The Kalliakis Crown: Talos Claims His Virgin

What, he wondered, would it be like to light the fire he’d glimpsed that morning in a more intimate setting?

What would it take to twist that fire and anger into passion?

He had felt the shift in her when her whole body had stilled and her breath had shortened and then stopped. The same time his own breath had stopped. One moment he’d been staring at her fingers with bemusement, the next his body had been filled with an awareness so strong it had knocked the air out of him.

He’d never experienced a reaction like it.

And now, watching her take the same seat as she had that morning, he could feel that awareness stirring within him again.

The following month held infinite possibilities...

‘Monsieur,’ she said once she had settled herself down and placed her green gaze on him, ‘earlier you appealed to my better nature—’

‘Which you disregarded,’ he interjected.

She bowed her head in acknowledgement. ‘I had my reasons, which I am going to share with you in the hope of appealing to your better nature.’

He regarded her carefully but kept silent, waiting for her to speak her mind. Surely she wasn’t trying another angle to turn the solo down?

‘I’m sorry but I lied to you—I do not have a prior engagement on the gala weekend.’ She gnawed on her bottom lip before continuing. ‘I suffer from stage fright.’

The idea was so ludicrous Talos shook his head in disbelief and laughed.

‘You?’ he said, not bothering to hide his incredulity. ‘You—the daughter of Colette Barthez and Julian Cartwright—suffer from stage fright?’

‘You know who I am?’

‘I know exactly who you are.’ He folded his arms, his brief, incredulous mirth evaporating. ‘I made it my business to know.’

He caught a flash of truculence in those green eyes, the first sign that the calm façade she wore was nothing but a front.

‘Your French mother is the most successful mezzo-soprano in the world. I admit I hadn’t heard of your father before today, but I understand he is a famous English violinist. I also learned that your father once played at Carnegie Hall with my grandmother, when he was first establishing himself.’

He leaned forward to rest his chin on his hands.

‘You were a noted child prodigy until the age of twelve, when your parents removed you from the spotlight so you could concentrate on your education. You became a professional musician at the age of twenty, when you joined the ranks of the Orchestre National de Paris as a second violin—a position you still hold five years on.’

She shrugged, but her face remained taut. ‘What you have described is something any person with access to the internet could find out in thirty seconds. My parents didn’t remove me from the spotlight because of my education—that is what my mother told the press, because she couldn’t bear the shame of having a daughter unable to perform in public.’

‘If you are “unable to perform in public”, how do you explain the fact that you perform in public at least once a week with your orchestra?’

‘I’m a second violin. I sit at the back of the orchestra. We have an average of eighty musicians playing at any given performance. The audience’s eyes are not on me but on the collective orchestra. It’s two different things. If I play at your grandfather’s gala everyone’s eyes will be on me and I will freeze. It will bring humiliation to me, to my mother—and to your grandfather. Is that what you want? To have the world’s eyes witness your star performer frozen on stage, unable to play a note?’

The only person who wouldn’t be ashamed of her was her father. She might have referred to it as a joint decision by her parents, but in truth it had been her father who’d gone against her mother’s wishes and pulled her out of the spotlight. He’d been the one to assure her that it was okay to play just for the love of the music, even if it was only in the privacy of her own bedroom.

Talos’s eyes narrowed, a shrewd expression emanating from them. ‘How do I know you aren’t lying to me right now?’

‘I...’

‘By your own admission you lied about being busy on the gala weekend.’

‘It was a lie of necessity.’

‘No lie is necessary. If you can’t handle eyes on you when you play, how were you able to join the orchestra in the first place?’

‘It was a blind audition. Everyone who applied had to play behind a screen so there could be no bias. And, before you ask, of course I practise and rehearse amongst my colleagues, But that is a world away from standing up on a stage and feeling hundreds of eyes staring at you.’

He shook his head slowly, his light brown eyes unreadable. ‘I am in two minds here. Either you are speaking the truth or you are telling another lie.’

‘I am speaking the truth. You need to find another soloist.’

‘I think not. Nerves and stage fright are things that can be overcome, but finding another soloist who can do justice to my grandmother’s final composition is a different matter.’

Never mind that time had almost run out. He could spend the rest of his life searching and not find anyone whose playing touched him the way Amalie’s had in those few minutes he had listened to her.

Talos had never settled for second best in his life and he wasn’t about to start now.

‘What do you know about my island?’ he asked her.

She looked confused at the change of direction. ‘Not much. It’s near Crete, isn’t it?’

‘Crete is our nearest neighbour. Like the Cretans, we are descended from the Minoans. Throughout the centuries Agon has been attacked by the Romans, the Ottomans and the Venetians—to name a few. We repelled them all. Only the Venetians managed to occupy us, and just for a short period. My people, under the leadership of the warrior Ares Patakis, of whom I am a direct descendent, rose against the occupiers and expelled them from our land. No other nation has occupied our shores since. History tells our story. Agonites will not be oppressed or repressed. We will fight until our last breath for our freedom.’

He paused to take a sip of his coffee. He had to hand it to her: she had excellent taste.

‘You are probably wondering why I am telling you all this,’ he said.

‘I am trying to understand the relevance,’ she admitted thoughtfully.

‘It is to give you an awareness of the stock that I, my family and our people come from. We are fighters. There isn’t an Agonite alive who would back down in the face of adversity. Stage fright? Nerves? Those are issues to be fought and conquered. And with my help you will conquer them.’

Amalie could imagine it only too well. Talos Kalliakis ready for battle, stripped to nothing but iron battle gear, spear in hand. He would be at the front of any fight.

It was her bad fortune that he had chosen to fight her.

But her stage fright wasn’t a fight. It was just a part of her, something she had long ago accepted.

Her life was nice and cosy. Simple. No drama, no histrionics. She refused to allow the tempestuousness of her childhood seep its way into her adult life.

‘I have arranged with your directors for you to come to Agon in a couple of days and to stay until the gala. Your orchestra will start rehearsals immediately and fly out a week before the gala so you can rehearse with them.’

Her pledge to be amiable evaporated. ‘Excuse me, but you’ve done what?’

‘It will give you a month in Agon to acclimatise...’

‘I don’t need to acclimatise. Agon is hardly the middle of a desert.’

‘It will also give you a month to prepare yourself perfectly for the solo,’ he continued, ignoring her interruption, although his eyes flashed another warning at her. ‘No distractions.’

‘But...’

‘Your stage fright is something that will be overcome,’ he said, with all the assurance of a man who had never been struck with anything as weak as nerves. ‘I will see to it personally.’

He stopped speaking, leaving a pause she knew she was supposed to fill, but all she could think was how badly she wanted to throw something at him, to curse this hateful man who was attempting to destroy the comfortable, quiet life she had made for herself away from the spotlight.

‘Despinis?’

She looked up to find those laser eyes striking through her again, as if he could reach right in and see what she was thinking.

‘Do you accept the solo?’ His voice hardened to granite. ‘Or do I have to make one hundred musicians redundant? Do I have to destroy one hundred careers, including your own? Have no doubt—I will do it. I will destroy you all.’

She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, trying to extinguish the panic clawing at her throat.

She believed him. This was no idle threat. He could destroy her career. She had no idea how he would do it, she knew only that he could.

If she didn’t loathe him so much she would wonder why he was prepared to take such dark measures to get her agreement. As it was, she couldn’t give a flying viola as to his reasons.

If she didn’t comply he would take away the only thing she could do.

But how could she agree to do it? The last time she’d performed solo she’d been surrounded by her parents’ arty friends—musicians, actors, writers, singers. She’d humiliated herself and her mother in front of every one of them. How could she stand on a stage with dignitaries and heads of state watching her and not be shredded by the same nerves? That was if she even made it on to the stage.

The one time she’d tried after the awful incident had left her hospitalised. And what she remembered most clearly about that dreadful time was her father’s fury at her mother for forcing her. He’d accused her of selfishness and of using their only child as a toy.

A lump formed in Amalie’s throat as she recalled them separating mere weeks later, her father gaining primary custody of her.

She was lucky, though. If times got really hard she knew she could rely on both her parents to bail her out. She would never go hungry. She would never lose her home. Her colleagues weren’t all so fortunate. Not many of them were blessed with wealthy parents.

She thought of kindly Juliette, who was seven months pregnant with her third child. Of Louis, who only last week had booked a bank-breaking holiday with his family to Australia. Grumbling Giles, who moaned every month when his mortgage payment was taken from his account...

All those musicians, all those office workers...

All unaware that their jobs, security and reputations hung in the balance.

She stared at Talos, willing him to feel every ounce of her hate.

‘Yes, I’ll come. But the consequences are something you will have to live with.’

* * *

Amalie gazed out of the window and got her first glimpse of Agon. As the plane made its descent she stared transfixed as golden beaches emerged alongside swathes of green, high mountains and built-up areas of pristine white buildings... And then they touched down, bouncing along the runway before coming to a final smooth stop.

Keeping a firm grip on her violin, she followed her fellow business-class passengers out and down the metal stairs. After the slushy iciness of Paris in March, the temperate heat was a welcome delight.

From the economy section bounded excited children and frazzled parents, there to take advantage of the sunshine Agon was blessed with, where spring and summer came earlier than to its nearest neighbour, Crete. She hadn’t considered that she would be going to an island famed as a holiday destination for families and historical buffs alike. In her head she’d thought of Agon as a prison—as dark and dangerous as the man who had summoned her there.

Amalie had travelled to over thirty countries in her life, but never had she been in an airport as fresh and welcoming as the one in Agon. Going through Arrivals was quick; her luggage arriving on the conveyor belt even quicker.

A man waited in the exit lounge, holding up her name on a specially laminated board. Polite introductions out of the way, he took the trolley holding her luggage from her and led the way out to a long, black car parked in what was clearly the prime space of the whole car park.

Everything was proceeding exactly as had been stated in the clipped email Talos’s private secretary had sent to her the day before. It had contained a detailed itinerary, from the time a car would be collecting her from her house all the way through to her estimated time of arrival at the villa that would be her home for the next month.

As the chauffeur navigated the roads she was able to take further stock of the island. Other than expecting it to be as dangerous as the youngest of its princes, she’d had no preconceptions. She was glad. Talos Kalliakis might be a demon sent to her from Hades, but his island was stunning.

Mementoes of Agon’s early Greek heritage were everywhere, from the architecture to the road signs in the same common language. But Agon was now a sovereign island, autonomous in its rule. The thing that struck her most starkly was how clean everything was, from the well-maintained roads to the buildings and homes they drove past. When they went past a harbour she craned her neck to look more closely at the rows of white yachts stationed there—some of them as large as cruise liners.

Soon they were away from the town and winding higher into the hills and mountains. Her mouth dropped open when she caught her first glimpse of the palace, standing proudly on a hill much in the same way as the ancient Greeks had built their most sacred monuments. Enormous and sprawling, it had a Middle Eastern flavour to it, as if it had been built for a great sultan centuries ago.

But it wasn’t to the palace that she was headed. No sooner had it left her sight than the chauffeur slowed down, pausing while a wrought-iron gate inched open, then drove up to a villa so large it could have been a hotel. Up the drive he took them, and then round to the back of the villa’s grounds, travelling for another mile until he came to a much smaller dwelling at the edge of the extensive villa’s garden—a generously sized white stone cottage.

An elderly man, with a shock of white hair flapping in the breeze above a large bald spot, came out of the front door to greet them.

‘Good evening, despinis,’ he said warmly. ‘I am Kostas.’

Explaining that he ran the main villa for His Highness Prince Talos, he showed her around the cottage that would be her home for the month. The small kitchen was well stocked and a daily delivery of fresh fruit, breads and dairy products would be brought to her. If she wished to eat her meals in the main villa she only had to pick up the phone and let them know; likewise if she wished to have meals delivered to the cottage.

‘The villa has a gym, a swimming pool, and spa facilities you are welcome to use whenever you wish,’ he said before he left. ‘There are also a number of cars you can use if you wish to travel anywhere, or we can arrange for a driver to take you.’

So Talos didn’t intend to keep her prisoner in the cottage? That was handy to know.

She’d envisaged him collecting her from the airport, locking her in a cold dungeon and refusing to let her out until she was note-perfect with his grandmother’s composition and all her demons had been banished.

Thinking about it sent a tremor racing up her spine.

She wondered what great psychiatrist Talos would employ to ‘fix’ her. She would laugh if the whole thing didn’t terrify her so much. Whoever he employed had better get a move on. She had exactly four weeks and two days until she had to stand on the stage for the King of Agon’s Jubilee Gala. In those thirty days she had to learn an entirely new composition, her orchestra had to learn the accompanying score, and she had to overcome the nerves that had paralysed her for over half her lifetime.

CHAPTER FOUR

THE 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.’