Page 61 of Awakened in Her Enemy's Palazzo

‘Why are you wearing a vest?’

‘I t-told you—I couldn’t fit through the window with my sweater on,’ she said, continuing to shake with a combination of cold and shock.

Cursing, Theo shrugged off his backpack and unzipped his waterproof, draping it around her shoulders and pulling the zip up firmly to her chin.

She looked up at him from under the hood. ‘You’ll get wet.’

‘I’ll live,’ he said drily as he located the foil thermal sheet and shook it out, adding the additional layer.

‘I must look ridiculous... I was wearing haute couture two hours ago.’

She swallowed down what sounded like a bubble of hysteria and he saw her try to control the chattering of her teeth.

He shrugged on the backpack and turned to her, his expression fierce. ‘You looked stunning...but now you lookbeautiful,’ he ground out rawly.‘And you lookalive. I thought—’ His voice broke.

Grace watched as he fought to regain control, his chest heaving with the effort.

‘You thought I’d gone over? Oh, Theo, I am so, so sorry to put you through that.’ Another thought came to her, and her eyes popped wider. ‘Oh, gosh! I do hope Marta’s car is insured with me driving. I did sort of bully her a bit to let me have it...’

‘That I do not doubt for one moment,’ he intoned grimly. ‘Come—we cannot stand here. We need shelter and I need—’ He took her arm. ‘Can you walk?’

‘I have been walking for—I don’t know long. It felt like an age. And then,’ she revealed with a bleak little laugh, ‘I discovered I was back where I started. I was almost giv—’

She shook her head. She was not about to admit that, to her shame, she had almost given in to sheer despair.

‘Then I heard your voice, and I thought it was a dream, because I’d been praying so hard that you would come and... Oh, Theo, I was so afraid...’

She sighed as his arms circled around her, feeling warm and safe—well, safe and a little less freezing—as he drew her into his lean body.

Then he scooped her up.

‘Before you say it, I know you are quite capable of walking, but right now we need to get into some shelter—and I need to ring the palazzo so that they can call the search parties off.’

Grace, who hadn’t been going to protest, was quite pleased that he thought she was that tough, and she just pressed her face into his shoulder and hung on.

A short time later he put her back on her feet. She stood there, feeling bereft, but glad they were standing on solid ground, and watched as he extracted his phone from his pocket.

‘This won’t take long.’

Raising his phone to his ear, he punched in a number and she heard the call picked up almost instantly.

‘I have her, Nic, and she’s uninjured.’

For where she stood Grace could hear shouting at the other end—more than one voice, as though the news was being shared with a crowd.

Theo grinned and held the phone away from him until the noise subsided. ‘Thanks, I will. I thought we’d head—’

There was a short pause as someone—presumably Nic—spoke over Theo, who nodded while he listened. ‘You read my mind. And it’s still got a roof?’

Another pause gave Grace an opportunity to study his face hungrily, loving every hollow and line.

‘Impressive... Thanks for that. Ring me when the chopper is free. Yes, the evacuation should definitely take priority. We will just sit tight.’

‘I’ve been an enormous amount of trouble, haven’t I?’ Grace remarked guiltily.

Theo looked at her. ‘You’ve been trouble since the moment you arrived.’

She swallowed the hurt. Though it was harsh, it was hard to dispute under the circumstances.

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