Читать книгу The Kalliakis Crown - Мишель Смарт, Michelle Smart - Страница 13
ОглавлениеTHE 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.
