Page 28 of Awakened in Her Enemy's Palazzo

‘So you intend to say things I do not want to hear?’

‘Yes...that is, no. I’m not selling.’

She threw him a sideways look, expecting him to react, but he didn’t.

His expression was—

She frowned, unable to read his expression...

CHAPTER SIX

‘YOU’RENOTONgood terms with your family? Maybe it’s time to cut your losses and dump them.’

His words broke into the mental list of home truths she wanted to deliver at the next family meeting.

She stared at him.

‘Cut my losses?’ she echoed. ‘This is not a financial deal—this is my family!’

He shrugged. ‘Therefore a million times more toxic.’

‘You don’t cut yourself off from your family just because they’re impossible sometimes. Families disagree, but they—Ilovemy family,’ she gritted out through clenched teeth, before giving a little laugh.

He frowned at her laugh, and as she scanned his beautiful, austere,implacableface, she could see that he hadn’t understood a word she had said.

‘If I let them, my family would run my life. They would...suffocateme. They are beautiful, talented, and not at all like me. They’re like you,’ she added, flicking a critical look up at his lean face before wondering why she was telling him this, when she knew there was zero chance of him getting it.

‘I’m assuming that is not a compliment,’ he said.

Grace had started walking as they spoke, and as they reached the lower tier of the manicured terraces he noticed she was limping.

‘It seems to me sentimental and self-destructive to maintain contact with people who make you unhappy, who manipulate you, manipulate the truth...’

‘I can’t believe that Salvatore manipulated you!’ she exclaimed, without thinking.

He froze, and so did his expression. ‘We are not talking about my family. We are talking about yours.’

The sardonic lift of her feathery brow made him grind his teeth, but it was the knowing sympathy in her blue eyes that sent his temper surging into the red zone.

‘Maybe,’ she said quietly, ‘we should not talk at all.’

She slung the words over her shoulder as she began to trudge ahead—no, not trudge,limp, he corrected, watching her through narrowed eyes.

After a moment of watching her, he gave a sigh.

It took him seconds to overtake her.

‘You have hurt your foot again?’ he accused.

Grace, her face set, attempted to sidestep around him.

He mirrored her.

Teeth gritted, she stopped.

As much as she would have liked to try, he wasn’t the sort of person you could nudge out of the way or walk through.

‘No, the other one.’ She knew she must sound like some sort of accident-prone idiot. ‘It’s nothing, really... Just sand in my sandal and it’s rubbing.’

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