Page 6 of Awakened in Her Enemy's Palazzo

‘I’m really not interested in money,’ she tacked on quickly. ‘Oh, gosh... I think I’m losing you...’

She cut the connection and didn’t feel even slightly guilty.

Theo loosened his tie, and a moment later it joined his jacket on the back seat of his car. He had driven direct from the Florence office to the palazzo. Though these days he was based mainly in the States and the UK, he had retained his original Italian base.

It was a journey he had not made since he was an angry eighteen-year-old, and then it had been in the opposite direction, his mode of transport his feet and his thumb, his fuel anger.

He remembered the exhilaration of finally being free. He’d been counting down the days to severing all connections since that fateful day he’d discovered what his father was. Thanks to attending boarding school in England, he had only been home for the holidays. When he could he had spent them with friends, but when forced to return home to the palazzo he had studiously ignored his father. Instead he would head out into the hills every day, either alone or with Nico, the estate manager’s son, who hated it there as much as he had.

The anger was still there, but there was no shoe leather involved today. Instead the silent growl of an electric engine that powered the convertible.

Theo had vowed that day he’d never set foot in the place again. He’d told his ashen-faced father that now he was an adult, and had a choice, it was no longer his home.

Yet here he was.

He resented the necessity and the reason for that necessity. One Grace Stewart. When his legal team had told him that she wouldn’t sell he had been irritated, and instructed them to find out what she wanted and give it to her.

They had come back with the news that she didn’t want anything—which he didn’t believe. Everyone had a price, and this woman would be no exception.

The slim file that had landed in his inbox had not suggested she was any different, just possibly slightly more boring. There was certainly nothing that could be used as leverage against her in the file. Though to be certain he had employed Rollo Eden to dig a little deeper.

Theo did not particularlylikeRollo, but liking was not necessary. It was thanks to the private investigator’s digging ability that they had not lost a multimillion-dollar contract. The man had outed the mole in their midst who was passing on information to a rival firm. So what if he got near the line sometimes? While he stayed just the right side of it and produced results Theo would continue to utilise his skills when required, with no qualms.

This task was a little below his pay grade, but when Theo had explained the situation he had agreed to handle it personally and not pass it on.

But Theo was not hanging around waiting for Rollo to deliver. He had put a plan into action. Initially he had thought about speaking directly to the little gold-digger, and then another solution had come to him, brilliant in its simplicity.

If she wouldn’t move out, he’d move in—which could cramp her style when it came to entertaining. She probably fancied herself as chatelaine of a castle, he concluded scornfully.

If he couldn’t sell up without her agreement, the reverse was also true. If she had any plans that involved the estate she’d have to run them past him, and she would find him not co-operative.

Despite the amused smile that played around his lips at the thought, he felt the tension climb into his shoulders. He knew that once he turned the next bend the palazzo would be in view. He couldn’t think of it as home any longer—it had stopped being his home the day of his mother’s funeral. He’d been so angry with her for leaving him. And then, quite by accident, he had discovered from his hiding place the reason she had left him, and his anger had shifted to the person responsible.

He found his foot easing off the accelerator, delaying the moment of his first glimpse of the iconic view that was replicated in innumerable books on the architectural gems of Tuscany. Whether approaching by helicopter or car, guests arriving were guaranteed a catch-your-breath moment.

The palazzo was built on the site of the original monastic building that had been the dream of an ancestor of his in the sixteenth century. Its classic proportions still incorporated an old clock tower and the original ecclesiastical buildings, spread around the main palazzo like a village.

In his mind, he visualised the massive Renaissance gates which marked the point when a visitor would be hit by the full spectacle of the place. Driving along the tree-lined avenue and upwards towards the palazzo the visitor would be surrounded by tier after tier of immaculate flower-bedecked manicured gardens, intersected by stone walkways and statuary, rising to the final level that stopped short of a cliff face that opened on to the azure ocean.

Aware of the heavy thud of his heart, and refusing to acknowledge it, he veered the car off the dusty track and pulled up with a screech of brakes and a cloud of dust onto the grassy verge.

He told himself that he had stopped to stretch his legs, but the self-delusion was a single cell thin when he opened the door and was hit by the pungent, warm and earthy signature scent that he had never forgotten. It immediately filled his nostrils as his feet hit the pine-needle-strewn floor.

He didn’t want to admit even to himself how the familiarity unsettled him—how beinghereunsettled him. He hadn’t been prepared to feel this way, and it was all that damned woman’s fault.

He had moved on. The death of the father he had rejected had been the final closure of a chapter—the closure that would be complete when he sold his heritage.

The only thing standing in the way was the woman who had got her claws into his father. Well, like they said, there was no fool like an old fool...

Not that his father had been old, as such—sixty-five was nothing these days, and his father had died three days short of that birthday.

Theo had learnt after the fact of his death, from the lawyers. The cold, clinical words of the email had stared up at him.

Regret to inform...dead...lost his brave fight...

It had taken Theo a while to connect the words—for the clichés to make sense. There had been no forewarning. Had his estranged father considered reaching out when he’d known the end was near?

And if he had...?

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