Читать книгу The Kalliakis Crown - Мишель Смарт, Michelle Smart - Страница 15

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.