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“Gemma.” He said her name, but it came out gravelly.
A sharp intake of breath reverberated in the office. She wheeled around. Those unforgettable brilliant green eyes with the darker green rims fastened on him. A stillness seemed to surround her. She grabbed hold of the desk.
“Vincenzo—I—I think I must be hallucinating.”
“I’m in the same condition.” His gaze fell on the lips he’d kissed that unforgettable night. Their shape hadn’t changed, nor the lovely mold of her facial features.
She appeared to have trouble catching her breath. “What’s going on? I don’t understand.”
“Please sit down and I’ll tell you.”
He could see she was trembling. When she didn’t do his bidding, he said, “I have a better idea. Let’s go for a ride in my car. It’s parked out front. We’ll drive to the lake at the back of the estate, where no one will bother us. Maybe by the time we reach it, your shock will have worn off enough to talk to me.”
Hectic color spilled into her cheeks. “Surely you’re joking. After ten years of silence, you suddenly show up here this morning, honestly thinking I would go anywhere with you?”
He’d imagined anger if he ever had the chance to see her again. But he’d never expected the withering ice in her tone. Her delivery had debilitated him.
“Four days ago I applied for a position at this new hotel. Yesterday I was told I’d been hired, and now you walk in here big as life. I feel like I’m in the middle of a bizarre dream where you’re back from the dead.”
That described his exact state of mind. “You’re not the only one feeling disoriented,” he murmured. He felt as if he’d been thrown back in time, but they were no longer teenagers, and she was breathtaking in her anger.
“How long have you been in Milan?”
“Over the last six months I’ve made many trips here from New York.”
“New York,” she whispered. A crushed expression broke out on her face.
“When Dimi told me the castello had gone into receivership, two of my friends in New York and I decided to go into business with Dimi and turn it into a hotel. We couldn’t let our family home be seized by the government or sold off to a foreign entity.”
“It’s yours by right, surely, unless that was a lie, too.”
“It was mine by right...once. But that’s a long story.”
She shook her head. “I tried to imagine where you’d gone. I’d supposed you had friends somewhere in Europe, but it never occurred to me you would leave for the States.” Gemma rubbed her hands against her hips in a gesture of abject desolation.
Vincenzo pushed ahead with the story he’d decided to use as cover. “I’d turned eighteen and decided it was time I made my mark and proved myself by making my own money. But my father would never have approved, so I had to leave without his knowledge.”
“Or mine,” she whispered so forlornly it shattered him.
“I couldn’t do it any other way.” He didn’t dare tell her the real circumstances. She’d suffered enough. Vincenzo’s guilt was so great, he was more convinced than ever that she’d been better off without him and still needed protection from the hideous truth.
“Are you trying to tell me that there wasn’t even one moment in ten years when you could send me as much as a postcard to let me know you were alive?” Her voice was shaking, partly with rage, partly pain. He could hear it because pain echoed in his heart, too.
“I didn’t know where to write to you, let alone call you. Dimi didn’t know where you’d gone and looked endlessly for you. You’ll never know how I’ve suffered over that.”
He heard another sharp intake of breath. “Are you honestly trying to tell me that you looked for me?”
The depth of her pain was worse than he’d imagined. “Over the last ten years I’ve had private investigators searching for you. I’ve never stopped.”
“I don’t believe you.” It came out like a hiss. “Has Dimi been in New York with you, too?”
“No. He lives in Milan with Zia Consolata.”
Her face paled, and a hand went to her throat. A nerve throbbed at the base where he’d kissed her many times.
“I’ve heard all I need to hear.”
In the next breath, she moved toward the door. Before he could comprehend, she flung it open and raced down the hall to the lobby. He’d never seen her in high heels before. She moved fast on those long gorgeous legs of hers.
Vincenzo started after her, noticing her hair swish and shimmer in the sunshine with every movement. He didn’t catch up until she’d reached her car. Too many questions about her life were battering him at once. He wanted to make up to her for all the pain he’d put her through by disappearing without a word. Vincenzo couldn’t let her get away from him. Not now.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
She ignored him and opened the car door. He was aware of a lemon scent coming from her that assailed his senses. Right this minute her fragrance and femininity wrapped around him like they had done years ago, and his desire for her was palpable.
Once seated, she slammed the car door. Through the open window he saw her put the key in the ignition.
“We have to talk, Gemma!”
Her cheeks had turned scarlet with anger. “That’s how I felt for days, weeks, months, even years until the need was burned out of me.”
“You don’t mean that,” he ground out.
“Let me explain it this way. Remember our discussion about one of the films of the Count of Monte Cristo? If you don’t, I do. Mercedes had waited years for Edmond Dantes, the man she loved. But when he suddenly appeared years later, he’d changed beyond recognition and she said goodbye to him.
“I related totally to her feelings then and now. I celebrate your return to life and all the billions of dollars you’ve made in New York, Vincenzo Gagliardi. I wish you well. Please tell the business manager that I’ve changed my mind and won’t be taking the job after all. Arrivederci, signor.”
* * *
Wild with pain, Gemma backed away and flew down the road leading to the town below. Her eyes stung. By the time she reached the pensione, she realized she’d lashed out for all the years she’d been crushed by his silence.
And for his being so damned gorgeous it hurt to look at him. In ten years he’d grown into a stunning man. Standing six foot three with hard muscles and hair black as midnight, he was the personification of male beauty in her eyes.
She could hardly breathe when he’d walked into Signor Manolis’s office. No wonder she hadn’t been able to go on seeing Paolo. The memory of Vincenzo had always stood in the way. He was the reason she hadn’t been able to find happiness with another man.
When they’d been together for the last time, he’d imprinted himself on her. She’d read about such things in books of fiction, but the love she’d felt for him had been real and life changing.
To think she’d suffered ten years before learning that he’d left Italy with the sole desire to earn money! Being the duca apparent wasn’t enough. All the time they’d been growing up, he’d never once shown signs of greed in his nature. But it turned out he was just like his father!
The moment he’d reached legal age, he’d disappeared like a rabbit down a hole to add more assets to the massive family fortune. Apparently if you were a Gagliardi with a title, you could never have enough! She couldn’t credit it. And no one had known where he’d gone except Dimi.
Because of Gemma’s involvement with the duca’s son, her mother had paid a huge price the night he’d taken off without telling his father. Shame on her for believing in something that had been a piece of fiction in her mind and heart. How many times had her mother tried to pound it in her head that she and Vincenzo would always be worlds apart?
She could hear her mother’s voice. She and Vincenzo hadn’t just been two ordinary teenagers indulging in a romantic fantasy. She was from the lower class, while he was an aristocrat who would one day become the Duca di Lombardi.
Any woman he married would have to be a princess, like his aunt and his mother. Day in and day out, her mother had cautioned her against her attachment to Vincenzo, but Gemma hadn’t listened, so sure she was of his love.
After she reached the pensione, her troubled cry resounded in the car’s interior. If she hadn’t applied for the position at the castello, they would never have seen each other again in this lifetime.
You simply can’t let what he’s done destroy your life.
For a few minutes she struggled for composure so the padrona di casa wouldn’t know anything was wrong. Then Gemma went inside to gather her things before driving back to Florence. Her cousin wouldn’t have to know what had gone on. Gemma could simply tell her she was still looking for a position but that it would take some time.
While she packed her toiletries in the bathroom, there was a knock on the door. Gemma told the padrona to come in.
“Scusi, signorina.” She shut the door. “There’s a gentleman outside from the castello wishing to speak to you in private.”
Her heart knocked against her chest, but she kept packing and tried to feign nonchalance. “Who is it?”
“Signorina—” She ran over to her with excitement. “I would never have believed it, but it’s the dashing young Duca di Lombardi himself, all grown up.”
She trembled. “Surely you’re mistaken.” What else could she say?
“No, years ago the police looked for him and circulated pictures.” Gemma remembered those policemen. “I would know him anywhere. He has the Gagliardi eyes.”
She moaned. Those silvery eyes were legendary. Had he decided to use his title with the padrona to get what he wanted? Gemma hadn’t thought Vincenzo would go so far as to follow her here, but like his father, he did whatever he wanted. Well, he couldn’t force her to work at the restaurant!
Now that Gemma had shown up on his radar, it seemed he’d decided it was all right to fulfill the role destined for him from birth. Though she wanted to ask the padrona to tell Vincenzo she wasn’t available, she couldn’t do that. The older woman wasn’t a servant, and Gemma didn’t want her involved.
“Thank you for telling me. I’m leaving now and going back to Florence. I’ve left your money on the table. You’ve been very kind.”
Gemma picked up her bag and walked outside to find Vincenzo lounging against the front of her car with his strong arms folded. The padrona smiled at him one last time before disappearing back through the doors.
Gemma put her bag in the rear seat. “Why did you follow me? I thought I made it clear that I can’t accept the position of pastry chef. You’re crazy if you’re trying to expunge your guilt this way. Perhaps not guilt, exactly... A duca doesn’t suffer that emotion like normal people, right? Yet he’s known to give payment to someone like the cook’s daughter for past services rendered. However, I can assure you that it’s wasted on me.”
A little nerve throbbed at the side of his compelling mouth, a mouth she’d kissed over and over before he’d told her she had to leave. “Is that what I’m doing?” he fired in a wintry voice.
“Yes! I’m quite sure you didn’t offer the new executive chef a room at the castello, but Signor Manolis was told to offer me one.”
The brief silence on his part upset her even more, because he didn’t deny it.
“I knew it! The truth is, I don’t deserve this job. The offer was too good to be true. I sensed there had to be a catch somewhere. I just didn’t realize you had everything to do with it.”
“Would it be so terrible of me to want to do something for you after the way I left without telling you? Let me make this up to you.”
“I don’t want anything from you, Vincenzo.”
“If you’re worried about the bedroom at the castello, I promise it won’t be the back room behind the kitchen where you and your mother once lived.”
“It’s a moot point, but I wouldn’t mind if it were.”
“Nevertheless, all of that area was renovated along with the kitchen. The offer for you to stay at the castello will always stand.”
“Why aren’t you listening to me? I was shattered that you didn’t say goodbye, that you didn’t even let me know you were alive, but as for the rest, you owe me nothing!”
“That’s not true.”
“Think back to that night! Because you were in too much physical pain from that terrible fall from your horse, we didn’t make love, even if we came close. Let’s not forget I was as eager as you. Those moments happen to teenagers all the time! I had the hots for you, as they say in the US.”
He grimaced. “Where did you learn that expression?”
“I picked up some American slang from the students at culinary school. So forget trying to fix what can’t be fixed. I don’t want to be compensated with a position of this magnitude or the extra perks that come with it. I understand there are two other applicants you can choose from.”
“Three, but that’s not the issue here.”
She hadn’t known that. “Then there’s no problem.”
Lines darkened his striking features. “You’re wrong, Gemma. As for your expertise as a chef, the desserts made by you overwhelmed the committee. You have to know the decision to hire you was unanimous.”
“I’ll never really know, will I?”
His chest rose and fell visibly. “What do I have to do to convince you? Both Takis and Cesare are connoisseurs of fine food and wine. They recognize what will bring heads of state, kings, princes and world celebrities to the hotel over and over again. They chose you.”
“Does it matter? I have interviews with two restaurateurs in Barcelona and London. If one of them hires me, I’ll know I got the job for my cooking ability, nothing else.”
She climbed behind the wheel. At least he didn’t try to stop her.
“Where are you going?”
“Back to Florence.”
“To the Bonucci Bakery? I saw the address on your application.”
“Yes.”
He stood there with his legs slightly apart, piercing her with those fabulous eyes. “You’ll be driving in heavy traffic.”
Since when had that become a concern? For the last ten years he hadn’t known if she were dead or alive. He’d been flying from New York to Milan for the last six months on business. Her temper flared again.
“Vincenzo—I haven’t been a teenager for years and I love to drive.” She started the engine.
He moved closer. “Before you leave, tell me about your mother. How is she?”
Her bitter laugh shook him to the core. “She’s alive and well, not that you’d care or be the least bit interested. Now I really have to go.”
To her profound relief, he stepped back so she could drive away. Through the rearview mirror she saw his incredibly male physique standing there until she rounded the next corner.
The irony of running away from him after looking for him all these years wasn’t lost on her. She drove back to Florence feeling as if she’d jumped off a precipice into the void.
CHAPTER FOUR (#uff2540e9-06fc-5938-821c-300bb99b0b22)
VINCENZO REACHED FOR his phone and left a message for the guys to say that he wouldn’t be back at the castello until late. There were other calls from his assistant and his attorney in New York on his voice mail. None of them sounded urgent. He would deal with them later. But Annette’s latest message demanded his attention. Earlier that morning he’d promised to call her back.
After putting on his sunglasses, he climbed in his Maserati and followed Gemma to Florence. The satellite navigation would lead him to the Bonucci Bakery. There was no way he would let her turn things around and disappear on him. He needed the chance to talk to her. The depth of her pain had caused him to reel. This was worse than anything he’d imagined if he’d ever seen her again.
While he was en route, he phoned Annette.
“Is it possible you’ve found some time for me?” she teased, but he heard her underlying impatience and didn’t blame her.
