed them over his shirt, then propped himself against the wall, his full attention back on her.

‘I am not going to force you to take your clothes off,’ he said, in that same deep, calm tone. ‘But if you play naked for me now you will have lived out your worst fear and in the process you will have overcome it. I would not have you at the disadvantage of being naked alone so I have removed my clothes to put us on an equal footing. I will stay here, where I stand. You have my word that I will not take a step closer to you. Unless,’ he added with the wolfish grin she was becoming familiar with, ‘you ask me to.’

All she could do was shake her head mutely, but not with the terror he was reading in her, but because she’d been rendered speechless.

She’d known Talos naked would be a sight to behold, but she had never dreamed how magnificent he would be.

Why him? she wondered desperately.

Why did her body choose this man to respond to?

Why did it have to respond at all?

She knew what desire looked like, had seen her mother in its grip so many times, then seen her heart broken as her most recent lover tired of the incessant diva demands and ended things, shattering her mother’s heart and fragile ego.

Passion and its companion desire were dangerous things she wanted no part of, had shied away from since early adolescence. Hearts were made to be broken, and it was desire that pulled you into its clutches.

All those protections she’d placed around her libido and sense of self were crumbling.

Talos’s grin dropped. ‘I said I would help you, little songbird, but you have to help yourself too. You have to take the first step.’

Her breaths were coming so hard she could feel the air expanding her lungs.

She thought frantically. She hadn’t ever shown her naked body to a man before. Her few boyfriends had never put pressure on her, respecting her need to wait, the lie she’d told them in order to defer any kind of physicality. Kind men. Safe men.

Was it the safety she’d sought that had kept alive her fear of performing?

One of her psychiatrists—the most astute of them all—had once said he didn’t believe she wanted to be fixed. She’d denied it but now, looking back, she considered the possibility that he’d been partly right.

Her life was safe. Maybe a little boring, but she’d found her niche and she never wanted to leave it or the emotional protection it gave her.

But she had to. She couldn’t stay there any longer. If she didn’t step out she would lose that little niche anyway—for good. Her job would be gone. Her income would be gone. Her independence would be gone. All her friends’ lives would be destroyed too.

‘We are more alike than you think, you and I,’ Talos said.

His voice was deeper and lower than she had ever heard it, every syllable full of meaning. He still hadn’t made a move towards her.

‘We have both chosen solitary pursuits. I focus on my boxing, you have your violin. No one can pull my punches for me and no one can play that violin for you. Think of the emotions you get when you’re kickboxing, the adrenaline you feel through your veins. That is how you must imagine your fear—as something to be channelled and fought. You are on Agon, the land of warriors. We fight. And so must you. Fight, little songbird. Loosen your hold and fly.’

She gripped onto the piano for support and closed her eyes, his words resonating through her.

Was it time to confront all the fear?

If not now, then when?

If not here, then where?

‘Will you turn around when I undress?’

‘I will, but when you play I will watch you. I cannot guarantee I will stop my thoughts roaming to inappropriate places, but I can guarantee I will not act on them.’

I wish I could guarantee the same.

‘If you can get through this you can get through anything. I give you my word.’

Strike her down, but she believed him.

‘Right here and now it is you and me—no one else. If you make mistakes then keep going. You can do this, Amalie.’

Whether it was the calm sincerity in his voice or the confidence emanating from him—God, he was naked—something worked, turning the panic inside her down low enough for her to get a grip on herself.

‘Please turn around,’ she said shakily.

He did as she asked, standing so his back was to her. His back was every bit as beautiful as his front, his body a mass of taut muscle and sinew. He was not professional-body-builder big, but big enough that you would trust him to pull a car off a helpless victim and then carry them over his shoulder to safety without breaking a sweat.

With fingers that fumbled she pulled off her pretty blue top and shrugged her skirt down. Her legs already bare, all that was left was her underwear. She tried to undo her bra, but what was second nature suddenly became the hardest job in the world.

‘I can’t,’ she said, suddenly panic-stricken all over again.

Talos turned his head a touch before twisting his whole body round. Arms folded across his chest, he gazed at her, the look on his face something she’d never seen before. It looked as if it hurt him to breathe.

‘That is enough,’ he said quietly. ‘Now, please—play for me.’

This time she allowed her eyes to dart down and look at what she’d tried to keep as a haze, skimming around the area as if it were pixilated.

The heat that rushed through her at one glance almost knocked her off her feet.

The knowing look that came into his eyes had the same effect.

Talos was in proportion in every way.

Suddenly she yanked her violin off the piano, put it under chin and began to play.

The bow swept across the strings, bouncing gently because of her less than graceful start, but then it did what it had been made to do, whilst her fingers flew up and down the strings. It was probably the worst start to a performance she’d ever given, but she wouldn’t have known either way as at that moment she wasn’t hearing the music, but simply relishing the fact that she was winning this fight. She was doing it. She was playing in front of someone.

God, she was virtually naked.

And Talos was as naked as the day he’d been born.

Somehow she settled into the music, embraced it, letting it become her. Far from closing her eyes, she kept her gaze on him, felt the heat of his returning stare.

By the time she played the last note the tension in the room had merged with the vibrato of her violin, a tangible, pulsating chemistry she felt all the way through to her core.

For long, long moments nothing was said. Not verbally.

The connection between their gazes spoke a thousand words.

‘You brought my skin up in bumps,’ he finally said, his voice raspy.

She gave a helpless shrug.

‘You didn’t play my grandmother’s composition.’

She shook her head. She had played the final movement of one of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons concertos—‘Summer’. The movement that evoked a thunderstorm and perfectly fitted the storm raging beneath her skin.

‘I didn’t want you to hear it when I knew I wouldn’t be able to do it justice. Not the first time.’

‘The first time should be special, yes.’

She breathed deeply, sensing he wasn’t talking about the music any more.

He made no move towards her. The look in his eyes was clear. He’d made her a promise not to get any closer to her. Not unless she invited him to.

Her blood had never felt so thick, as if she’d had hot treacle injected into her veins.

She wanted him. Desperately. Passionately...

No!

The warning shout in her head rang out loud and clear, breaking through the chemistry buffeting them, shattering it with one unsaid syllable.

Without a word she grabbed her top and pulled it back on, smoothing it over her belly as she darted a glance to see his reaction.

He inclined his head, an amused yet pained smile on his lips, then turned to his clothes and stepped back into his underwear and trousers before slipping his powerful arms into his shirt.

‘You played beautifully, little songbird. And now it is time for me to leave.’

‘Already?’ The word escaped before she could catch it.

He dropped his stare down to his undone trousers. ‘Unless you want me to break my promise?’

He cocked his head, waiting for an answer that wouldn’t form.

‘I thought not.’ His eyes flashed. ‘But we both know it’s only a matter of time.’

She swallowed the moisture that had filled in her mouth, pushing it past the tightness in her throat.

‘A car will collect you tomorrow at seven.’

‘Seven?’ she asked stupidly, her mind turning blank at his abrupt turn of conversation.

‘Helios’s ball,’ he reminded her, fastening the last of his buttons. ‘Did you receive the official invitation?’

She nodded. Her invitation had been hand delivered by a palace official, the envelope containing it a thick, creamy material, sealed with a wax insignia. Receiving it had made her feel like a princess from a bygone age.

‘Keep it safe—you’ll need to present it when you arrive. I’ll be staying at my apartment in the palace for the weekend, so I’ll send a car for you.’

She’d assumed they would travel there together, and was unnerved by the twinge of disappointment she felt at learning differently.

‘Okay,’ she answered, determined to mask the emotion.

It wasn’t as if they were going on a proper date or anything, she reminded herself. She was simply his ‘plus one’ for the evening.

‘Are you happy with your dress?’ he asked.

On Monday Amalie had been driven by a member of Talos’s staff to a pretty beachside house and introduced to an elegant elderly woman called Natalia. Natalia had measured every inch of her, clearly seizing her up as she did so. Then she had sat at her desk and sketched, spending less time than it took for Amalie to finish a coffee before she’d ripped the piece of paper off the pad and held out the rough but strangely intricate design to her.

‘This is your dress,’ she had said, with calm authority.

Amalie had left the house twenty minutes later with more excitement running through her veins than she had ever experienced before. She’d been to plenty of high-society parties in her lifetime, but never to a royal ball. And she was to wear a dress like nothing she had worn in her life. Natalia’s vision had been so compelling and assured that she had rolled along with it, swept up in the designer’s vision.

It was strange and unnerving to think she was to be the guest of a prince. She no longer thought of Talos in that light. Only as a man...

‘Natalia is bringing it tomorrow so she can help me into it.’ The dress fastening was definitely a two-person job. If the designer hadn’t been coming to her Amalie would have had to find someone else to help her fasten it. She might have had to ask Talos to hook it for her...

He nodded his approval.

Dressed, Talos ran his fingers through his hair in what looked to Amalie like a futile attempt on his behalf to tame it.

There was nothing tameable about this man.

‘Until tomorrow, little songbird,’ he said, before letting himself out of the cottage.

Only when all the energy that followed him like a cloud had dissipated from the room did Amalie dare breathe properly.

With shaky legs she sat on the piano bench and pressed her face to the cool wood.

Maybe if she sat there for long enough the compulsion to chase after him and throw herself at him would dissipate too.

CHAPTER EIGHT

THE BLACK LIMOUSINE drove over a bridge and through a long archway before coming to a stop in a vast courtyard at the front of the palace.

Her heart fluttering madly beneath her ribs, Amalie stared in awe, just as she’d been gaping since she’d caught her first glimpse of it, magnificent and gleaming under the last red embers of the setting sun.

The driver opened the door for her and held out an arm, which she accepted gratefully. She had never worn heels so high. She had never felt so...elegant.

That’s what wearing the most beautiful bespoke dress in creation does for you.

Still gaping, she stared up. The palace was so vast she had to make one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turns to see from one side to the next. Although vastly different in style, its romanticism rivalled France’s beautiful Baroque palaces. Its architecture was a mixture of styles she’d seen throughout Europe and North Africa, forming its own unique and deeply beautiful style that resembled a great sultan’s palace with gothic undertones.

Two dozen wide curved steps led up to a high-arched ornate entrance, where two footmen dressed in purple-and-gold livery with yellow sashes stood. She climbed the steps towards them, thinking that this was surely what Cinderella had felt like. After studiously checking her official invitation, another footman stepped forward to escort her into the palace itself.

First they entered a reception room so vast her entire cottage would fit inside it—roof and all, with room to spare—then walked through to another room where a group of footmen were being given last-minute instructions by a man who wore a red sash over his livery.

‘Am I the first to arrive?’ she asked her escort, who unfortunately spoke as much French and English as she spoke Greek—none at all.

It wasn’t just the footmen being given instructions or the lack of other guests that made her think she was the first. Scores of waiting staff were also being given a last-minute briefing, many straightening clothing and smoothing down hair. She could feel their eyes on her, and their muted curiosity over the strange woman who had clearly arrived too early.

As she was led into another room—narrower, but much longer than the first reception room—staff carrying trays of champagne were lining up along the walls, beneath a gallery of portraits. At the far end were three tall figures dressed in black, deep in conversation.

Amalie’s heart gave a funny jump, then set off at an alarming rate that increased with every step she took towards them. Her escort by her side, she concentrated on keeping her feet moving, one in front of the other.

Suddenly Talos turned his head and met her gaze, his eyes widening with such dumbstruck appreciation that her pulse couldn’t help but soar. It was a look men so often threw at her beautiful mother, but never at her. But then, Amalie had never felt beautiful before. Tonight, thanks to the hairstylist and beautician Natalia had brought along with her when she’d arrived at the cottage to dress her, she did. She felt like a princess.

And Talos...

Talos looked every inch the Prince.

Like the two men beside him, who matched him in height and colouring, he wore a black tuxedo with a purple bowtie and sash that matched the livery of the palace footmen, and black shoes that gleamed in the same manner as his eyes. For the first time since she’d met him she saw him freshly shaved.

She’d thought the rugged Talos, the man she was getting to know, was as sexy a man as she could ever meet. The princely Talos had lost none of his edge and the wolfish predatory air was still very much there. Not even the expensive dinner jacket could diminish his essential masculinity. He still looked like a man capable of throwing a woman over his huge shoulder and carrying her to a large nomad-style tent to pleasure her in a dozen different ways before she had time to draw breath.

Amalie drew in her own breath as molten heat pooled low inside her at the thought of Talos pleasuring her...

Judging from the look in his eyes, something similar was running through his mind.

He strode over to greet her, enveloping her hand in his before leaning down to kiss her on each cheek.

Suddenly she couldn’t breathe, her senses completely filled with his scent and the feel of his lips against her skin.

‘Little songbird, you are beautiful,’ he whispered into her ear, his deep, gravelly voice sending her heart beating so fast it felt as if it would jump out of her chest. ‘Let me introduce you to my brothers,’ he said while she strove valiantly for composure. ‘Helios, Theseus—this is my guest for the evening: Amalie Cartwright.’

Theseus nodded and smiled. ‘A pleasure to meet you.’

‘And you,’ she murmured in reply.

Helios extended his hand to her, his dark eyes studying her. ‘I understand you are playing our grandmother’s composition at the gala?’

Her cheeks flushing, she nodded and accepted his hand. Suddenly she realised that this was the heir to the throne she was standing before, and bent her knees in a clumsy form of curtsy.

Helios laughed, but not unkindly, before putting his hands on her shoulders and kissing her on each cheek. ‘You are my brother’s guest—please, do not stand on ceremony.’

‘I’m surprised she even tried,’ Talos drawled, slipping an arm around her waist and placing a giant hand on her hip.

Dear God, he was touching her. Even through the heavy cloqué material of her dress she could feel the weight of his touch.

‘The last time Amalie and I discussed matters of ceremony she reminded me that the French chopped all their royal family’s heads off.’

Mortified, she reflexively elbowed him in the stomach, only to elicit more deep laughter from the three Princes that was so contagious her nerves vanished and she found herself laughing along with them.

Although of similar height and colouring, the differences between the brothers were noticeable up close. Theseus, maybe an inch or two shorter than Talos, had a more wiry build and an edgy weariness about him. Helios was as tall as Talos and had a real air of irreverence about him; a man who enjoyed life and was comfortable in his skin.

An officious courtier appeared at their sides and addressed the Princes in Greek.

‘We must take our positions,’ Talos said quietly.

‘Where shall I go?’ she asked.

‘With me...to greet our guests. Tonight you will stay by my side.’

The gleam in his eyes conveyed a multitude of meanings behind his words. A shivery thrill ran through her, and when he linked his arm through hers she accepted the warmth that followed.

‘Where are your brothers’ dates?’ she asked in a low voice.

‘That is the whole purpose of the evening,’ he answered enigmatically as they stepped into a cavernous room with a medieval feel, draped with purple sashes. Long dark wood tables formed an enormous horseshoe, laid with gleaming cutlery and crystal glasses that bounced the light from the chandeliers.

She gasped, totally losing track of her interest in his brothers’ lack of dates. ‘How many people are eating?’

‘One hundred and eighty,’ Talos answered, grinning.

The Banquet Room never failed to elicit a reaction. And neither, it seemed, did Amalie ever fail to make his senses react. One look and he wanted nothing more than to whisk her away somewhere private and feast on her.

With his brothers at the main door, greeting the guests, his role was to welcome them into the Banquet Room and act as host until all the guests had arrived.

Scores of waiting staff were stationing themselves with trays of champagne in hand. Talos helped himself to a glass for them both and passed one to Amalie.

‘Drink it in one,’ he advised. ‘It will relieve the tedium of the next half hour.’

He laughed as she did as he suggested—with enthusiasm and without spilling a single drop.

He could not get over how ravishing she looked. If she hadn’t already been there as his guest he would have spent the evening pursuing her, determined to learn everything there was to know about this enchanting stranger in their midst. He would have rearranged the table settings to be seated next to her—would have done everything in his power to keep her as close to him as he could.

But he didn’t need to do any of that. For this evening this stunning woman was already his.

‘You look amazing,’ he said. ‘Natalia has outdone herself.’

Strapless, Amalie’s gown showed only the slightest hint of cleavage, cinched in at the waist before spreading out and down to her feet, forming a train at the back. It wasn’t just the shape of the dress and the way it showcased her slight form that made it so unique, but the heavy material and the colour too—black, with tiny gold sequins threaded throughout into swirling leaves, glimmering under the lights.

The dramatic effect was accentuated by a gold choker around her slender throat, and her dark hair was held in an elegant knot at the base of her neck. She wore large hooped earrings and her eyes were darkly defined, her lips the most ravishing of reds.

Her eyes, wide with obvious awe up until this point, narrowed. ‘Has Natalia dressed many of your dates?’

There was a definite hint of tartness in her tone. He eyed her contemplatively. Was that tartness a sign of jealousy?

Jealousy was an emotion he had no time for. He neither cared about his lovers’ past bedmates nor felt any pangs of regret when their time was over and they found someone new. If during their time together any sign of possessiveness reared its head, he would end the relationship there and then. Jealousy was dangerous—as dangerous as love itself—driving men and women to lose control of themselves with unimaginable consequences.

And yet hearing that tinge of jealousy filled his chest in a manner he didn’t even want to begin contemplating. Not when he couldn’t take his eyes from her...couldn’t stop his imagination running wild about what lay beneath that stunning dress.

His imagination had run riot since the day before, when she’d played for him semi-naked.

In his head he’d imagined she would wear practical underwear—not the matching lacy black numbers that set off the porcelain of her skin. As slender as he’d imagined, her womanly curves were soft, her breasts high and surprisingly full. What lay beneath those pretty knickers? he’d wondered, over and over. Had she taken the route so many women seemed to favour nowadays? Or had she left herself as nature intended...?

Halfway through her playing he’d smothered a groan, thinking it would be a damn sight better if she were fully naked, as his wild imaginings were utter torture. The expression in her eyes had only added to his torment.

For the first time in his life he’d come close to breaking a promise. He’d known that if he’d taken her into his arms she would have been his. But it hadn’t only been his promise that had kept him propped against the cottage wall. It had been the shyness he’d seen when she’d first stood before him wearing only her underwear—a shyness he’d not seen since his lusty teenage years. An innocence that made him certain Amalie had minimal experience with men.

That innocence had acted like an alarm. A warning. Alas, it had done nothing to diminish the ache, which hadn’t abated a touch, not in his groin or in his chest. All day, helping his brothers with the evening’s arrangements, his mind had been elsewhere—in the cottage, with her.

‘Natalia was my grandmother’s official dressmaker,’ he said softly. ‘She made her wedding dress and my mother’s wedding dress. She’s mostly retired now, but as a favour to me agreed to make your ball gown. I’ve never sent another woman to her.’

Dark colour stained her cheeks—almost as dark as the wide dilation of her eyes. Was that what her eyes would look like when she was in the throes of passion...?

The thought was broken when the first guests were led into the Banquet Room. Two footmen stood at the door, handing out the evening’s booklets—a guide for each guest that was adorned with purple ribbon. Each booklet contained a full guest list, the menu, wine list and a seating plan, along with a list of the music to be played throughout the evening by the Agon Orchestra. The orchestra’s role tonight should go some way towards mitigating any underlying resentment that a French orchestra would be playing at the official gala.

As his brothers had already given the official welcome, Talos’s job was to keep the guests entertained until everyone had arrived.

He would have preferred to be at the main entrance, shaking hands. He hadn’t been joking when he’d described the tedium of what was about to ensue. Almost two hundred guests filed into the Banquet Room, the majority of whom were, at the most, distant acquaintances but all of whom expected to be remembered personally and made to feel like the most important guest there.

Normally Theseus would take this role, and Talos would line up with Helios to do the official greeting. If there was one thing Talos couldn’t abide, it was small talk, having to feign interest in interminably dull people. Tonight, though, he wanted to keep Amalie at his side—not wanting her to have to deal with scores of strangers alone. Palace protocol meant only members of the royal family could make the first greeting.

To his surprise, she was a natural at small talk; moving easily between people with Talos by her side, taking an interest in who they were and what they did that wasn’t feigned, her smiles as warm for those from the higher echelons of society as for those much further down the social ladder.

If she was aware of all the appreciative gazes being thrown her way by men and women alike she did a good job of pretending not to be.

When the gong rang out, signalling for everyone to take their seats, Talos looked at his watch and saw over half an hour had passed since the first guests had stepped into the Banquet Room. The time had flown by.

‘You mastered the room like a pro,’ he said in an undertone as they found their seats on what had been designated the top table.

She cast puzzled eyes on him.

‘The way you handled our welcome job,’ he explained. ‘Most people would be overwhelmed when faced with one hundred and eighty people wanting to make small talk.’

She shrugged with a bemused expression. ‘My parents were always throwing parties. I think I mastered the art of small talk before I learned how to walk.’

‘You attended their parties?’

‘I was the main party piece.’

Before he could ask what she meant another gong sounded out and a courtier bade them all into silence as Helios and Theseus strode regally into the room.

No one took a seat until Helios, the highest-ranked member of the family in attendance, had taken his.

A footman pulled Amalie’s chair out for her, while Talos gathered the base of the train of her dress so she could sit down with ease. He caught a glimpse of delicate white ankle and had to resist the urge to run his fingers over it, to feel for himself the texture of her skin.

‘Thank you,’ she murmured, her eyes sparkling.

‘You’re welcome.’

Taking his own seat, he opened his booklet to peruse the menu. As Helios had directed, the four-course meal had an international flavour rather than one specifically Greek or Agonite.

White wine was poured into the appropriate glasses, the starter of dressed crab with an accompanying crab timbale, crayfish and prawns was brought out by the army of serving staff, and the banquet began.

‘Is your grandfather not attending?’ Amalie whispered before taking a sip of her wine.

‘He is unwell.’

‘Nothing serious, I hope?’ she asked with concern.

He forced a smile. ‘A touch of flu, that’s all.’

‘It must be a worry for you,’ she said, clearly seeing through his brevity.

‘My grandfather is eighty-seven and as tough as a horse,’ he deflected artfully.

She laughed. ‘My English grandfather is eighty-five and tough as a horse too. They’ll outlive the lot of us!’

How he wished that was the case, he thought, his heart turning to lead as he envisaged a life without his grandfather, a steady if often aloof presence, but someone who had always been there.

For the first time he felt the compulsion to confide, to tell the truth of his grandfather’s condition. It was there, right on the tip of his tongue. And he was the man who confided in no one. Not even his brothers.

The thought was unsettling.

Talos had learned the art of self-containment at the age of seven. The only person able to give him enough comfort to sleep when the nightmares had become too much to bear had died five years ago.

Yet for all the solace his grandmother had given him she’d never been able to give him peace. No one could give him that. He would sit stiffly in her arms, refusing to return the physical comfort she gave him. It had been a battle of wills with himself, something he could control and that no one could ever take away.

He’d been wise not to return the affection. How much greater would his pain have been if he had? He’d loved his mother with the whole of his heart. Her death had come close to destroying him.

The pain of his grandmother’s death had still hit him like one of the punches he received in the boxing ring, but it had been survivable. If he’d allowed himself to love her the way he’d loved his mother, he didn’t like to think how he would have reacted. Would the control he’d spent most of his lifetime perfecting have snapped? Would he have returned to those awful adolescent days when his fists had lashed out so many times he’d been on the verge of expulsion?

He was saved from having to respond by a young waiter asking if he would like his wine topped up.

If Amalie noticed his changed demeanour she gave no sign of it, craning her neck to follow their wine server’s progress out of the room. ‘Doesn’t that boy work at your gym?’

He was impressed that she’d recognised him. Workout gear was markedly different from the fitted black-and-white waiter’s uniform, with the purple ribbon stitched into the sides of the trousers.

‘And she’s from your gym too,’ Amalie whispered, nodding at a young girl in the far corner.

‘Most of the kids who work at the gym are working here tonight—it’s extra money for them and good experience.’

He had to admit to feeling an inordinate amount of pride, watching them performing their jobs so well. He’d fought the protocol battle a number of years ago, to allow ‘his’ kids to work at the palace whenever the opportunity arose.

‘Do you make a point of employing teenagers?’

‘It was one of the reasons I decided to build my own gym—I wanted to employ disaffected teenagers and make them feel a sense of worth in themselves. The kids who work there are free to spar and train whenever they’re off duty for no charge.’

‘These kids are allowed to box?’

‘You disapprove?’

‘It’s one thing for a fully grown adult to choose to get into a boxing ring and have his face battered, but quite another when it’s a developing teenager.’

‘Teenagers are full of hormones they have to navigate their way through. It’s a minefield for many of them.’

‘I agree, but...’

‘Agon is a wealthy island, but that doesn’t mean it’s problem-free,’ he said, wanting her to understand. ‘Our teenagers have the same problems as other Western teenagers. We give jobs and training to the ones living on the edge—the ones in danger of dropping out of society, the ones who, for whatever reason, have a problem controlling their anger. Boxing teaches them to control and channel that anger.’

Hadn’t he said something similar to her just the day before, in her cottage? Amalie wondered, thinking hard about the conversation they’d shared. The problem was her own hormones and fear had played such havoc that much of their conversation was blurred in her memory.

‘Is that why you got into boxing?’

His jaw clenched for the beat of a moment before relaxing. ‘I had anger issues. My way of coping with life was using my fists.’

‘Was that because of your parents?’ she asked carefully, aware she was treading on dangerous ground.

He jerked a nod. ‘Things came to a head when I was fourteen and punched my roommate at my English boarding school. I shattered his cheekbone. I would have been expelled if the Head of Sport hadn’t intervened.’

‘They wanted to expel you? But you’re a prince.’

His eyes met hers, a troubled look in them. ‘Expulsion was a rare event at my school—who wants to be the one to tell a member of a royal family or the president of a country that their child is to be permanently excluded? But it wasn’t a first offence—I’d been fighting my way through school since I was eight. The incident with my roommate was the final straw.’

He couldn’t read what was in her eyes, but thought he detected some kind of pity—or was it empathy?

She tilted her head, elongating the swan of her neck. ‘How did your Head of Sport get them to change their mind?’

‘Mr Sherman said he would personally take me under his wing and asked for three months to prove he could tame my nature.’

‘He did that through boxing?’ Now she thought about it, Amalie could see the sense in it. Hadn’t the kickboxing workouts Talos had forced her into doing created a new equilibrium within her? Already she knew that when she returned to Paris she would join a gym that gave the same classes and carry on with it.

‘At my school you had to be sixteen to join the boxing team, but he persuaded them—with the consent of my grandparents—to allow me to join.’ He laughed, his face relaxing as he did so. ‘Apart from my brothers, I was the biggest boy in the school. There was a lot of power behind my punches, which was what had got me into so much trouble in the first place. Mr Sherman taught me everything we now teach the kids who use our gym—the most important being how to channel and control my anger.’

‘Did it work?’

‘I haven’t thrown a punch in anger since.’

‘That is really something.’

Self-awareness nagged at her—an acknowledgement that while Talos had handled his rage through using his fists, she’d retreated from her own fears and buried them. But while he’d confronted and tamed his demons she’d continued hiding away, building a faux life for herself that was nothing like her early childhood dreams—those early days when she’d wanted to be a virtuoso on the violin, just like her father.

She’d been five years old when she’d watched old footage of him at Carnegie Hall—the same night he’d played on stage with Talos’s grandmother—and she’d said, with all the authority of a small child, ‘When I’m growed up I’ll play there with you, Papa.’

She’d let those dreams die.

CHAPTER NINE

IT TOOK A FEW beats for Amalie to regain her composure. ‘Did you get to take part in proper boxing matches?’

‘I was school champion for four years in a row—a record that has never been broken.’ He placed a finger to the scar on his eyebrow. ‘That was my most serious injury.’

She winced. ‘Did you want to take it up professionally?’

‘I’m a prince, so it was never an option—royal protocol.’ He gave a rueful shake of his head, then flashed another grin that didn’t quite meet his eyes. ‘I did win every amateur heavyweight boxing award going, though, including an international heavyweight title.’

‘No!’ she gasped. ‘Really?’

‘It was six years ago.’

‘That is incredible.’

‘It was the best day of my life,’ he admitted. ‘Receiving the winner’s belt with the Agon National Anthem playing... Yes, the best day of my life.’

She shook her head in awe, a thrill running through her as she saw a vision of Talos, standing in the centre of a boxing ring, perspiration dripping from his magnificent body, the epitome of masculinity...

‘Truly, that’s incredible. Do you still compete?’

‘I haven’t boxed in a competitive match since. I knew if I couldn’t fight professionally I wanted to retire on a high.’

‘You must miss it, though.’

She tried to imagine having to stop playing her violin and felt nothing but coldness. Her earliest concrete memory was receiving her first violin at the age of four. Yes, it had partly been forced on her, but she’d loved it, had adored making the same kind of music as her papa, revelled in her parents’ excitement when she’d taken to it with such an affinity that they couldn’t resist showing her off to the world. She’d loved pleasing her parents but before she’d reached double digits the resulting attention from the outside world had turned into her personal horror story. She might have inherited her parents’ musicality, but their showmanship had skipped a generation.

He shrugged. ‘I still spar regularly, but in truth I knew it was time to focus my attention on the business my brothers and I founded. Theseus had gone off on his sabbatical, so Helios was running it almost single-handedly along with dealing with his royal duties. It wasn’t fair on him.’

‘I don’t understand why you all put so much into the business when you have so much wealth.’

He eyed her meditatively. ‘How much do you think it costs to run a palace this size? The running costs, the maintenance, the staff?’

‘A lot?’

‘Yes. A lot. And that’s just for one palace. Factor in the rest of our estates—my villa, for example—travelling costs, security...’

‘I can imagine,’ she cut in, feeling slightly dizzy now he was explaining it.

‘My family has always had personal wealth,’ Talos explained, ‘but a considerable portion of our income came from taxes.’

‘Came?’

He nodded. ‘My brothers and I were determined to make our family self-sufficient, and three years ago we succeeded. Our islanders no longer pay a cent towards our upkeep. I might not compete any more, but I get all the intellectual stimulation I need.’

Amalie swallowed, guilt replacing the dizziness. She’d been so dismissive of his wealth.

Talos Kalliakis might be unscrupulous at getting his own way but he had a flip side—a side that was loyal, decent and thoughtful. He clearly loved his island and his people.

‘What about the physical stimulation you got from competitive boxing?’ she asked. ‘Have you found a replacement for that?’

His eyes glistened, a lazy smile tugging at his lips. ‘There is a physical pastime I partake in regularly that I find very stimulating...’

The breath in her lungs rushed out in a whoosh.

When he looked at her like that and spoke in that meaningful tone all her senses seemed to collide, making her tongue-tied, unable to come up with any riposte—witty or otherwise.

For the first time she asked herself why she should. Why make a joke out of something that made her blood and belly feel as warm and thick as melted chocolate? Why continue to deny herself something that could take her places she’d locked away?

Hadn’t she punished herself enough?

That thought seemed to come from nowhere, making her blink sharply.

Punished herself enough?

But there was something in that. Her fear was wrapped in so many layers, with her guilt over her role in her parents’ divorce bound tightly in the middle of it.

Talos had confronted his fears and mastered them. Wasn’t it time she allowed herself the same? She didn’t have to suppress her basic biological needs and be a virgin for ever out of fear. Or guilt.

She wasn’t her mother. Allowing herself to be with Talos and experience the pleasure she just knew she would receive at his willing giant hands wouldn’t be a prelude to falling in love. A man holding one hundred musicians’ livelihoods to ransom for the sake of a gala could pose no risk to her heart.

She cleared her throat and dropped her voice to a murmur. ‘Would you care to elucidate on this stimulation you speak of?’

She would swear his eyes darkened to match the melting chocolate in her veins.

He leaned his head forward and spoke into her exposed ear. ‘I can do much better than that...’

The chocolate heated and pooled down low, right in the apex of her thighs...the feeling powerful enough to make her lips part and a silent moan escape her throat.

Just when she was certain he was going to kiss her—or, worse, she was going to kiss him—activity around them brought her to her senses.

They were in the Banquet Room of the royal palace, surrounded by almost two hundred people, the heir to the throne sitting only six seats to her right. And she was bubbling up with lust.

During the rest of the banquet she made a studious effort to speak to the gentleman on her right, a prince from the UK. Through it all, though, her mind, her senses, her everything were consumed by Talos, deep in conversation with the woman to his left, a duchess from Spain.

Somehow their chairs had edged closer so his thigh brushed against hers, and when their dessert of loukoumades—a delicious Greek doughnut, drizzled with honey, cinnamon and walnuts—was cleared away, and they were awaiting the final course of fresh fruit, a shock ran through her when his hand came to rest on her thigh.

She wished she’d tried to talk Natalia into a different material for the dress; something lighter. The heavy fabric suited the theatricality of the dress beautifully, but while she could feel the weight of Talos’s hand there was none of the heat her body craved.

It wasn’t enough.

She wanted to feel him.

Sucking in a sharp breath to tame the thundering of her heart, she casually straightened, then moved her hand under the table to rest on his. As she threaded her fingers through his he gave the gentlest of squeezes, and that one simple action sent tiny darts of sensation rippling through her abdomen.

Strong coffee and glasses of port were poured, whilst the British Prince chattered on about one of the charities he was patron of. Amalie tried hard to keep her attention fixed on him, smiling in all the right places, laughing when appropriate, all the while wishing every guest there would magically disappear and leave her alone with Talos.

She hadn’t drunk much wine—a couple of glasses at most—but felt as if she’d finished a whole bottle, because at that moment she felt giddily out of control.

Talos still had hold of her thigh, his thumb making circular motions on the material so torturously barricading him from her skin.

She had no idea where her nerve came from—maybe her fingers had a life of their own, because they moved away from his hand to tentatively brush his thigh. He stiffened at her touch, his own hand tightening its hold on her.

The British Prince chattered on, clearly oblivious to the undercurrents playing out beside him.

Slowly her fingers crept over Talos’s thigh until her whole hand rested on it. The fabric of his trousers felt silken to her fingers, contrasting with the taut muscularity they covered. She could feel him.

He sat as stiff as a statue, making no attempt to move when, with a flush of heat she realised her little finger was right at the crevice of his thigh, the line of the V that connected it to his groin...

A feeling of recklessness overtook her and she swiped the little finger up a little further—deeper into his heat, closer to the source of his masculinity.

The statue came to life.

Talos swept his hand away from her thigh to reach for his port, which he swilled down before putting the glass back on the table. Not that she saw him do any of those things, rather she felt them, her attention still, to anyone interested enough to be watching, fixed on the British Prince.

Then Talos’s hand was back under the table and clasping hers, which was slowly stroking his thigh, her little finger brushing the V of his groin. Twisting it so he could hold it tightly, he entwined his fingers in hers.

‘Are you okay?’ the British Prince asked, pausing in his talk on water sanitation in developing countries. ‘You look flushed.’

She felt her neck and cheeks flame. ‘I think I need some air, that’s all,’ she said to the Prince, hoping she didn’t sound as flustered as she felt inside.

A warm arm slipped behind her back and round her waist and Talos was there, pressing against her, ostensibly having abandoned his conversation with the Duchess to join in with theirs.

‘Don’t worry, little songbird,’ he said, his deep voice sending reverberating thrills racing through her. ‘The banquet will soon be over.’

Talos felt as if he needed air too...

If her hand had moved any higher and actually touched the hardness that was causing him such aching pain he would have come undone on the spot.

Never in his life had he been so aroused, not even yesterday in the cottage where, despite their lack of clothing, it had been a different arousal.

He sensed no fear in Amalie now.

No, this was a special kind of sweet torture and in front of all Helios’s guests he was unable to do a damn thing about it.

So long as he kept her hand away from his crotch he would master it. The most sensible option would be to stop touching her altogether, but sensible didn’t count for anything—not when it was Amalie Cartwright he was touching.

He let out a breath of relief when the palace quartet entered the Banquet Room, mandolins and banjos playing out the guests with the folk music beloved of all Agonites.

The Agon royal party rose first. Keeping her hand firmly clasped in his, Talos led Amalie through to the adjoining ballroom, delighting in her gasp of pleasure.

The ballroom was by far the most majestic of all the palace rooms, both in size and stature. With high ceilings and a black-and-white checked floor, even Talos experienced a thrill of stepping into a bygone age whenever he entered it.

As soon as the royal party entered, the orchestra, situated in a corner, began to play.

Most of the guests took seats at the highly decorated round tables lining the walls, free to choose where they wanted to sit. The two ornate thrones at the top of the room shone under the swooping chandeliers. Looking at them sent a pang through him. They would remain empty for the duration of the evening.

He wondered how his grandfather was, his stomach twisting at the remembrance of the vomiting episode he had witnessed just a few short hours ago. He consoled himself with the knowledge that should his grandfather take a turn for the worse he and his brothers would be notified immediately.

Talos guided Amalie to a table and poured them both a glass of wine. Theseus joined them and, as was his nature, soon had Amalie giggling as he regaled her with tales of their childhood.

A strange tightening spread across his chest to see her so clearly enthralled, and with a start he realised the cause. Jealousy. His jealousy. She’d never laughed so freely for him.

This was becoming dangerous.

Desire was one thing, but jealousy... That was one emotion too far and too ugly.

That was what you got for spending so much time with a beautiful woman without bedding her. If he’d bedded her from the start her allure would have vanished already and he would now be focussing on getting her performance-fit without wasting energy wondering how she looked naked or whether she moaned loudly when she came.

For all his words about ‘partaking’ regularly, he hadn’t been with a woman in months—not since his grandfather’s diagnosis. It was as if his libido had gone into stasis.

And now his libido had gone into hyperdrive.

Forget noble thoughts about not taking advantage of her position on the island, or that she was there because of his blackmail. The chemistry between them had gone off the charts. All they needed was one night to detonate it. One night. Come the morning, their chemistry would be spent. If not, they still had three weeks to expel it completely, but they would have tamed the worst of it. They would be able to concentrate on nothing but her gala performance.

At that moment the orchestra broke into a waltz, indicating the start of the evening’s dancing. Talos watched Helios take a deep breath, fix a smile to his face and cross the ballroom to tap a princess from the old Greek royal family on the shoulder. She was on her feet like a shot, allowing him to lead her onto the dance floor. It was the cue for the other guests who fancied trying their hands at traditional ballroom dancing to get to their feet.

‘Shouldn’t you find a lady to dance with?’ Talos pointedly asked his brother in Greek.

Theseus’s smile dropped. He grimaced, his eyes darting around the room as if he were searching for someone. ‘I’ll have a drink first. But don’t let me stop you—you two make a beautiful couple.’

Talos narrowed his eyes and fixed Theseus with his ‘stare’. Theseus pulled a face and swigged his wine.

‘Would you like to dance?’ he asked Amalie. Talos might loathe dancing, but the thought of having her in his arms was a temptation not to be resisted.

‘I’ve never waltzed,’ she said dubiously.

‘Most of our guests have never waltzed. I will lead you.’ That was if he could remember. He hadn’t waltzed since the Debutantes Ball in Vienna, which his grandfather had forced him to attend when he was twenty-one. If his brothers hadn’t already been forced into attendance at the same age he would have put up more than an obligatory protest.

She allowed him to help her to her feet and guide her onto the dance floor.

Facing her, he dropped her hand, took a step back and bowed. ‘You must curtsy,’ he instructed.

Her luscious lips spread into a smile. ‘Certainly, Your Highness.’

He returned the smile and reached for her right hand with his left and held it out to the side. ‘Now, place your other hand on my bicep.’

‘There’s enough of it for me to hold on to,’ she answered, that same smile still playing on her lips, her eyes glimmering with a private message to him—a message he understood and that made his blood pressure rise so high his heart felt in danger of thudding out of his ribs.

To hell with the traditional hold, he thought, placing his right hand on her back and resting his fingers on the bare flesh above the lining of the dress.

She felt exquisite.

Soon they were swirling around the room, the enchantment on her face making all the ridiculous ballroom-dancing lessons he and his brothers had been subjected to in their teenage years worthwhile—something he had never thought would happen.

Amalie felt as if she’d stepped into heaven. She’d never waltzed before but it didn’t matter; Talos guided her around the dance floor with a tenderness and grace that was as unexpected as it was heavenly.

She had never felt so feminine before either, the security of his arms something she would savour and relish.

The original gap between them when they’d started dancing had closed, and suddenly she was very much aware their bodies were pressed together.

Releasing her grip on his bicep, she smoothed her hand up to clasp the nape of his neck, glad a slower waltz was now being played, one that allowed her time to do nothing but gaze up into his eyes. Her legs followed his lead with no thought.

The heels she wore elevated her enough that her breasts pressed against his chest, his abdomen against the base of her stomach, but to her intense frustration she couldn’t feel him anywhere other than on her back, where his hand rested, his heat scorching her skin in the most wonderful way imaginable.

‘Your brothers seem nice,’ she said, frantic to cut through the tension between them before she was forced into something drastic—like dragging him away.

‘They’re good men,’ he agreed, his gaze not dropping from hers.

‘What did you mean earlier, when I asked if they had dates and you said that was the whole purpose of the evening?’

He laughed lightly. ‘It is time for Helios to end his bachelor days. He is hoping that tonight he will meet someone suitable.’

‘Someone suitable? For marriage?’

‘Yes. A woman of royal blood.’

‘That sounds clinical.’

‘He is heir to the throne.’

His fingers were making the same circles on her back that he’d made on her thigh, but this time she could actually feel it. And it felt wonderful.

‘It is traditional for the heir to marry a woman of royal descent.’

‘Is there a reason why he’s looking for a bride now?’ She thought of their absent grandfather, the King, and wondered if there was more to his illness than Talos was letting on.

‘He’s of the right age.’

She felt his muscles ripple as he lifted a shoulder in a shrug.

‘He wants to be young enough to enjoy his children.’

‘If you marry, will it have to be someone of royal descent too?’ As she asked the question a strange clenching gripped her heart.

‘No.’

‘So if you marry it will be for love?’

His lips twisted into a mocking grin. ‘If I marry it will be because someone has placed a gun to my head.’

‘Marriage is a piece of paper. It doesn’t mean anything.’

Love was the state she’d always feared—not a commitment so easily broken it wasn’t worth the paper it was signed on. It was passionate love that made fools of people. A piece of paper could dissolve a marriage into nothing, but a severed heart never fully healed.

‘It means a lot if you’re a member of the Kalliakis royal family. Divorce is forbidden.’

That’s fine, she thought. I don’t want to marry you. All I want is to touch you. Everywhere.

That was why she would be safe from the threat of a severed heart. Her passion for Talos was purely physical. When she returned to Paris her heart wouldn’t feel a thing, would only skip at memories of being with him.

‘Is divorce forbidden for everyone on your island?’

‘Only members of the royal family,’ he murmured.

‘And are you allowed lovers? Before you marry?’ she added, dropping her voice even lower.

His eyes were a blaze of molten lava, his strong nose flaring, his jaw clenched. ‘If I want a lover no decree is going to stop me.’

Nothing and no one could stop this man doing anything he wanted.

The thought should appal her, but it didn’t—not when the thought of allowing him to do whatever he wanted was so strong she dug her nails into his neck to stop her fingers yanking at her dress so she could press her bare skin to him. Her desperation to feel him was matched only by her desperation for him to feel her.

A finger tapped her shoulder. It was the British Prince. ‘May I have the next dance?’

‘No,’ Talos growled, not looking at him, but tightening his hold on her back and his grip on her hand.

‘You can’t blame a chap for trying,’ the Prince said, laughing ruefully before striding off to find another dance partner.

Talos stopped dancing. The clenching of his jaw was even more pronounced. ‘I have an apartment here in the palace.’

She didn’t miss a beat or fake coyness. ‘Is it far?’

‘It’s closer than my villa or your cottage.’

A spark passed between them, so real and powerful she felt it in every atom of her being.

He brought her hand to his lips. ‘Follow me,’ he murmured.

CHAPTER TEN

HER HAND CLASPED tightly in his, Amalie followed Talos’s lead, weaving through the waltzing couples, yearning to run but keeping her pace steady, avoiding eye contact lest anyone wanted to talk.

She could see the door he was leading her to, in the left-hand corner of the great room. The closer they got, the longer his strides became, until they were nodding at the footmen posted there and then slipping out into a corridor she didn’t recognise. Judging by the strong scent of food, she figured they had to be close to the palace kitchens.

They took a left into another long corridor, then another and another. Staff were everywhere, all bowing as they passed.

It wasn’t until they reached a fifth corridor, this one dimly lit, that they were completely alone.

Talos had her pinned to the wall so quickly there was no chance to draw breath.

His hands clasped her cheeks and his mouth crashed onto hers with a passion her starving body responded to immediately. His tongue swept across her lips, forcing them to part, then darted into her mouth, his resulting groan stoking the heat consuming her.

She responded with fire, cradling his head, returning the kiss with all the hunger that burned inside her for him.

No sooner had it started than he broke the kiss, keeping her pinned to the wall with his strength, his thumbs running in swirls over her cheeks, his brown eyes dark with intensity.

‘I have never been closer to ripping a woman’s dress off and taking her in public than I was in that ballroom,’ he said roughly.

A pulse ran through her, deliciously powerful. In answer, she nuzzled into his hand and kissed his palm.

He stepped back, trailing his fingers down her neck to the edge of her dress, his breathing heavy. ‘We’re almost at my apartment.’

They set off again to the end of the corridor, walking at a speed only a tiny rate below a run, until they came to a spiralling marble staircase with a heavy rope barrier across the base of it. Talos moved it swiftly, indicating for her to go up. At the top was a small passage with a door at the end and a small security box by the side. He punched in the code and the door swung open.

Lights came on with the motion and Amalie found herself in an enormous masculine living space, richly furnished with plump charcoal-coloured sofas against a backdrop of muted blues and creams. The room’s walls were covered in huge colourful paintings.

There was no time for looking with depth. Talos threw his jacket, sash and bow tie on the floor and guided her through the living area and into a bedroom dominated by the largest bed she’d ever seen—an enormous sleigh bed with intricate carvings.

On the wall opposite the door stood a floor-length mirror, edged with the same intricately carved wood. Catching sight of her reflection, she came to a stop.

Was that woman staring back at her with the flushed cheeks and wild eyes really her? Amalie? The woman who had formed a cosy life for herself while shying away from everything this man—this gorgeous man—was offering her? The man staring at her with a hunger she had only ever seen in films.

Transfixed, she watched as he stepped behind her, not touching her other than to place his hands on the tops of her arms. A small moan escaped her throat when he dropped a kiss in the arch of her neck.

Swaying lightly, she let her eyes flutter closed and sighed as his fingers swept across her shoulder blades and down her spine to rest at the top her dress.

Bending his head to kiss her ear and brush his lips lightly against her temple, he found and unfastened the hidden hook, then pinched the concealed zipper and slowly pulled it down, all the way to the base of her spine. His hands slid back up the exposed flesh to the top of the dress, then skimmed it assuredly down to her hips, exposing her bare breasts. When he released his hold on it the dress fell in a lazy whoosh to her feet, leaving her naked bar skimpy black knickers and gold shoes.

He wrapped an arm around her middle and held her against him, so she could lift her feet one at a time and step out of the vast amount of material. Talos kicked the dress away, then met her eyes in the reflection of the mirror, a dangerous, lustful glimmer in his stare.

Her chest thrust forward, almost begging for his touch.

The hand holding her so protectively brushed over her stomach and up her side, circling round her breasts to trace along her collarbone and up her neck to the base of her head. Slowly he worked at the elegant knot of her hair until he freed it, gently pulling it down to sprawl across her shoulders.

‘Have you had many lovers, little songbird?’ he asked, inhaling the scent of her hair.

Speech had deserted her; all she was capable of doing was shaking her head.

‘Have you had any lovers?’

The second shake of her head had more force behind it, but inside she reeled.

Was her virginity that obvious?

He must have read the question in her expression. ‘I am an expert at reading between lines,’ he said enigmatically, before twisting her round to face him. He ran his thumb over her bottom lip. ‘Why don’t we even things up and you undress me?’

With hands that trembled, she reached for the top button of his shirt, fumbled with it, then found some dexterity and undid it, then the next. Working quickly, aware of the heaviness of his breathing, she undid them all, then spread the shirt open. Not even conscious of what she was about to do, she pressed her lips to his chest and breathed him in, inhaling the muskiness that evoked thoughts of dark forests and adrenaline-filled danger.

His chest rose and swelled, his hand reaching into her hair and gathering it in his fingers.

Her fingers trailed down the thickening black hair to his abdomen and found the hook fastening his hand-stitched trousers. She swallowed as the palm of her hand felt the heat beneath. She unhooked it, but then her nerve deserted her. Suddenly a burst of sanity crashed through the lustful haze she’d been entranced in.

She’d never touched a man intimately before.

She wanted to touch Talos with a need bordering on desperation, but for the first time her virginity was something she was wholly aware of.

How could she be anything but a disappointment to him? A man as rampantly masculine as Talos would have had scores of lovers, all confident in their bodies and sexuality.

Talos felt Amalie’s hesitation, felt the fear creep through her.

His suspicions about her being a virgin had been right. He would have been more surprised to learn she’d had any lovers.

He didn’t care about her reasons for never having had a lover; cared only that at this moment she was here, with him, and that the crazy chemistry between them could be acted upon. Amalie wasn’t on the hunt for a relationship any more than he was; her comment about marriage only being a piece of paper had concurred with his own thoughts entirely.

But confirmation of her virginity did force him to take a deep breath and try to cool his ardour. All prior thoughts of simply discarding their clothes and falling into bed were gone. He needed to take it slow. He didn’t want to hurt her. By the time he made her his he wanted her so turned on but also relaxed, he could enter her without causing any pain.

Gently he twisted her back to face the mirror, placing an arm around her belly. Her eyes closed and her head rolled back to rest on his shoulder, her breath coming in tiny hitches. He could feel her heartbeat hammering with an identical rhythm to his own.

Moving quickly, he unzipped his trousers with his free hand and worked them off, deliberately keeping his boxers on so the temptation to plunge himself straight into her could be more easily denied.

Done, he pressed himself into the small of her back, felt her tremble, saw her lips part in a silent moan.

‘Open your eyes,’ he commanded quietly into her ear.

They fluttered open and met his gaze in the reflection of the mirror.

His fingers played on the lace of her knickers and then tugged them down, delighting to find the dark silky hair below. He dipped a finger into her heat and groaned when he found her moist and swollen.

Keeping the pressure there light and rhythmical, he splayed his other hand upwards and captured a raised breast. It fitted perfectly into his hand. He could hardly wait to taste it, to taste every part of her but before he could take her into his arms and carry her to his bed her back arched, her groin pressed hard against his finger and she stiffened. He watched in awe at their reflection. Her eyes were tightly closed, her lips parted, her cheeks flushed. Then she shuddered and became limp in his arms. If she hadn’t been secure against him, he had no doubt she would have fallen to the floor.

He’d never seen or felt anything like it—such a primal, animalistic response. It filled him with something he couldn’t name...could only feel, gripping his chest.

Keeping her pressed tight against him, he turned her enough to lift her into his arms.

There was no resistance; her eyes gazed into his, dazed bewilderment ringing out. When she reached a hand to press a palm to his cheek he swallowed, his heart beating so fast it had become a painful thrum.

He laid her down on the bed and shrugged his open shirt off, discarding it on the floor.

She’d covered her breasts. He took hold of her hands and carefully parted them, exposing her full nakedness to him.

To his eyes, Amalie was perfect—her arms and legs toned and smooth, her skin soft, her breasts high, ripe peaches, begging to be tasted.

Bringing his head down to hers, he captured her lips. She returned his kiss with passion, her tongue sweeping into his mouth, her hot, sweet breath flowing into his senses. Her hands reached for his head and razed through his hair.

As he deepened the kiss he stroked his fingers down her body, exploring the soft skin, delighting in the mews escaping her throat.

Breaking the kiss, he ran his lips down her throat and lower, to her breasts, capturing one in his mouth...

Theos.

For the first time since his teenage years he was on the verge of losing control already. He had never felt so constricted by his boxer shorts, the tight cotton material as tight a barrier as steel.

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