Page 16 of Awakened in Her Enemy's Palazzo

‘I don’t suppose you’d give me a hand back to my room?’ She looked down at her foot and didn’t have to pretend to feel the throb that was reasserting itself.

‘Of course.’

Grace was very aware of the dark eyes that followed her as she accepted Marta’s supportive arm.

CHAPTER FOUR

TOCLEARHIShead after a restless night, Theo decided to go for a run. Without considering his route, he found himself on a path he remembered from his youth. It had once been worn down by his own feet. Now it was overgrown. At one point oak saplings had taken root, forcing him to make a short detour.

It would need to be cleared...

He almost immediately deleted this addition to his mental to-do list. It wouldn’t need to be cleared because he wasn’t staying. There wouldn’t be other mornings when he ran to clear his head after a sleepless night.

It had been a mistake to come. But everyone made mistakes. The trick, he told himself, was living in the moment and never looking back, even though the uncomfortable voice in his head pointed out that looking back was what he was guilty of.

He upped his pace, even though the ground underfoot was uneven and the path almost indistinguishable from the wild area it cut through. The mingled scent of the sea and the wild herbs underfoot filled his nostrils as he pushed on, losing the thread of his thought for a moment as he remembered the throaty little rasp deep in her throat as his tongue had encountered hers.

He narrowed his eyes as he began to run into the morning sun, dazzled for a second as he picked up his thought. The thing about mistakes was to own them and not repeat them...not beat yourself up over them.

He had, he told himself, acknowledged that the kiss was a mistake, and not one he was going to repeat.

But,Dio, it had been enjoyable!

Grace had not objected when her breakfast had been served in her room—actually, her ankle gave her the perfect excuse to stay there. She was briefly tempted, but then felt ashamed. She was not going to run away.Shehad done nothing wrong.

The implication that hehad, and she was simply some innocent victim, brought a self-derisory furrow to her brow.

In her defence, Grace had not initiated the kiss. But the helpless plea really didn’t work, and it made her impatient with herself. She hadn’t exactly fought him off with a stick, she told herself scornfully. When she played the moment out in her head—which she had done more times than she could count—she could not have sworn, hand on heart, that she had not met him halfway.

The reality was he was the mostmalemale she had ever encountered—and some part of her had responded to all that maleness. It was a weakness she hadn’t known she possessed.

Was she going to hide?

The answer came as she unfolded her legs and pushed aside the breakfast tray balanced on the bed. She headed for the bathroom, noticing as she peeled off her nightdress that her ankle was feeling a lot better this morning. It was stiff, sore and colourful, certainly, but it took her weight without a problem, and she would be able to move around—albeit not with exactly fluid grace.

Her pain, she thought bitterly, was in her head. Where Theo had taken up residence!

The rebellion took her as far as the shower, before her inability to make a mess kicked in. She knew someone might be coming in to clean her room the moment she left, but in Grace’s mind you cleared up your own stuff.

The nightdress was placed in the hamper supplied for the purpose and she stepped into the shower—which was hot enough to make her step back before she hastily lowered the temperature.

She rarely applied make-up in the morning, and the fact she even thought about it today annoyed her. She was not out to impress anyone. It was enough to select a pair of cut-off jeans past their best, and a tee shirt that definitely saidI am not trying.

Salvatore, always immaculately dressed, had breakfasted with her in the small dining room, selecting his breakfast from the silver dome-covered dishes along the sideboard. After one very uncomfortable lonely breakfast there after his death, Grace had opted to take her breakfast in the kitchen, sometimes with Marta.

Maybe, she mused, the old arrangement would be reinstated now Theo was in residence?

Grace had no intention of finding out. She headed for the kitchen, hoping to find Marta there.

She hovered a little around the door when it occurred to her that if Marta was there she might not be alone. God, it was too early to face that smug, supercilious smirk.

Bracing her slender shoulders, she stepped inside and found the room empty. Her shoulders sagged and she despised the fact she was relieved—which was ridiculous. She didn’t have to hide away. This was her house and it was about time she acted like it. There was nothing Theo would enjoy more than seeing her creeping around.

That defiance—or was it nervous apprehension?—gave her an appetite, and despite the light breakfast she had already eaten in her room Grace found herself unable to resist the smell of freshly baked bread.

Just one slice, she told herself, heading for the pantry—a massive slate-shelved space as big as her parents’ spacious kitchen.

She took a crusty loaf from the stone jar and smothered it with a generous layer of butter, before spooning some honey on top and heading with her coffee back to the table. She was on her second bite when the door was flung open and a figure dressed in black shorts and a sweat-soaked vest that clung to an impressively muscled torso burst into the room.

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