‘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 emotion.
‘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.
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