But then he mocked himself—the pain of losing Mario still as fresh as it had been on the night he died. And the shock to cushion that blow had long gone. Now there was just the excoriating and ever-present guilt.
Valentina was looking up at him, her eyes glowing gold and spitting. She hated him. It was in every taut and tense line of her body.
She gritted out, ‘I said get out of my way, Corretti.’
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