was a long time ago and doesn’t matter.”
He let out an oath, and his brows formed a black bar above his eyes. “Did you get into trouble that night after you left my room? I still had to stay in bed the next day, so I didn’t see you.”
Gemma was thrown by the haunted sound in his voice. “No,” she answered honestly.
“Why don’t I believe you?”
“Vincenzo, I promise. After looking out the door that night, I snuck down the back staircase when I knew a guard wouldn’t be there. No one saw me.”
“Do you swear before God?” A vein stood out in his neck.
She sensed an unfathomable depth of anxiety here. It wasn’t something he could hide. “Why have you asked me that?”
His body tensed. “Because if I thought my father had been waiting in the hall and did anything to you...”
“No one saw me.” It was her turn to shudder at the degree of his concern. “I swear, nothing happened to me, Vincenzo.”
“Keep talking to me, Gemma. There’s still something else you haven’t told me.”
She stirred restlessly. Now was her chance to reveal every single cruel thing his father had done to her and her mother. But looking into his eyes and seeing the pain, she found she couldn’t.
“Did you get questioned after my father found out I’d gone missing?” he demanded.
Give him some of the truth so he’ll be satisfied.
“He and the police commissioner interrogated everyone at the castello, one at a time. No one knew anything about your disappearance. At that point they looked elsewhere for answers.”
“Grazie a Dio.”
She heard the tremendous relief in his voice, but by the way he was staring at her, she could tell he was far from finished with her, and she started to be afraid.
“When were you let go at the castello?”
Her pulse raced. “Does it matter? It’s all in the past.”
He shook his dark head. “Did it happen after my nonno died?”
“Yes,” she said quietly, because with that question Gemma realized he really didn’t know anything that had happened. Neither did Dimi, otherwise his cousin would have told him.
His sharp intake of breath was alarming. “You’re lying to me again.”
She jumped up from the chair. “I can’t do this anymore. Thank you for letting me eat with you. Now I have to leave.”
He looked up at her. “Where are you going?”
“Back to the pensione.”
“If you leave now, you’ll never know the true reason behind my sudden disappearance and why it had to be carried out in complete secrecy.”
Stunned by what he’d just said, Gemma clung to the back of the chair. The true reason?
“On the strength of the years you and I spent together as children and teenagers who fell in love, isn’t learning the whole truth worth something to you?”
“I thought you said you left to make your own fortune and name.”
“That was a by-product of the real reason I left, but I didn’t tell you the truth in order to spare you more grief. I can see now that I’ve been wrong to do that.”
Along with everything he was saying, his confession that he’d been in love with her a long time ago was almost too much to bear. Gemma couldn’t talk, couldn’t think.
“I don’t ever remember you running out of words before, so I’m following you home.” He put some bills on the table. “We need privacy because we’re not finished talking, but we can’t do it here. People are watching.”
“You made a promise.”
“I would have kept it, but you’ve just told me another lie. If you don’t want to work at the castello then I’ll have to live with it, but I need the truth from you first. Let’s go.”
With her heart in her mouth, Gemma left the restaurant and walked to the end of the street to reach her car. She started the engine and pulled into traffic. Soon she was headed for Sopri.
Through the rearview mirror she could see the Maserati following closely behind. Adrenaline gushed through her veins. Finally she would know what had happened all those years ago. It didn’t take long to reach the pensione. Vincenzo pulled up behind her and parked his car.
Without looking at him, she went inside, leaving the door open. He followed, closing it behind him.
“Come in and sit down. Take your pick of one of the chairs or the love seat.”
* * *
Vincenzo did neither. First he looked around at the small, well-furnished flat. From the living room he could see part of the bedroom. Then he walked into the kitchen, where she was clinging to the counter.
This evening, the fear that he was losing his grip on Gemma had made him realize he had to tell her the painful truth about his disappearance if he ever hoped to have a chance of keeping her in his life. All the guilt and the shame would have to come out. He’d wanted to protect her, but it was too late for that now.
But first he needed to hear what had happened to her after he’d left. He sucked in his breath. “The truth, Gemma. All of it! How soon after I disappeared did you and your mother leave the castello?”
She was trembling. “The second your father learned you were missing, he came with the chief of police and guards to our rooms at six that morning, demanding to know where you were. I told him I knew nothing. They searched our rooms before the police chief said he believed me.
“Your father told my mother to get out and take her baggage with her—meaning me, of course. Your father’s outrage was frightening. The idea that his son, who would one day become the Duca di Lombardi, was enjoying life below the stairs with one of the cooks’ daughters put him into a frenzy.
“He vowed to make certain she never got a job anywhere else. He threw Bianca and her mother out that same morning before he left with the police to start searching the countryside for you. That’s why Mamma made me use the Bonucci name, so he couldn’t find us.”
Vincenzo’s pain bordered on fury. He fought to stay in control. “What he did was inhuman. You should never have been forced to live through such a nightmare, and all because of me. I can never hope to make this up to you.”
“It’s over, and he was a sick man.”
His jaw hardened. “More than sick. You don’t know what a frenzy is until you’ve seen him raging drunk. My uncle was the same. Dimi had to get away, too.”
She swallowed hard. “You said he lives in Milan with his mother.”
He
