LITMIR.BIZ

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and clear, with clanging bells and ringing sirens.

      ‘You’re blackmailing me,’ she said starkly. ‘You’re actually trying to blackmail me.’

      He shrugged indifferently and pushed his chair back. ‘Call it what you will.’

      ‘I call it blackmail. And blackmail is illegal.’

      ‘Tell it to the police.’ He displayed his white teeth. ‘However, before you call them I should advise you that I have diplomatic immunity.’

      ‘That is low.’

      ‘I can and will go even lower. You see, little songbird, I have the power to ensure you never play the violin professionally again. I can blacken your name, and the names of all those you play with, so that no orchestra—not even a provincial amateur one—would touch you.’

      The bubbling cauldron moved from her belly to her head, her brain feeling as if it were boiling with poison. Never had she felt such hate towards another human.

      ‘Get out of my house.’

      ‘Worry not, little songbird, I am ready to leave now.’ He looked at his watch. ‘I will return in six hours. You can give me your considered answer then.’

      Her considered answer?

      He was threatening to destroy her career, and the careers of her friends and colleagues, and he wanted her considered answer?

      The cauldron toppled, sending a surge of fire pulsing through her, bringing her to her feet and to his side. Even with him seated and Amalie on her feet the physical imbalance between them was all too apparent. Fear and anger collided in her and she grabbed his arm, as if the force of her will could drag him to his feet and out of her home.

      ‘I said get out of my house!’ she shouted, pulling at him, uncaring that holding his arm was akin to holding a steel boulder. ‘I don’t care if you’re a stupid prince or about your stupid diplomatic immunity—get out!’

      With reflexes that would put a cat to shame, Talos yanked her wrists together and pinned the pair of them inside one of his giant hands.

      ‘So you do have fire under that pale skin,’ he murmured. ‘I did wonder.’

      ‘Let go of me right now,’ she demanded, panic pulsing through her which only increased when he twisted—pirouetted—her around to sit on his lap, keeping a firm hold on her wrists.

      Instinct made her lift her leg and kick back at him. The heel of her bare foot connected with his shin, the pain lancing through her immediate.

      For Talos, she might as well have been a toddler doing their worst. He gave absolutely no reaction to her kick other than to wrap his free arm around her waist to secure her to him, ensnaring her even more effectively.

      ‘I feel that hurt you more than it did me,’ he said, holding her trapped hands up to examine them. ‘Such elegant fingers... Now, are you going to be a good girl and behave yourself if I let you go?’

      ‘If you call me a good girl again I’ll...’

      ‘What? Kick me again?’

      She bucked, but it was a futile gesture. It was like being trapped in steel.

      Except it wasn’t steel. It was solid man. And his fingers were digging not unpleasantly into the side of her waist.

      ‘You’re scaring me.’ It was part truth. Something was scaring her. Terrifying her.

      ‘I know, and I apologise. I will let you go when you assure me that you have your emotions under control and will not lash out at me again.’

      Strangely, the deep, rough timbre of his voice had the desired effect, calming her enough to stop her struggling against him.

      Clamping her lips together, she forced herself to breathe, and as she did so she inhaled a darkly masculine scent. His scent.

      She swallowed the moisture that filled her mouth, suddenly aware of his breath, hot in her hair. Every one of her senses was heightened.

      She couldn’t choke another breath in. Her heart was beating so hard she could hear it echo in her ears. And in the silence that ensued she felt Talos’s huge form stiffen too, from the strong thighs she was sat upon to the giant hands holding her in their snare.

      She could no longer hear or feel his breath.

      The only sound in her ears was the thrumming of her blood.

      And then he released her hands and pushed her to her feet.

      On legs that trembled, she shot to the other side of the kitchen.

      Now she could breathe, but her breaths were ragged, her chest hurting with the exertion.

      For his part, Talos calmly shrugged his muscular arms into his trench coat, wrapped his navy scarf around his neck and clasped his briefcase.

      ‘Six hours, despinis. I will respect your decision—but know that should your answer continue to be negative the consequences will be real and immediate.’

      * * *

      Amalie’s phone vibrated.

      She pounced on it. ‘Maman?’

      ‘Chérie, I have found out some things.’

      That was typical of her mother—getting straight to the point. There didn’t exist a sliver of silence that her mother’s voice couldn’t fill.

      ‘I could not reach Pierre directly.’

      She sounded put out—as if Pierre Gaskin should have been holding on to his phone on the remote chance that Colette Barthez, the most famous classical singer in the world, deigned to call him.

      ‘But I spoke to his charming assistant, who told me he arrived late to the office this morning, gave every employee five hundred euros and said he was taking the next three months off. He was last seen setting his satnav to take him to Charles de Gaulle,’ she added, referring to France’s largest airport.

      ‘So it looks as if he has sold it, then,’ Amalie murmured.

      Only two weeks ago Pierre Gaskin—the owner or, as she now firmly believed, the former owner of the Théâtre de la Musique—had been struggling to pay the heating bill for the place.

      ‘It looks that way, chérie. So tell me,’ her mother went on, ‘why has Prince Talos brought the theatre? I didn’t know he was a patron of the arts.’

      ‘No idea,’ she answered, her skin prickling at the mention of his name. She kneaded her brow, aware that this must be something like her tenth lie of the weekend.

      What a mess.

      She hadn’t told her mother anything of what had happened that weekend—she didn’t have the strength to handle her reaction on top of everything else—had only asked her to use her contacts to see if there was any truth that the theatre had been sold to Talos Kalliakis.

      Now she had the answer.

      Talos hadn’t been bluffing. But then she hadn’t really thought he had been, had turned to her mother only out of a futile sense of having to do something rather than any real hope.

      ‘I knew his father, Prince Lelantos...’

      Her mother’s voice took on a dreamlike quality. It was a sound Amalie recognised, having been her mother’s confidante of the heart since the age of twelve.

      ‘I sang for him once. He was such a...’ she scrambled for the right word ‘...man!’

      ‘Maman, I need to go now.’

      ‘Of course, chérie. If you meet Prince Talos again, send him my regards.’

      ‘I will.’

      Turning

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