Читать книгу The Kalliakis Crown - Мишель Смарт, Michelle Smart - Страница 16
ОглавлениеA 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.
