Return Of Her Italian Duke. Rebecca Winters

pulse sped up. “Go on.”

      “The signorina is beautiful. Like the forest nymph on the dining room ceiling you were staring at tonight. You know, the one leaning against the tree?”

      Yes. Vincenzo knew the one and felt his face go hot. One night when he’d been kissing Gemma, he’d told her she reminded him of that exact nymph painted in the room where Vincenzo had spent many happy times talking to his grandfather. Cesare had noticed the resemblance, too.

      “A domani, Cesare.”

      “Dormi bene.”

      Vincenzo turned off the lights and headed for his old bedroom in the tower. No renovations had been made here. Guests would never be allowed in this part of the castello. It was too full of dark memories to open to the public.

      He removed his clothes and threw on a robe before walking out on the balcony overlooking Sopri at the foot of the hillside where he’d run away. Where was she sleeping tonight? Down below, near to where she’d once attended school? Or in Milan?

      Vincenzo knew her deceased father’s last name had been Rizzo. Everyone called her mother Mirella. He’d heard the story that her husband, who worked in the estate stables, had died of an infection in his leg. After that, Mirella moved up from the village where they’d lived before his death and was allowed rooms in the rear of the castello with her little girl, Gemma.

      One of the cooks who’d lived there, too, had had a child of the same age, named Bianca. Vincenzo couldn’t remember when he and his cousin Dimi had started playing with them on the grounds of the estate. They were probably four and five years old.

      Strict lines between social classes were drawn to prevent them from being together, but like all children, they found a way. He remembered his eighth birthday, when Gemma entered the courtyard where he and Dimi had been practicing archery with his new bow. She gave him a little lemon ricotta cheesecake her mother had baked just for him. He’d never tasted anything so good in his life.

      From that day on, Gemma found ways to slip sweets to him from the kitchen. They’d go to their hiding place at the top of the tower and sit outside, straddling the crenellated wall while they ate his favorite sfogliatelli. When he looked down from that same wall now, he realized they could have fallen to their deaths at any time.

      An hour later he went to bed, but he couldn’t turn off his thoughts. When he’d had to leave Europe in the dead of night, he hadn’t been able to tell Gemma why and hadn’t dared make contact with her. Days, weeks, months and finally years went by, but she’d always lingered in his memory.

      To think that while he’d been in New York buying and selling businesses and building new companies over the last decade, she’d been in Florence working heaven knew how many hours, day in and day out, before ending up back at the castello as executive pastry chef. Incredibile!