My little songbird?
The possessive pronoun made her heart jolt and soar in a motion so powerful it reverberated through her whole body, right down to the tips of her toes.
My little songbird.
And in that moment came a flash of recognition of such clarity that her heart stuttered to a stop before stammering back into throbbing motion.
This wasn’t about lust and desire.
She loved him.
Loved him. Loved him.
CHAPTER TWELVE
STRUGGLING TO COMPREHEND, Amalie detached herself from his arms and sat up, crossing her legs to stare down at the face she had, without knowing how or when, fallen in love with.
‘Is something the matter?’ he asked, his eyes crinkling in question. ‘You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.’
She shook her head, partly to refute his question and partly in wonder that this could have happened to her. She waited for self-recrimination to strike, but the wonder of the moment was too great, her mind a jumble.
Shaking her head again, she said, ‘You forcing me here...that horrible contract you forced me to sign...the threats you made...’
He winced and she was glad. She wanted him to be ashamed of his behaviour. It meant he had a conscience. And if he had a conscience that meant he was the flesh-and-blood man she’d got to know these past few weeks and not the terrifying ogre she’d first met. It meant they had a chance. A small chance, she knew. Tiny. But a chance all the same.
She rubbed her thumb over his bottom lip and said softly, ‘Just because I think you’re the sexiest man alive, it doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten what you did to get me here and the abhorrent threats you made.’
But did it mean she’d forgiven him? Talos wanted to know. He opened his mouth to ask, but then closed it.
What if she said no? What if she said she could never forgive him for how he’d got her here and the threats he’d made?
Why did he even want her forgiveness? He’d never sought forgiveness before.
Recalling the intimidation he’d put her under to get her acquiescence made him feel tight and compressed inside, and his skin felt as if claws were digging into it. Ruthless behaviour when necessary was nothing new to him, but it had a different taste when you had spent the previous night in bed with the recipient of that behaviour. It tasted different when you knew you would maim anyone who would dare even dream of hurting a hair on the head of that person.
It suddenly struck him that he would give his life to protect this woman.
And as the shock of that revelation filtered through him she continued to speak, cross-legged beside him, naked, the sheet twisted on her lap.
‘Whatever the initial circumstances, I can’t help thinking coming here is the best thing that could ever have happened to me.’
‘Why?’ His voice sounded distant and his head was spinning, his pulse racing so hard nausea gripped the lining of his stomach.
‘Because being here has given me the time and space to see things clearly.’ She dipped her head and gnawed at her bottom lip before speaking again. ‘One of my psychiatrists told me outright that he thought I didn’t want to be fixed. He was wrong. I...’ Her voice caught. When she looked at him her eyes were glassy. ‘It’s not that I didn’t want to be fixed...it’s that I didn’t think I deserved to be fixed.’
Talos ran a hand over his jaw, at a loss as to what he could say. She was unbuttoning herself to him, ready to spill her secrets, and all he wanted to do was shout out and beg her to stop.
He didn’t want to hear them. He didn’t want to feel anything else for her. Not pity, not empathy. He would take his guilt like a man, but nothing more.
‘Maybe you can understand the early part of my life,’ she said, oblivious to the turmoil going on within him. ‘You’ve always been public property too. Before I’d reached the age of ten I’d played for the President of France, had taken part in a celebrity-led anti-poverty concert that was beamed around the world to a billion people...’
All of these facts were things he’d learned when he’d first discovered her in that practice room and known she was ‘the one’. It had made her refusal to perform at the gala all the more ridiculous to his mind.
‘I was a household name, a child prodigy, and it was easy for me.’ She shook her head ruefully. ‘I loved performing and I loved the applause. But then I turned ten. I found the reviews my parents had kept of my performances and realised that people had opinions about my music—that they weren’t just enjoying it but dissecting everything about it. They were dissecting me. All the joy I’d experienced on stage evaporated.’
She snapped her fingers.
‘Gone. I’d never experienced fear once, and all of a sudden I was crippled by it. What if they found me wanting? What if the way I interpreted a particular piece compared unfavourably to another violinist? So many thoughts and fears, when before there had been nothing but the joy of playing. It all came to a head on my mother’s birthday, when I was twelve.’
She broke away and reached for the glass of water on the bedside table.
‘What happened?’ he asked, once she’d placed the glass back. She’d stopped talking, clearly gathering her thoughts together.
‘She had a party at our holiday home in Provence. I’d spent two years begging not to play in public any more, begging to go to school and make friends, begging for a normal life—but she wouldn’t allow it. I was special, you see, and, in my mother’s eyes I belonged on the stage, receiving the plaudits she took for granted in her own career.’
Her voice dropped.
‘I love my maman, but she can be very manipulative. She was not ashamed to use emotional blackmail to get me to play. She’d had a stage built at the bottom of the garden. I remember standing on it and seeing all those eyes upon me—there were at least a hundred guests, most of them international household names—and I froze. And then...’
‘And then?’
Her eyes were huge on his. ‘I wet myself. In front of all those people. They all saw it. All of them. They stopped talking amongst themselves and stared at me—and, God, the horror in their eyes. The humiliation was excruciating.’
Talos’s throat had closed completely. He thought back to the clip he’d found on the internet, of her at her last public performance, before she’d retreated from the limelight. It could only have been months before the party she’d described. She’d been a scrap of a girl at twelve, without any of the knowing precociousness of preadolescence, and small for her age. She’d been a child.
Amalie sighed and visibly gathered herself together, tucking her hair behind her ears.
‘Maman was mortified, but she swore it was just a blip. I was booked to play at the Royal Albert Hall a week later, as part of a Christmas celebration, and she insisted I still play. My father tried to get her to see reason but she couldn’t—really, she couldn’t. I was her protégée; she’d created me. Minutes before I was due to go on stage I had a panic attack, bad enough that a stagehand called an ambulance. When I was released from hospital my father collected me alone. Maman had refused to listen to reason so he felt he had no choice but to leave her and take me with him for my own protection.’
She blew out a long puff of air and gave a laugh that was full of bitterness rather than humour.
‘He loved her, but he knew that by staying with her he would be condoning her treatment of me. Since then I’ve watched my mother rebound from relationship to relationship, knowing that if I’d been stronger they would still be together—’
‘No,’ he cut in, finally finding his voice. ‘No, it was your mother—not you. You were a child.’
Her eyes caught his and she jerked her head in a nod, relief spreading over her features that he understood.
‘That’s what I mean about it being good for me
here in Agon,’ she said. ‘It’s given me the space and perspective to see reason and the time to think. You see, even though my father was awarded custody of me, given sole responsibility for my welfare, I still spent holidays and weekends with her. He never stopped me seeing her. He never stopped loving her but he felt he had to put my well-being first and take any decisions about my welfare out of her hands. I watched them both suffer apart and all I could see was that it was my fault. I felt as if I’d destroyed their lives. I’ve been punishing myself because subconsciously I didn’t think I deserved to have the future I’d dreamed about. I created a nice, safe life for myself and thought it was enough.’
‘And now?’ he asked. ‘You’ve come so far already. You’ve played for me, which in itself was a huge hurdle to overcome. Your orchestra will be here tomorrow, so we will see how successful we have been, but I have faith. You can do this, my little songbird. But you need to want this for yourself, regardless of any repercussions.’
Her head tilted. ‘Do those repercussions still exist?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said honestly. ‘I would prefer not to find out.’
‘So would I.’ A sad smile spread over her face. ‘It is hard for me to reconcile the man I’m sharing a bed with with the brute who forced his way into my home.’
‘They’re one and the same. I make no apologies for being the man I was raised to be. When it comes to my family and my country I fight—and when necessary I fight dirty.’
‘That you certainly do,’ she said with a sigh, before reaching for his hand and threading her fingers through his. ‘Why is this gala so important to you? I understand a nation’s pride in half a century of successful and prosperous rule by one monarch, but I can’t help thinking it means more to you than that.’
‘You don’t think that’s enough?’ he deflected. ‘Fifty years of rule is no easy feat. In Agon most monarchs abdicate when their heir reaches forty, allowing them to enjoy their retirement. My grandfather’s heir died before he reached that age, so he was left with no choice but to carry on—which he has done with dignity and pride, for his people. Helios will be forty in four years.’
Before she could ask another question he pulled her down to him and rolled her onto her back. Devouring her mouth, he allowed the sweetness of her touch, the sweetness of her, to encompass him and drive away the tightness pinching his skin to his bones.
And as he moved in her, her soft moans dancing in his ear and the short nails of her left hand scratching and gripping his back and buttocks with as much need as the long nails of her right, his mind emptied of everything but the ecstasy he experienced in her arms.
* * *
Talos had dozed off. Amalie lightly traced the bow of his full top lip, resisting the urge to replace her finger with her mouth. He looked at peace, all that latent energy in hibernation.
She’d told him everything. About all the shame she carried, the shame she hadn’t even known she was carrying—not just what had occurred at her mother’s birthday party but the knock-on effects. Talking about it, admitting it—not just to Talos but to herself—she’d felt cleansed. Purged. He was right. She’d been a child.
Her heart felt so full, and it was all because of him. He’d stolen her heart and it astounded her how willing she’d been in allowing him to take it. But then he’d marked her with that first look. She’d stood no chance, not once she was on his island. Not once he’d shown her his human face. Even that damnable contract didn’t make her fists clench any longer. She loved that he was prepared to fight for what he believed in.
What would it be like, she thought wistfully, to have this great man’s love? To be enveloped under the protection he extended to his family and his people?
She couldn’t allow herself to think like that. She was not her mother. Accepting that she’d fallen in love with him did not give her any illusions that he would have fallen for her in return. Only a few hours ago he’d made it clear it was all about sex.
But hadn’t she said exactly the same thing? And hadn’t she meant it too?
No. She would not allow herself the futility of hope. While she was on Agon she would cherish the time she spent with him. When it was time for her to leave she would go with her head held high and slip back into her old life.
She blinked.
Did she even want to go back to her nice, cosy existence?
Prickles spread out over her skin as she thought about what the future could hold for her. The future she’d once dreamt about.
She’d been terrified of passion and love. With Talos she had found both and she was still standing. Not only standing, but with an energy fizzing in her veins that made her feel more alive than she’d ever known.
All the walls she’d built—in part to protect herself, in part to punish herself—had been dismantled, revealing a future that could be hers if only she had the courage to reach out and take it.
Talos was a fighter. He wore his courage in his skin. He’d forced her to fight too, had found a way to bring out her own inner warrior. Now she needed to hold that inner warrior close and never let it go.
Slipping out of the covers, she helped herself to his discarded black T-shirt and tugged it over her head as she made her way down the stairs and into the living room. There, she opened her case, tightened and slid resin over her bow, tuned her violin. Then she took one final deep breath and went back up to the bedroom.
Talos still slept, but he’d shifted position in the few minutes she’d been gone. The moment she sat on the edge of the bed he opened his eyes.
Heart thundering, she smiled shyly at him, then closed her eyes, tucked her violin under her chin and positioned the bow.
The first note rang out with a high sweetness that hit Talos like a punch in his gut, waking him fully in an instant.
She didn’t need to tell him. He knew.
This was his grandmother’s piece. Her final composition, never before played to a living soul.
And as he listened, watched Amalie play, the punches continued to rain down on him, throwing him back a quarter of a century to his childhood, to the time when his whole world had been ripped apart.
Whereas before he’d been eager to hear her play it, now he wanted to wrestle the violin from her hands and smash it out of the window. But he was powerless to move, to stop the music from ringing around the bedroom, to stop the memories from flooding him. He was as powerless as he’d been when he was seven years old, unable to stop his father throwing blows upon his mother.
As he was assailed by all those torrid memories something else stole through him—a balm that slowly crept through his veins to soothe his turmoil, forcing the memories from his mind and filling him with nothing but the sweet music pouring from Amalie’s delicate fingers.
It was like listening to a loving ghost. If he closed his stinging eyes he could see his grandmother. But she wasn’t there. It was Amalie, who had interpreted the music with love and sympathy and such raw emotion it was as if Rhea Kalliakis had pointed a finger down at her from heaven and said, She’s the one.
To watch her play felt like a precious gift in itself—a gift to love and cherish for ever.
It wasn’t until she played the final note that she opened her eyes. He read the apprehension in them, but saw something else there too—an emotion so powerful his heart seemed to explode under the weight of it.
He dragged a hand down his face and inhaled through his nostrils, trying to restore an equilibrium that was now so disjointed he couldn’t find the markers to right it.
‘When my parents died I suffered from terrible nightmares.’ His words were hoarse from the dryness in his throat. ‘My grandmother would sit on my bed, as you are now, and she would play for me until the nightmares had gone and I had fallen back to sleep.’
Amalie didn’t answer; her eyes wide and brimming with emot
ion.
‘You’ve brought her music to life,’ he said simply.
She hugged her violin to her chest. ‘It’s the most beautiful piece of music I’ve ever been privileged enough to play, and I promise you I will fight as if I were Agon-born to play it at your grandfather’s gala.’
His heart twisted to see the fierceness on her face. He knew it was directed at herself, knew the battle wasn’t yet won, but also that she would fight with everything she had to overcome half a lifetime of fear. There was something about the way she looked at him that made him think she wouldn’t be fighting solely for the sake of the contract and the repercussions that would come from failure, but for him.
And the thought of her fighting for him made his disjointed equilibrium do a full spinning rotation.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
TALOS GOT INTO his car and turned on the ignition. He’d barely cleared his villa before he turned the car back and turned the engine off.
He imagined her cottage, in the distance, hidden from where he sat by dense trees. He imagined her waiting by the door for him, dressed in the tight-fitting sweats that showed off her slender curves. Imagined the welcoming kiss she would give him, her enthusiasm, as if they’d been parted for weeks rather than a few hours.
Since she’d played for him in the bedroom she’d had no problem with him being around while she practised his grandmother’s piece. The problem was that her orchestra had arrived a couple of days ago and proper rehearsals for the gala had begun. Amalie had taken to the stage for the first rehearsal and frozen.
Today he’d been there to witness it for himself—and this time she’d played it to the end, but only by keeping her terror-filled eyes on him. She’d visibly trembled throughout, and the notes she’d played had been tense and short—nothing like the flowing, dreamlike melody she achieved when they were alone.
Her obvious distress felt like sharpened barbs in his heart.
It was too soon for her. Maybe if the gala were in a couple of months, or even weeks, there would be time but it was only four days away. She knew her part perfectly, and the orchestra knew theirs, but what use was that when she couldn’t get her fingers to work?
Talos Claims His Virgin Page 14
