Talos Claims His Virgin. Michelle Smart

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.