Return Of Her Italian Duke

After he’d vanished, she’d felt so used. What a fool she’d been to believe he could love the daughter of a cook! How naive of her to think the duca-to-be would consider an alliance with an underling like Gemma. In her dream world they’d been equals and anything was possible. But once Vincenzo’s father had tossed her and her mother out like a heap of garbage, she’d received the wake-up call of her life. It had shaken her world forever.

As she read the announcement again, something twisted painfully inside her. The castello, an icon over the centuries that had been her home until the age of seventeen, had now been turned into a hotel and restaurant. She tried to understand how such a thing could have happened to the family with its succession of duchi for over two hundred years.

Gone was their birthright and traditions. Vincenzo had disappeared along with his family. Last year she’d heard on television that Vincenzo’s father was dead. And soon after that Dimi’s father had been sent to prison for fraud. Beyond that there’d been no more news.

Now she was horrified to think the castello had been put up and sold for its commercial value in an increasingly mercenary world. Gemma considered it a form of sacrilege.

No doubt every new graduate would apply there first, but they didn’t have a prayer of being hired. Only the most famous chefs throughout Europe and elsewhere would be allowed an interview at such a magnificent and famous landmark. Many considered Italy to be the vortex of gastronomic delight in the world. The competition would be fierce.

Even so, she was going to apply.

After her failed relationship with Paolo, she realized she needed to draw a line under the past. Until she discovered what had happened to Vincenzo and why, she knew in her heart she’d never be able to move on with her life.

If by some miracle she only made it to the first interview before being rejected, maybe she’d be able to find out where Vincenzo had gone. What had caused the demise of the Gagliardi family? So much had been hushed up in the press.

Pushing those thoughts aside, for the rest of the day she emailed her prepared résumé to Milan, Valencia, Barcelona, London and Vaduz in Liechtenstein. For some reason she couldn’t attach her picture, but it was too late to worry about that now.

Filippa called to tell her she’d applied for all three jobs in Canada. She would have preferred to go to the States, but Canada was the next closest place with openings. Gemma wished her luck and told her what she’d done. They promised to keep each other updated on what happened.

The next day she started receiving emails back and learned that the positions in Vaduz and Valencia had already been filled. Barcelona and London were still open. To her satisfaction, they’d sent her a specific day and time to report for a personal interview.

But it was the email that came after lunch from the castello that almost sent her into cardiac arrest. She was told to report there at noon tomorrow! And to please let them know immediately if she couldn’t make it.

Gemma had thought, of course, that being a new graduate, she wouldn’t have been considered. Something on her résumé must have caused them to give her an opportunity.

Thank heaven her mother wasn’t in Italy right now. Gemma needed to see this through before she told her parent anything. The last thing she wanted to do was hurt her mamma. But for Gemma’s own emotional health and progress, she had to do this! It might be her only chance in this life to find out about Vincenzo. If she didn’t follow through, she knew she’d always regret it.

With hands trembling, she sent an email to let them know she’d be there at the correct time. If she left Florence within the hour, she could drive to the village at the base of the castello today and find a room for the night. That would give her time tomorrow to get ready before the interview.

Gemma phoned her cousin to let her know that she was leaving for a day or two to go job hunting. She made no mention that her destination was the castello. Her cousin had been so hurt for Gemma and her mother, she would have tried to persuade her to avoid more pain and not go. But this was something she had to do.

Without wasting any time, she showered and packed a suitcase that included her laptop. After dressing in jeans and a blouse, she set off on the three-hour drive to Milan full of questions that might get answered after all this time. It would be a trip of agony and ecstasy, since she’d never once been back.

* * *

By seven in the evening, she’d arrived in the busy city and took the turnoff for the village of Sopri, where she’d gone to school with a few children of the other estate workers. Even after all this time, Gemma knew where to find a pensione with reasonable rates.

But sleep didn’t come well. She tossed and turned for hours. Memories of Vincenzo and the night they’d been together in his bedroom kept her awake. Lying in his arms she’d felt immortal, but he hadn’t let her stay with him all night, something she’d never understood.

How she’d loved her life at the castello with him! For years since his disappearance she’d tried to discover his whereabouts, but he’d vanished as if into thin air. Over time it finally sank in that she hadn’t been good enough for him. That’s what her mother had been trying to tell her without putting the painful message into actual words. Gemma believed it now!

When she wasn’t hating Vincenzo, she feared that something terrible had happened to him. The possibility that he might have died was insupportable to her. Combined with her pain over the loss of Vincenzo was her outrage for what his father had done to her and her beloved mother. The great, cruel Duca di Lombardi! There were times when the memory of that morning still tormented her.

Once they’d moved to Florence, she’d never heard anything about Vincenzo or Dimi. Where had his cousin gone? She’d once hoped that if she could even find Dimi, she’d get answers to all her questions. But it was as if the Gagliardi family had been erased from life. It was too strange... She missed Dimi. He’d been such a wonderful friend all those years ago.

Now she was going back to the place where she’d known such joy...and pain. What if by some stretch of the imagination she got the job? How would she feel? How would her mother feel to realize her daughter had graduated with honors from the top cooking school in Italy and was going to make it despite what the duca had done to them?

Wouldn’t it be the height of deliciousness to be hired there, of all places on earth? Such sweet revenge after being kicked to the gutter.

* * *

Gemma was relieved when morning came. After washing her hair and showering, she dressed in a peach-colored two-piece suit, wanting to look her best. At ten she ate breakfast at a trattoria before leaving for the castello ten minutes away. She’d planned to get there early enough to look around and ask questions. Surely someone would be able to tell her about Vincenzo.

For him to disappear on her was a betrayal so awful, she hadn’t been able to put her trust in another man for years. Even after she’d starting dating, the memory of that horrible time when it became clear he’d never be back still haunted her nights.

It had taken until a year ago for her to have her first serious relationship with a man. After a month of dating, Paolo wanted to sleep with her, but she couldn’t. Her heart wasn’t in it. She explained to him that in another eight months she’d be graduating and looking for a position, hopefully in France. There could be no future for them. She had to follow her own path.

After breakfast Gemma opened the car window and breathed in the warm June air as she drove past the familiar signposts, farms and villas toward the massive Castello di Lombardi.

The ocher-toned structure, with its towers and crenellated walls sprawled over a prominent hilltop, had its roots in ancient times. So many nights she and Vincenzo had walked along those walls with their arms around each other, talking and laughing quietly so none of the family or guards would see or hear them.

Closer now, cypress trees bordered her on either side of the winding road. Memories came flooding back. Because of Vincenzo, she knew all about its history. The remains of a Romanesque church standing in the inner courtyard dated back to AD 875. But the castello itself had been built in the fourteenth century to protect the surrounding estate from invasions.

Many owners had possessed it, including the House of Savoy. By the mid–eighteen hundreds it had become the residence of the Gagliardi family. Although it was the first Duca di Lombardi who was considered illustrious, as far as Gemma was concerned that right would have belonged to Vincenzo. That was, until he’d plunged a dagger in her heart by disappearing.

The visitor parking beneath the four flights of zigzagging front steps held no cars. Her breath caught to see the profusion of flowers and landscaping done to beautify everything. New external lighting fixtures had been put in place. At night it would present a magnificent spectacle to guests arriving.

After taking it all in, she drove down a private road that wound around to the rear entrance where in the past the tradesmen used to come. Beyond it was a large parking area that she remembered had been used by the staff.

There were a dozen vans and trucks, plus some elegant cars, clustered in the enclosed area around the door. From the front of the castello the entire place had looked deserted, but that clearly wasn’t the case.

Once she’d gotten out of her car to walk around, a male gardener planting flowers called to her. “The lady is lost, perhaps?” he asked in Italian.

She shook her head. Anything but. “I’m here for a job interview.”

“Ah? Then you must go around to the front. The office is on the right of the entrance hall.”

“Thank you.” It seemed that the day room she remembered must have been converted into an office. She could never have imagined it. “Tell me—do you know why the castello was sold in the first place?”

He hunched his shoulders. “No lo so.”

With her hair swishing against her shoulders, Gemma nodded and walked back to her car, realizing she’d get nothing from him. Her watch said eleven forty-five. She might as well arrive a few minutes early to show she was punctual. She backed her car around, retracing her short trip back to the main parking lot, where she stopped the car and got out.

How many hundreds of times had she and her childhood friend Bianca—who’d had a crush on Dimi—bounded up these steps after getting off the school bus looking for Vincenzo and his cousin?

They would enter the castello through a private doorway west of the main entrance and hurry down the corridor to the kitchen. Once they’d checked in with their mothers, they’d run off to their hiding place in the back courtyard, where hopefully the two Gagliardis would be waiting.

To her surprise the old private entrance no longer existed. The filled-in stone wall looked like it had been there forever. Gemma felt shut out and could well believe she’d dreamed up a past life.

But when she entered through the main doors, she had to admit that whoever had undertaken to turn this into a world-class resort had done a superb job of maintaining its former beauty. Many of the paintings and tapestries she remembered still adorned the vaulted ceilings and walls on the right side of the hallway.

The biggest difference lay in the bank of floor-to-ceiling French doors on the left. They ran the length of the long hallway she used to run through on her way to the kitchen. Beyond the mullioned glass squares she could see a gorgeous dining room with huge chandeliers so elegant it robbed her of breath.

On the far side of the dining room were more French doors that no doubt opened on to a terrace for open-air dining. Gemma knew there was a rose garden on that side of the castello. And though she couldn’t see it from here, there was a magnificent ballroom beyond the dining room to the south.

She was staggered by the changes, so exquisite in design she could only marvel. Whoever had taken over this place had superb taste in everything. Suddenly she realized it was noon and she swung around to report she was here.

The enormous former day room had been transformed into the foyer and front desk of the fabulous hotel, with a long counter, several computers and all the accoutrements essential for business. She sat down on one of the eighteenth-century sage-and-gold damask chairs with the Duca di Lombardi’s royal crest and waited to see if someone would come.