The Greek Billionaire's Innocent Princess Read Online Free

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