The Kalliakis Crown

‘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.’

‘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.