A Shadow of Guilt - By Abby Green Page 0,5

open, deep inside him. Something that had been frozen in time for seven years. He saw colour leach from her cheeks. So much more angular now that her teenage plumpness had disappeared. So much more beautiful. He could see her throat work, swallowing.

She stood up with a slightly jerky move. She was taller than he remembered, slimmer and yet with very womanly curves. The promise of the burgeoning beauty that he remembered had been truly fulfilled. So many things were impacting Gio at once that he had to shut them all down deep inside him.

He had alternately dreaded and anticipated the possibility of this day for a long time. He couldn’t crumble now in front of her. He wouldn’t allow himself the luxury.

He walked to the entrance of the room and totally redundantly he said, ‘Valentina.’ And then after a pause, ‘It’s good to see you.’

Valentina was in shock. More shock heaped on top of shock. Without even realising she was speaking out loud she said, ‘You’re not meant to be here.’ The sheer force of my will should have kept you away. But she didn’t say that.

Gio’s mouth turned up on one corner in a tiny movement that wasn’t quite a smile, ‘Well, my cousin is, was, the groom so I have some right to be here.’ He frowned slightly. ‘What are you doing here?’

Valentina’s brain wasn’t working properly. She answered almost absently, ‘I’m the caterer.’

Gio was so much taller and broader than she remembered. Any hint of boyishness was gone. He was all stark angles and sinuous muscle and power. The suit hugged his muscular frame like a second skin. The white shirt and white bow tie made him look even darker.

His hair was still messy though, giving him a familiar devil-may-care look that rang bells somewhere dimly in Valentina’s consciousness. His eyes were a light brown and a wicked voice whispered that she knew very well they could look green in certain lights.

She used to watch him and her brother for hours as they’d egged each other on in a series of daredevil stunts, either on horseback or on the mud bikes Gio had had first on his father’s property, and then later, on his own property. But by then they’d been proper adult motorbikes and he and her brother had relished their death-defying races. She remembered the way Gio would tip his head back and laugh; he’d looked so vitally masculine, his teeth gleaming whitely in his face.

She remembered turning fifteen and seeing him again for the first time in about four years, because he’d been living abroad in France, building up his equine business. He’d returned home a conquering hero, a self-made millionaire, with a bevy of champion thoroughbred horses. But that had had nothing to do with how she’d instantly had an altogether different awareness of him. Her belly would twist when she saw him, and then there were the butterflies, so violent it was like feeling sick. Her gaze had been shamefully captivated by his tall rangy body.

Much to her everlasting mortification she’d tagged along on her brother’s visits to Gio in his new home near Syracuse whenever he’d been home from college, during his long summers off. Gio had bought a palatial castello complete with a farm, where he’d installed a state-of-the-art stud and gallops. He’d been in the process of doing up a nearby run-down racetrack which by today had become the famed Corretti racetrack where the eponymous internationally renowned annual Corretti Cup race was held.

Gio had caught her staring once and she’d been so mortified she’d been red for a week. She hadn’t been able to get out of her head how he’d held her gaze for a long moment, a slow smile turning up his mouth, as if something illicit and secret had passed between them. Something that scared her as much as it had exhilarated her.

He had a beautiful face, sculpted lips. High cheekbones and a hard slashing line of a nose. A strong chin. But something in his demeanour took away any prettiness. A dark brooding energy surrounded him like a force-field.

Gio lifted a hand to point to her hair and said, ‘You have something … just there.’ It shattered her memories and brought her back to the present. He was pointing above her right ear and Valentina reached up and felt something wet and sticky and took her hand down to see a lump of viscous orange salmon caviar.

And then it was as if the deep