The Kalliakis Crown: Talos Claims His Virgin
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If she was aware of all the appreciative gazes being thrown her way by men and women alike she did a good job of pretending not to be.
When the gong rang out, signalling for everyone to take their seats, Talos looked at his watch and saw over half an hour had passed since the first guests had stepped into the Banquet Room. The time had flown by.
‘You mastered the room like a pro,’ he said in an undertone as they found their seats on what had been designated the top table.
She cast puzzled eyes on him.
‘The way you handled our welcome job,’ he explained. ‘Most people would be overwhelmed when faced with one hundred and eighty people wanting to make small talk.’
She shrugged with a bemused expression. ‘My parents were always throwing parties. I think I mastered the art of small talk before I learned how to walk.’
‘You attended their parties?’
‘I was the main party piece.’
Before he could ask what she meant another gong sounded out and a courtier bade them all into silence as Helios and Theseus strode regally into the room.
No one took a seat until Helios, the highest-ranked member of the family in attendance, had taken his.
A footman pulled Amalie’s chair out for her, while Talos gathered the base of the train of her dress so she could sit down with ease. He caught a glimpse of delicate white ankle and had to resist the urge to run his fingers over it, to feel for himself the texture of her skin.
‘Thank you,’ she murmured, her eyes sparkling.
‘You’re welcome.’
Taking his own seat, he opened his booklet to peruse the menu. As Helios had directed, the four-course meal had an international flavour rather than one specifically Greek or Agonite.
White wine was poured into the appropriate glasses, the starter of dressed crab with an accompanying crab timbale, crayfish and prawns was brought out by the army of serving staff, and the banquet began.
‘Is your grandfather not attending?’ Amalie whispered before taking a sip of her wine.
‘He is unwell.’
‘Nothing serious, I hope?’ she asked with concern.
He forced a smile. ‘A touch of flu, that’s all.’
‘It must be a worry for you,’ she said, clearly seeing through his brevity.
‘My grandfather is eighty-seven and as tough as a horse,’ he deflected artfully.
She laughed. ‘My English grandfather is eighty-five and tough as a horse too. They’ll outlive the lot of us!’
How he wished that was the case, he thought, his heart turning to lead as he envisaged a life without his grandfather, a steady if often aloof presence, but someone who had always been there.
For the first time he felt the compulsion to confide, to tell the truth of his grandfather’s condition. It was there, right on the tip of his tongue. And he was the man who confided in no one. Not even his brothers.
The thought was unsettling.
Talos had learned the art of self-containment at the age of seven. The only person able to give him enough comfort to sleep when the nightmares had become too much to bear had died five years ago.
Yet for all the solace his grandmother had given him she’d never been able to give him peace. No one could give him that. He would sit stiffly in her arms, refusing to return the physical comfort she gave him. It had been a battle of wills with himself, something he could control and that no one could ever take away.
He’d been wise not to return the affection. How much greater would his pain have been if he had? He’d loved his mother with the whole of his heart. Her death had come close to destroying him.
The pain of his grandmother’s death had still hit him like one of the punches he received in the boxing ring, but it had been survivable. If he’d allowed himself to love her the way he’d loved his mother, he didn’t like to think how he would have reacted. Would the control he’d spent most of his lifetime perfecting have snapped? Would he have returned to those awful adolescent days when his fists had lashed out so many times he’d been on the verge of expulsion?
He was saved from having to respond by a young waiter asking if he would like his wine topped up.
If Amalie noticed his changed demeanour she gave no sign of it, craning her neck to follow their wine server’s progress out of the room. ‘Doesn’t that boy work at your gym?’
He was impressed that she’d recognised him. Workout gear was markedly different from the fitted black-and-white waiter’s uniform, with the purple ribbon stitched into the sides of the trousers.
‘And she’s from your gym too,’ Amalie whispered, nodding at a young girl in the far corner.
‘Most of the kids who work at the gym are working here tonight—it’s extra money for them and good experience.’
He had to admit to feeling an inordinate amount of pride, watching them performing their jobs so well. He’d fought the protocol battle a number of years ago, to allow ‘his’ kids to work at the palace whenever the opportunity arose.
‘Do you make a point of employing teenagers?’
‘It was one of the reasons I decided to build my own gym—I wanted to employ disaffected teenagers and make them feel a sense of worth in themselves. The kids who work there are free to spar and train whenever they’re off duty for no charge.’
‘These kids are allowed to box?’
‘You disapprove?’
‘It’s one thing for a fully grown adult to choose to get into a boxing ring and have his face battered, but quite another when it’s a developing teenager.’
‘Teenagers are full of hormones they have to navigate their way through. It’s a minefield for many of them.’
‘I agree, but...’
‘Agon is a wealthy island, but that doesn’t mean it’s problem-free,’ he said, wanting her to understand. ‘Our teenagers have the same problems as other Western teenagers. We give jobs and training to the ones living on the edge—the ones in danger of dropping out of society, the ones who, for whatever reason, have a problem controlling their anger. Boxing teaches them to control and channel that anger.’
Hadn’t he said something similar to her just the day before, in her cottage? Amalie wondered, thinking hard about the conversation they’d shared. The problem was her own hormones and fear had played such havoc that much of their conversation was blurred in her memory.
‘Is that why you got into boxing?’
His jaw clenched for the beat of a moment before relaxing. ‘I had anger issues. My way of coping with life was using my fists.’
‘Was that because of your parents?’ she asked carefully, aware she was treading on dangerous ground.
He jerked a nod. ‘Things came to a head when I was fourteen and punched my roommate at my English boarding school. I shattered his cheekbone. I would have been expelled if the Head of Sport hadn’t intervened.’
‘They wanted to expel you? But you’re a prince.’
His eyes met hers, a troubled look in them. ‘Expulsion was a rare event at my school—who wants to be the one to tell a member of a royal family or the president of a country that their child is to be permanently excluded? But it wasn’t a first offence—I’d been fighting my way through school since I was eight. The incident with my roommate was the final straw.’
He couldn’t read what was in her eyes, but thought he detected some kind of pity—or was it empathy?
She tilted her head, elongating the swan of her neck. ‘How did your Head of Sport get them to change their mind?’
‘Mr Sherman said he would personally take me under his wing and asked for three months to prove he could tame my nature.’
‘He did that through boxing?’ Now she thought about it, Amalie could see the sense in it. Hadn’t the kickboxing workouts Talos had forced her into doing created a new equilibrium within her? Already she knew that when she returned to Paris she would join a gym that gave the same classes and carry on with it.
‘At my school you had to be sixteen to join the boxing team, but he persuaded them—with the consent of my grandparents—to allow me to join.’ He laughed, his face relaxing as he did so. ‘Apart from my brothers, I was the biggest boy in the school. There was a lot of power behind my punches, which was what had got me into so much trouble in the first place. Mr Sherman taught me everything we now teach the kids who use our gym—the most important being how to channel and control my anger.’
‘Did it work?’
‘I haven’t thrown a punch in anger since.’
‘That is really something.’
Self-awareness nagged at her—an acknowledgement that while Talos had handled his rage through using his fists, she’d retreated from her own fears and buried them. But while he’d confronted and tamed his demons she’d continued hiding away, building a faux life for herself that was nothing like her early childhood dreams—those early days when she’d wanted to be a virtuoso on the violin, just like her father.
She’d been five years old when she’d watched old footage of him at Carnegie Hall—the same night he’d played on stage with Talos’s grandmother—and she’d said, with all the authority of a small child, ‘When I’m growed up I’ll play there with you, Papa.’
She’d let those dreams die.
CHAPTER NINE
IT TOOK A FEW beats for Amalie to regain her composure. ‘Did you get to take part in proper boxing matches?’
‘I was school champion for four years in a row—a record that has never been broken.’ He placed a finger to the scar on his eyebrow. ‘That was my most serious injury.’
She winced. ‘Did you want to take it up professionally?’
‘I’m a prince, so it was never an option—royal protocol.’ He gave a rueful shake of his head, then flashed another grin that didn’t quite meet his eyes. ‘I did win every amateur heavyweight boxing award going, though, including an international heavyweight title.’
‘No!’ she gasped. ‘Really?’
‘It was six years ago.’
‘That is incredible.’
‘It was the best day of my life,’ he admitted. ‘Receiving the winner’s belt with the Agon National Anthem playing... Yes, the best day of my life.’
She shook her head in awe, a thrill running through her as she saw a vision of Talos, standing in the centre of a boxing ring, perspiration dripping from his magnificent body, the epitome of masculinity...
‘Truly, that’s incredible. Do you still compete?’
‘I haven’t boxed in a competitive match since. I knew if I couldn’t fight professionally I wanted to retire on a high.’
‘You must miss it, though.’
She tried to imagine having to stop playing her violin and felt nothing but coldness. Her earliest concrete memory was receiving her first violin at the age of four. Yes, it had partly been forced on her, but she’d loved it, had adored making the same kind of music as her papa, revelled in her parents’ excitement when she’d taken to it with such an affinity that they couldn’t resist showing her off to the world. She’d loved pleasing her parents but before she’d reached double digits the resulting attention from the outside world had turned into her personal horror story. She might have inherited her parents’ musicality, but their showmanship had skipped a generation.
He shrugged. ‘I still spar regularly, but in truth I knew it was time to focus my attention on the business my brothers and I founded. Theseus had gone off on his sabbatical, so Helios was running it almost single-handedly along with dealing with his royal duties. It wasn’t fair on him.’
‘I don’t understand why you all put so much into the business when you have so much wealth.’
He eyed her meditatively. ‘How much do you think it costs to run a palace this size? The running costs, the maintenance, the staff?’
‘A lot?’
‘Yes. A lot. And that’s just for one palace. Factor in the rest of our estates—my villa, for example—travelling costs, security...’
‘I can imagine,’ she cut in, feeling slightly dizzy now he was explaining it.
‘My family has always had personal wealth,’ Talos explained, ‘but a considerable portion of our income came from taxes.’
‘Came?’
He nodded. ‘My brothers and I were determined to make our family self-sufficient, and three years ago we succeeded. Our islanders no longer pay a cent towards our upkeep. I might not compete any more, but I get all the intellectual stimulation I need.’
Amalie swallowed, guilt replacing the dizziness. She’d been so dismissive of his wealth.
Talos Kalliakis might be unscrupulous at getting his own way but he had a flip side—a side that was loyal, decent and thoughtful. He clearly loved his island and his people.
‘What about the physical stimulation you got from competitive boxing?’ she asked. ‘Have you found a replacement for that?’
His eyes glistened, a lazy smile tugging at his lips. ‘There is a physical pastime I partake in regularly that I find very stimulating...’
The breath in her lungs rushed out in a whoosh.
When he looked at her like that and spoke in that meaningful tone all her senses seemed to collide, making her tongue-tied, unable to come up with any riposte—witty or otherwise.
For the first time she asked herself why she should. Why make a joke out of something that made her blood and belly feel as warm and thick as melted chocolate? Why continue to deny herself something that could take her places she’d locked away?
Hadn’t she punished herself enough?
That thought seemed to come from nowhere, making her blink sharply.
Punished herself enough?
But there was something in that. Her fear was wrapped in so many layers, with her guilt over her role in her parents’ divorce bound tightly in the middle of it.
Talos had confronted his fears and mastered them. Wasn’t it time she allowed herself the same? She didn’t have to suppress her basic biological needs and be a virgin for ever out of fear. Or guilt.
She wasn’t her mother. Allowing herself to be with Talos and experience the pleasure she just knew she would receive at his willing giant hands wouldn’t be a prelude to falling in love. A man holding one hundred musicians’ livelihoods to ransom for the sake of a gala could pose no risk to her heart.
She cleared her throat and dropped her voice to a murmur. ‘Would you care to elucidate on this stimulation you speak of?’
She would swear his eyes darkened to match the melting chocolate in her veins.
He leaned his head forward and spoke into her exposed ear. ‘I can do much better than that...’
The chocolate heated and pooled down low, right in the apex of her thighs...the feeling powerful enough to make her lips part and a silent moan escape her throat.
Just when she was certain he was going to kiss her—or, worse, she was going to kiss him—activity around them brought her to her senses.
They were in the Banquet Room of the royal palace, surrounded by almost two hundred people, the heir to the throne sitting only six seats to her right. And she was bubbling up with lust.
During the rest of the banquet she made a studious effort to speak to the gentleman on her right, a prince from the UK. Through it all, though, her mind, her senses, her everything were consumed by Talos, deep in conversation with the woman to his left, a duchess from Spain.
Somehow their chairs had edged closer so his thigh brushed against hers, and when their dessert of loukoumades—a delicious Greek doughnut, drizzled with honey, cinnamon and walnuts—was cleared away, and they were awaiting the final course of fresh fruit, a shock ran through her when his hand came to rest on her thigh.
She wished she’d tried to talk Natalia into a different material for the dress; something lighter. The heavy fabric suited the theatricality of the dress beautifully, but while she could feel the weight of Talos’s hand there was none of the heat her body craved.
It wasn’t enough.
She wanted to feel him.
Sucking in a sharp breath to tame the thundering of her heart, she casually straightened, then moved her hand under the table to rest on his. As she threaded her fingers through his he gave the gentlest of squeezes, and that one simple action sent tiny darts of sensation rippling through her abdomen.
Strong coffee and glasses of port were poured, whilst the British Prince chattered on about one of the charities he was patron of. Amalie tried hard to keep her attention fixed on him, smiling in all the right places, laughing when appropriate, all the while wishing every guest there would magically disappear and leave her alone with Talos.
She hadn’t drunk much wine—a couple of glasses at most—but felt as if she’d finished a whole bottle, because at that moment she felt giddily out of control.
Talos still had hold of her thigh, his thumb making circular motions on the material so torturously barricading him from her skin.
She had no idea where her nerve came from—maybe her fingers had a life of their own, because they moved away from his hand to tentatively brush his thigh. He stiffened at her touch, his own hand tightening its hold on her.
The British Prince chattered on, clearly oblivious to the undercurrents playing out beside him.
Slowly her fingers crept over Talos’s thigh until her whole hand rested on it. The fabric of his trousers felt silken to her fingers, contrasting with the taut muscularity they covered. She could feel him.
He sat as stiff as a statue, making no attempt to move when, with a flush of heat she realised her little finger was right at the crevice of his thigh, the line of the V that connected it to his groin...
A feeling of recklessness overtook her and she swiped the little finger up a little further—deeper into his heat, closer to the source of his masculinity.
The statue came to life.
Talos swept his hand away from her thigh to reach for his port, which he swilled down before putting the glass back on the table. Not that she saw him do any of those things, rather she felt them, her attention still, to anyone interested enough to be watching, fixed on the British Prince.
Then Talos’s hand was back under the table and clasping hers, which was slowly stroking his thigh, her little finger brushing the V of his groin. Twisting it so he could hold it tightly, he entwined his fingers in hers.
‘Are you okay?’ the British Prince asked, pausing in his talk on water sanitation in developing countries. ‘You look flushed.’
She felt her neck and cheeks flame. ‘I think I need some air, that’s all,’ she said to the Prince, hoping she didn’t sound as flustered as she felt inside.
A warm arm slipped behind her back and round her waist and Talos was there, pressing against her, ostensibly having abandoned his conversation with the Duchess to join in with theirs.
‘Don’t worry, little songbird,’ he said, his deep voice sending reverberating thrills racing through her. ‘The banquet will soon be over.’
Talos felt as if he needed air too...
If her hand had moved any higher and actually touched the hardness that was causing him such aching pain he would have come undone on the spot.
Never in his life had he been so aroused, not even yesterday in the cottage where, despite their lack of clothing, it had been a different arousal.
He sensed no fear in Amalie now.
No, this was a special kind of sweet torture and in front of all Helios’s guests he was unable to do a damn thing about it.
So long as he kept her hand away from his crotch he would master it. The most sensible option would be to stop touching her altogether, but sensible didn’t count for anything—not when it was Amalie Cartwright he was touching.
He let out a breath of relief when the palace quartet entered the Banquet Room, mandolins and banjos playing out the guests with the folk music beloved of all Agonites.
The Agon royal party rose first. Keeping her hand firmly clasped in his, Talos led Amalie through to the adjoining ballroom, delighting in her gasp of pleasure.
The ballroom was by far the most majestic of all the palace rooms, both in size and stature. With high ceilings and a black-and-white checked floor, even Talos experienced a thrill of stepping into a bygone age whenever he entered it.
As soon as the royal party entered, the orchestra, situated in a corner, began to play.
Most of the guests took seats at the highly decorated round tables lining the walls, free to choose where they wanted to sit. The two ornate thrones at the top of the room shone under the swooping chandeliers. Looking at them sent a pang through him. They would remain empty for the duration of the evening.
He wondered how his grandfather was, his stomach twisting at the remembrance of the vomiting episode he had witnessed just a few short hours ago. He consoled himself with the knowledge that should his grandfather take a turn for the worse he and his brothers would be notified immediately.
Talos guided Amalie to a table and poured them both a glass of wine. Theseus joined them and, as was his nature, soon had Amalie giggling as he regaled her with tales of their childhood.
A strange tightening spread across his chest to see her so clearly enthralled, and with a start he realised the cause. Jealousy. His jealousy. She’d never laughed so freely for him.
This was becoming dangerous.
Desire was one thing, but jealousy... That was one emotion too far and too ugly.
That was what you got for spending so much time with a beautiful woman without bedding her. If he’d bedded her from the start her allure would have vanished already and he would now be focussing on getting her performance-fit without wasting energy wondering how she looked naked or whether she moaned loudly when she came.
For all his words about ‘partaking’ regularly, he hadn’t been with a woman in months—not since his grandfather’s diagnosis. It was as if his libido had gone into stasis.
And now his libido had gone into hyperdrive.
Forget noble thoughts about not taking advantage of her position on the island, or that she was there because of his blackmail. The chemistry between them had gone off the charts. All they needed was one night to detonate it. One night. Come the morning, their chemistry would be spent. If not, they still had three weeks to expel it completely, but they would have tamed the worst of it. They would be able to concentrate on nothing but her gala performance.
At that moment the orchestra broke into a waltz, indicating the start of the evening’s dancing. Talos watched Helios take a deep breath, fix a smile to his face and cross the ballroom to tap a princess from the old Greek royal family on the shoulder. She was on her feet like a shot, allowing him to lead her onto the dance floor. It was the cue for the other guests who fancied trying their hands at traditional ballroom dancing to get to their feet.
‘Shouldn’t you find a lady to dance with?’ Talos pointedly asked his brother in Greek.
Theseus’s smile dropped. He grimaced, his eyes darting around the room as if he were searching for someone. ‘I’ll have a drink first. But don’t let me stop you—you two make a beautiful couple.’
Talos narrowed his eyes and fixed Theseus with his ‘stare’. Theseus pulled a face and swigged his wine.
‘Would you like to dance?’ he asked Amalie. Talos might loathe dancing, but the thought of having her in his arms was a temptation not to be resisted.
‘I’ve never waltzed,’ she said dubiously.
‘Most of our guests have never waltzed. I will lead you.’ That was if he could remember. He hadn’t waltzed since the Debutantes Ball in Vienna, which his grandfather had forced him to attend when he was twenty-one. If his brothers hadn’t already been forced into attendance at the same age he would have put up more than an obligatory protest.
She allowed him to help her to her feet and guide her onto the dance floor.