of the carnage left in his wake, he’d barrelled on.
As she’d scrabbled around on the ground picking up the detritus before anyone else saw it, her assistant Sara had appeared and bent down to help, hissing sotto voce as she did, ‘The wedding is off—the bride just jilted the groom, right there in the church.’
Valentina had looked at her—a sick feeling blooming in her belly. And then she’d heard the sudden flurry of approaching hissed whispers. The stunned and shocked guests were obviously making their way to the reception.
Before she’d had time to figure out what this all meant, Carmela Corretti had swept into the reception hot on the heels of her son, with a face like thunder. She’d spotted Valentina and roughly hauled her up with a hand under her arm. ‘The wedding might be off, but you will proceed with this reception for whoever turns up, do you hear me?’
She’d let Valentina go then and looked down that elegant nose. ‘As you’ll be looking after less than a full guest count, I won’t be paying you for services not rendered.’
It had taken a second for her meaning to sink in and then Valentina had gasped out loud. ‘But … that’s …’
Carmela had cut in ruthlessly. ‘I will not discuss this further. Now instruct your staff to tend to the guests who do arrive. I won’t have anyone say that we turned them away.’
In shock, Valentina had done as instructed, far too mindful of Carmela Corretti’s influence should she defy her. And as she’d watched the staff rushing around serving amongst the arriving shell-shocked guests, as if nothing had just happened, Valentina had felt incredibly shaky with reaction.
She couldn’t afford to spill champagne on a haute couture gown or drop a tray into someone’s lap so she’d retreated to a quiet corner for a moment to try and steady her nerves and process this information. And the fact that Carmela wasn’t going to pay her! The ladder in her tights was the least of her worries … who on earth would now touch the caterer associated with the wedding scandal of the year?
Gio took another full glass of champagne from a passing waiter’s tray. He’d lost count of how many he’d had but the alcohol was having a nicely numbing effect on his brain. He’d walked straight into the debacle of the century. Expecting to find his cousin’s family jubilant and gloating with their new merger of power, he’d instead found small huddles of guests in the sumptuously decorated reception room, all whispering excitedly of the runaway bride.
The unfolding scandal was so unexpected that it defused much of his simmering anger at the thought of having to play nice with his family. He had caught a glimpse of his older half-sister, Lia, but he’d instinctively shied away from talking to her, never quite knowing what to say to the tall serious woman who’d been brought up in his grandparents’ house after her mother, their father’s first wife, had died.
Thinking that surely he couldn’t be expected to stay here now, Gio decided that he’d more than done his duty and slugged back the champagne before putting the empty glass down. He made his way out of the main function room into the corridor and passed by an anteroom where the wedding band were setting up and doing a sound check. Gio shook his head in disbelief—clearly the word hadn’t reached this far yet, or perhaps his formidable aunt Carmela wasn’t going to let a runaway bride stop her guests from dancing the night away?
Something suddenly caught Gio’s peripheral vision. He stopped in his tracks. He was passing another room now, a store room. He could see that it was the figure of a woman sitting on a chair in the empty room, surrounded by boxes and other chairs piled high. Her head was down-bent, glossy chestnut hair caught up in a bun. Shapely legs under a black skirt. A white shirt and jacket. Slim pale hands clasped on her lap.
As if she could feel the weight of his gaze on her, her head started to come up. Déjà vu was so immediate and strong, Gio nearly staggered back from it. No, he thought, it couldn’t be her. Not here, not now. Not ever. She was only in his dreams and nightmares. Cursing him. Along with the ghost of her brother.
But now her head was up fully and those glorious tiger eyes were widening. It was her. The knowledge exploded something