What if he’s not alive? That question had haunted her for years. No, no. Don’t think that way. By now he was probably married to a princess and had children he adored.
Gemma couldn’t bear to think that he might have found someone else. Oh, Gemma. You’re still the same lovesick fool from years ago.
* * *
Vincenzo was on the phone with Annette when Takis walked in on him. “She’s in my office waiting for you,” his friend whispered before leaving him alone.
His pulse sped up. Gemma was only a door away.
“Vince? Didn’t you hear me?” Annette asked him.
He sucked in his breath. “Yes,” he said in English, “but someone just came in and it’s important. I promise to call you by this evening, my time.”
“I hope you mean that.”
“Of course.”
“We haven’t been together for five weeks. I miss you terribly.”
He just couldn’t tell her the same thing back. “I have to go. Talk to you later.”
He rang off and got to his feet, dressed in trousers and a polo shirt. To see Gemma again meant facing demons he’d tried to repress for years. Too many emotions collided at the same time—anxiety, excitement, curiosity, pain, guilt. Terrible guilt.
She’d been with him the night he’d been at his most vulnerable. The night after that, he’d been forced to flee before more tragedy could befall the family. The two of them had only been seventeen and eighteen, yet the memory of those intense feelings was as fresh to him right now as it had been ten years ago.
Since he’d returned to Italy, thoughts of Gemma had come back full force. At times he’d been so preoccupied, the guys were probably ready to give up on him. To think that after all this time and searching for her, she was right here. Bracing himself, he took the few steps necessary to reach Takis’s office.
With the door ajar he could see a polished-looking woman in a blue-and-white suit with dark honey-blond hair falling to her shoulders. She stood near the desk with her head bowed, so he couldn’t yet see her profile.
Vincenzo swallowed hard to realize Gemma was no longer the teenager with short hair he used to spot when she came bounding up the stone steps of the castello from school wearing her uniform. She’d grown into a curvaceous woman.
“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