The Kalliakis Crown. Michelle Smart

woman who tried desperately to fade into the background—was a child from the loins of the biggest diva on the planet. He had to assume she took after her father who, he’d learned, was regarded as a quintessential Englishman, with a dry humour and calm manner.

      Amalie chewed on a chip, disliking the implication in his words and the way he’d delivered them. She, better than anyone, knew just how ‘forceful’ her mother could be in getting her own way, but that didn’t stop her loving her and despising the people who would put her down.

      ‘You don’t become the most successful and famous mezzo-soprano in the world without having a strong will and a thick hide. If she were a man she would be celebrated.’

      The scarred eyebrow rose in question.

      She shook her head and pushed her plate to the side. ‘She sold out Carnegie Hall and the Royal Albert Hall three nights in a row last year, but every article written about those concerts just had to mention her three ex-husbands, numerous lovers and so-called diva demands.’

      The black scarred brow drew forward. ‘That must be very hurtful for her to read,’ he said, his tone careful.

      ‘If it was the French media it would devastate her, but in France she’s revered and treated as a national icon. With the rest of the world’s press, so long as they aren’t criticising her voice or performance, she doesn’t care—she truly does have the hide of a rhinoceros.’

      But not when it came to love. When it came to affairs of the heart, her mother felt things deeply. Bored lovers had the power to shatter her.

      ‘But they upset you?’ he said, a shrewdness in his eyes.

      ‘No one wants to read salacious stories about their mother,’ she muttered, reaching for one more chip and popping it in her mouth before she could unloosen her tongue any further.

      Her family and personal life were none of his concern, but she felt so protective when it came to her mother, who was passionate, funny, loving, predatory, egotistical and a complete one-off. She drove her up the wall, but Amalie adored her.

      ‘That is true,’ Talos agreed. ‘My family also live under the spotlight. There are occasions when it can burn.’

      She leaned back in her chair and stared at him through narrowed eyes. ‘If you know how much the spotlight can burn, why would you push me back under it when you know it hurts me so much?’

      ‘Because you were born to play under it,’ he replied, his deep bass voice no-nonsense.

      And yet she detected a whisper of warmth in those light brown eyes she hadn’t seen before.

      ‘It is my job to put you back under it without you gaining any new scars.’

      ‘But the scars I already have haven’t healed.’

      There was no point in shying away from it. She’d seen enough psychologists in her early teens to know that she’d been scarred, and that it was those scars still preventing her from stepping onto a stage and performing with eyes upon her.

      ‘Then I will heal them for you.’

      A shiver ran through her as an image of his mouth drifting across her skin skittered into her mind, shockingly vivid... Talos healing her in the most erotic manner. It sent a pulse of heat deep into her abdomen.

      She blinked rapidly, to dispel the unbidden image, and was grateful when another member of the gym chose that moment to come over to their table and chat with him.

      Passion was something she’d always avoided. After her parents’ divorce she’d spent her weekend and holiday visitations watching her mother bounce from lover to lover, marrying two of them for good measure, engulfed in desire’s heady flames, trying to recapture the magic of her first marriage. Watching her get burned so many times had been pain itself. The guilt of knowing she was responsible for her mother’s heartache—and her father’s—had only added to it.

      Her father had never brought another woman home, let alone remarried. Though he would always deny it with a sad smile, the torch he carried for her mother was too bright to extinguish.

      If it hadn’t been for that horrendous incident in front of her parents and their friends and its aftermath, when their child prodigy could no longer perform like the dancing seal she’d become, her parents would still be together today—she was certain of it. On the occasions when they were forced together, Amalie would watch them skirt around each other; her mother showing off her latest lover with something close to flamboyant desperation, her father accepting this behaviour with a wistful stoicism.

      Amalie liked her quiet, orderly, passionless life. It was safe.

      Talos Kalliakis made her feel anything but safe.

      * * *

      Talos rapped loudly on the cottage door for the second time, blowing out a breath of exasperated air. Just as he was about to try the handle and let himself in the door swung open and there Amalie stood, violin in hand and a look of startled apology on her face.

      ‘Is it that time already?’ she said, standing aside to let him through. ‘Sorry, I lost track of time.’

      He followed her through to the cosy living room. The baby grand piano sat in the corner, covered with sheets of paper and an old-fashioned tape recorder. Next to it stood a music stand.

      She looked what could only be described as lively—as if she had springs under her feet. In the four days she’d been in Agon he’d never seen her like this.

      ‘Would you mind if I give the workout a miss tonight?’ she asked, her green sapphire eyes vibrant and shining. ‘I’ve reached an understanding with the score and I want to solidify it in my mind before I lose the moment.’

      ‘You are making headway?’ It amused him to hear her discussing the score as if it were a living entity.

      ‘Something has clicked today. I’ve made a recording of the piano accompaniment—I am so grateful your grandmother wrote an accompaniment for the piano as well as for a full orchestra—and playing along to it is making all the pieces come together.’

      ‘Are you ready to play it for me?’

      Her eyes rounded in horror. ‘Absolutely not.’

      ‘You’re going to have to play it for me soon,’ he reminded her. The countdown was on, the gala only three weeks and six days away.

      ‘Let me master the composition before we discuss that.’

      He eyed her contemplatively. ‘You have until Friday.’

      She’d accompanied him to his gym three nights in a row, her workouts intense and focused. Wanting her concentration to be used in figuring out the score, he’d deliberately steered any small talk between them away from the personal. Other than chauffeuring her to and from the gym, he’d left her to it.

      A dart of panic shot from her eyes. ‘I won’t be ready by Friday.’

      ‘Friday will give us three weeks to get you performance-ready. I know nothing of music. It makes no difference to me if you make mistakes at this early stage; I won’t notice them. What concerns me is getting you used to playing solo in front of people again. We need to work on that as much as you need to work on the score itself.’

      A mutinous expression flashed over her face before her features relaxed a touch and she nodded.

      ‘You can have tonight off, but tomorrow you go back to the gym.’

      ‘Has anyone ever told you that you’re a slave-driving ogre?’

      ‘No one has dared.’

      She rolled her eyes. ‘I want to get on—you can leave now.’

      ‘And no one has ever dared tell me when I should leave before.’

      ‘You must be getting old, because your memory is failing—I’ve told you to