A Shadow of Guilt

chapter TWO



GIO STEPPED BACK, his voice was stiff. ‘I’m not in your way, Valentina.’

Valentina didn’t move though. She was vibrating all over with anger. It was like a tangible thing.

‘You need to go. You need to leave this place.’

A small flare of anger which he had no right to feel raced up Gio’s spine. His mouth tightened. ‘As this is my cousin’s wedding I think I have a right to stay.’ He didn’t bother to mention he’d been about to leave.

‘The wedding is off, or hadn’t you heard?’ Valentina supplied with a measure of satisfaction.

Something Gio didn’t understand made him bullishly stand his ground. ‘The reception is still on, or hadn’t you heard?’

He saw her face pale and instinctively put out a hand to touch her but she flinched backwards, disgust etched all over her. ‘Don’t touch me. And yes, I know the reception is still on—half a reception, that is, which your aunt expects me to cater for without handing over one euro in payment. Your whole family are poison, Corretti, right to the core.’

Gio wanted to say, Stop calling me that, but instead he frowned and said, ‘What do you mean? She’s not paying you?’

‘No,’ Valentina spat out, hating that she’d blurted that out, or that she was still even in a conversation with Giacomo Corretti.

‘But that’s ridiculous, you should to get paid regardless.’

Valentina laughed harshly and forced herself to look at Gio. ‘Yes, call me old-fashioned but it is customary to be paid for services rendered. However, your aunt seems to feel that in light of the unfortunate turn of events, she’s absolved of the duty of payment.’

‘That’s crazy …’ Gio raked a hand through his hair, fire entering his belly. He was fixing on something, anything, he could do by way of helping Valentina and he knew it. The anger at his aunt’s heavy-handed and bullying tactics was a very easy target to focus on.

He started to stride back towards the main function room and then he heard behind him, ‘Wait! Where do you think you’re going?’

Gio turned around. The sight of Valentina standing just feet away with a stray lock of glossy silky hair caressing one hot cheek sent something molten right into his gut. He was shocked all over again that it was her, here, and he was captivated, momentarily forgetting everything.

He felt as if he’d been existing in a fog and had suddenly been plunged into an icy pool. Everything was bright and piercingly clear, the sound check of the band nearby almost painful in its intensity.

And something was happening in his body. After five years of strict sensory denial, it, too, was surging to life. Blood was rushing to every vein and artery. Becoming hard.

Valentina was oblivious to this cataclysm going on in Gio’s body. She pointed a finger at him. ‘I asked you where you think you’re going?’

Gio sucked in a breath and felt dizzy—as if someone had just spiked the air around him with a mind-altering drug. He struggled to focus on what she’d asked and not on the lush curve of her mouth, the perfect bow of its shape. He hadn’t even been noticing women for so long and now this—it was like an overload on his senses.

‘My aunt …’ he managed finally, focusing carefully on the words. ‘My aunt, I’ll tell her she can’t do this to you.’

He turned again, as much to put some distance between himself and Valentina as anything else but wasn’t prepared for when a hand gripped his arm, pulling him around. She was suddenly too close. Gio all but reeled back and Valentina dropped her hand and looked him up and down scathingly. ‘You’re drunk.’

He could have laughed. He knew very well that after the shock of seeing this woman again he was no more drunk than she was.

Gio forced control on his wayward body, but he was tingling all over. He still felt the touch of her hand like a brand.

‘I’ll go to my aunt and tell her she—’

‘No, you won’t,’ Valentina interjected hotly. ‘You’ll do no such thing. I do not need you to fight my battles for me, Corretti.’

Something snapped inside Gio and he gritted his jaw. ‘It’s Gio, or have you forgotten you once called me that?’

Valentina’s face was carved from stone. ‘No, I haven’t forgotten, but apparently you’ve forgotten why I’d never call you that again.’

The cruelty of that statement nearly felled Gio but he stayed standing. ‘No,’ he said faintly, ‘I haven’t forgotten.’

Their eyes were locked, amber with hazel. For a moment there was nothing but simmering emotion between them, so strong and tangible that when one of the band members started to walk out of the room they’d been rehearsing in, he took one look at the couple locked in silent combat and retreated back inside, closing the door softly.

‘I’ll pay you—I’ll cover whatever my aunt should be paying you.’

Valentina reared back, her hands curled into tiny fists, two spots of hectic colour on her white cheeks. ‘You?’

Gio steeled himself.

‘I wouldn’t take your filthy money if it was offered to me on a silver platter.’

Of course, he conceded bitterly, she would have nothing to do with him, or his money, no matter how hard he’d worked for it.

Valentina pointed a finger at her chest then and Gio swallowed hard and fought not to let his eyes drop to those provocative swells underneath the plain white shirt. ‘I am a professional and I’ve been hired to do a job and that’s what I’m going to do. I will not let your aunt jeopardise my reputation by running out now. And I will not take your guilt money, Corretti.’

Guilt money. The words fell on him hard. This time Gio didn’t correct her use of his name. For the first time he saw the bright sheen of tears in her eyes and something inside him broke apart. The memory of her stoic back that day by the graveside was vivid. But he couldn’t move or say a thing. She wouldn’t welcome it.

Suddenly the doors to the main function room opened and a young girl appeared with a worried face beside them. ‘Val, there you are. We need you inside, now. Mrs Corretti is looking for you.’

Valentina’s chin came up but she looked at Gio. ‘Thanks, Sara, I’ll be in in a second.’

She waited until the girl had left and then she said to Gio with icy emphasis, ‘I think the least you can do is leave. And I sincerely hope never to have to see you again.’

And then she walked by him, giving him a wide berth as if afraid to even come close to touching him. Gio heard the doors open and close behind him. Her scent lingered on the air, light and musky. Her.

I think the least you can do is leave. Gio hadn’t needed much of an excuse before. And he certainly didn’t need one now. The past seven years had just fallen away like the flimsiest of sets on a stage to expose all of the ugliness and pain that was still there.

As much as Valentina never wanted to see him again, he echoed that sentiment right at that moment. He didn’t think he could survive another encounter with her.

A week later …

‘Who did you say?’ Gio’s voice rang with incredulity. Was he hearing things? He shook his head and focused again on his PA, a comfortably middle-aged woman called Agata.

She spoke again slowly, enunciating every word carefully. ‘Val-en-tina Ferr-anti. She’s outside right now, she wants to see you. And she looks determined.’

Gio turned his back on Agata for a moment and spiked two hands through his already messy hair, his whole body knotting with tension and something much hotter, darker. Already he could feel blood pooling southwards. His mouth tightened. So it hadn’t been an aberration. It was her, uniquely her, who was having this effect on him.

Perfetto. His body and libido were being awoken by the only woman in the world he could never have. Or more accurately who would never have him.

He turned around again, hiding his tumultuous thoughts behind an impassive expression. Valentina would not affect him today. She’d obviously just come to hurl a few more spiked arrows in his direction and he would withstand it if it killed him. It was his due.

‘Send her in.’

Valentina’s hands were clammy, and she smoothed them again on her worn jeans. She resolutely pushed down the memory of the words she’d hurled at Gio Corretti just days ago: I wouldn’t take your filthy money if it was offered to me on a silver platter. Her cheeks got hot with guilt.

What was taking his assistant so long? Perhaps she should have dressed up more? Instead of these old jeans, sneakers and a T-shirt that had definitely seen better days. Too late now. And anyway, it wasn’t as if she was trying to impress Giacomo Corretti. She was only here because he was literally the only person on the island of Sicily outside the sphere of his aunt’s influence.

Even though Valentina knew that Gio had built up a successful business, she’d been surprised when she’d come to his offices at his racetrack in Syracuse—to find everything so pristine and gleaming. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected, some level of obvious debauchery?

For a couple of years after Mario’s death, Gio Corretti became the most hedonistic playboy in Europe. Always a lover of extreme sports, he’d seemed to relish doing as many dangerous things as possible. He’d been pictured jumping out of planes, rock climbing with his bare hands, scaling the highest mountains in the world.

He’d also been pictured on yachts in the south of France, in the casinos of Monte Carlo and in the winners’ enclosures at Epsom and Longchamp, where he’d regularly won and lost millions of euros in the space of hours. And in each place a stunning woman on his arm, clinging to him with besotted adoration and euro signs in her eyes.

But contrary to that feckless image, his racetrack was a veritable hive of industry with smartly turned-out grooms wearing black T-shirts emblazoned with the Corretti Racetrack logo, leading sleek-looking thoroughbreds through the grounds, and gardeners tending the lushly flowering borders.

The most impressive part of the location was the racetrack which overlooked the Mediterranean Sea, giving it a vista unlike any other in the world. This wasn’t where Mario had died—Valentina didn’t think she could have come here today if it was. Mario had died on the smaller training gallops at Gio’s castello, because this racetrack hadn’t yet been ready.

Valentina heard the low hum of voices in Gio’s office where the friendly middle-aged lady had disappeared moments before and her belly knotted. Anger at seeing Gio again had been her impetus through this horrific week and the spectacular implosion of her career—anger is what had impelled her here because one Corretti had ruined her but only another Corretti could save her—but what if he was telling his assistant that he didn’t want to see her?

Just then she heard a sound like the door handle jiggling and she flinched and stood up, her heart thumping at the thought of seeing Gio again. What had she been thinking? She couldn’t do this. She was in the act of turning to leave when she heard a calm mellifluous voice announce, ‘Sorry to keep you waiting, Ms Ferranti, he’ll see you now.’

Gio’s body was locked tight as he waited for Valentina to appear in the doorway and when she did, in jeans and a T-shirt, with her hair loose over her shoulders in chestnut waves, a whole new tension came into his body.

Her T-shirt was moulded over the firm globes of her breasts. Gio felt like he couldn’t breathe and dragged his gaze back up to those feline amber eyes. The same eyes that had been haunting him all week.

He put out a hand and said stiffly, ‘Please, won’t you sit down?’

Valentina hovered uncertainly just inside the door, which Agata had closed behind her on her way out. She shook her head. ‘No, I’d prefer to stand.’

Gio inclined his head and stayed behind his desk, as if that could offer some protection.

Valentina crossed her arms then, inadvertently pushing her breasts together and up, and Gio nearly groaned out loud. He cursed himself—he was acting like a hormonal teenager.

More tersely than he intended, he rapped out, ‘You’ll have to forgive me for being a little surprised to see you. After all, it was hardly your intention the last time we met.’

Valentina found herself floundering, badly. Seeing Gio again last week, her response then had been visceral and a reflex to years-old grief and anger. After all, she hadn’t seen him since the funeral. But now that raw emotion was stripped away somewhat and left in its place was something much more ambiguous. And a physical awareness of the man which was very disturbing.

A huge window behind him looked out over the racing ground and stands, the sea beyond. But Valentina could only see him in a dark polo shirt which was stretched across a hard muscled chest, and long, long legs clad in lovingly worn jeans. Without even looking properly she could imagine his thighs—like powerful columns of sheer muscle.

When he and Mario had been on horseback they’d been a sight to behold, but Gio even more so. He’d moved with such fluid grace that it had been hard to tell where he ended and the horse began. Her brother hadn’t had such an innate ability…. Valentina gulped. She couldn’t think of that now.

She struggled to recall his words, something about her not wanting to see him again. Her throat felt scratchy. ‘No … it wasn’t my intention.’

One of Gio’s black brows arched. ‘And it is now?’

Valentina cursed herself for ever thinking of this as a plan of action and tried desperately to articulate herself. ‘Yes. Well, it’s just that … things have happened in the past week.’

Gio came around his desk then and perched on the corner, legs outstretched before him. His scent tantalised Valentina’s nostrils and just like that she was flung back in time to when she’d turned seventeen, weeks before Mario’s death. She’d taken her moped to Gio’s castello to look for Mario for their father, who’d needed him to do chores. In those days Valentina hadn’t needed any excuse to go to Gio’s castello or the track.

She’d gone to the stables looking for Mario and had seen no one, aware that she was disappointed not to see Gio either. And then a horse had appeared out of nowhere behind her. A huge beast. Valentina had jumped back, startled, ashamed of how intimidated she was around horses.

Someone had come up behind her and before she knew what was happening she’d been lifted effortlessly onto the horse’s bare back, and Gio had been swinging himself up behind her, an arm snug around her waist, thighs hard around hers. She’d been so shocked to find herself that high off the ground and with Gio in such close proximity that she’d struggled for breath as terror and excitement had constricted her lungs.

He’d said in her ear, ‘You’ll never get comfortable with horses if you don’t get used to riding them.’

He’d put the reins in her hands with his hands over hers and for about half an hour they’d walked around his sandy gallops with Gio murmuring words of encouragement and tuition in her ears. Terror had turned to exhilaration as she’d allowed herself to relax into Gio’s protective embrace and when her brother had still failed to materialise Gio had told her that he’d left before she’d arrived, borrowing one of Gio’s collection of motorbikes to get home.

Valentina had all but slithered off the horse and on very shaky legs had fled home herself. Mortified to think they’d been entirely alone for all that time. She’d been unable to look at Gio for weeks afterwards without blushing, achingly aware of how her whole body had tingled next to his, and how hot she’d felt between her legs.

‘What things?’

Valentina looked blankly at Gio now, her mind still dazed from the memory.

‘You said things have happened?’

Valentina came crashing back to earth. Why on earth was she remembering such traitorous memories when only one was important? The memory of when she and her parents had rushed into that hospital in Palermo only to be stopped by a doctor and told that their son was dead.

Valentina focused on that now and crossed her arms even tighter across her chest. This man owed her. Owed her parents. Owed her brother. ‘Your aunt refused to pay me for the catering at the wedding.’

Gio frowned. ‘Did you tell her you wouldn’t accept non-payment?’

Valentina flushed. She’d been so angry and emotional after seeing Gio that when she’d come face to face with Carmela Corretti and the woman had still refused to pay her even though people were sitting down to the six-course meal, despite the shambles of the wedding, that she’d threatened legal action.

Even now Valentina could almost laugh at the folly of her naivety! As if a mere mortal like her could take on a Corretti. Carmela had looked at her and her face had gone white and then red with anger at this impudence.

‘You dare to threaten me with legal action.’

Hands on hips, gone too far to back down now, Valentina had fumed. ‘Yes, I do. You don’t scare me, you know.’

Carmela had just smiled and said as if she were remarking on the weather, ‘You can consider yourself not only not paid, Ms Ferranti, you can also consider yourself blacklisted from every catering job on this island. I did warn you, did I not?’

Valentina had gasped at the unfairness of this attack. ‘But there’s nothing wrong with the menu or the catering service.’

‘No,’ agreed Carmela almost cheerfully. ‘But, there is everything wrong with you and your attitude, young lady.’

That had been too much for Valentina, to be spoken to so patronisingly by a Corretti. She’d seen an ice bucket nearby full of water and her hands had itched to pour it over the woman’s head. But she’d been saved from that impetuous action when the abandoned groom had reappeared and suddenly Carmela had pushed Valentina out of the way to go to him.

Gio said nothing for a long moment and then, ‘I think I would have paid to see my aunt with a full ice bucket over her head.’

Valentina snuck a look at Gio’s expression. And then as she watched, his eyes sparkled and his mouth twitched. It was so unexpected to see this, that to her horror, Valentina could feel a lightness bubbling up inside herself too. No! her brain screamed. Do not let him close, do not let him charm you.

Fighting the lightness down with an iron will Valentina suddenly realised that she’d been totally and utterly wrong to come here. Had she come because seeing Gio last week had precipitated a dangerous need to see him again? The very thought of such a susceptibility made her feel nauseous.

Without even thinking about it, she’d whirled around to the door and had her hand on the handle before she felt a much larger hand around her upper arm, tugging her back. That touch sent tremors of sensation and wanting into her blood. She had to leave now.

She pulled her arm free and looked up at Gio, who was too close. ‘I made a mistake coming here.’

All lightness was gone from Gio now; his eyes were flashing green, his mouth was tight. ‘You hardly came all the way here from Palermo for nothing, Valentina.’

She shook her head, feeling sick. Memories were coming up too thick and fast, jumbling everything up, when she had to remember why she hated this man. ‘I shouldn’t have come. I thought you could help me with something but I forgot—I don’t want … need your help.’

And then she yanked the door open and ran all the way out of his building and didn’t stop till she got to her rusty old car.

Gio slammed the door shut after Valentina left and put his two hands against it and dropped his head. ‘Damn, damn, damn.’

That evening when Valentina got home from checking on her parents she paced the floor of her tiny spartan apartment. Things were not good. Her father hadn’t looked well at all, pasty and slightly sweaty, but he’d brushed aside her concerns. Worry knotted Valentina’s insides. She hadn’t told them yet of the debacle of her career which had effectively been ruined by Carmela Corretti. Between her parents—with her father’s ominous chest pains and her mother’s arthritis and only access to the most basic health care—it was a serious worry.

She stopped pacing and put a weary hand to her head. She had to work. But thanks to Carmela she’d be lucky to get a job as a chambermaid in a three-star hotel in Messina. And that wasn’t all—her two staff were also unemployed thanks to her impetuous actions.

Valentina sat down on a rickety chair and cursed herself soundly. Why did she have to get so emotional and react to Carmela like that?

Gio. Because seeing him had pushed her over the edge. Had made her reckless and had brought up all the simmering anger at the Correttis in general for their lavish and effortlessly powerful ways. The way they didn’t have to think of anyone but themselves.

But Valentina’s conscience smote her—Gio hadn’t always been like the others. He’d been shy and quiet. Withdrawn. Her father had worked doing odd jobs and maintenance for the Corretti palazzo near Palermo all his life and her mother had done their laundry. They’d lived in a tiny humble house nearby.

At first Gio and Mario hadn’t been friends—they’d circled each other for a long time like two suspicious animals. Valentina had witnessed how their friendship had bonded after a particularly nasty fight. She’d been just five and had been trailing her beloved father and brother as she usually did, in awe of the palazzo and its extensive grounds. Mario had been goading Gio with fists raised. ‘Come on, say something, why don’t you? Don’t you have a tongue?’

From her hiding place, Valentina had seen how Gio had launched himself at Mario with a feral grunt. Her father had found them and taken both boys by the scruffs of their necks and ordered them to apologise to each other.

She’d watched as Gio had struggled to get the words out, his face smeared with dirt and dust. It had been excruciating to watch. ‘I … I … I’m … s-s-s-s …’ He’d stopped and then tried again, eventually saying ‘sorry’ in a rush.

She could remember the look on his face, as if he’d been waiting for Mario to laugh or make fun of him. He had a stutter. That’s why he never spoke. Even though she’d only been five, Valentina had been aware of her ten-year-old brother’s sheer maturity and grace when he’d ignored Gio’s debilitating stutter and had held out his hand and said, ‘I’m sorry too.’

Since that day they’d been inseparable. Valentina fought against this memory, much as she’d fought against the ones earlier—she didn’t want to remember Gio like that.

Her hands clenched to fists. If Mario hadn’t been so in thrall to Gio, he would never have put aside his studies that night and gone to Gio’s castello to race horses with him. She could remember the conversation when Gio had turned up on his motorbike to entice Mario away. Mario had protested. ‘I really should be studying for my exams.’

Gio had made a face. ‘That’s the lamest excuse I ever heard, Ferranti.’

Mario had chuckled and then said teasingly, ‘Well, at least some of us want to get an education!’

Gio had growled at that and had launched himself at Mario and the two had mock fought for a few minutes. Valentina had been watching all of this surreptitiously from behind the door, her eyes glued in fascination to Gio’s lean muscular form. Then they’d stopped and Mario had stood back breathing heavily, a dangerous glint in his eye that Valentina recognised all too well. ‘I’ll come if you let me ride Black Star.’

Immediately Valentina had tensed and looked at Gio, who was scowling. ‘No way, Mario … you know I won’t let you near him—he’s too dangerous.’

Mario had taunted, ‘You’re saying you’re the only one who can handle him?’

Gio had flushed and Valentina had leapt out of her hiding place to stand between the young men, looking at Gio. ‘Don’t let him near that horse, Gio. I swear to God—’

Her brother had taken her shoulders and gently moved her out of the way, saying, ‘This is none of your concern, Val.’

But Valentina had implored Gio with her eyes. She’d seen Black Star in action on his gallops. He was a mythically huge thoroughbred that Gio had bought recently in France. He was very controversial because while he had the potential to be a great champion, he’d already run a few races and in each one had unseated his jockey. In one tragic instance, the jockey had been killed.

The authorities in Europe had wanted to put the horse down but Gio had stepped in to buy him, claiming that he could tame him into acquiescence, putting forward the argument that the horse shouldn’t be punished for the failure of the trainers. But when Gio had shown the horse off to Mario and her when he’d returned home, she’d seen a madness in his eyes that had terrified her. So far, the only one who’d been able to get near him was Gio. And now her brother wanted a go?

There’d been a stand-off between the two men. Mario had cajoled, ‘Gio … come on.’

Gio had just looked at Mario for a long moment and then shrugged lightly and said, ‘We’ll see.’

Mario had grinned in triumph and clapped his friend on the shoulder, saying, ‘Wait here, I’ll just change.’

He’d left and Gio had looked at Valentina, causing that inevitable self-conscious flush to rise up through her whole body. She ignored it. ‘Gio … you can’t let him near that horse … something will happen to him. You know he’s not as good as you.’

Gio had come close and touched his finger to Valentina’s chin, tipping it up slightly, making her heart beat fast and her body ache with a peculiar restlessness.

‘Don’t worry, piccolina, I won’t let anything happen to him.’

Indignant fire had raced up Valentina’s spine and she’d jerked her chin free. ‘Don’t call me that, I’m not little.’

Gio had said nothing for a long moment, just looked at her so intensely that she’d felt breathless, and then in a slightly rougher tone of voice, ‘I know you’re not … and don’t worry. I’ll have him back to his boring books before midnight, just like Cinderella.’

Mario had reappeared and gave Valentina a hug and walked out the door, Gio had followed with a quick glance backwards. ‘Ciao, bellissima.’

And that had been the last time she’d seen Mario. When she’d seen Gio in the hospital later that night she’d run to him, distraught, hysterical. ‘You let him go on that horse, didn’t you, didn’t you?’

Gio had just stood there, white-faced, and said, ‘I’m so sorry.’

Her mother and father had been so proud of Mario. Everything, all of their hopes and fears, had rested on him. Valentina had resigned herself to the fact that she wouldn’t have the same opportunities. She was genuinely happy for her brother to succeed and he’d often told her, ‘Val, when I become a lawyer and I’m making lots of money, I’ll send you to a cordon bleu school in France….’

Tears pricked her eyes, but just then a knock came on Valentina’s apartment door, wrenching her back to the present. Surprised, because she wasn’t used to visitors, she dashed away the dampness on her cheeks and stood up. When she opened the door and saw who it was she sucked in a breath. ‘You.’