Page 26 of Awakened in Her Enemy's Palazzo

She paused to tuck her hair behind her ears in a businesslike fashion. ‘Obviously I am very grateful...’

‘But you don’t want to be?’

‘This is very embarrassing for me!’ she flung, responding angrily to the mockery in his face. ‘This is not me. I’m not a person who needs rescuing. I’m the person who makes other people feel safe.’

Deep frustration pushed the words from her lips...words which were followed by taut silence.

‘Is that what you did for my—for Salvatore?’

The hands clenched at her sides relaxed as she shot a questioning glance up at him, but her attempt to read his expression was frustrated by his shuttered expression.

‘I hope so. I think I did.’

‘Were you there when...?’ The question seemed to come almost against his will.

‘He wasn’t alone.’ She offered the information quietly. ‘Marta and I were both there with him when he slipped away.’

Theo said nothing as he stood there, his feelings hidden behind an impassive mask. He felt the pain like an exposed nerve as a layer of his emotional isolation was stripped away.

He told himself that it was because of this place he hated...this place his father had loved.

‘He really is dead.’

He’d spoken as though the reality had just hit him, and Grace felt an unwilling surge of empathy.

‘I’m not, though...thanks to you.’

He looked down as if he had forgotten she was there. ‘We need to get you back up to the palazzo.’

She talked tough but she looked so fragile, he thought. So damned vulnerable standing there.

He wanted—wanted...

Instead of analysing what he wanted he growled out, ‘Dio, but you need a keeper.’

She stuck her chin out. ‘I don’t need to begotanywhere. I’m not a parcel. I am more than capable of taking myself. I know they say that if you save someone’s life it’s your responsibility for ever, but don’t take it too literally—I really don’t make a habit of needing rescuing.’

It seemed a point worth emphasising, and she already had an entire family who would run her life if she allowed them to.

He gave a faint sardonic smile. ‘Do they say that?’

She shrugged. ‘I might have got that wrong,’ she admitted.

‘So you have to save my life now?’

His sardonic smile deepened into a wry grin and she tossed him a look that suggested she might leave him to his fate if the roles were reversed.

‘I am assuming you were not one of those little girls who fantasised about being rescued by a handsome prince.’

She lifted her eyebrows as she shrugged on the oversized shirt, which chafed against the sand on her skin but at least offered some protection from the midday sun.

‘Handsome!My, you do think a lot of yourself,’ she came back. But she was thinking,And not without good cause.

Not that ‘handsome’ covered what he was, she decided, as her eyes moved with helpless fascination over the strong, powerful contours of his face before sliding lower over his lean body. A shudder rippled through her body as she remembered the tensile strength of the hard body that had supported her, that had driven them both through the water with sleek efficiency.

‘Lucky you’re around to keep my ego in check.’

She snorted. It seemed to her that his bulletproof vest ego would survive any natural disaster and several manmade ones.

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