The Greek's Forbidden Princess

‘Seb needs you. As you’d know if you bothered to check my messages.’

Messages he’d left unopened. Returning to St Galla for the funeral had been tougher than even he had imagined. He didn’t want reminders of the tragedy and his own guilt. Or of her.

‘Seb?’ How could the boy possibly need him?

Amelie’s mouth flattened. Her eyes had lost their brilliance. They looked opaque with pain, even though her body language was almost aggressive as she leaned into his space. That in itself was remarkable. Amelie was always poised, graceful and polite, the least aggressive person he knew.

Lambis was horrified to realise her eyes looked even more lifeless than on the day they’d buried her brother and sister-in-law. He hated that blankness.

‘You haven’t forgotten your godson, surely?’

As if on cue Lambis registered movement in the car. A hand palmed the rear window. A pale, tiny hand. Beside it was a sombre young face, golden hair tufted from sleep.

There was no smile of recognition. It was the numbed look of someone who didn’t expect a welcome and it cut like a blade to Lambis’s belly.

He hunkered beside the door, putting his face on a level with the boy’s. Those big eyes regarded him, unblinking. They looked even more desolate than his aunt’s, as if they’d never glowed with mischief or delight.

No four-year-old should look that way. But in the circumstances maybe it was inevitable.

Lambis forced his stiff lips into something like a smile. ‘Hey, Sébastien. How are you?’

Haunted eyes stared back through the glass. Sébastien said nothing. Nor did his face register emotion. Just that terrible blankness that stirred the frigid waters of Lambis’s soul.

Looking at Amelie, and now at Seb, reminded him suddenly of another snowy day on this mountain. The day all the warmth inside him had been snuffed out in a catastrophic blast of icy reality.

Lambis reached for the door, urgently needing to see that little face smile in recognition.

‘Don’t!’ Amelie’s voice was sharp as the crack of doom as she inserted herself between Lambis and the car. He found himself staring at a narrow waist and full breasts, her nipples budded enticingly beneath thin wool.

Lambis’s breath stalled as heat ignited in his gut. Unseen parts of him might have long since shrivelled and died, but he was still a man, and it had been too long since he’d had a woman.

Through the frosty scent of the thickening snow, he inhaled the gardenia perfume that always made him think of Amelie and sunny St Galla. He remembered how tempting they’d both been. How tough it had been to leave her.

‘Why not?’ His gaze strayed lower, over the feminine shape revealed by her fitted trousers, and a pulse quickened in his groin. Instantly he rose, shoving his hands in his pockets.

Amelie looked petite and far too fragile, despite the way her chin swung up as if daring him to test her.

‘Because I was wrong. I thought you’d help, but the last thing he needs is some fleeting pretend friendly contact with a man who’d bar his door to us. Especially in this.’ The tilt of her head indicated the falling snow.

A flake settled on her cheek, melting, but she didn’t seem to notice.

‘If you’ll step away from the car, we’ll be on our way.’ She folded her arms and her breasts rose, plump and inviting. Lambis yanked his gaze higher.

She wasn’t bluffing.

He should be relieved. He didn’t have the time or inclination to deal with their problems. He had a multinational business to run, people relying on him. He didn’t want Amelie here, stirring emotions, interrupting the smooth running of his life.

Yet he didn’t move.

Whatever the problem, Lambis wasn’t the man to solve it. He knew his limitations. In his profession it was vital to know your strengths and weaknesses, and those of others. Yet the anxiety he’d felt, seeing Sébastien’s staring face, made him hesitate.

She seemed ridiculously dainty to try facing him down. Dainty and shattered, though she tried to hide it.

Snow crunched under his boots as he turned. The gates were high, designed to keep the world out. Yet they swung open at the click of his electronic key.

‘You go first. I’ll follow you in my vehicle.’

* * *

Amelie gripped the wheel too hard as she drove slowly through the dusting of snow.

‘Isn’t this exciting, Seb? Snow!’ Her voice wobbled but she doubted her nephew noticed.

In the rear-view mirror she saw he was at least staring at the view, his expression unreadable. Was he even a tiny bit excited to see snow for the first time? To see Lambis, the man he used to follow like a puppy?

Amelie wrenched her mind to the private road winding around a spur of the mountain.

She couldn’t quite believe Lambis had let them enter. If it had been her alone she’d be driving back down to the village now. Lambis didn’t want her near. He never had.

Pride smarted at asking for his help. And something else, some tiny part of her that had wondered, even when all hope had fled.

Amelie’s breath caught when she saw the house. She’d expected something sleek, hard and impersonal, like Lambis. Instead she discovered a charming traditional mountain house. From the size she guessed it had been significantly extended, but it looked as if the mansion had always sat here, cupped by the mountain on three sides.

The ground floor rose organically from the mountain, its walls of stone. Above that rose another couple of floors, white-finished, and decorated with out-thrust balcony rooms overhanging the walls on wooden struts. They were decorated with intricate wooden carvings. Even the white plasterwork was beautifully decorated with what she guessed were traditional designs. The windows were large and the terracotta roof looked welcoming against the falling snow.

Amelie stopped the car, feeling as if she’d turned a wrong corner. This was the home of mega-wealthy Lambis Evangelos? The self-contained man who shunned sentiment?

She was staring when her door opened. There he was, his face stern. The wind stirred a glossy black curl at his collar and Amelie wondered what he was like when he relaxed. Once, long ago, she’d seen another side to him, when he was with her sister-in-law, Irini, for the two had been like brother and sister. Occasionally some of that tenderness he kept for Irini had rubbed off and he’d been enough to steal any woman’s breath. Especially one who’d been lonely so long.

Amelie blinked and stiffened. She hadn’t slept in forty-eight hours. That was why her mind drifted.

‘Do you need help?’

She shook her head. ‘Seb and I are fine, aren’t we, Seb?’ She looked in the rear-view mirror and met familiar green eyes. Was he excited? Scared?

Emotion swept through her and she shuddered.

‘Amelie?’ Lambis’s voice was like soft suede on raw skin. It still had the ability to make her feel. To want.

She felt it now, the buzz of energy in her lower body, the trip of her pulse. Damn! She was past this. She’d moved on, determined not to wallow in regret.

This had to be exhaustion creating phantom emotions.

‘Perhaps you could carry the luggage?’ She gave him one of her polite smiles, the sort she employed with boring diplomats or boorish industrialists.

For a second that cool stare locked with hers, making her wonder how much he read in her face. Then, with a curt nod, he was gone.

It took no time to bundle up Seb in warm clothes and usher him from the car to the house. Even the crunch of fresh snow beneath his feet barely made him pause and Amelie’s heart would have cracked if it weren’t already riven. Where was the little boy she’d loved for almost five years? A year ago he’d have been whooping with glee, investigating the unfamiliar icy white.

Now he let her hold his hand. He was wide-eyed but so self-contained it would have scared her if it hadn’t become almost normal. She had to find a way to help him.

A sturdy woman with iron-grey hair held the door open, expression inquisitive. This must be the woman who’d cut Amelie off as she’d pleaded to be let in. But, instead of disapproval, Amelie caught shock on the woman’s face as she appraised them, then a wide smile of welcome as she scooped Seb in out of the cold and Amelie with him.

‘This is Anna, my housekeeper.’ Lambis launched into a flurry of Greek that had the woman nodding and smiling. Amelie heard the name Sébastien and her own, then something that made the housekeeper’s head jerk up even as she dropped into a curtsey.

‘No, please.’ Amelie put out her hand in protest. ‘Tell her that’s not necessary.’

Then the implications of Lambis identifying her sank in. She swung around to find herself facing a massive black-clad chest. She froze, refusing to back up and reveal how daunting it was to be so close to all that brawny strength. His evocative scent, so earthy and male, curled around her.

‘There was no need to tell her who I am.’

His eyebrows lifted. ‘I respect Anna too much to lie.’

‘It’s not about lying. It’s about revealing only what needs to be revealed.’ The memory of the press pack outside the palace gates in St Galla, telephoto lenses trained on the windows and gardens, slammed into her. Bile rose. They’d been eager to snap the grieving Princess or ‘the tragic little King’, as they dubbed Seb. They’d even tried to bribe the palace employees.

Amelie, who’d lived all her life at the centre of public attention, had never felt so degraded. As if she and Seb weren’t real people but sideshow freaks that existed purely for the titillation of the viewing public.

‘Can you guarantee your staff won’t tell anyone we’re here?’

Lambis stiffened. His hard face became unforgiving granite, as if she’d questioned his integrity, not raised a valid concern.

‘You were the one who arrived uninvited and demanded entry. You’ll have to live with the consequences.’

Would Lambis really sell them out to the press? She didn’t want to believe it. Once she’d thought she knew him well enough to trust him with her life. But this was Seb’s life in question.

‘Answer the question, please.’

Lambis folded his arms across that massive chest, like some disapproving god of old passing judgement. It wouldn’t surprise her if he suddenly pitched a thunderbolt at her.

‘You’ve had my answer.’

Behind her Anna asked a question and Lambis responded, his tone so brusque and dismissive Seb edged up against Amelie, his teddy squeezed to his chest. Amelie put her hand on his shoulder.

It was the reminder she needed. It didn’t matter that she’d once thought Lambis Evangelos had a softer side, or that Irini, her sister-in-law, had said he was the best man alive, apart from her dear Michel. Nor did it matter that he had a reputation for integrity.

Amelie couldn’t take risks with her nephew. Despite what she’d threatened outside, Seb needed quiet, not paparazzi camped on the doorstep.

She’d thought they’d be safe with Lambis. He was the CEO of the world’s most successful international security firm. His private premises would be more secure, she suspected, even than the St Gallan royal palace. But the consequences if she and Seb had to run the gauntlet of the press whenever they stirred weren’t to be borne.

Amelie stroked her nephew’s soft hair, bending down as she spoke. ‘I’m sorry, mon lapin. I made a mistake coming—’

‘Don’t be absurd! You’re not up to driving back down the mountain tonight.’ The words were soft but the growl in that bass baritone was unmistakable.

Seb flinched and pressed his face into Amelie’s skirt, his arms wrapping round her thighs.

She stood unmoving, shocked by his first overt show of emotion in weeks. Something broke inside her as pity and protectiveness vied with a tiny pulse of hope. Heart welling, Amelie gathered him in. ‘It’s all right, mon lapin. Truly. Everything’s going to be fine.’

‘Sébastien?’ Lambis hunkered in front of the boy but didn’t touch. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. I’m not angry, truly. You and your aunt are welcome here.’

Liar. He was furious. But Amelie had no sympathy to spare for the man staring at the little boy with all the wariness of someone facing a man-eating beast.

If the situation weren’t so dire she’d almost laugh. As if big, bad Lambis Evangelos, the man who organised protection for the world’s most eminent VIPs in some of the most dangerous places in the world, was scared of a child.

‘Seb?’ Amelie knelt and wrapped him close, inhaling the fresh scents of clean little boy and melted snow. ‘Don’t be afraid, darling. Everything will be all right. Lambis won’t hurt us. In fact—’ she lifted her head and glared at the man who hadn’t taken his eyes off Seb ‘—he’s sworn to protect you. Did you know that?’

Of course Seb said nothing and Amelie snuggled him tighter, rubbing her hands up and down his thin back.

‘Soon we’re going to have something to eat and then I think it will be time for Monsieur Bernhard—’

‘Monsieur Bernhard?’ Lambis’s eyes locked on hers, questioning. She didn’t bother to respond. If he couldn’t work out that Bernhard was a teddy bear, tough.

‘I think he’s getting sleepy. It’s almost his bedtime. Come on, mon lapin, come with Aunt Lili.’

She lifted him in her arms and rose, ignoring Lambis when he made to take Seb.

Did he think she wasn’t capable of caring for her nephew? Who did he think had been there through the long nights and lonely days since Michel and Irini died?

Anger threaded the aching grief inside her. Grief for her darling nephew, orphaned so young, and grief for herself.

She saw Lambis move deliberately to block the front door. The obstinate set of his jaw told her it would take a bulldozer to move him.

He didn’t want them here. Now he’d decided they couldn’t go. She wished he’d make up his mind!

Amelie would walk on hot coals if it would bring back the little boy she adored from the well of shock that had swallowed him. But she was fast running out of strength. Her head was reeling and there was a throb behind her eyes as she fought to stand tall.

Then she felt a touch on her elbow. It was the housekeeper, Anna, her expression concerned. Gently she raised her hand and stroked Seb’s golden hair as he pressed his face into Amelie’s collarbone.

‘Ela. Parakalo, ela.’ Come, please come. That much Greek Amelie understood.

She wavered for barely a second. Pride held no place here. She looked at the work-hardened fingers caressing Seb so tenderly and felt the fight drain out of her.

Amelie nodded. ‘Efharisto.’ Thank you.

For good or ill they were staying, at least for tonight.

Whether they’d found the safe haven, and the help they needed, only time would tell.

CHAPTER THREE

AMELIE STARED AT the darkness of the swirling night.

She’d got through the last couple of hours like an automaton. At last Seb was tucked up in bed, asleep.

It seemed disloyal to think it—for who could want to see a child in pain?—but surely the way he’d turned to her when they’d arrived, and again when he’d clung to her as she read to him, signified a change? Some lessening of the dreadful nothingness that gripped him?

Rubbing her forehead with weary fingers, Amelie tried to order her fogged thoughts.

She should sleep. She’d eaten the delicious soup and fresh bread Anna had provided, and taken a hot shower in the luxurious bathroom, feeling chilled bones warm.

But she was wired. There was too much to sort out.

Which meant facing Lambis Evangelos.

Sighing, she turned to her suitcase. She wanted to tug on a comfy sleep shirt and pretend she didn’t have to face the big, bad wolf tonight. But sleep would elude her till she did.

Ten minutes later, in trousers and a silky shirt of deep green that matched her eyes and boosted her flagging confidence, she checked that her subtle makeup hid the shadows of fatigue. With a few deft movements she twisted her long hair into a knot. Her earrings were simple pearl studs and she added a fine gold pendant of antique pearls, the only piece of jewellery her mother had given her.

Amelie closed her hand around the pendant, remembering her mother hugging her close, against all royal decorum, and whispering that now Amelie was twelve she was old enough to wear jewellery.

It was a talisman she wore when times got tough. Like when her mother died just months after that twelfth birthday.

Her mother had had the sweetest smile. A smile Michel and his son Seb had inherited. For a moment the ancient image wavered, replaced by Michel’s face, the glint in his eyes as he showed off his new speedboat, the charming smile as he invited Irini aboard for a quick spin.

Amelie slammed a steel door on the memory. She snapped open her eyes and deliberately set about cataloguing the beautiful room she’d been given. There was a chance, a slim one, that the place might give a clue to what made Lambis tick, for this was his retreat from the world.

Turning, she saw plain white walls, for the most part bare. Except for a tiny jewel of an icon that glowed richly on the far wall. Amelie wasn’t an expert but she recognised it was an original and very, very beautiful. Despite the stiff style of the traditional painting, the serenity and love on Mary’s face as she looked down at her baby stole Amelie’s breath. Here was love and a joy that made something swell hard in Amelie’s chest.

Swiftly she turned away, feeling raw, for she responded to the painting at a visceral level. It tugged at her own secret yearning.

But the important issue was why Lambis secreted this gorgeous piece in a guest room. Why not have it in his room where he’d see it often?

Amelie prowled the space, surveying the high timber ceiling with its ancient beams, the cosiness of intricately woven local rugs on the polished floor and a particularly exquisite one on another wall.

The bed was massive with crisp cotton sheets and a luxurious silk spread. In addition to a huge decorative cupboard was a vast modern walk-in wardrobe. An ancient timber chest carved with mermaids and some mythical beasts she didn’t recognise sat under one window, but in a discreet niche was a large screen that swung out to allow guests to watch television from the bed.

The room was an eclectic mix of charming old pieces and sleek functionality. The common thread was money. No expense had been spared to make a guest comfortable.

Which told her what? Lambis valued tradition but demanded modern convenience? He wanted guests to feel at home?

His reception told her he was more likely to bar the door to guests.

Or perhaps it was just she who was unwelcome.

The idea lodged hard and sharp in her chest. Surely he wasn’t so brutal with everyone?

Did he really believe she’d swallowed her pride and come here uninvited because she was needy for him?

Nausea snaked through her insides. Of course he had.

And when she’d told him Seb needed him?

He’d still wanted them to leave.

Despite what she’d once thought, the man had no heart. It was as simple as that.

* * *

Amelie found him in a sitting room, high-ceilinged and huge. Yet instead of being cold, that signature mix of old beauty and luxurious modern functionality made it feel comfortable.

Until Lambis turned and she read his aloof expression.

There’d been no thawing. Had she really expected it?

Because Anna had fussed over Amelie and little Seb like a hen with a couple of chicks didn’t mean the master of the house had changed his mind. Anna’s kindness contrasted starkly with Lambis’s brooding stare.

He said not a word as Amelie walked the length of the room, to the huge stone-lintelled fireplace with its bright flames and the dark man beside it.

His bold, handsome face was half-shadowed yet unreasonably, appallingly attractive. If you liked remote, harsh beauty. Amelie didn’t. Not any more.

Yet her heart skipped as some part that was all instinct and longing, not logic, stirred to life again.

How could he do that to her even now? Anxiety rippled through her. Amelie couldn’t let that happen again.

She stopped within the circle of warmth, feeling cold to the bone. The faint scent of fine brandy reached her nostrils and she spied a rounded glass on the mantelpiece. But Lambis didn’t think to offer her a drink. Presumably that was too much to expect.

The thought drove thoughts of a conciliatory approach from Amelie’s head. If she read him right, she and Seb would be on their way as soon as the snow eased. That would be soon. It was far too early for winter.

Amelie chose a chair by the fire and sank down onto it. She’d fight every step of the way but she was so worn out she’d do it from a position of comfort.

The silence lengthened from seconds to minutes but for once Amelie didn’t move to fill it. All her life she’d been the one to charm and please, to smooth ruffled feathers, to be diplomatic and gracious.

She was here to fight for her nephew’s future. She wouldn’t make small talk, pretending everything was okay.

‘Are you going to explain?’ he asked finally.

Amelie refused to flinch at that adamantine tone. ‘Have you checked the messages I left?’

‘I have, but they didn’t help. All I know is that this is to do with your nephew.’

Sébastien, she wanted to scream at him. Or Seb. You’ve called him both in your time. Since when had Lambis thought of him only as someone else’s nephew?

What had happened to the man who, however reluctantly, had been kind to a little boy who’d shadowed his every move when he stayed at the St Gallan palace? A little boy whose own father was often too busy with affairs of state for a little one to tag along.

‘I didn’t want to say more until I saw you.’ She lifted her chin and met his eyes. In the shadow beyond the fireplace it was hard to read them but they looked shuttered. As if he was determined not to let anyone in. ‘It’s confidential.’

He lifted one arm in a gesture that encompassed the building. ‘There’s no one else here but us.’

It was the invitation Amelie needed and yet the words jammed in her throat. She’d hoped for some speck of interest or concern. Was that too much to ask? Instead it was like talking to a stranger.

Surely even a stranger would be more receptive?

Amelie crossed her ankles and folded her hands in her lap, refusing to show hurt. Surely they’d parted friends?

‘Seb is adjusting to the loss of his parents.’ Not by so much as a tremor did she betray how she too struggled with that tragedy.

Lambis said nothing.

‘You saw how he was at the memorial service.’ She’d known something was wrong then but it was only since that the enormity of Seb’s condition had unfolded.

‘He seemed very controlled.’

She shook her head. ‘It looked like that. The press loved the photos of the brave little Prince saluting his parents’ coffins.’ Amelie dragged in a hasty breath as pain jabbed her breastbone. The rampant voyeurism of the press had been expected but still it rankled. ‘That wasn’t control; it was grief.’

Amelie had strenuously opposed taking a four-year-old to the funeral, but though she was now the most senior member of the family she’d been overruled. She wasn’t Regent yet, and might never be, if the Prime Minister had his way. St Gallan law still favoured male over female and until Seb was officially proclaimed heir to the throne, and she his Regent, she had no right to make decisions for him.

In fact, she’d broken a slew of laws taking him out of the country. Right now, that was immaterial. The important thing was Seb.

‘It hasn’t been long since they died.’

Amelie looked into that stern face and saw not a flicker of emotion. Even for Queen Irini, the woman who’d been like a sister to Lambis.

But then, wasn’t Amelie too suppressing a riot of pain? It was comforting to think that maybe, somewhere deep behind that inhumanly blank face, Lambis mourned too.