known could exist. Not to mention the ever-simmering cauldron of emotions in his gut—ever since he’d seen her again. Gone was the numb shell that had been encasing him since he’d returned to Sicily.
Valentina.
Her name was on his mind, his lips, every waking moment. He could still feel the sting of her hand across his face. It had been no less than he’d deserved.
When he’d realised she was a virgin he’d reacted viscerally. He could never be the one to take that prize from her. It would be a travesty. Yet she had been ready to give it—in the heat of the moment. Gio knew damn well that in the aftermath Valentina would have realised the magnitude of what she’d just done and with who, and she would have felt nothing but disgust for giving in to such base desires.
Grief for Mario—talking about him had defused something between them, but no way was it strong enough to withstand the bitter and deep anger she undoubtedly still felt towards Gio. The chemistry that sizzled between them had obscured that momentarily.
She might hate him for rejecting her now, but he’d saved him and her from that simmering enmity deepening even more.
Gio knew all this and repeated it over and over again to himself but the truth was that he was lying to himself. Because for all of his lofty assertions to Valentina that he didn’t sleep with virgins, all he wanted to do was close the gates to his racetrack, turn everyone away, find her and put her over his shoulder like a caveman. And then he wanted to take her to a quiet place and make love to her until they were both weak and sated.
Until she was no longer a virgin. Until she was his and no one else’s.
* * *
Valentina should have been focusing on the task at hand—the first day of the Corretti Cup—but her mind kept veering off track back to the other evening and the excruciating humiliation of having Gio reject her because she was a virgin.
Even now, hot tears pricked her eyes and to counteract the weak emotion she stabbed a fork with unnecessary zeal into a piece of pork. She felt so conflicted...the hate she’d always felt for Gio was disturbingly elusive now. She wanted to think of his rejection, hold that to her like a cold justification, but she kept thinking about what he’d told her.
He’d ripped apart a huge part of her defence around him by revealing what he’d gone through after Mario’s death.
And then he’d taken her in his arms...and Valentina had turned into a complete stranger. She’d begged him to kiss her, to make love to her. Self-disgust filled her now. Few men would turn that down...and Gio had merely proved himself as susceptible to a warm willing body as the next man. What he hadn’t counted on was her unwelcome innocence.
The hurt that seized her in the pit of her belly reminded Valentina that his rejection had cut far deeper than she wanted to acknowledge.
Stabbing the pork viciously again, Valentina told herself that he’d done her a favour by not sleeping with her. Her conscience pricked her to think of the emotional fall-out if she had slept with him and for the first time she considered the rogue idea that perhaps he’d done it out of some moral sense of integrity.
One thing was certain: there was no way that Valentina was ever going to allow him to make her feel so vulnerable or exposed again.
‘Val?’
Valentina looked up feeling a little dazed to see her assistant Sara, who was eyeing the very overpierced piece of pork warily.
‘Yes?’
Sara looked up. ‘I, ah, just checked the main buffet tent and it’s all moving like clockwork. No one is waiting for their food.’
Valentina forced a smile and her mind back to the task at hand with effort. ‘Thanks, Sara, I’ll go and check the VIP tent. You can start to organise the canapés for the drinks reception later.’
As Valentina hurried off she forced all thoughts of Gio out of her head but then she suddenly caught a glimpse of him in the distance and instantly all efforts to put him out of her head were reduced to naught. She cursed loudly.
* * *
‘You look stunning tonight.’
The tiny hairs rose all over Valentina’s body and her breath automatically quickened and her heart missed a beat. She looked up from where she was running a pen down the list of VIP names to see Gio standing in front of her, ludicrously handsome in his black tuxedo. He’d changed since she’d caught that sighting of him earlier. His normally unruly hair was tamed into some kind of order, making him look even more debonair.
She’d been burningly aware of him since he’d walked into the huge and lavishly decorated marquee about an hour before but to her relief he’d been on the other side of the room, talking to people. Mainly a steady stream of women which had aroused very dark and disturbing feelings inside her. But now he was here. And she couldn’t breathe.
Somehow she found the wherewithal to breathe in and said coolly, ‘It’s the only formal dress I have—I didn’t have time to go shopping.’
Gio’s dark eyes ran over her from where she’d put her hair up in a simple high knot, down over the black structured dress with its flared skirt and a pair of peep-toe black shoes. She was markedly dressed down compared to all the other women in the room who were dripping in jewels and dressed in the latest slinky silky fashions. Which was only appropriate, she’d told herself, hating that she felt somehow less.
Despite the vivid recall of the other night and her lingering sense of humiliation and anger, Valentina felt hot colour seeping up her chest when face to face with Gio again and the memory of how she’d slapped him. She’d never hit another human being in her life. The compulsion to apologise was suddenly acute. Her emotions had betrayed her and she didn’t want him to think she still felt so volatile. Avoiding his eyes, she said stiffly, ‘I’m sorry...about hitting you.’
‘I deserved it.’
Gio’s quick answer had her looking up to see him put a hand to his jaw as if to test it. Her belly clenched when she noticed a tiny scar high on his cheekbone. Had she done that? Treacherously her intent to be cool dissolved. ‘Did I really hurt you?’
Gio’s mouth curled up on one side, making Valentina’s insides feel curiously liquid.
‘Let’s just say I wouldn’t want to be on the other end of your right hook.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said again, her voice sounding frigid as she tried to disguise her emotions.
Just then a petite and very groomed dark-haired woman came up to Gio’s side and he dipped his head to listen to what she had to say. The woman blushed prettily and something dark pierced Valentina’s composure to see this evidence of another woman finding him attractive. Attractive? a snide voice in her head mocked—he stood head and shoulders above every other man in the room and she knew it.
The woman had moved away and Gio was looking at her. Valentina realised her hands were curled to fists and she consciously relaxed them.
Gio was saying smoothly, ‘If you’ll excuse me—my mother’s father is looking for a recommendation for tomorrow’s race.’
Valentina nodded her head vigorously, and Gio mocked softly but with an undefinable light in his eyes, ‘You don’t have to look so pleased to see me go.’
He walked away and Valentina couldn’t help recalling the bleakness she’d seen the other evening, the way Gio had called himself worthless. He seemed to her to strike a poignantly lone figure amongst the teeming crowd.
To Valentina’s relief she was kept too busy after that to think about Gio or where he was. And much later when she came up for air, he seemed to be firmly ensconced on the other side of the tent with the last of the guests. She was supervising the start of the clear-up. The jazz band that had been playing were putting their instruments away. Franco, her other assistant, came up to her and said, ‘Why don’t you take off? I’ll make sure this is all done.