Page 11 of Awakened in Her Enemy's Palazzo

‘I’ll get someone to carry you.’

‘Really, no. I’m fine.’ Grace gave a cheery smile to show just how fine she was.

‘Well...all right. Isn’t it marvellous that Theo is finally home?’

The woman was serious, Grace realised, and there were tears in her eyes.

‘Marvellous,’ Grace echoed drily, thinking it would have been a hell of a lot more marvellous if he’d been home in time to say goodbye to his father.

Once she had hobbled up and around the first curve of the staircase, and was confident she was out of sight, Grace sat down and shuffled on her bottom the rest of the way up to her first-floor room. It wasn’t the most elegant way of doing things, but compared with the alternative of being carried...

The memory of the recent occasion was too fresh to run the risk of a repeat.

An almost tactile image of long brown fingers pressed lightly against her back was so vivid that in the act of pulling herself to her feet with the aid of the banister she almost fell back down again.

When he arrived, the doctor approved the treatment she had prescribed herself and suggested a supportive bandage when she got out and about again.

After he had left Grace resisted the temptation to sayI told you soto Marta as the woman fussed around. Actually, if she was honest, being fussed over had a certain novelty value, coming as she did from a family who didn’t do cosseting. Tea and sympathy wasn’t a thing for the Stewart clan—they just sucked it up and got on with it.

‘Such a shame,’ Marta said when she’d checked for the umpteenth time that Grace had everything she needed, ‘that you can’t join Theo for dinner on his first night here.’

‘Oh, God, no!’ Grace exclaimed without thinking, then moderated her response by looking at her elevated foot, swathed in ice packs. ‘It would be too painful,’ she said.

‘Of course,’ the other woman agreed, obviously pacified by her explanation, leaving Grace mystified as to why people who had loved Salvatore appeared so happy to see his hateful son.

How could they forgive him?

Mass hypnosis, maybe?

Grace got her first text from Nic, the estate manager, an hour later. She frowned and sent him a quick one back.

I’m sure it’s just a misunderstanding.

Two hours and five texts later it was clear even to Grace, who was not on top of the details, that they were not dealing with a simple misunderstanding. The bank was apparently blocking payments to their suppliers.

That would stop work on the new olive press, because the suppliers were refusing to deliver. And the progress on the renovations of some of the buildings intended to become eco-tourist accommodation had been halted because the delivery of marble from the local quarry had been cancelled.

Both had been pet projects that Salvatore had taken her to see, and there were several other similar projects.

‘It’s almost as if someone is deliberately sabotaging us,’ Nic observed, his frustration at the situation obvious.

Grace had gradually become relaxed around Nic and lowered her defences, mentally filing him as one of the good guys. Maybe it was because his mother was English. She didn’t self-censor before she closed her eyes and swore.

‘Don’t worry, I’ll sort it—’

‘Just leave it with me and call it a day,’ she said. The face she saw reflected back from the mirror on the opposite wall was set and grimly unfamiliar. ‘Go home to your family.’

Salvatore, she thought, with an emotional little mental gulp, had always remembered Nic’s children’s names. For the first time she was struck—reallystruck—by the weight of responsibility that her inheritance had placed on her, the trust that Salvatore had placedinher.

‘It’s late. I’ll get back to you in the morning.’

Pushing aside the supper tray that she had not touched—she had just moved the food around to make it look as though she had—Grace kicked off the ice packs and eased herself out of bed, muttering to herself. She fought her way into the robe slung across the bottom of the bed and then, grabbing the silver-handled cane that Marta had produced earlier, paused to swallow a couple of the painkillers before making her way out into the corridor.

She half slid down the stairs, leaning on the smooth banister, too angry to register the discomfort in her ankle. As it turned out, anger was the best anti-inflammatory on the market.

Leaning on the cane, she went in search of her quarry, her anger getting hotter with every step.

When she reached Salvatore’s study the door was open. She paused, her heart thudding, and then felt angry at her caution in hesitating. She pushed the door wider and stepped inside. The lights above the portrait of Salvatore’s late wife illuminated the painting of the beautiful woman and cast shadows around the empty room.

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