The Greek Billionaire's Innocent Rrincess(7)

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