The Kalliakis Crown. Michelle Smart

      ‘Six hours, despinis. I will respect your decision—but know that should your answer continue to be negative the consequences will be real and immediate.’

      * * *

      Amalie’s phone vibrated.

      She pounced on it. ‘Maman?’

      ‘Chérie, I have found out some things.’

      That was typical of her mother—getting straight to the point. There didn’t exist a sliver of silence that her mother’s voice couldn’t fill.

      ‘I could not reach Pierre directly.’

      She sounded put out—as if Pierre Gaskin should have been holding on to his phone on the remote chance that Colette Barthez, the most famous classical singer in the world, deigned to call him.

      ‘But I spoke to his charming assistant, who told me he arrived late to the office this morning, gave every employee five hundred euros and said he was taking the next three months off. He was last seen setting his satnav to take him to Charles de Gaulle,’ she added, referring to France’s largest airport.

      ‘So it looks as if he has sold it, then,’ Amalie murmured.

      Only two weeks ago Pierre Gaskin—the owner or, as she now firmly believed, the former owner of the Théâtre de la Musique—had been struggling to pay the heating bill for the place.

      ‘It looks that way, chérie. So tell me,’ her mother went on, ‘why has Prince Talos brought the theatre? I didn’t know he was a patron of the arts.’

      ‘No idea,’ she answered, her skin prickling at the mention of his name. She kneaded her brow, aware that this must be something like her tenth lie of the weekend.

      What a mess.

      She hadn’t told her mother anything of what had happened that weekend—she didn’t have the strength to handle her reaction on top of everything else—had only asked her to use her contacts to see if there was any truth that the theatre had been sold to Talos Kalliakis.

      Now she had the answer.

      Talos hadn’t been bluffing. But then she hadn’t really thought he had been, had turned to her mother only out of a futile sense of having to do something rather than any real hope.

      ‘I knew his father, Prince Lelantos...’

      Her mother’s voice took on a dreamlike quality. It was a sound Amalie recognised, having been her mother’s confidante of the heart since the age of twelve.

      ‘I sang for him once. He was such a...’ she scrambled for the right word ‘...man!’

      ‘Maman, I need to go now.’

      ‘Of course, chérie. If you meet Prince Talos again, send him my regards.’

      ‘I will.’

      Turning her phone off and placing it on the table, Amalie drew her hands down her face.

      There was only one thing left that she could do. She was going to have to tell Talos Kalliakis the truth.

       CHAPTER THREE

      WHEN TALOS PUNCHED his finger to the bell of Amalie’s front door he knew she must have been waiting for him. She pulled the door open before his hand was back by his side.

      She stared at him impassively, as if what had occurred between them earlier had never happened. As if she hadn’t lost her calm veneer.

      Without a word being exchanged, he followed her into the kitchen.

      On the table lay a tray of pastries and two plates. A pot of coffee had just finished percolating. Amalie was dressed for her part, having donned a pair of black jeans that hugged her slender frame and a silver scoop-necked top. Her straight dark hair had been brushed back into a loose bun at the nape of her slender neck. She wore no make-up, and the freckles across her nose were vivid in the harsh light beaming from above them.

      It was clear to him that she had seen reason. And why on earth would she not? She was a professional musician. He shouldn’t have to resort to blackmail.

      Time was running out. For the gala. For his grandfather. The chemotherapy he was undergoing had weakened him badly. There were days when he couldn’t leave his bed—barely had the strength to retch into a bucket. Other days Talos found him in good spirits, happy to sit outside and enjoy the Agon sunshine in the sprawling palace gardens.

      Talos remembered again that he had planned to return home after the auditions on Saturday and spend the rest of the weekend with his grandfather. Instead he’d been compelled to force through—and quickly—the purchase of that awful Parisian building. And for what? Because the only professional violinist he’d found capable of doing justice to his grandmother’s final composition was playing hardball.

      No one played hardball with Talos Kalliakis. No one. To find this slender thing standing up to him...

      But she had seen reason. That was all that mattered now.

      He allowed himself a smile at his victory, and sat in the chair he’d vacated only six hours before.

      Defeat had never crossed his mind. It was regrettable that he’d had to resort to blackmail to get his own way but time was of the essence. The Jubilee was only a month away. There was still time for her to learn the piece to performance standard and for her orchestra to learn the accompanying music. He wanted them note-perfect before they took to the palace stage.

      Amalie’s arm brushed against his as she placed a mug in front of him. He found his attention caught by her fingers, as it had been earlier, when he’d had them trapped in his hand. It was the nails at the end of those long, elegant fingers that had really struck him. The nails of her left hand were short and blunt. The nails of her right hand were much longer and shapely. He’d puzzled over those nails all day...over what they reminded him of.

      He’d also puzzled over the reaction that had swept through him when he’d pinned her to his lap after her anger had rushed to the surface.

      Talos was a man who enjoyed the company of beautiful women. And beautiful women liked him. Women he didn’t know would catch his eye and hold it for a beat too long. When they learned who he was their gazes would stay fixed, suggestion and invitation ringing from them.

      Never had he met a woman who so obviously disliked him. Never had he met anyone—man or woman—outside his immediate family who would deny him anything he wanted.

      Amalie Cartwright was a pretty woman in her own unique way. The defiant attitude she’d displayed towards him infuriated and intrigued him in equal measure.

      What, he wondered, would it be like to light the fire he’d glimpsed that morning in a more intimate setting?

      What would it take to twist that fire and anger into passion?

      He had felt the shift in her when her whole body had stilled and her breath had shortened and then stopped. The same time his own breath had stopped. One moment he’d been staring at her fingers with bemusement, the next his body had been filled with an awareness so strong it had knocked the air out of him.

      He’d never experienced a reaction like it.

      And now, watching her take the same seat as she had that morning, he could feel that awareness stirring within him again.

      The following month held infinite possibilities...

      ‘Monsieur,’ she said once she had settled herself down and placed her green gaze on him, ‘earlier you appealed to my better nature—’

      ‘Which you disregarded,’ he interjected.

      She bowed her head in acknowledgement. ‘I had my reasons, which I am going to