Page 58 of Awakened in Her Enemy's Palazzo

It was doubtful.

She drove past the spot where she had first seen Theo and felt the tears begin to seep from her eyes and run silently down her cheeks. How could anything feel so right and end up so wrong?

She sniffed and told herself firmly that this happening now was actually a good thing. It could have gone on for weeks with her hoping and wishing...seeing things that weren’t there.

It was now raining so heavily that the windscreen wipers couldn’t cope. She pressed her face as near to the screen as possible. She screwed up her eyes as she tried to see the narrow road ahead. Then quite suddenly there was no road.

She gasped and threw the steering wheel to one side. The wild movement saved the car from launching out into space, but sent it into an uncontrolled skid.

Grace closed her eyes. It didn’t make much difference. The windscreen was completely covered in a thick, dark coating of muddy sludge. The car hit something—and Grace’s scream was drowned out by the screech of metal.

‘Yes, I will be in the office tomorrow. I want to see all the team.’

Theo ignored the knock on the door as he continued to reel off a list of instructions to his PA. He paused to listen to an interjection she made.

‘I don’t give a damn where he is,’ he snapped. ‘I expect him in the meeting tomorrow and I will want a full run of the progress made.’

The door opened and he turned. If this was Grace, come crawling back with an apology for her behaviour, he’d make her wait.

It was Marta. He took one look at her face and put the phone down.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Grace asked me not to tell you, and I promised I wouldn’t, but I’m very worried. There’s been a mud slide and—and I lent her my car. You know she is not actually the best driver, and—’

‘Stop and start again from the beginning. What has Grace done?’ he asked with forced calm. Marta was not a woman who panicked.

‘She has left.’

‘Left?’ he echoed in stunned outrage.

Shewas not leaving—hewas.

‘In my car. And now...’ Marta took a deep, shuddering breath. ‘Now Marco—he has just returned from his—well, that is unimportant—he says there has been a landslide on the north road and it is blocked.’

‘And Grace went that way?’

The housekeeper nodded.

Theo fought his way through a rush of icy, gut-clenching, paralysing fear that was like nothing he had ever experienced before. He walked blindly across the room and pressed both hands on the desk, leaning forward and inhaling, struggling to clear his head of the image of Grace alone, afraid, hurt. Screaming for help. Screaming for him.

He shook his head. He needed to think.

‘When did she leave?’

‘I think two hours ago...maybe a little more, I tried hard to dissuade her, but she—’

‘Is as stubborn as a mule. I know.’ He touched the older woman’s shoulder. ‘You tried to ring her mobile?’

She nodded. ‘No answer. Oh, I should have stopped her!’

‘It’s not your fault.’ He gave a thin, bleak smile. ‘It’s mine.’ As he spoke, he was already moving towards the door. ‘Ring me on my mobile if you have any news, and get Nic to send some men down the east road towards the river, in case she changed her mind or doubled back. Let me know if they seeanything. I am assuming that the helicopters are grounded?’

‘Oh, I didn’t—I don’t—’

‘Well, confirm it. And let them know that when the weather breaks we’ll need a search party.’

Marta nodded. ‘Be careful, and please—’

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