The Billionaires' Club: Return of Her Italian Duke (The Billionaire’s Club) / Bound to Her Greek Billionaire (The Billionaire’s Club) / Whisked Away by Her Sicilian Boss (The Billionaire’s Club)

“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 him like they had done years ago, and his desire for her was palpable.

Once seated, she slammed the car door. Through the open window he saw her put the key in the ignition.

“We have to talk, Gemma!”

Her cheeks had turned scarlet with anger. “That’s how I felt for days, weeks, months, even years until the need was burned out of me.”

“You don’t mean that,” he ground out.

“Let me explain it this way. Remember our discussion about one of the films of the Count of Monte Cristo? If you don’t, I do. Mercedes had waited years for Edmond Dantes, the man she loved. But when he suddenly appeared years later, he’d changed beyond recognition and she said goodbye to him.

“I related totally to her feelings then and now. I celebrate your return to life and all the billions of dollars you’ve made in New York, Vincenzo Gagliardi. I wish you well. Please tell the business manager that I’ve changed my mind and won’t be taking the job after all. Arrivederci, signor.”

* * *

Wild with pain, Gemma backed away and flew down the road leading to the town below. Her eyes stung. By the time she reached the pensione, she realized she’d lashed out for all the years she’d been crushed by his silence.

And for his being so damned gorgeous it hurt to look at him. In ten years he’d grown into a stunning man. Standing six foot three with hard muscles and hair black as midnight, he was the personification of male beauty in her eyes.

She could hardly breathe when he’d walked into Signor Manolis’s office. No wonder she hadn’t been able to go on seeing Paolo. The memory of Vincenzo had always stood in the way. He was the reason she hadn’t been able to find happiness with another man.

When they’d been together for the last time, he’d imprinted himself on her. She’d read about such things in books of fiction, but the love she’d felt for him had been real and life changing.

To think she’d suffered ten years before learning that he’d left Italy with the sole desire to earn money! Being the duca apparent wasn’t enough. All the time they’d been growing up, he’d never once shown signs of greed in his nature. But it turned out he was just like his father!

The moment he’d reached legal age, he’d disappeared like a rabbit down a hole to add more assets to the massive family fortune. Apparently if you were a Gagliardi with a title, you could never have enough! She couldn’t credit it. And no one had known where he’d gone except Dimi.

Because of Gemma’s involvement with the duca’s son, her mother had paid a huge price the night he’d taken off without telling his father. Shame on her for believing in something that had been a piece of fiction in her mind and heart. How many times had her mother tried to pound it in her head that she and Vincenzo would always be worlds apart?

She could hear her mother’s voice. She and Vincenzo hadn’t just been two ordinary teenagers indulging in a romantic fantasy. She was from the lower class, while he was an aristocrat who would one day become the Duca di Lombardi.

Any woman he married would have to be a princess, like his aunt and his mother. Day in and day out, her mother had cautioned her against her attachment to Vincenzo, but Gemma hadn’t listened, so sure she was of his love.

After she reached the pensione, her troubled cry resounded in the car’s interior. If she hadn’t applied for the position at the castello, they would never have seen each other again in this lifetime.