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 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