blood had never felt so thick, as if she’d had hot treacle injected into her veins.
She wanted him. Desperately. Passionately...
No!
The warning shout in her head rang out loud and clear, breaking through the chemistry buffeting them, shattering it with one unsaid syllable.
Without a word she grabbed her top and pulled it back on, smoothing it over her belly as she darted a glance to see his reaction.
He inclined his head, an amused yet pained smile on his lips, then turned to his clothes and stepped back into his underwear and trousers before slipping his powerful arms into his shirt.
‘You played beautifully, little songbird. And now it is time for me to leave.’
‘Already?’ The word escaped before she could catch it.
He dropped his stare down to his undone trousers. ‘Unless you want me to break my promise?’
He cocked his head, waiting for an answer that wouldn’t form.
‘I thought not.’ His eyes flashed. ‘But we both know it’s only a matter of time.’
She swallowed the moisture that had filled in her mouth, pushing it past the tightness in her throat.
‘A car will collect you tomorrow at seven.’
‘Seven?’ she asked stupidly, her mind turning blank at his abrupt turn of conversation.
‘Helios’s ball,’ he reminded her, fastening the last of his buttons. ‘Did you receive the official invitation?’
She nodded. Her invitation had been hand delivered by a palace official, the envelope containing it a thick, creamy material, sealed with a wax insignia. Receiving it had made her feel like a princess from a bygone age.
‘Keep it safe—you’ll need to present it when you arrive. I’ll be staying at my apartment in the palace for the weekend, so I’ll send a car for you.’
She’d assumed they would travel there together, and was unnerved by the twinge of disappointment she felt at learning differently.
‘Okay,’ she answered, determined to mask the emotion.
It wasn’t as if they were going on a proper date or anything, she reminded herself. She was simply his ‘plus one’ for the evening.
‘Are you happy with your dress?’ he asked.
On Monday Amalie had been driven by a member of Talos’s staff to a pretty beachside house and introduced to an elegant elderly woman called Natalia. Natalia had measured every inch of her, clearly seizing her up as she did so. Then she had sat at her desk and sketched, spending less time than it took for Amalie to finish a coffee before she’d ripped the piece of paper off the pad and held out the rough but strangely intricate design to her.
‘This is your dress,’ she had said, with calm authority.
Amalie had left the house twenty minutes later with more excitement running through her veins than she had ever experienced before. She’d been to plenty of high-society parties in her lifetime, but never to a royal ball. And she was to wear a dress like nothing she had worn in her life. Natalia’s vision had been so compelling and assured that she had rolled along with it, swept up in the designer’s vision.
It was strange and unnerving to think she was to be the guest of a prince. She no longer thought of Talos in that light. Only as a man...
‘Natalia is bringing it tomorrow so she can help me into it.’ The dress fastening was definitely a two-person job. If the designer hadn’t been coming to her Amalie would have had to find someone else to help her fasten it. She might have had to ask Talos to hook it for her...
He nodded his approval.
Dressed, Talos ran his fingers through his hair in what looked to Amalie like a futile attempt on his behalf to tame it.
There was nothing tameable about this man.
‘Until tomorrow, little songbird,’ he said, before letting himself out of the cottage.
Only when all the energy that followed him like a cloud had dissipated from the room did Amalie dare breathe properly.
With shaky legs she sat on the piano bench and pressed her face to the cool wood.
Maybe if she sat there for long enough the compulsion to chase after him and throw herself at him would dissipate too.
THE BLACK LIMOUSINE drove over a bridge and through a long archway before coming to a stop in a vast courtyard at the front of the palace.
Her heart fluttering madly beneath her ribs, Amalie stared in awe, just as she’d been gaping since she’d caught her first glimpse of it, magnificent and gleaming under the last red embers of the setting sun.
The driver opened the door for her and held out an arm, which she accepted gratefully. She had never worn heels so high. She had never felt so...elegant.
That’s what wearing the most beautiful bespoke dress in creation does for you.
Still gaping, she stared up. The palace was so vast she had to make one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turns to see from one side to the next. Although vastly different in style, its romanticism rivalled France’s beautiful Baroque palaces. Its architecture was a mixture of styles she’d seen throughout Europe and North Africa, forming its own unique and deeply beautiful style that resembled a great sultan’s palace with gothic undertones.
Two dozen wide curved steps led up to a high-arched ornate entrance, where two footmen dressed in purple-and-gold livery with yellow sashes stood. She climbed the steps towards them, thinking that this was surely what Cinderella had felt like. After studiously checking her official invitation, another footman stepped forward to escort her into the palace itself.
First they entered a reception room so vast her entire cottage would fit inside it—roof and all, with room to spare—then walked through to another room where a group of footmen were being given last-minute instructions by a man who wore a red sash over his livery.
‘Am I the first to arrive?’ she asked her escort, who unfortunately spoke as much French and English as she spoke Greek—none at all.
It wasn’t just the footmen being given instructions or the lack of other guests that made her think she was the first. Scores of waiting staff were also being given a last-minute briefing, many straightening clothing and smoothing down hair. She could feel their eyes on her, and their muted curiosity over the strange woman who had clearly arrived too early.
As she was led into another room—narrower, but much longer than the first reception room—staff carrying trays of champagne were lining up along the walls, beneath a gallery of portraits. At the far end were three tall figures dressed in black, deep in conversation.
Amalie’s heart gave a funny jump, then
