LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER ONE

      Castello di Lombardi, ten years ago

      AT TWO IN the morning, Vincenzo Gagliardi, newly turned eighteen, quickly dressed in jeans and a hoodie he pulled over his black hair. The long sleeves covered the bruises on his arms. He could feel the welts still smarting on his back and legs as he slid his pack over his shoulders. Then he looked around his room one more time, glancing at the bed.

      A vision of Gemma, the woman who’d been entwined in his arms there the night before, wouldn’t leave his mind. After the pleasure they’d given each other despite his wounds, and the plans he’d envisioned for their future, it killed him to think he had to leave her at all. But the difficulties with his father made his flight necessary. Worse, he couldn’t tell her where he was going or why. It was for her own protection.

      Once his father, the acting Duca di Lombardi, started looking for him, he’d interrogate everyone, including Gemma, and he would be able to tell if she was lying or not. If the girl he’d grown up with from earliest childhood knew nothing about his disappearance, then his father would sense it and have to believe her.

      Arrivederci, Gemma, his heart moaned. Ti amo.

      Making sure no one saw him, he hurried through the fourteenth-century castello to Dimi’s room in the other tower. His cousin had left his bedroom door open. Closer than brothers, they’d been planning Vincenzo’s disappearance for a year.

      Dimi was waiting for him. “You’re late and must go now! I’ve been watching from the parapet. The guard with the dog won’t be walking past the entrance for another seven minutes.”

      “This is it, cousin. Remember—when I’m established in New York, I’ll contact you. Look for the phone number through an ad in the help wanted of Il Giorno’s classified section. Be sure to call me on a throwaway phone.”

      Dimi nodded.

      “It won’t be long before you turn eighteen. I’ll wire you money so you can join me. And as soon as I reach my destination, I’ll phone our grandfather so he won’t worry.” Both boys were the grandsons of the cancer-stricken Emanuele Gagliardi, the old Duca di Lombardi, who no longer could function and verged on death.

      His cousin’s eyes teared up. “Che Dio di benedica, Vincenzo.”

      He tried to clear his throat. “God be with you, too, Dimi. Promise me you’ll keep an eye on Gemma.”

      “You know I will.”

      Vincenzo hated this situation that took him away from her, but there was no going back. He thanked his cousin for his sacrifice, hating their gut-wrenching separation and the horrible position he’d been put in. But they both agreed the danger was too great to do anything else.

      As they hugged hard, Vincenzo realized that he could barely see through the tears. The deep well of shame and pain because he hadn’t been able to protect his mother was something he would have to carry for the rest of his life. Gemma was better off without him.

      Because of Dimi’s loyalty, no one would ever know where he’d gone. This was the way it had to be.

      Now that Vincenzo had been forced to cut himself off from the world he knew, the need to make money had taken hold of his life and had become his raison d’être.

      * * *

      Gemma lay in bed, wide-awake, at six in the morning, reliving the moments she’d spent with Vincenzo the night before last. When she’d heard he’d suffered injuries from a fall off his horse, she hadn’t been able to resist slipping up to his tower bedroom to see if he was all right.

      Despite his physical pain, they’d tried to love each other until he’d told her she needed to get back to her room. Gemma had wanted to stay the entire night with him and couldn’t understand why he’d been so insistent

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