still trying to come down from the clouds since your phone call.”
He flashed her a quick smile. “Congratulations.”
Her eyes smarted. “I’m so happy I could burst.”
“We’re happy, too. Now that we’ve found you, we can get going on the preparations for the grand opening. If you’ll come back to my office, we’ll start the paperwork and sort out all the little details to make this a happy working experience for you.”
Once again she found herself walking around the counter and followed him to one of the offices down the hallway. He kept his room tidy and asked her to sit down while he took his place behind the desk.
When they’d finished, he told her to report for work the day after tomorrow at nine in the morning. All staff would be assembled in the grand ballroom off the dining room for an orientation meeting to meet the new owners. Throughout the day there would be sessions to discuss policies, after which she would meet with the newly hired kitchen staff. “Do you have any questions?”
“Just one, but it doesn’t have anything to do with the position. Would you be able to tell me how it is that the Gagliardi family no longer lives here? I once lived here with my mother, who cooked for the old duca. I find it impossible to believe that this magnificent monument, if you will, has been turned into a hotel after centuries of being the ducal seat of the region.”
He studied her for a moment, but it gave her a strange feeling. “You’ll have to speak to the only man who can answer that question for you.”
At last there was someone who knew something. “Do you have a phone number where I can reach him?”
“I can do better than that. If you’ll wait here, I’ll send him in to you.” He got up from the chair and left the room.
Her heart began to thud while she waited. Maybe this man would be able to tell her where she could find Vincenzo. Perhaps this man could tell her where he’d gone that night or where Dimi was. It seemed impossible for a family to just vanish.
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
