Читать книгу Modern Romance December 2015 Books 5-8 - Мишель Смарт, Kate Walker - Страница 22
ОглавлениеTALOS GOT INTO his car and turned on the ignition. He’d barely cleared his villa before he turned the car back and turned the engine off.
He imagined her cottage, in the distance, hidden from where he sat by dense trees. He imagined her waiting by the door for him, dressed in the tight-fitting sweats that showed off her slender curves. Imagined the welcoming kiss she would give him, her enthusiasm, as if they’d been parted for weeks rather than a few hours.
Since she’d played for him in the bedroom she’d had no problem with him being around while she practised his grandmother’s piece. The problem was that her orchestra had arrived a couple of days ago and proper rehearsals for the gala had begun. Amalie had taken to the stage for the first rehearsal and frozen.
Today he’d been there to witness it for himself—and this time she’d played it to the end, but only by keeping her terror-filled eyes on him. She’d visibly trembled throughout, and the notes she’d played had been tense and short—nothing like the flowing, dreamlike melody she achieved when they were alone.
Her obvious distress felt like sharpened barbs in his heart.
It was too soon for her. Maybe if the gala were in a couple of months, or even weeks, there would be time but it was only four days away. She knew her part perfectly, and the orchestra knew theirs, but what use was that when she couldn’t get her fingers to work?
And he, arrogant bastard that he was, had forced this nightmare on her, believing that some fighting spirit could cure half a lifetime of severe stage fright.
There was no way to fix it in time, not without putting her through an enormous amount of distress.
Tomorrow she would dine with his grandfather. Talos had invited himself along as well and hadn’t liked the look in his grandfather’s eyes when he’d suggested he come. It had been far too knowing.
Amalie’s solo was the one performance of the whole gala that his grandfather was looking forward to. He might have to miss large chunks of the ceremony, but he had told Talos only yesterday that he would sooner be in his coffin than miss her performance.
Swallowing the acrid bile in his throat, Talos dug his phone out of his pocket and called her. ‘I’m going to have to give tonight a miss,’ he said, speaking quickly. ‘Something’s come up.’
‘Are you all right?’ The concern in her voice was plain.
He didn’t want her concern. He didn’t deserve it. The only thing he deserved was a dozen punches to his gut for forcing this nightmare on her.
‘I’m busy with work, that’s all. I’ll try and catch up with you later.’
He blew out a breath of stale air as he disconnected his phone and tried to clamp down on the emotions raging through him, the feeling that his whole life was converging in a tipping point over which he had no control.
* * *
Amalie stepped through the trees surrounding her cottage and gazed at the villa in the distance. The moonless night was dark, but the white building glowed brilliantly under the stars.
It took her ten minutes to cross the land and reach it, and by the time she knocked on the front door her heart was thundering at a rate of knots, her hands clammy. She’d never been inside Talos’s villa before. It occurred to her that she’d never been invited. His villa was very much his private sanctuary. Kept apart from her.
All evening she’d been waiting for another call from him or a knock on the cottage door. Something was wrong, and had been for the past couple of days. There was an unbreachable distance between them.
She knew he was worried about the gala. She was too. Terrified about it. They’d both had such confidence that she was ready to play in public, but that confidence had been a deception. Her nerves were winning the war. She’d just about managed to scrape through the rehearsal earlier, when she’d had his face to focus on, but her shaking fingers had prevented any hint of musicality.
Was that the reason for his distance?
Frustration and disappointment with her?
The maid who opened the door recognised her and welcomed her in with a smile. As neither spoke the other’s language, the maid beckoned Amalie to follow her.
The interior of the villa was as fresh and modern as the palace was old and medieval, but with a definite nod to Agon’s Minoan ancestry; Greek sculptures and artwork adorned the walls.
After leading her down a wide flight of marble stairs and through a large door the maid stopped and pointed at another closed door, gave a quick bow, and disappeared back up the stairs, leaving Amalie on her own.
Heart in her mouth, she tapped on the door. When there was no answer she rapped again, louder, pressing her ear to it. She heard nothing. She chewed her lips before deciding to turn the handle. She pushed the door ajar and peered through the crack, pushing it wide open when she realised this was Talos’s personal gym.
Weight-lifting equipment, a treadmill and a rowing machine—items she wouldn’t have known one from the other a month ago—were lined up against the mirrored wall opposite the doorway. Through the same mirror she caught sight of a blur and turned to the left.
There he was, oblivious to her presence, thrashing the living daylights out of a punching bag.
She knew she should call out to him, let him know she was there, but she was captivated by what she saw.
All he wore was a pair of black shorts. His feet were bare, his hands gloveless. She winced to imagine the damage he could be doing to his fingers, her chest constricting as she realised something must be seriously wrong for him to forgo the gloves he always insisted on. Only the week before she’d seen him admonish a teenager for daring to hit a basic pad without gloves. A punching bag was a much harder target.
All the same, she was mesmerised by the energy he exuded.
This was Talos stripped back, in all his graceful, powerful glory.
Sweat dripped off him, his muscles rippled, his punches were hard and merciless—as if he were imagining the punching bag as a living target, a foe to be destroyed.
He was in pain. She knew that as surely as she knew her own name. His pain was in every one of his punches.
He must have caught sight of her in the mirror, for he suddenly stopped and spun around. Breathing heavily, he stared at her disbelievingly, his throat moving, his jaw clenched.
Her lips parted to apologise for the intrusion—and it was an intrusion—but the words stuck in her throat.
Not taking his eyes off her, Talos reached for a towel and wiped his face and chest, then dropped it to the floor and prowled over to stand before her.
His chest was rising and falling in rapid motion, and his nostrils flared before his mouth came crashing down on hers and she was pushed back against the wall.
His kisses were hungry, the kisses of a starving man. His powerful strength was something she’d always been hugely aware of, but until that moment she’d never appreciated the restraint he displayed around her. Now, holding her upright against the wall with one arm, he gripped her hip with his free hand and pulled her tight against him, before loosening his grip to slide his hand down her thigh to the hem of her short skirt and rip her knickers off. Manipulating her thighs to wrap around him, he freed himself from his shorts and plunged into her with a groan that spoke as much of pain as it did of pleasure.
Amalie held him tight, breathing in his salty, woody scent, cradling his scalp, wanting only to take away his pain.
As far as lovemaking went this was fierce, primal, but she embraced every carnal thrust, felt the pulsations building in her core as she clung to him. He gave a roar and buried his face in her hair, his whole body shaking, and his final thrust pushed her over the edge as the pulsations exploded with a shocking power that took all the life from her bones and left her limp in his arms.
Time lost any meaning.
It was only when he gently placed her back on her feet, tugged her skirt down from around her waist and stepped back, that she saw the red mark on the top of his shoulder and realised she had made it with her mouth.
Talos spotted it too and gave a ragged grin. ‘My first love bite,’ he said, in an attempt at humour that didn’t fool her for a second.
She waited for him to ask why she was there, but all he did was cup her cheeks and kiss her with something close to desperation, then pull her to him.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, his voice husky. ‘That was incredibly selfish of me.’
‘I’m not,’ she murmured, tilting her head to look up at him.
His eyes closed and he muttered an oath. ‘I didn’t use protection.’
That made her blink. She hadn’t been in the right frame of mind to think of protection either.
‘We should be okay. I’m due on tomorrow.’
‘Should be okay?’ He gave a savage shake of his head.
‘I’m not an expert, but I’m certain I’m way past the ovulation stage of my cycle. And I’m always regular,’ she added, trying to reassure him even while the image of a dark-haired baby wrapped in vine leaves filtered into her mind. ‘I’ll know within a couple of days if we have a problem.’
The pulse in his jaw was working overtime. ‘Make sure to tell me the minute you know.’
‘I promise.’ She hesitated before asking, ‘Talos, what’s wrong? You’ve become so distant.’
He gazed back down at her, and for a moment she was certain he was about to talk. Instead, he pulled his arms away and took a step back.
‘Nothing’s wrong. I’m a little stressed about the gala, I have a few minor problems with work, a lack of sleep...the usual.’
‘I’m sure the rehearsals tomorrow will go better,’ she said, trying to inject positivity into her tone. ‘At least I was able to play it today.’
Even if it had sounded like a cats’ chorus ringing out, and even if the members of her orchestra had been gazing at her with something close to horror.
He raised his eyes to the ceiling and shook his head, before jerking it into a nod. ‘I’m sure you’re right.’
And in that moment she knew he was lying.
He wasn’t merely concerned.
He didn’t believe she could do it.
Panic took hold in her chest.
Up until that point Talos’s conviction that he could fix her had taken root in her head, allowing her to believe that she could overcome her fear in time. But if her warrior prince had lost faith, what did that say? Where did that leave her? Where did that leave them?
‘I need to go to Athens first thing in the morning,’ he said, rubbing the back of his neck. ‘I’ll collect you at seven for dinner with my grandfather.’
Was this his way of dismissing her?
‘Okay...’ she answered uncertainly. ‘Are you certain it’s informal dress?’
‘My grandfather insists. He wants it to be a relaxed occasion, where you can both talk without formality.’
‘That sounds good,’ she said. ‘Are you coming back to the cottage with me?’
Instinct had already told her his answer, but she had to ask. She wouldn’t presume to invite herself to stay here at the villa with him—even if it wasn’t so obvious he wished her gone.
‘Not tonight. I’ve an early start. I’ll only disturb you if I stay over, and you need a good night’s sleep as much as I do. I’ll walk you back.’
His words made sense. That didn’t stop them feeling like a knife plunging into her heart.
She forced a smile to her face and leaned up to kiss him, pretending that nothing was wrong when it was blindingly obvious that he was steeling himself to end their relationship.
Not that what they shared was a relationship, she scolded herself on their silent walk back to the cottage. It had always had an end date attached to it; she had accepted that. She just hadn’t considered that he would tire of her before the end date. She hadn’t considered that he would lose faith in her.
* * *
Amalie strove to hide the shock that meeting King Astraeus Kalliakis evoked.
With Talos’s hand in the small of her back, they had been escorted by a courtier to the King’s private dining room—a space a fraction of the size of the Banquet Room but every bit as sumptuous.
The pictures she’d seen of the King had depicted a tall, handsome man. Even at his eightieth birthday celebrations, with his ebony hair having thinned and turned white, he’d exuded vitality. That was the man she had prepared herself to meet.
‘Forgive me for not rising to greet you,’ he said, his voice weak. ‘If I could get up I would kiss your hand.’
She had no idea what possessed her, but when she took the unsteady hand he offered she was the one to place a kiss on the paper-thin skin, rather than giving the curtsy she’d practised earlier.
He smiled warmly, then indicated for his nurse to wheel him to the table.
Amalie tried to catch Talos’s eye but he was avoiding her gaze, just as he’d avoided any conversation other than the usual pleasantries on their drive to the palace. He hadn’t even mentioned her phone call early that morning confirming that her period had started.
As masochistic as she knew it to be, she’d felt a definite twinge of disappointment when she’d spotted the telltale signs of her period. She’d never even thought of having children before. Not once. But for less than twelve hours there had been the smallest of chances that she might have conceived and her imagination had taken root. Any initial concerns about what a disaster it would be, seeing as she was in anything but a loving relationship, and it would affect the career she longed to reclaim, had fallen by the wayside as she’d imagined what it would be like to have Talos’s child.
It had felt almost dreamlike.
She had no idea if she would be any good as a mother, but instinct told her he would make a fantastic father. She sighed. It was something she would never know, and it was pointless to allow her thoughts to run in such wayward directions, not when there were so many other things occupying her mind.
When she’d given Talos the news his response had been a distant, ‘That’s one less thing to worry about.’
And now she knew why he’d been so distant. He had been thinking of his grandfather.
Why hadn’t he told her his grandfather was ill? And not just ill, but clearly dying. It was there in the gauntness of his features—he must have lost half his body weight since those pictures had been taken at his eightieth. And it was there in the sallow yellow complexion of his skin, the hollowness of his eyes... It was everywhere. She could feel it.
‘You must be curious as to why I wanted to meet you,’ the King rasped, once their first course of tomato and basil soup had been served.
‘I assumed you wanted to meet the woman who will play your wife’s final composition.’
As she spoke, her skin chilled. Today’s rehearsal had been a step backwards.
It had started well enough. Christophe, the orchestra’s conductor for the gala, had found a screen for her to hide behind, so she could actually play in time with the orchestra. It had worked beautifully. Then the screen had been removed and she’d found herself breathing in and out of a paper bag in an effort to stem the panic attack clawing at her.
Christophe was on the verge of his own nervous breakdown, freaking out so much he’d contracted a hypnotist to fly over to Agon for her.
She’d searched in vain for Talos, waiting for him to step through the practice room’s door and give her confidence with a simple smile. But he’d been in Athens. If he was by her side she would be able to get through it; they’d already proved that. With more practice, and with Talos and his calming presence, she might be able to do the score the justice she gave it when they were alone.
‘Indeed.’ Watery brown eyes held hers. ‘Tell me about yourself, despinis.’
‘My career?’
That would be a very short conversation.
He waved a hand. ‘I want to know about you. The music you enjoy, the books you read, the films you watch.’
And so they fell into easy conversation, Amalie doing most of the talking and the King making the odd encouraging comment. She was thankful for her childhood spent surrounded by powerful people, otherwise she would have been completely overwhelmed to be dining with a king.
He ate very little: a few spoonfuls of soup...a couple of bites of the main course of red snapper.
Talos stayed silent, following the conversation without contributing, his gaze on his grandfather. He didn’t once meet her eyes.
When the dessert was brought in—light pistachio cakes with an accompanying chocolate mousse—the King finally asked her something in connection with the violin.
‘Do you find it hard, learning new music?’
She considered the question, aware that Talos was finally looking at her. ‘It’s like reading a book where the words are notes and all the adjectives are replaced with tempos and dynamics.’
Astraeus gave a wheezy laugh. ‘I’m sure that makes sense to you.’
She couldn’t help but laugh too. ‘I’ve probably over-complicated it. I should have just said I read music the way you read a book.’
‘And how did you find learning my wife’s music?’
‘I found it the most fulfilling experience of my entire musical life,’ she answered with honesty, trying to tune out Talos’s stare. ‘To know I am the first person to play it publicly... Can I ask you a question?’
The King nodded.
‘Did she ever play it for you?’
‘No.’ His eyes dimmed. ‘She never spoke of her music when she was composing. When she finished a piece, only then would she tell me about it and play it for me.’ His shoulders slumped. ‘She contracted pneumonia shortly before she completed this one. She struggled to finish it, but my wife was a very determined woman. She died two days later.’
‘I’m very sorry.’
‘I still miss her. All the time.’
Forgetting protocol—not that she even knew what the protocol for an audience with the King was, as Talos hadn’t seen fit to fill her in—she leaned over and placed her hand on his.
Shock flared in his eyes but he made no effort to relinquish her hold, tilting his frail body a little closer to her.
‘What your wife created,’ Amalie said gently, ‘was a concerto about love. It’s a tribute to you.’
‘How do you know this?’ he whispered, leaning even closer.
‘It’s all there in the music. I can’t explain how I know, but I feel it. She wrote this score with love in her heart—not maternal love, but romantic love.’
The King’s eyes closed. For a moment she allowed her glance to dart at Talos. He sat rigid, his jaw set, his eyes filled with something she couldn’t comprehend.
When Astraeus opened his eyes he stared at her with great concentration, before turning his head to the courtier standing to his right and nodding at him. The courtier left the dining room, returning almost immediately with a violin case. He laid it on the table before the King.
Astraeus gestured for Amalie to open it.
Apprehensive, certain he was going to ask her to play for him, she obeyed. The gorgeous scent of wood and resin puffed out and she inhaled it greedily, as she had done since toddlerhood, when her father would open his violin case.
She made to lift the violin out but the King stopped her, placing his hand on the instrument and stroking it.
‘This belonged to Rhea,’ he said. ‘It was hand-crafted for her by Massimo Cinelli. It was my wedding present to her.’
Massimo Cinelli was one of the foremost twentieth-century luthiers, a man who made string instruments of such tonal quality it was argued that they rivalled Stradivarius. His had been a life cut tragically short, and when he’d died at the age of fifty-three he had been known to have made around three hundred string instruments, a quarter of which were violins. In recent months an auction for one of his violas had fetched a value of half a million pounds.
Amalie could only imagine what a violin made for a queen would fetch—especially a queen who’d left such a huge legacy to the classical music world. It made her joyful and sad all at the same time to know this would have been the violin Rhea had used at Carnegie Hall, when she’d played with Amalie’s father all those years ago.
‘I am bequeathing it to you,’ the King said.
‘What do you mean?’
Surely he had to be talking about her using it for the gala?
‘It is yours, child.’
‘Mine...?’
His smile was sad. ‘It’s sat in darkness for five years. It needs to be played. I know you will treasure it and I know you will honour Rhea’s memory. Take it, child—it’s yours.’
Amalie was truly lost for words. She knew this was no joke, but all the same... The King of Agon had just given her one of his wife’s most prized possessions—a gift beyond value.
‘Thank you,’ she said, shrugging her shoulders with helplessness at her inability to come up with anything more meaningful.
‘No. Thank you,’ he answered enigmatically, then beckoned his nurse over and spoke to her in Greek.
The nurse took hold of his wheelchair.
‘And now I bid you a good night,’ Astraeus said. ‘It has been a pleasure meeting you, despinis.’
‘It has been an honour, Your Majesty.’
Talos had risen to his feet, so she followed suit, only to have the King take her hand and tug her down so he could speak in her ear. ‘I’m glad my grandson has found you. Please look after him for me when I’m gone.’
In another breach of protocol she kissed his cold cheek and whispered, ‘I promise I’ll try.’
It was the best she could do. She doubted Talos would ever give her the chance.
