LITMIR.BIZ

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Those are issues to be fought and conquered. And with my help you will conquer them.’

      Amalie could imagine it only too well. Talos Kalliakis ready for battle, stripped to nothing but iron battle gear, spear in hand. He would be at the front of any fight.

      It was her bad fortune that he had chosen to fight her.

      But her stage fright wasn’t a fight. It was just a part of her, something she had long ago accepted.

      Her life was nice and cosy. Simple. No drama, no histrionics. She refused to allow the tempestuousness of her childhood seep its way into her adult life.

      ‘I have arranged with your directors for you to come to Agon in a couple of days and to stay until the gala. Your orchestra will start rehearsals immediately and fly out a week before the gala so you can rehearse with them.’

      Her pledge to be amiable evaporated. ‘Excuse me, but you’ve done what?’

      ‘It will give you a month in Agon to acclimatise...’

      ‘I don’t need to acclimatise. Agon is hardly the middle of a desert.’

      ‘It will also give you a month to prepare yourself perfectly for the solo,’ he continued, ignoring her interruption, although his eyes flashed another warning at her. ‘No distractions.’

      ‘But...’

      ‘Your stage fright is something that will be overcome,’ he said, with all the assurance of a man who had never been struck with anything as weak as nerves. ‘I will see to it personally.’

      He stopped speaking, leaving a pause she knew she was supposed to fill, but all she could think was how badly she wanted to throw something at him, to curse this hateful man who was attempting to destroy the comfortable, quiet life she had made for herself away from the spotlight.

       ‘Despinis?’

      She looked up to find those laser eyes striking through her again, as if he could reach right in and see what she was thinking.

      ‘Do you accept the solo?’ His voice hardened to granite. ‘Or do I have to make one hundred musicians redundant? Do I have to destroy one hundred careers, including your own? Have no doubt—I will do it. I will destroy you all.’

      She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, trying to extinguish the panic clawing at her throat.

      She believed him. This was no idle threat. He could destroy her career. She had no idea how he would do it, she knew only that he could.

      If she didn’t loathe him so much she would wonder why he was prepared to take such dark measures to get her agreement. As it was, she couldn’t give a flying viola as to his reasons.

      If she didn’t comply he would take away the only thing she could do.

      But how could she agree to do it? The last time she’d performed solo she’d been surrounded by her parents’ arty friends—musicians, actors, writers, singers. She’d humiliated herself and her mother in front of every one of them. How could she stand on a stage with dignitaries and heads of state watching her and not be shredded by the same nerves? That was if she even made it on to the stage.

      The one time she’d tried after the awful incident had left her hospitalised. And what she remembered most clearly about that dreadful time was her father’s fury at her mother for forcing her. He’d accused her of selfishness and of using their only child as a toy.

      A lump formed in Amalie’s throat as she recalled them separating mere weeks later, her father gaining primary custody of her.

      She was lucky, though. If times got really hard she knew she could rely on both her parents to bail her out. She would never go hungry. She would never lose her home. Her colleagues weren’t all so fortunate. Not many of them were blessed with wealthy parents.

      She thought of kindly Juliette, who was seven months pregnant with her third child. Of Louis, who only last week had booked a bank-breaking holiday with his family to Australia. Grumbling Giles, who moaned every month when his mortgage payment was taken from his account...

      All those musicians, all those office workers...

      All unaware that their jobs, security and reputations hung in the balance.

      She stared at Talos, willing him to feel every ounce of her hate.

      ‘Yes, I’ll come. But the consequences are something you will have to live with.’

      * * *

      Amalie gazed out of the window and got her first glimpse of Agon. As the plane made its descent she stared transfixed as golden beaches emerged alongside swathes of green, high mountains and built-up areas of pristine white buildings... And then they touched down, bouncing along the runway before coming to a final smooth stop.

      Keeping a firm grip on her violin, she followed her fellow business-class passengers out and down the metal stairs. After the slushy iciness of Paris in March, the temperate heat was a welcome delight.

      From the economy section bounded excited children and frazzled parents, there to take advantage of the sunshine Agon was blessed with, where spring and summer came earlier than to its nearest neighbour, Crete. She hadn’t considered that she would be going to an island famed as a holiday destination for families and historical buffs alike. In her head she’d thought of Agon as a prison—as dark and dangerous as the man who had summoned her there.

      Amalie had travelled to over thirty countries in her life, but never had she been in an airport as fresh and welcoming as the one in Agon. Going through Arrivals was quick; her luggage arriving on the conveyor belt even quicker.

      A man waited in the exit lounge, holding up her name on a specially laminated board. Polite introductions out of the way, he took the trolley holding her luggage from her and led the way out to a long, black car parked in what was clearly the prime space of the whole car park.

      Everything was proceeding exactly as had been stated in the clipped email Talos’s private secretary had sent to her the day before. It had contained a detailed itinerary, from the time a car would be collecting her from her house all the way through to her estimated time of arrival at the villa that would be her home for the next month.

      As the chauffeur navigated the roads she was able to take further stock of the island. Other than expecting it to be as dangerous as the youngest of its princes, she’d had no preconceptions. She was glad. Talos Kalliakis might be a demon sent to her from Hades, but his island was stunning.

      Mementoes of Agon’s early Greek heritage were everywhere, from the architecture to the road signs in the same common language. But Agon was now a sovereign island, autonomous in its rule. The thing that struck her most starkly was how clean everything was, from the well-maintained roads to the buildings and homes they drove past. When they went past a harbour she craned her neck to look more closely at the rows of white yachts stationed there—some of them as large as cruise liners.

      Soon they were away from the town and winding higher into the hills and mountains. Her mouth dropped open when she caught her first glimpse of the palace, standing proudly on a hill much in the same way as the ancient Greeks had built their most sacred monuments. Enormous and sprawling, it had a Middle Eastern flavour to it, as if it had been built for a great sultan centuries ago.

      But it wasn’t to the palace that she was headed. No sooner had it left her sight than the chauffeur slowed down, pausing while a wrought-iron gate inched open, then drove up to a villa so large it could have been a hotel. Up the drive he took them, and then round to the back of the villa’s grounds, travelling for another mile until he came to a much smaller dwelling at the edge of the extensive villa’s garden—a generously sized white stone cottage.

      An elderly man, with a shock of white hair flapping in the breeze above a large bald spot, came out of the front door to greet them.

      ‘Good evening, despinis,’ he said warmly. ‘I am Kostas.’

      Explaining

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