‘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-full 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