The Greek Billionaire's Innocent Princess (3 page)

But it was her own idiotic fault that he believed she was a waitress, and, uttering a most

unprincesslike curse, she swung on her heels and marched out of the banqueting hall.

KITTYspent the rest of the evening carefully avoiding Nikos Angelaki, but she could not forget

him, or the electricity that had fizzed between them when they had been alone together. No man

had ever looked at her the way Nikos had done—with a raw, sexual hunger in his eyes that had

evoked a wild longing deep inside her and left her wishing that he had swept her into his arms

and made passionate love to her on the banqueting table.

Unable to dismiss her shocking fantasy from her mind, she had been too embarrassed to face

him again with the food and champagne he had requested, and had asked one of the staff to serve

him. Later, she had hovered behind a pillar, and watched him partner a steady stream of beautiful

women on the dance floor. If it hadn’t been for her stupid lie she could have asked Sebastian to

introduce them, and maybe he would have asked her to dance. But if she revealed her identity to

him now she would look a complete idiot in front of Nikos, and her brother.

She wouldn’t know what to say to him anyway, she acknowledged bleakly. She was hopeless

with men. The few fledgling romances she’d had at university had been disastrous and she knew

her family despaired of her ever finding a husband. Kitty sighed, weighted down by the familiar

feeling that she was a failure. Her dress was uncomfortably tight and tendrils of her hair had

come loose and curled about her hot face. She wished the ball were over. She’d spent so long

fretting over it and she was glad it was a success but she longed for the quiet solitude of the

palace library and her books.

The king had shared her fascination with the history of the Adamas Kingdom, and she treasured

her memories of the evenings they had spent together researching their ancestors. Nothing was

the same without her father, she thought bleakly. One day soon Sebastian would be crowned

King and she would give him her full support, but she missed King Aegeus desperately.

Grief surged through her and she bit her lip, knowing that she must control it as Queen Tia

managed to do when she was in public. She was tired of the party, and she stepped through the

French doors leading onto the terrace. The night air was warm and heavy with the perfume of

jasmine and honeysuckle, and the silence was blissful after the hubbub of voices in the ballroom,

but her peace did not last long.

‘Well, well. Kitty Karedes! I didn’t realise it was you. I saw a woman slip furtively out of the

ballroom, and assumed she was meeting a lover, but, unless the ice-princess has thawed

considerably since we last met, that’s not likely, is it?’

‘Vasilis! I won’t lie and say it’s a pleasure to see you. But the idea of you sneaking out to spy on lovers is wholly believable,’ Kitty replied contemptuously. She glanced at Vasilis Sarondakos,

felt the familiar wave of revulsion sweep over her and turned her back on him, hoping he would

get the message and leave her alone. But Vasilis was not renowned for his sensitivity.

The Sarondakos family were leading members of Aristo’s aristocracy, and Vasilis’s father,

Constantine, had been a close friend of the late king. At eighteen, Kitty had been painfully naïve,

and had never had a boyfriend. With her father’s encouragement she had gone on a date with

Vasilis, but she had been deeply traumatised when he had subjected her to a drunken assault. His

taunts that her voluptuous body was designed for sex had been devastating, but she had been too

ashamed to tell her family what had happened, believing Vasilis’s assertion that because she had

worn a low-cut dress she had been—in his words— ‘gagging for it’.

The memory of his hot, alcohol-fuelled breath on her skin and his sweaty hands tearing her dress

and touching her breasts still haunted her, and when her father had suggested a couple of years

ago that he would be pleased if she married the son of his dear friend, Constantine Sarondakos,

he had been taken aback by her fierce refusal.

‘So, still no sign of a husband on the horizon, then, Kitty?’ Vasilis taunted, coming to stand so

close to her that she found herself trapped between him and the low stone wall that encircled the

terrace. ‘You should have married me while you had the chance.’

‘I’d sooner swallow poison.’ Kitty tried to edge away from him and tension knotted her stomach

when he leaned closer still and rested his hands on the wall on either side of her, effectively

caging her in. Five hundred guests were packed into the ballroom less than six feet away,

including her three overprotective brothers. She had nothing to fear from Vasilis but she detested

his cocky smile and the way he was looking at her as if he was mentally undressing her.

‘Is that so?’ Vasilis gave a sneering laugh. ‘Perhaps you shouldn’t be so hasty, my prim little

princess. I was talking to Sebastian just the other day and he confided his concern that you’ll end

up on the shelf; a lonely spinster with only her books for company.’

‘I’m twenty-six, not ninety-six,’ Kitty snapped. ‘And I don’t believe for a minute that Sebastian

would discuss my private affairs with you.’

‘He’d have great difficulty; you don’t have affairs.’ Vasilis laughed again, clearly proud of his

wit. ‘I bet you’re still a virgin, aren’t you, Kitty? Of course, a lot of people think you’re a

lesbian,’ he added conversationally. ‘Maybe that’s why Sebastian would like to see you married.

With rumours that the Stefani diamond is a fake, and Sebastian delaying his coronation, the

gossip is that your Calistan cousin Zakari is laying claim to the throne. The people of Aristo are

already unsettled. The Karedes family don’t need another scandal.’

‘There is no scandal! Sebastian is the rightful king and he will be crowned as soon as possible,’

Kitty said fiercely. ‘Zakari Al’ Farisi is the King of Calista but he has no right to Aristo’s crown, or to be the one ruler of the Adamas Islands.’ Kitty wasn’t sure how Vasilis had heard the news

the diamond was a fake, but she certainly wasn’t going to confirm the rumour. ‘The people of

Aristo have nothing to worry about.

‘As for me ever marrying you—hell will freeze over first!’ Using all her strength, she pushed

against Vasilis’s arm until she broke free. ‘Leave me alone, Vasilis. You sicken me. I never told

my family about what happened between us out of respect for the affection my father felt for

yours. But now Papa is dead and if you ever come near me again I’ll tell my brothers what kind

of a man you are, and you will no longer be welcome at the palace.’

‘It’ll be your word against mine,’ Vasilis muttered, but his bravado was short-lived. The

Karedeses were a tight-knit family who he knew would close ranks around one of their own.

‘Anyway, do you really think I’d want to marry a woman who’s as sexually responsive as a lump

of ice?’ he demanded spitefully. ‘You’ve got some serious hang-ups about sex, Kitty. Maybe you

should see a therapist.’

‘I don’t have any hang-ups…’ Kitty ground her teeth in impotent fury as Vasilis grinned and

sauntered through the French doors. She stared after him, knowing she should return to the

ballroom, but simply unable to face it. Vasilis’s cruel jibes played over and over in her head,

compounding her misery that she was a hopeless failure.

She was a princess and she was supposed to be beautiful and glamorous. She was supposed to

sparkle at social events and impress everyone with her sophistication and wit, but instead of

being the belle of the royal ball tonight she had been mistaken for a waitress. She had never been

any good at the whole royal thing, she thought drearily—the pomp and ceremony and waving at

crowds—and it had been easier to leave the socialising that was a necessary part of royal life to

Liss, and bury herself in the library with her books.

Was that going to be her life? she wondered desperately. Was she going to end up a spinster as

Vasilis had prophesied—without love or passion, clinging to the memories of the night a

gorgeous, sexy Greek tycoon had almost kissed her? Tears blurred her eyes and misted her

glasses, and the sound of music and laughter from the ballroom made her feel lonelier than ever.

With a choked cry she raced down the terrace steps, away from the ballroom, and flew across

the lawn. Tonight, when she’d stood at the edge of the ballroom and noted how everyone else

seemed to be part of a couple she had faced the fact that she was a lonely, virgin princess, stifled by the formality of royal life. Her brothers and sister seemed to be moving on, but she felt as

though she were trapped in a time warp. She had been born at the palace and had always loved it,

but suddenly it felt like a prison and she was desperate to be free—to escape a life of duty and

find out who Kitty Karedes really was.

She ran through the formal gardens, away from the lights spilling from the ballroom. The

perimeter wall of the palace grounds was ten feet tall and built of impenetrable stone, but Kitty

knew of the secret gate, half overgrown with climbing roses. In the moonlight she easily found

the loose brick in the wall, and the hidden key, and seconds later she fled down a narrow path

that led into a small cave at the base of the cliff.

Blow Vasilis Sarondakos and his spiteful tongue! she thought as she scrubbed her eyes. She

wasn’t on the shelf; she didn’t have hang-ups about sex, and so what if she was still a virgin at

twenty-six? It didn’t make her less of a woman! She kicked her shoes off and wandered down to

the water’s edge, soothed by the gentle lap of the waves on the shore. She knew she would not be

disturbed here. This little cove was a private beach, and the only way to it was along the path

from the palace—a path that few people outside the family knew about.

Moonlight dappled the sea so that it shimmered like a flat silver pool. No one could see her here.

She was completely alone, and impulsively she wrenched open the buttons on the hateful black

dress and tugged it down over her hips until it dropped onto the sand. She placed her glasses

carefully on a rock and pulled the pins from her hair, shaking her head so that her glossy dark

chestnut tresses uncoiled and fell almost to her waist.

With each item of clothing she removed she felt as though she were discarding another hurtful

jibe. So what if she didn’t have a model-thin figure? Women were meant to have breasts, and she

wasn’t ashamed of hers. The silver sea beckoned her; she was already relishing the coolness of it

on her skin, and in a moment of defiance against the restrictions of her life she unsnapped her

bra, dropped it on top of her dress and stepped out of her knickers before running naked into the

water with her hair streaming behind her.

Nikos was not sorry that the royal ball was drawing to an end. He had flown to Aristo from

Dubai after a week of intense negotiations, and the eighteen-hour days he’d spent in the

boardroom were catching up with him. He liked and admired Prince Sebastian, but he was bored

of the other guests’ endless, inane chit-chat, the gossip about who was sleeping with whom, and

the unsubtle hints from a number of women that they were willing to go to bed with him.

Maybe he was simply tired of blondes, he mused as he stepped out onto the terrace, a half-f

bottle of champagne in one hand and his dinner jacket looped over his shoulder. All evening he

had been frustrated by his inability to dismiss the waitress, Rina, from his mind. He hadn’t seen

her again after their confrontation in the banqueting hall but he knew he hadn’t imagined the

chemistry between them. She intrigued him more than any woman had done for a long time, and

he had found himself scanning the ballroom for her, irritated by his disappointment that she

seemed to have disappeared.

He strolled through the shadowy gardens. The palace was as amazing as his mother had led him

to believe many years ago when she had recounted tales of the time she had worked here before

he had been born. As a child he had listened in awe to her description of the huge rooms and

opulent décor, and as he’d looked around the cramped, run-down apartment block where they

had lived it had seemed impossible that such a grand place existed.

He walked to the far end of the garden and was about to turn back when he recalled a distant

memory his mother had told him of a gate in the wall, and a path that led from the palace to the

beach. With a faint, self-derisive smile on his lips at his curiosity Nikos took one of the Chinese

lanterns that illuminated the path and held it aloft as he walked back to the wall. The gate was

tucked into a corner, and well disguised by the rose bushes that grew around it. He pushed it,

expecting it to be locked, but when it opened he was sufficiently intrigued to follow the path that

led from it.

The ground sloped steeply down until it disappeared between an opening in the rocks. Nikos had

to duck his head as he entered the cave. It was dry inside, he noted, when he swung the lantern

from side to side. Obviously the tide never came up this far. The air smelled faintly of seaweed

and through the cave he could see the sea shimmering silver in the moonlight, but as he emerged

onto the beach he stopped abruptly, and his heart kicked in his chest. For a moment he wondered