Page 48 of Awakened in Her Enemy's Palazzo

‘Marta is as much in the dark about the will as we are, but she has a theory. She thinks that he left you half the estate to bring me back here. Apparently he never stopped believing I belonged here. She tells me that he always believed that if I returned—even once—I would never leave.’

Grace swallowed past the emotional lump in her throat. ‘And he was right, wasn’t he?’ she said quietly. ‘You do belong here.’

‘Maybe...’ he said cautiously. ‘I have a very different life now.’

‘I don’t believe you were ever going to sell. I think there would have come a point—’

‘You’re a romantic!’ he accused.

‘No!’ she protested.

He flopped down with careless long-limbed elegance on a straight-backed chintzy sofa, winced, and surged back to his feet. ‘That thing is like sitting on a concrete doorstep,’ he complained.

‘Well, you can get rid of it—make the place over to your liking. I’ll sign whatever you want. Obviously, your father never really wanted the estate to go out of the family or be split. And I don’t want to profit from it.’

Theo shook his head and wondered how he had ever thought this woman was a hustler. With her warm heart and generosity she was much more likely to be taken advantage of...to be a victim of some unscrupulous bastard.

‘You’re never going to be rich,’ he told her.

She shrugged. ‘I don’t particularly want to be.’

‘You love it here, don’t you?’

‘It’s not my home,’ she said, dodging his eyes.

‘But it could be. Look, for the moment, why don’t we just leave things as they are? It’s never a good idea to make hasty decisions,’ he said—the man who had once been quoted as saying that instinct won, hesitation lost. ‘I have a life away from here. And the day-to-day running of the palazzo—’

‘Nic,’ she interrupted, ‘is very capable.’

‘Nic is expecting—well, his wife is expecting a new baby. He’s already asked for a temporary reduction in hours.’

Theo still found it hard to think of his rebellious old friend as a hands-on dad.

‘And according to him there is no one on his team who is at the stage of stepping up. He was telling me how relieved he is that you’re around to take up the slack. As he pointed out, you don’t mind hard work.’

She hesitated.

‘So you’re thinking I could be some sort of manager?’ she said, and paused, flicking her low ponytail around her finger and letting it uncoil.

‘You’re not a manager—you are the co-owner.’

‘Salvatore never really intended that,’ she fretted.

‘You can’t know that. Look, let’s call this a holding position until we both settle into the arrangement...play it by ear?’

And play by night, he thought, looking at her through the screen of his jet lashes.

‘Think of it as a co-operative—that would suit your egalitarian principles.’

In the act of nudging a nail varnish bottle into line she spun around. ‘How do you know I have egalitarian principles?’

‘You’re trying to give away a fortune. That is kind of a clue,cara.’

She needed protecting from herself, he decided, his eyes flickering to the bed, neatly made up with clean linen.

She slung him a cranky look and then pushed all the nail varnish bottles into a wastepaper bin with a sweep of her hand.

‘I’m confused,’ she snapped, and he half wondered if that wasn’t the idea.

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