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When the door of the practice room had swung open and she’d seen all those faces staring at her she’d wanted to shrink into a corner. She hadn’t signed up for the audition, but had been told to attend in case the orchestra as a whole was needed. She’d happily hidden away from the action in the room behind the auditorium; there, but not actually present.
Those eyes...
They had rested on her for so long she’d felt as if she’d been stuck in a time capsule. Then they had moved from her face and, without a bonjour or au revoir, he’d disappeared.
There hadn’t been time for her to appreciate the sheer size of the man.
She was tall for a woman—five foot eight. But Talos towered over her, a mass of height and muscle that not even his winter attire could hide.
Her mouth ran dry.
He wore his thick ebony hair slightly too long, messy at the front and curling over the collar of his long black trench coat. Dark stubble, also thick, abounded over his square jawline.
Despite the expensive cut of his clothing, right down to what were clearly handmade shoes, he had a feral air about him, as if he should be swinging through vines in a jungle whilst simultaneously banging his chest.
He looked dangerous. Wildly dangerous. The scar on his right eyebrow, which seemed to divide it into two, only added to this sense.
He also looked full of purpose.
He took the few steps towards her with long strides, an outstretched hand and an unsmiling face. ‘Amalie Cartwright, it is a pleasure to meet you,’ he said in perfect English.
How did he know she was bilingual?
God but the man was enormous. He had to be a good six and a half feet. Easily.
Swallowing frantically to moisten her mouth, Amalie switched her violin case to her left hand and extended her right to him. It was immediately engulfed in his strong, darkly bronzed hand. It was like being consumed by a giant paw. Even through the wool of her gloves she could feel the heat from his uncovered hand.
‘Monsieur Kalliakis,’ she murmured in response.
She tugged her hand free and hugged it around her violin case.
‘I require your attention. Please, get in the car,’ he said.
I require your attention? If she hadn’t been so unsettled by him and the deepness of his voice—a low bass both throaty and rich that matched his appearance perfectly—she would have been tempted to laugh at his formality.
With a start she remembered he was a prince. Royalty. Should she curtsey or something? He’d disappeared from the practice room before they could be formally introduced.
She cleared her throat and took a tiny step back. ‘My apologies, monsieur, but I don’t believe there is anything for us to discuss.’
‘I assure you there is. Get in the car. It is too cold to have this discussion out here.’
He spoke as only a man used to throwing his weight around could.
‘Is this about the solo? I did explain to your assistant earlier that I have a prior engagement for the gala weekend and won’t be able to attend. My apologies if the message never reached you.’
The assistant, a middle-aged man with an air of implacability about him, had been unable to hide his shock when she’d said she couldn’t do it. The orchestra directors had simply stared at her with pleading eyes.
‘The message did reach me—which is why I turned back from the airport and returned here, so I could discuss the matter with you directly.’
His displeasure was obvious, as if it were her fault his plans had been ruined.
‘You will need to cancel your engagement. I wish for you to play at my grandfather’s gala.’
‘I wish I could as well,’ she lied. A lifetime of dealing with forceful personalities had prepared her well for this moment. No personality came more forceful than her mother’s. ‘But, no. It is not something I can get out of.’
His brow furrowed in the manner of someone who had never had the word no uttered within his earshot. ‘You do realise who my grandfather is and what a huge opportunity this is for your career?’
‘Yes, he is the King of Agon—and I do understand what a great honour it is to be selected to play for him—’
‘And the majority of the world’s great statesmen who will be there—’
‘But there are many other violinists in this orchestra,’ she continued, speaking over him as if he had not just interrupted. ‘If you audition them, as you had planned, you will find most are far more talented than me.’
Of course she knew what a huge event the gala was going to be. Her fellow musicians had spoken about little else for weeks. Every orchestra in Europe had been alerted to the fact that Prince Talos Kalliakis was searching for a solo violinist. When it had been confirmed yesterday that he was coming to audition the violinists at the Orchestre National de Paris there had been an immediate mass exodus as every female musician in the orchestra had headed to Paris’s beauty parlours for highlights and waxing and all other manner of preening.
The three Princes of Agon were considered Europe’s most eligible bachelors. And the most handsome.
Amalie had known she wouldn’t audition, so hadn’t bothered to join the exodus.
If she’d known for a second that Talos had been listening at the door to her practice she would have hit as many bum notes as she could without sounding like a screeching cat.
There was no way—no way in the world—she could stand on the stage at the Jubilee Gala and play for the world. No way. She couldn’t. The mere thought of it was enough to bring her out in a cold sweat.
The chill of the wind was picking up. She scrunched her toes inside her cold boots, which were getting wetter by the second as the icy snow seeped through the tiny seams and spread to her socks. The back of Talos’s car looked very snug and warm. Not that she would find out for herself. The chill in his eyes perfectly matched the weather whipping around them.
‘Excuse me, monsieur, but I need to go home. We have a concert tonight and I have to be back here in a few hours. Good luck finding your soloist.’
The hardness of his features softened by the slightest of margins, but his eyes—she’d been right, they were brown: a light, almost transparent brown, with the blackest of rims—remained hard.
‘We will talk again on Monday, despinis. Until then I suggest you think hard about what you are giving up by refusing to take the solo.’
‘Monday is our day off. I will be in on Tuesday, if you wish to speak to me then, but there will be nothing for us to talk about.’
He inclined his head. ‘We shall see. Oh—and when we next meet you may address me by my formal title: Your Highness.’
This time her lips tugged into a smile—one she had no control over. ‘But, monsieur, this is France. A republic. Even when we had a royal family, male heirs to the throne were addressed by the title of “Monsieur”, so I am addressing you correctly. And I feel I should remind you of what happened to those who boasted of having royal blood—they had their heads chopped off.’
* * *
Amalie took her seat on the stage, in the second row from the back, nicely encased amongst the orchestra’s other second violins. Exactly where she liked to be. Hidden from the spotlight.
While she waited for Sebastien Cassel, their guest conductor, to make his indication for them to start she felt a prickling on her skin.
Casting her eyes out into the auditorium, she saw the projected ticket