The Greek's Forbidden Princess
Page 1
Illicit nights with the billionaire...
News of a tragic accident plunges Princess Amelie’s life into turmoil. To escape the swarming press, she takes her newly orphaned nephew and runs, seeking the protection of one man.
Lambis Evangelos desires Amelie beyond all reckoning, but refuses to taint her radiant beauty with the guilt of his past. For years he’s resisted his longing for her luscious body—until Amelie’s arrival at his doorstep draws him too close to her forbidden temptation...
His secluded Greek island is a refuge from the world. There, Amelie and Lambis have no choice—they must yield to their fiery, uncontrollable passion!
‘Why ask when clearly you don’t care?’
Amelie didn’t even turn to face him. Only the rigidity of her slim frame and the hands clenched at her sides revealed her tension. Lambis didn’t answer. To say he cared would be tantamount to inviting them to stay, and that he couldn’t do. Yet nor could he see her tension and not respond.
Damn the woman! She’d got under his skin once. He couldn’t let her do it again.
Suddenly she spun round, and the change in her was a punch to the solar plexus. Gone was the touch-me-not Princess, the haughty aristocrat. Everything about Amelie spoke of heat and passion. From her flashing eyes to the heightened colour accentuating those high cheekbones and the sweet bow of her mouth, deliciously plump as if she’d been biting it.
The effect was instant and incendiary—a symphony of want turned his body to hot, brazen metal. He’d wanted her before, too many times to count, but not like this—as if he’d incinerate if he didn’t reach out and touch her, taste those kissable lips and possess that poised, perfect body.
‘My nephew is required to speak. To accept his future role and swear an oath. If he doesn’t…’ Amelie paused and the colour faded from her cheeks. ‘If he can’t say the words another heir will be found.’
‘Couldn’t the law be changed?’
‘Not quickly enough.’
The Princess Seductions
Driven by duty—destined for desire!
A dynastic marriage is planned between Princess Amelie of St Galla and King Alexander of Bengaria. They are meant to be meeting for the first time—but Amelie has disappeared!
Someone must stand in until Amelie returns—and who better than her secret half-sister Cat Dubois?
But when Amelie embarks on a sizzling forbidden affair will she ever want to return?
Find out what happens in
His Majesty’s Temporary Bride
The Greek’s Forbidden Princess
Available now!
The Greek’s Forbidden Princess
Annie West
www.millsandboon.co.uk
Growing up near the beach, ANNIE WEST spent lots of time observing tall, burnished lifeguards—early research! Now she spends her days fantasising about gorgeous men and their love-lives. Annie has been a reader all her life. She also loves travel, long walks, good company and great food. You can contact her at annie@annie-west.com or via PO Box 1041, Warners Bay, NSW 2282, Australia.
Books by Annie West
Mills & Boon Modern Romance
The Flaw in Raffaele’s Revenge
The Princess Seductions
His Majesty’s Temporary Bride
Wedlocked!
The Desert King’s Captive Bride
Secret Heirs of Billionaires
The Desert King’s Secret Heir
Visit the Author Profile page
at millsandboon.co.uk for more titles.
For Karen, who’s there through thick and thin. Thanks, mate!
And a big thank you to Efthalia for advising on the Greek.
Dear Reader,
The Greek’s Forbidden Princess is the second book in my The Princess Seductions duet, and yet it was the first of the two story ideas that came to me. It’s been in my head a long time, slowly percolating till the time was right to get it down in black and white.
In my teens I began a love affair with Greece—possibly from the day I picked up a very old edition of stories by Mary Stewart, which featured feisty women finding both peril and romance in the wild mountains of Greece. Strong heroes, passion (if rather understated, in keeping with the time they were written) and exotic locations—I was hooked! Since then I’ve had the chance to explore a little of the country and its culture and the fascination continues.
My brooding, powerful hero Lambis, who’s cut himself off from the chance of love, owes as much to that early reading as to the traditional Beauty and the Beast theme. But the story isn’t all about him. In fact it was Princess Amelie I thought of first. Caring, charming, hard-working and beautiful—she might have been too good to be true, except I learned immediately that this woman hides a world of hurt and thwarted hopes behind her serene expression. She loves and cares deeply, and will risk anything for those she loves—not only scandal, but heartbreak. So when it’s a toss-up between saving her orphaned nephew and begging for help from the man who rejected her… You can imagine what choice she makes!
I felt deeply for Amelie and Lambis. Their story moved me and I hope it moves you too. I hope, like me, you sigh with pleasure when you reach the final page.
With very best wishes,
Annie
Contents
Cover
Back Cover Text
Introduction
The Princess Seductions
Title Page
About the Author
Dedication
Dear Reader
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
EPILOGUE
Extract
Copyright
CHAPTER ONE
‘THEN KATALEVENO.’ I don’t understand. Amelie paused and tried again, working to keep her teeth from chattering as the temperature dropped another degree or six. ‘Kyrios Evangelos, parakalo.’ Mr Evangelos, please.
The intercom squawked into a burst of machine-gun-fast Greek. Amelie hadn’t a hope of understanding. She’d already used up her handful of phrases.
Clearly the woman inside the house had no patience for foreigners. Or language skills other than Greek. Amelie had already tried French, English, German and finally even Spanish and Russian.
But why should the housekeeper, if that was who she was, speak anything other than Greek? This estate was high in the mountain spine of northern Greece. Tourists headed for the beaches of the Aegean Sea or the ancient ruins. Amelie guessed only the most adventurous foreigners headed to this isolated, beautiful region.
Adventurous or desperate.
Amelie had never had a chance to be adventurous. But a twist of fate had turned her staid, predictable world on its head. Desperate was too mild a description for her situation.
‘Please. Parakalo,’ she began, hunching her shoulders against the icy wind, but the line went dead.
Amelie stared, disbelieving, into the security camera perched above the gates. The woman had hung up! She must have seen Amelie shivering in the unseasonable icy blast.
Amelie blinked, torn between indignation and curiosity. This was a first. Never before had she been ignored—no, not ignored...rejected.
Yet even as she thought it, she knew that was wrong.
She’d been rejected by the very man she’d come here to see. Once, when it had been ju
st her happiness in question, she’d taken his rebuff with all the grace she’d spent a lifetime learning. This time, when it was Seb’s happiness, his future in question, Amelie refused to accept ‘no’.
Her mouth settled in a way her father had called obstinate. But her father had never been pleased, no matter how she tried, or how many of the family burdens she shouldered. Besides, he was dead and gone. Like Michel, her brother, and his wife, Irini.
A giant hand gripped her insides and twisted them till they burned. The ache welled high, clogging her chest, her throat, her whole being.
But Amelie wouldn’t let it conquer her. She blinked, refusing to let tears come. There’d been no time for tears since the accident for, of course, everyone relied on her to be strong. The burden might have broken her if she hadn’t spent years as the anchor for her family and everyone else. For as if grief wasn’t enough, the repercussions from Michel’s death were...complicated.
Amelie breathed deep, determined to focus on the positive. She still had Seb.
Her glance strayed to the nondescript hire car pulled over in front of the massive gates. There was no movement inside. Seb must still be asleep. Their journey from St Galla had exhausted him.
It had exhausted her. Amelie almost lifted a hand to her aching head—too much stress and too little sleep—but she was conscious of the security camera. She was watched from inside the house she couldn’t even see down its long drive.
A lifetime’s training in never revealing weakness kept her arm by her side and her chin up. If Lambis Evangelos and his lackeys thought she’d meekly run away...
Her lips turned up in a mirthless smile. They had no idea what despair could do. What she could do.
Slowly, shoulders back and hands swinging at her sides, she strolled to the car. She didn’t even flinch when the first snowflakes spattered her face.
It needed only that to put the seal on this horrible journey. The secretive trip to Athens on a friend’s boat in order to avoid the paparazzi. The press had mobbed her in St Galla and they’d been forced to slip out in the dead of night. The long journey, the crowds and bustle of Athens, then the stonewalling when she’d arrived at the Evangelos Enterprises office. Then the long, exhausting drive north.
She’d come this far. She refused to return home, defeated. There was too much at stake.
Opening the back door of the car, she slid in beside Seb. Sure enough, he was sleeping, a lock of blond hair flopping over his too-pale face. He looked vulnerable, curled up with his teddy under his chin.
Amelie’s heart turned over and love, fierce and fortifying, slammed into her. She shrugged out of her long coat and scooted over against him, draping it over the pair of them. He shifted, frowning in his sleep, opening his mouth as if to protest, but then subsided without so much as a whimper. Under the cashmere, Amelie wrapped her arm around him and hugged him close.
They’d hit a dead end and she was out of alternatives. She’d have to come up with another plan, but for now, she’d allow herself a tiny respite. Ten minutes’ rest before she revised her plan of action. With a sigh of exhaustion she closed her eyes.
Ten minutes...
* * *
A knocking woke her. She had that awful cotton wool taste in her mouth that told her she’d actually fallen asleep in broad daylight.
Except it wasn’t daylight. It was murky twilight and so chilly it was a wonder she’d slept.
Again that knocking, harder this time, and Amelie swung her head round. Through the side window she saw a dark shadow loom like a giant mountain bear. Her heart skidded against her ribs. Adrenaline pumped too hard, too fast, and she had to force down a moment’s primitive, instinctive fear.
Then she woke properly, remembering their predicament. If only it was merely wildlife she had to worry about!
She slid along the back seat, carefully tucking her coat around Seb, who, remarkably, still slept. The poor kid truly was running on empty.
As she put her hand on the handle, the massive form outside retreated, allowing her to open the door.
Instantly a blast of frigid air struck. Amelie gasped then forced herself out, shutting the door quickly to keep in the relative warmth. Fat snowflakes tickled her face. She sucked in a draught of oxygen that froze her throat and made all the tiny hairs on her body rise.
Except she suspected it wasn’t the cold air alone that did that. More likely it was reaction to the great, shaggy bear of a man standing just a pace away.
At least those profoundly broad shoulders blocked some of the wind. They were a perfect frame for a wickedly bold, dark face—straight black eyebrows, strong, too strong nose, high-cut cheekbones and a jaw that reminded her of the Acropolis’s uncompromising angles. It didn’t matter that his mouth was finely chiselled and full, for he didn’t smile. His mouth was grim, a perfect match for eyes as grey and dour as the mountain looming beyond him.
No welcome. No offer of assistance.
Amelie lifted her chin, the better to see him, refusing to be intimidated by that beetling brow or the aggressive bunch of his huge hands.
Or by the unwanted punch of pure feminine response to his aura of potent masculinity.
By sheer force of will she kept her arms at her sides instead of wrapping them around her freezing body. She’d stood firm against the worst St Galla could throw at her, not least her own father. She wasn’t about to fall in a heap because of a scowl.
No matter how much she wanted to turn tail and find some cosy hotel where she could curl up and be alone.
This isn’t about you, Amelie.
The reminder gave her strength. Her life had always been about others. Her forays into seeking personal happiness had been disastrous.
‘Kalimera.’ Good day.
He didn’t reply. Not by so much as a muscle twitch did his expression change, yet she had the impression that anger coiled tight within that imposing frame.
The only thing about him that moved was his hair, overlong and tousled by the whipping wind, jet black like his eyebrows, and if his expression was any indication, his heart.
How could a man so stern and unyielding make her pulse quicken and her knees go weak with excitement?
‘You’re blocking the gates.’
Biting back a retort she knew would win her no friends, Amelie smiled. It was the small public smile she sometimes felt she’d perfected before she could walk. The sort that wore well, no matter how tough the circumstances or how much she wished she was anywhere else.
‘So I am.’ Because parking here had been the only way to guarantee attention. Lambis Evangelos and his employees couldn’t drive in or out with her car parked across the entrance. ‘If you open the gates I’ll remedy that.’
He didn’t even bother to shake his head or, being Greek, to lift his chin in that supremely dismissive reverse nod that signified no.
Tiredness dragged at Amelie, and a building fury that she’d travelled so far, hiding from the press all the way, fearing someone would recognise them and destroy their anonymity, to be met by this. The blank annoyance of a man who didn’t give a damn.
Perhaps this last-ditch effort was doomed to fail.
Acid swirled through her insides and the metallic taste of defeat was bitter on her tongue. Amelie felt a tremor of despair begin deep in the pit of her belly and widened her stance, staking her right to be here.
At the movement something flickered in those deep-set eyes, but he said nothing.
So be it. He might be rugged up in a massive coat but Amelie wasn’t dressed for this unseasonably early snowstorm. Her clothes were chic rather than warm. The weather on the Mediterranean island of St Galla had been summery. The cool weather wouldn’t begin there for another couple of months and snow was rare.
Amelie turned to open the rear car door.
‘What are you doing?’ His voice was deep and resonant. She felt it circle her ribs then burrow low, making her insides soften.
Suddenly, gloriously, anger welled, burnin
g bright in veins turned sluggish with cold and the prospect of defeat. She would not let this man with a voice like hot whisky, so at odds with those glacial eyes, turn her inside out.
‘Since a civil greeting is out of the question, I’m getting back in the car, where at least there’s some warmth.’
‘Stop.’ He stretched out one arm, his big, square hand just a hairsbreadth from hers. Then, abruptly, rejecting the idea of physical contact, he let it drop.
Somehow, more than anything, that hurt.
She didn’t want him to touch her. But that infinitesimal rejection felt like a tipping point. Amelie assured herself this foolishness was just the aftermath of a hellish time, of stress and trauma and worry.
‘Why? Do you have something to say that I want to hear?’ Her chin hiked up and to her amazement she caught sight of a tiny twist at the corner of that stern mouth. It was nothing like a smile, nothing so human. But it was something.
‘You shouldn’t be here.’
‘This is public property. I’ve every right to park here while I wait to be let in.’
Those long fingers twitched at his sides and Amelie wondered on a snared breath of icy air whether he fought the impulse to shake her or move her bodily.
‘There’s nothing for you here.’ He said it slowly, enunciating each word with a precise perfection that reminded her English wasn’t his native language.
‘I didn’t come for myself.’ Amelie kept her voice even, betraying none of the pain she repressed. She was a master at hiding emotion in public. She did it so well she wondered what it would be like to let go—to cry and complain and rail against the cruelty of fate. But that wasn’t her way. She didn’t know how.
One sleek eyebrow cocked high in silent interrogation.
‘I’ve brought my nephew.’
Silence. More of that absolute, unnerving stillness. Had he trained in being impenetrable? Or just in being unfeeling?
Surely even this dour man, who’d already made it clear she wasn’t welcome, had some kernel of softness for a little boy.