Page 8 of Awakened in Her Enemy's Palazzo

Grace eased herself onto one hip and lifted her ankle off the floor, raising her chin and aiming for a defiant ‘don’t mess with me’ angle.

Some of the defiance slid into something messier and more confusing as her eyes meshed with his dark stare. Shading her eyes with one protective hand, she shook back her hair, most of which had escaped the loose knot it had been gathered in on the back of her neck.

‘I’m fine,’ she gritted out through clenched teeth, dragging a hand across her sweaty damp face, oblivious to the dusty smear it left.

In the flesh, Theo Ranieri was more of everything he appeared to be in photographs or on the screen. Looking up at him made her feel quivery, light-headed and hot. But that was the pain, she told herself. That and a reaction to that split-second of visceral fear she had experienced when he had appeared out of nowhere.

Someone that big ought to make more noise, she decided resentfully as her eyes swept upwards from his dusty leather shoes over his long legs. The cut of his tailored trousers did not disguise the strength of his muscular thighs. His hips were narrow in comparison to the width of his powerful shoulders, and through the white of his shirt she could see a faint shadow suggestive of body hair.

She polished her righteous indignation to distract herself from the little sexual quiver in the pit of her belly that was a result of the earthy male image he presented.

Even without the vulnerability factor of the setting, Theo Ranieri possessed a raw physical presence that would intimidate and overpower in an air-conditioned crowded room. But somehow he didn’t seem out of place in the raw, natural environment. He seemed part of it.

His features were undeniably perfect. The slant of his high cheekbones, the aquiline blade of his nose, his thickly delineated jet brows and his dark, almost black stare were not softened in any way by the crazily long lashes that framed his deep-set eyes. The fuller curve of his lower lip contrasted with the firmness of the upper, but it did not give his mouth a feminine softness, rather a disturbingly sensual provocation and a hint of cruelty.

He raised one dark brow and she brought her lashes down in a protective sweep. He probably took being stared at as his due, but she was damned if she was going to feed his no doubt massive ego.

Ironically, for weeks she had rehearsed the cutting comments she’d like to deliver to Salvatore’s callous son if she ever had the opportunity, knowing that because of her profession she never would. But now professional standards no longer applied to her position, and he was here at the mercy of her tongue. She could confront him with his callous treatment of his dying father. A man who had deserved so much better.

Here was the opportunity to put her emotions into words without bawling her head off. But not, it turned out, the ability. Her feelings had solidified into a painful, inarticulate lump in her throat. If she knew one thing, she knew that this was a man she didn’t want to cry in front of.

‘I’m fine,’ she lied, sounding cranky and slightly breathless.

‘Debatable...’ he drawled, sounding more amused than concerned. ‘You’ve rung someone?’

‘I forgot my phone.’ The admission came through clenched teeth.

‘Careless.’

She found herself hating his drawl. ‘It’s fine. I happen to live very close.’

She held his eyes with a pretence of cool composure which, considering she was sitting on the dirt floor, looking and for that matter feeling as though she had been dragged through several hedges backwards, was an achievement that deserved applause.

His right eyebrow joined the left, nearly hitting his hairline, then suddenly levelled as she saw a fractional widening of his dark eyes before the glitter of recognition appeared.

‘You’reGrace Stewart?’

Theo felt a surge of irritation the moment the redundant question left his lips. He considered himself intellectually agile, but he did not make assumptions. And yet he had.

Though if someone had thought to include a photograph in the pathetically thin file he had read, he would not have previously been thinking boring and average. The woman sitting on the forest floor, glaring up at him with eyes so searingly shockingly blue, was neither average nor boring. The skin under the smears of dirt had a pale clarity that seemed to glow in the shaded light.

This discovery required some rapid mental readjustment—which was not easy when his libido kept escaping its leash. Maybe it was like father, like son?

His jaw hardened at the thought as he rejected any and all comparisons with his father. Unlike his late parent, he had never pretended to be a saint and he was not a cheat. He had never promised a woman anything, never made vows and broken them, forcing a woman he claimed to love to the point of utter black despair where she saw no way back.

‘What are you doing here anyway?’

The accusing words brought his attention back to the moment and to the figure sitting at his feet. ‘Did I need to ask permission?’

His sarcasm pushed colour into her pale cheeks. ‘I mean I—We had no idea you were coming. A bit of warning might have been nice.’

It sounded petulant and she felt stupid—especially as she was not exactly operating from a position of authority and was actually on her behind!

‘Just checking you haven’t stolen the silver.’

His lazy mockery touched a nerve and burnt like acid. Her chin went up. ‘Very funny.’ Then the very real mortifying possibility that he wasn’t joking hit her. ‘Half of it is mine,’ she countered observing from the flare of his nostrils that he hadn’t liked that. Well, good—she was glad.

The glare on glare, blue on black contest went on for what to Grace felt like a lifetime before he broke the silence.

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