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This coldness chilled her to the bone.
The car came to a stop. The driver opened her door.
Not another word was exchanged as she got out and entered the cottage. Not a word of goodnight. Not a kiss. Not a touch. Not a look.
She flinched to hear the engine spark back to life and the car driving off, taking Talos to his villa.
Feeling as if lead weights had been inserted into her limbs, she kicked off her shoes and placed Rhea Kalliakis’s violin on the piano. If she didn’t feel so numb she would already have it out of the case and be tuning it. This was a Cinelli. Any other violinist in the world would likely have passed out with shock to be given it. It was the classical violinist’s version of winning the lottery.
But the weight of the gift lay heavily on her. And Talos’s parting words lay even heavier.
‘Do not presume that sharing a bed means I owe you anything.’
He’d really said that. He’d hardly said a word all night but he’d said that. And as the full weight of those words filtered through her brain the numbness disappeared, pain lanced through her, and something even more powerful filled her.
Anger. Unadulterated rage.
How dared he talk to her as if she were nothing more than a notch on his bedpost?
Consumed with a fury she only partly understood, she flung open the front door and ran out into the night. Cutting through the trees, she saw the lights of the villa in the distance, along with the lights of the car just approaching it.
The lead in her limbs had gone. Her legs were now seemingly made of air as she flew over the fields, running faster than she’d ever known she could, the wind rippling against her face, the skirt of her blue summer dress billowing out behind her.
It seemed as if no time had passed before she set the security lights ablaze. In the time it had taken her to race there the car had dropped Talos off and begun its return journey to the palace.
As she banged on the front door with her fist, then punched the doorbell, she was assailed with memories of that morning a month before, when Talos had knocked on her own front door and turned her world on its axis.
The door was wrenched open.
Talos stood there, staring at her as if she’d just appeared from the moon.
‘Sharing your bed doesn’t mean I presume you owe me anything—let alone know what’s going on in your head,’ she spat from her place on the doorstep, before he could utter a word. ‘But we’ve shared more than just a bed. Or at least I have.’
He looked murderous. He looked as if he wanted nothing more than to wrap his hands around her throat.
‘Have you run all the way here from the cottage in the dark? Are you insane? It’s the middle of the night—there could be anyone out there!’
‘You didn’t worry about that the other night when I walked here in the dark.’
Suddenly the exertion of her run hit her and she bent over, grabbing her knees as she fought desperately to breathe. God, but her lungs burned.
‘Amalie?’
She lifted her head to look at him, puffing in air until she felt able to straighten again.
He stared at her with eyes now curiously vacant. His detachment ratcheted her fury up another notch.
She straightened. ‘Do not treat me as if I’m some nothing you had sex with just because it was available. It was more than that and you know it—and you owe me more than to treat me like that.’
‘I do not owe you anything. If you think your being a virgin before we became lovers means I have to treat you—’
‘It’s nothing to do with me being a virgin!’ she yelled, punching him in the shoulder.
He didn’t so much as jolt.
‘This is to do with me sharing everything with you. I spilled my guts about my childhood and my life to you. I gave you everything! I didn’t expect a marriage proposal, or declarations of love, but I did expect some respect.’
‘It was never my intention to be disrespectful.’
‘Then what was your intention? Tell me, damn you. Why have you closed yourself off? I thought you were frustrated because I’m still struggling to play with the orchestra, but now I’m wondering if you’re just bored with me. Is that it? Are you too gutless to tell me that you don’t want me any more and rather than come out and say it you’re taking the coward’s way of withdrawing, hoping I’ll get the hint?’
Her voice had risen to a shout. No doubt half the live-in staff had been woken.
Suddenly he jerked forward and grabbed her forearm. ‘Come with me,’ he said through gritted teeth, marching her through the reception room, down a wide corridor and through a door that revealed what at first glance appeared to be an office, filled with plush masculine furniture.
