The Kalliakis Crown. Michelle Smart

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