The Greek's Forbidden Princess

Looking at Amelie, and now at Seb, reminded him suddenly of another snowy day on this mountain. The day all the warmth inside him had been snuffed out in a catastrophic blast of icy reality.

Lambis reached for the door, urgently needing to see that little face smile in recognition.

‘Don’t!’ Amelie’s voice was sharp as the crack of doom as she inserted herself between Lambis and the car. He found himself staring at a narrow waist and full breasts, her nipples budded enticingly beneath thin wool.

Lambis’s breath stalled as heat ignited in his gut. Unseen parts of him might have long since shrivelled and died, but he was still a man, and it had been too long since he’d had a woman.

Through the frosty scent of the thickening snow, he inhaled the gardenia perfume that always made him think of Amelie and sunny St Galla. He remembered how tempting they’d both been. How tough it had been to leave her.

‘Why not?’ His gaze strayed lower, over the feminine shape revealed by her fitted trousers, and a pulse quickened in his groin. Instantly he rose, shoving his hands in his pockets.

Amelie looked petite and far too fragile, despite the way her chin swung up as if daring him to test her.

‘Because I was wrong. I thought you’d help, but the last thing he needs is some fleeting pretend friendly contact with a man who’d bar his door to us. Especially in this.’ The tilt of her head indicated the falling snow.

A flake settled on her cheek, melting, but she didn’t seem to notice.

‘If you’ll step away from the car, we’ll be on our way.’ She folded her arms and her breasts rose, plump and inviting. Lambis yanked his gaze higher.

She wasn’t bluffing.

He should be relieved. He didn’t have the time or inclination to deal with their problems. He had a multinational business to run, people relying on him. He didn’t want Amelie here, stirring emotions, interrupting the smooth running of his life.

Yet he didn’t move.

Whatever the problem, Lambis wasn’t the man to solve it. He knew his limitations. In his profession it was vital to know your strengths and weaknesses, and those of others. Yet the anxiety he’d felt, seeing Sébastien’s staring face, made him hesitate.

She seemed ridiculously dainty to try facing him down. Dainty and shattered, though she tried to hide it.

Snow crunched under his boots as he turned. The gates were high, designed to keep the world out. Yet they swung open at the click of his electronic key.

‘You go first. I’ll follow you in my vehicle.’

* * *

Amelie gripped the wheel too hard as she drove slowly through the dusting of snow.

‘Isn’t this exciting, Seb? Snow!’ Her voice wobbled but she doubted her nephew noticed.

In the rear-view mirror she saw he was at least staring at the view, his expression unreadable. Was he even a tiny bit excited to see snow for the first time? To see Lambis, the man he used to follow like a puppy?

Amelie wrenched her mind to the private road winding around a spur of the mountain.

She couldn’t quite believe Lambis had let them enter. If it had been her alone she’d be driving back down to the village now. Lambis didn’t want her near. He never had.

Pride smarted at asking for his help. And something else, some tiny part of her that had wondered, even when all hope had fled.

Amelie’s breath caught when she saw the house. She’d expected something sleek, hard and impersonal, like Lambis. Instead she discovered a charming traditional mountain house. From the size she guessed it had been significantly extended, but it looked as if the mansion had always sat here, cupped by the mountain on three sides.

The ground floor rose organically from the mountain, its walls of stone. Above that rose another couple of floors, white-finished, and decorated with out-thrust balcony rooms overhanging the walls on wooden struts. They were decorated with intricate wooden carvings. Even the white plasterwork was beautifully decorated with what she guessed were traditional designs. The windows were large and the terracotta roof looked welcoming against the falling snow.

Amelie stopped the car, feeling as if she’d turned a wrong corner. This was the home of mega-wealthy Lambis Evangelos? The self-contained man who shunned sentiment?

She was staring when her door opened. There he was, his face stern. The wind stirred a glossy black curl at his collar and Amelie wondered what he was like when he relaxed. Once, long ago, she’d seen another side to him, when he was with her sister-in-law, Irini, for the two had been like brother and sister. Occasionally some of that tenderness he kept for Irini had rubbed off and he’d been enough to steal any woman’s breath. Especially one who’d been lonely so long.

Amelie blinked and stiffened. She hadn’t slept in forty-eight hours. That was why her mind drifted.

‘Do you need help?’

She shook her head. ‘Seb and I are fine, aren’t we, Seb?’ She looked in the rear-view mirror and met familiar green eyes. Was he excited? Scared?

Emotion swept through her and she shuddered.

‘Amelie?’ Lambis’s voice was like soft suede on raw skin. It still had the ability to make her feel. To want.

She felt it now, the buzz of energy in her lower body, the trip of her pulse. Damn! She was past this. She’d moved on, determined not to wallow in regret.

This had to be exhaustion creating phantom emotions.

‘Perhaps you could carry the luggage?’ She gave him one of her polite smiles, the sort she employed with boring diplomats or boorish industrialists.

For a second that cool stare locked with hers, making her wonder how much he read in her face. Then, with a curt nod, he was gone.

It took no time to bundle up Seb in warm clothes and usher him from the car to the house. Even the crunch of fresh snow beneath his feet barely made him pause and Amelie’s heart would have cracked if it weren’t already riven. Where was the little boy she’d loved for almost five years? A year ago he’d have been whooping with glee, investigating the unfamiliar icy white.

Now he let her hold his hand. He was wide-eyed but so self-contained it would have scared her if it hadn’t become almost normal. She had to find a way to help him.

A sturdy woman with iron-grey hair held the door open, expression inquisitive. This must be the woman who’d cut Amelie off as she’d pleaded to be let in. But, instead of disapproval, Amelie caught shock on the woman’s face as she appraised them, then a wide smile of welcome as she scooped Seb in out of the cold and Amelie with him.

‘This is Anna, my housekeeper.’ Lambis launched into a flurry of Greek that had the woman nodding and smiling. Amelie heard the name Sébastien and her own, then something that made the housekeeper’s head jerk up even as she dropped into a curtsey.

‘No, please.’ Amelie put out her hand in protest. ‘Tell her that’s not necessary.’

Then the implications of Lambis identifying her sank in. She swung around to find herself facing a massive black-clad chest. She froze, refusing to back up and reveal how daunting it was to be so close to all that brawny strength. His evocative scent, so earthy and male, curled around her.

‘There was no need to tell her who I am.’

His eyebrows lifted. ‘I respect Anna too much to lie.’

‘It’s not about lying. It’s about revealing only what needs to be revealed.’ The memory of the press pack outside the palace gates in St Galla, telephoto lenses trained on the windows and gardens, slammed into her. Bile rose. They’d been eager to snap the grieving Princess or ‘the tragic little King’, as they dubbed Seb. They’d even tried to bribe the palace employees.

Amelie, who’d lived all her life at the centre of public attention, had never felt so degraded. As if she and Seb weren’t real people but sideshow freaks that existed purely for the titillation of the viewing public.

‘Can you guarantee your staff won’t tell anyone we’re here?’

Lambis stiffened. His hard face became unforgiving granite, as if she’d questioned his integrity, not raised a valid concern.

‘You were the one who arrived uninvited and demanded entry. You’ll have to live with the consequences.’