The Kalliakis Crown. Michelle Smart

did as she asked, standing so his back was to her. His back was every bit as beautiful as his front, his body a mass of taut muscle and sinew. He was not professional-body-builder big, but big enough that you would trust him to pull a car off a helpless victim and then carry them over his shoulder to safety without breaking a sweat.

      With fingers that fumbled she pulled off her pretty blue top and shrugged her skirt down. Her legs already bare, all that was left was her underwear. She tried to undo her bra, but what was second nature suddenly became the hardest job in the world.

      ‘I can’t,’ she said, suddenly panic-stricken all over again.

      Talos turned his head a touch before twisting his whole body round. Arms folded across his chest, he gazed at her, the look on his face something she’d never seen before. It looked as if it hurt him to breathe.

      ‘That is enough,’ he said quietly. ‘Now, please—play for me.’

      This time she allowed her eyes to dart down and look at what she’d tried to keep as a haze, skimming around the area as if it were pixilated.

      The heat that rushed through her at one glance almost knocked her off her feet.

      The knowing look that came into his eyes had the same effect.

      Talos was in proportion in every way.

      Suddenly she yanked her violin off the piano, put it under chin and began to play.

      The bow swept across the strings, bouncing gently because of her less than graceful start, but then it did what it had been made to do, whilst her fingers flew up and down the strings. It was probably the worst start to a performance she’d ever given, but she wouldn’t have known either way as at that moment she wasn’t hearing the music, but simply relishing the fact that she was winning this fight. She was doing it. She was playing in front of someone.

      God, she was virtually naked.

      And Talos was as naked as the day he’d been born.

      Somehow she settled into the music, embraced it, letting it become her. Far from closing her eyes, she kept her gaze on him, felt the heat of his returning stare.

      By the time she played the last note the tension in the room had merged with the vibrato of her violin, a tangible, pulsating chemistry she felt all the way through to her core.

      For long, long moments nothing was said. Not verbally.

      The connection between their gazes spoke a thousand words.

      ‘You brought my skin up in bumps,’ he finally said, his voice raspy.

      She gave a helpless shrug.

      ‘You didn’t play my grandmother’s composition.’

      She shook her head. She had played the final movement of one of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons concertos—‘Summer’. The movement that evoked a thunderstorm and perfectly fitted the storm raging beneath her skin.

      ‘I didn’t want you to hear it when I knew I wouldn’t be able to do it justice. Not the first time.’

      ‘The first time should be special, yes.’

      She breathed deeply, sensing he wasn’t talking about the music any more.

      He made no move towards her. The look in his eyes was clear. He’d made her a promise not to get any closer to her. Not unless she invited him to.

      Her blood had never felt so thick, as if she’d had hot treacle injected into her veins.

      She wanted him. Desperately. Passionately...

       No!

      The warning shout in her head rang out loud and clear, breaking through the chemistry buffeting them, shattering it with one unsaid syllable.

      Without a word she grabbed her top and pulled it back on, smoothing it over her belly as she darted a glance to see his reaction.

      He inclined his head, an amused yet pained smile on his lips, then turned to his clothes and stepped back into his underwear and trousers before slipping his powerful arms into his shirt.

      ‘You played beautifully, little songbird. And now it is time for me to leave.’

      ‘Already?’ The word escaped before she could catch it.

      He dropped his stare down to his undone trousers. ‘Unless you want me to break my promise?’

      He cocked his head, waiting for an answer that wouldn’t form.

      ‘I thought not.’ His eyes flashed. ‘But we both know it’s only a matter of time.’

      She swallowed the moisture that had filled in her mouth, pushing it past the tightness in her throat.

      ‘A car will collect you tomorrow at seven.’

      ‘Seven?’ she asked stupidly, her mind turning blank at his abrupt turn of conversation.

      ‘Helios’s ball,’ he reminded her, fastening the last of his buttons. ‘Did you receive the official invitation?’

      She nodded. Her invitation had been hand delivered by a palace official, the envelope containing it a thick, creamy material, sealed with a wax insignia. Receiving it had made her feel like a princess from a bygone age.

      ‘Keep it safe—you’ll need to present it when you arrive. I’ll be staying at my apartment in the palace for the weekend, so I’ll send a car for you.’

      She’d assumed they would travel there together, and was unnerved by the twinge of disappointment she felt at learning differently.

      ‘Okay,’ she answered, determined to mask the emotion.

      It wasn’t as if they were going on a proper date or anything, she reminded herself. She was simply his ‘plus one’ for the evening.

      ‘Are you happy with your dress?’ he asked.

      On Monday Amalie had been driven by a member of Talos’s staff to a pretty beachside house and introduced to an elegant elderly woman called Natalia. Natalia had measured every inch of her, clearly seizing her up as she did so. Then she had sat at her desk and sketched, spending less time than it took for Amalie to finish a coffee before she’d ripped the piece of paper off the pad and held out the rough but strangely intricate design to her.

      ‘This is your dress,’ she had said, with calm authority.

      Amalie had left the house twenty minutes later with more excitement running through her veins than she had ever experienced before. She’d been to plenty of high-society parties in her lifetime, but never to a royal ball. And she was to wear a dress like nothing she had worn in her life. Natalia’s vision had been so compelling and assured that she had rolled along with it, swept up in the designer’s vision.

      It was strange and unnerving to think she was to be the guest of a prince. She no longer thought of Talos in that light. Only as a man...

      ‘Natalia is bringing it tomorrow so she can help me into it.’ The dress fastening was definitely a two-person job. If the designer hadn’t been coming to her Amalie would have had to find someone else to help her fasten it. She might have had to ask Talos to hook it for her...

      He nodded his approval.

      Dressed, Talos ran his fingers through his hair in what looked to Amalie like a futile attempt on his behalf to tame it.

      There was nothing tameable about this man.

      ‘Until tomorrow, little songbird,’ he said, before letting himself out of the cottage.

      Only when all the energy that followed him like a cloud had dissipated from the room did Amalie dare breathe properly.

      With shaky legs she sat on the piano bench and pressed her face to the cool wood.

      Maybe if she sat there for long enough the compulsion