but she wasn’t about to throw him under a bus. Not until she understood exactly what was going on.
King Giorgos’s expression hardened as she remained silent. He knew she was holding something back. How did he know that?
‘You attended a ball at the palace a few weeks ago,’ he said coldly.
‘Yes.’ There was no point in lying—but she didn’t need to offer any more information than necessary, right?
‘Why?’
Her heart thumped. ‘It was for charity. For the hospital.’
‘But you didn’t go with the hospital staff. You attended as the guest of someone else.’
She hadn’t been one of the lucky staff to win a lottery invitation, but Damon had taken her—the only thing she’d let herself take from the half-brother she’d met only a few months before. Damon had seemed preoccupied when they’d left the ball, but she’d been too deep in thought herself to notice much; she didn’t really know him well enough to ask if he was okay. She should have asked.
But then Damon had asked that random question—more than once. ‘Did you see that woman in the blue wig and black mask? Do you know who she is?’
Kassie hadn’t even seen who he’d meant—there’d been plenty of women in wigs...it had been a masquerade ball, after all. It could have been anyone, right? But not Princess Eleni. Everyone knew that the Princess hadn’t attended the ball that night because she’d been unwell with a migraine.
But once more Kassie remembered the look of utter astonishment on Damon’s face when he’d learned that Princess Eleni was the visitor he’d overheard at the hospital that day a few weeks later.
‘You see my sister every week. I hear she likes to talk to you?’
She hadn’t answered King Giorgos’s earlier question. She realised now he hadn’t needed her to because he already knew. Just as he already knew the answer to this question too.
‘I take her on her tour of the ward, yes.’
‘And when she was unwell last week...?’
‘She didn’t stay. No one else was aware she was unwell.’ None of the other staff, nor the other patients.
‘No one?’ he pressed, astute and seeking. ‘What aren’t you telling me?’
She panicked, desperate to deflect his questioning. ‘Your sister might put up with your bullying, but I’m not going to.’
He stiffened. ‘That’s what she told you? That I bully her?’
She couldn’t hold his scorching gaze, and was unable to lie. ‘No. I never spoke with her about anything personal. She never mentioned you.’
Her foolish eyes had minds of their own and they couldn’t resist looking into his again. He kept watching her, and suddenly nothing else seemed to register or matter. Nothing but this moment in which the world tilted, shifting something within her. Something deep and profound and frightening.
She forced herself to glance away, but he reached out and touched her chin, drawing her gaze back to his. There was no veil over his expression now. He was lethally, icily angry.
‘Tell me everything you know,’ he ordered.
‘Or what?’ That deep curl of fear forced the defiance from her—a primitive instinct to hold him at bay even though she knew it was rude, perhaps wrong. ‘You’re going to torture me?’
‘It’s a tempting thought,’ he muttered. ‘And you seem to like the idea of chains. But I can think of a better way to extract the information I need.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘A more fitting way.’
She couldn’t breathe. His words—his promise—sucked all the air from her lungs.
The opening of the car door startled her. Only then did she realise that they were inside the palace grounds. The large iron gates had automatically closed behind them. Locking her in.
‘Come into my palace,’ he demanded, curtly exiting the car to stalk ahead of her.
‘Said the spider to the fly...’ she muttered beneath her breath in annoyance at his peremptory tone and total lack of manners.
He stopped walking and spun so quickly she almost bumped into him from behind. Damn, it seemed the man had supersonic hearing.
‘You think I’m going to make you my prisoner?’ he asked, so softly that all illusions of her personal safety were shattered.
King Giorgos was pure predator and she’d never felt in so much danger. Nor had she ever felt such primitive exhilaration.
Suddenly she wanted to sprint from him. Instead, as always, she froze.
‘You think I’m going to eat you?’ he added with the slightest huskiness.
It wasn’t the sexual innuendo that shocked her but her sudden sensual response to it. Another of those incredible flushes burned her at the blatant carnality of his taunt.
‘I think I’m right to be wary.’ She pushed the words past the croak in her throat.
‘Because you’re guilty as sin?’
Kassie squared her shoulders and made herself look directly into his shadowed, judging eyes. ‘What exactly is it you think I’m guilty of?’
RIGHT NOW GIORGOS could believe her guilty of nothing. And everything.
Kassiani Marron wasn’t what he’d expected—she was much, much more. More beautiful than the pictures from the ball—impossible as he’d thought that could be, especially considering she was wearing the most horrendous uniform he’d had the misfortune to clap his eyes on. And in his decade as King he’d seen a million uniforms.
This was a drab, shapeless tunic with a high collar that revealed no skin whatsoever, paired with black trousers and utilitarian shoes. Her stunning hair was swept back into a neat braid and she’d not applied any make-up to accentuate those thick curling eyelashes framing her enchanting deep brown eyes. Nor had she bothered to rub any gloss on her full, kissable pout.
Because she didn’t need to.
Because despite this apparent lack of artifice, and despite the dullness of her attire, she’d easily capture the attention of any red-blooded man in her vicinity.
Frustration bit hard, forcing him to grit his teeth. He was hardly about to demand that she strip. Because wasn’t that what she wanted? Wasn’t she playing her part in a honey trap? Wasn’t the sexual undertone to every word spoken between them part of her plan?
He’d watched her shoot down that doctor who’d asked her on a date with the coolness of an ice queen. The poor guy had been so transfixed by her he hadn’t even noticed his King standing at a little distance just behind her. He could understand the man’s focus. She made it impossible to pay attention to anything else when she was in the room, with the dazed sensuality of her wide-eyed gaze and parted-lips pout. It was a wonder there hadn’t been any medical malpractice cases at the hospital.
So he’d keep the lights on low and not let himself be blinded by her exquisite features. He needed information from her—that was all. He refused to be taken in by her manipulative flirtation or her challenges.
He led her down the darkened corridors, not taking her to the formal meeting room as he’d planned. He needed more privacy than that, and he needed the control he felt in his personal quarters. He had years of self-imposed restraint behind him—this meeting with her would be entirely manageable.
‘Are you taking me to the dungeons?’
And there it was—another sultry challenge to