A Shadow of Guilt - By Abby Green Page 0,22

that what really counted was academic qualification and a solid career. And also that Valentina should find a nice man and settle down, find someone who would provide for her … and them. Provide them with grandchildren.

But instead, her nemesis Giacomo Corretti had been the one to step into the breach. In more ways than one. Little by little she was becoming more and more beholden to him. She resented him for it but then she’d been the one to invite him back into their lives so she had no one to blame but herself.

She remembered what it had been like to look into his eyes just now, to see the abject pain in those green and brown depths. The way her heart had clenched, the way her conscience had mocked her. And worse, the way her pulse had pounded with a deeply unsettling rhythm just to be near him. As it always did, as it always had. Why did he still have to have this effect on her?

The taxi was pulling up outside her apartment building now and Valentina paid the driver and refused to let Gio dominate her thoughts any more. It was only when she fell into a fitful sleep sometime later that he came to haunt her in her dreams.

‘What’s this?’

Valentina stood in front of Gio the following Monday morning in his office. Her head was still reeling at how fast things had moved in just thirty-six hours. Her father was already settled in the private clinic in Syracuse and she’d moved into the staff accommodation the previous evening.

Gio was sitting behind his desk looking absurdly out of place in his grey T-shirt. He looked far too vital and virile and sexy to be sitting at a desk.

Valentina dragged her attention back to his question. ‘It’s the advance on my pay that you gave me. I need to pay you back for what you’re doing for my father. I realise that it’ll take a lot—’

Gio stood up abruptly, making Valentina stop talking. His face had darkened visibly and he held the cheque back out to her. ‘Don’t insult me, Valentina. Please.’

Valentina refused to take the cheque, her own face darkening as blood rushed into it. She felt embarrassed. ‘When I came to you looking for work it was to make enough money to support and care for my parents. What I earn should go into their care and as you’re paying for that at the moment …’ She trailed off, a little scared at the way Gio’s eyes had darkened almost to black by now.

‘I offered to pay for your father’s treatment with no strings attached.’

Valentina observed scathingly, ‘There’s always strings attached.’

Gio shook his head and looked at her pityingly, making a hot rush of humiliation rush through Valentina. He came around his desk to face her and she wished he hadn’t. In flat runners he towered over her own not inconsiderable five feet seven inches.

‘What happened to you? What made you become so cynical?’ He frowned. ‘Was it a love affair gone wrong?’

Valentina nearly choked. A love affair gone wrong? Gio had no idea. She’d had plenty of men chasing after her but she’d kept them all at arm’s length. Terrified on some level of getting close to anyone. Terrified of the way one minute someone you loved could be there, and the next minute they could be gone. For ever. That realisation seemed to explode into her consciousness like a bomb going off. She’d never even really articulated it to herself like that before. She’d just always instinctively avoided relationships. Losing Mario had made her cynical. It had twisted something inside her soul.

Made weak by this insight, Valentina was barely aware when Gio took her hand and folded the cheque back into it, closing her fingers over it. His hand was big and warm around hers and she looked up at him. They were standing much closer than she’d realised and his scent, musky and warm, unleashed an avalanche of vivid memories in her imagination.

Jerkily she pulled her hand back from his, with the cheque in it, and stepped back. The only coherent thing in her head was that she needed to get out of there now. Before Gio saw something she herself couldn’t really understand.

She got to the door and then looked back and blurted out, ‘It was you. You made me like this.’

All Valentina saw before she fled was Gio’s face darkening even more. She made her way back to the kitchen