Page 39 of Awakened in Her Enemy's Palazzo

‘I don’t have a lot of choice.’

‘What a bastard!’

She gave a light laugh. ‘Now, thatwouldmake it easier,’ she admitted wryly, beginning to feel embarrassed that she had shared something so private. ‘But actually George is awfully nice. And she’s my sister. It’s not like I could—’ She stopped, a self-conscious expression drifting across her face.

‘Not like you could cut her out of your life? You’d be surprised how easy it is,’ he drawled. ‘I’m the expert.’

‘I didn’t mean that.’

Theo inhaled, his chest lifting as he stared blankly straight ahead, and then he said abruptly, ‘Salvatore...’ He paused. ‘My father...’

It was as if not even in the privacy of his own thoughts had he used the word for a very long time.

‘He’s dead, and I will never—We will never be able to—I was a child, but now—He took that choice away from me.’

‘I know,’ she said, every cell in her body aching at the suffering etched in his face. ‘But your father loved you.’

Her soft, calm voice seemed to be getting through the maelstrom of emotions that must be gripping him.

‘And he knew that deep down you loved him. I’m sure of it. I can’t judge his choice. I think he judged himself. But he thought he was doing the right thing. He struggled with it, but in the end he didn’t want to tarnish the love you had for her mother. He wanted to protect your memories of her.’

She felt some of the tension in his bulging biceps relax a notch.

‘I understand that you’re angry.’

‘Understand?’

She winced at the snarled response.

‘No, you’re right,’ she admitted. ‘I have no idea how you’re feeling—how could I?’

His expression softened fractionally as he looked down at her face. ‘I don’t know how I’m feeling,’ he admitted with a wry twist of his lips as he lifted his gaze, looking out into the distance towards the sea. ‘He went to his grave letting me think that he killed my mother—that the shame that drove her to take her life was the fact thathewas unfaithful.’

Grace didn’t respond. She didn’t think he expected her to.

‘It’s such a bloody unholy mess...’ He jabbed his long fingers into his dark pelt of hair, leaving a few extra sexy spikes when he lowered them. ‘The times I have thought of this place...’

‘You love it, don’t you?’ she said, not realising she had voiced her discovery out loud until he tipped his head sharply to stare down at her.

‘I have a Welsh friend... They have a word for it:hiraeth—there’s no translation in English,’ he added, turning his gaze to the dark outline of the distant mountains against the night sky. ‘But it means a tug...ayearningfor a place or a feeling that is lost. Something that can never be revisited—a kind of deep longing...homesickness tinged with sorrow.’

She felt tears prick her eyes. She suspected this was the first time he had admitted, even to himself, his emotional connection to this place.

‘And now you’re home,’ she said softly.

His home—not hers, she reminded herself as he glanced down at her, looking startled by her comment, as though the idea had not occurred to him. But it would. If not now, then soon, she was sure.

He might not realise it yet, but there was no reason for Theo to reject his birthright any longer—which meant there was no reason for her to be here.

And when she had left—when this was all a memory and she was back nursing, which she loved—would she feel a sense of what he was describing? This...hiraeth? Could a person grow that close to somewhere in such a short space of time?

People fell in love in a short space of time, or so she had heard.

She had known George for a year before she’d decided her warm feelings for him were love.

These days she wondered if that ‘love’ hadn’t just been having someone who listened to what she was saying and looked interested. As a person who came from a family where everyone was more knowledgeable than she was, Grace was used to having her opinion drowned out in any conversation. It had been quite intoxicating to have someone hear what she was saying.

But when she’d looked at George she had never felt the sort of sexual hunger that she did when she looked at Theo.

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