was just a tragic accident.’
He shook his head. ‘We’d finished with the horses and were calling it a night. I still had plenty of time to get Mario home … but then he saw Black Star, loose in the paddock. Mario started to plead again, just for one attempt to ride him, to see if he could possibly have the magic touch….’
Valentina’s heart was breaking in two in her chest. ‘Gio …’
But he wasn’t listening to her, or was ignoring her. ‘I wasn’t going to let him. I said no and walked to the stables with Misfit. When I got back outside, Mario was putting a saddle on Black Star … I could see the stallion was already edgy. I told Mario to leave it alone … but he wouldn’t listen. He’d swung up onto his back before I could stop him, and Black Star went berserk. He jumped the paddock fence but his back leg got caught. Mario went down and Black Star landed on him, crushing him before I could get to him. The damned horse just got up and walked away, dragging Mario behind him until I could get to him and free him … but it was too late.’
Tears were streaming down Valentina’s face now, silent sobs making her chest heave. She struggled for control. When she could speak she said thickly, ‘You’re right, it wasn’t your fault … and I should never have—’
Gio put up a hand to stop her speaking. ‘No. You had every right to be angry with me. I won’t let you take that back now. Nothing can change the fact that it was my fault I had that horse here in the first place when it should have been put down months before….’
Valentina felt exposed and raw. More than anything she wanted to touch Gio … to comfort him. It was like an ache in her whole body. She remembered how cold he’d been when he’d told her it was over. No wonder he never wanted to see her again.
‘You won’t …’ She took in a shuddering breath. ‘You won’t see me again if you don’t want to. I’ll stay out of your way.’
Gio just looked at her and Valentina wiped at a tear on her cheek. And then quietly he said, ‘You don’t get it, do you?’
‘Get what?’ She frowned slightly.
Gio took a step closer and something about his intensity made Valentina take a step back. ‘See, even now, you show how you really feel.’
‘What are you talking about?’
Gio laughed curtly and looked up at the ceiling before looking back down again at Valentina. ‘I’m in love with you. I love you so much and it’s tearing me to pieces. What was purely physical for you was … is soul deep for me. I think I’ve loved you forever. When you were seventeen I had to pretend to like other girls to stop Mario suspecting that I was only interested in one girl—his sister.’
Gio ran a hand through his hair impatiently. ‘Dio, he would have killed me. I would have killed me if I’d been Mario.
‘And you?’ Gio posed a rhetorical question. ‘I know you had a crush on me. I always felt your gaze on me. I noticed the way you’d blush whenever I looked at you.’
Shock was rendering Valentina mute. Her head was spinning. She felt weak and light-headed, like she wanted to sit down on something solid. She couldn’t possibly believe Gio had just said he loved her. It was too fantastical, unbelievable.
Gio’s mouth firmed; unmistakable pride lit his eyes, turning them green in the soft light. ‘I know you don’t feel anything for me—I never expected it. Anger and grief fuelled this madness between us.’
Valentina just looked at him, barely hearing his words. She could feel her heart expanding in her chest, as if it had already realised what he’d said and believed it. Welcomed it. For a second she saw something like hope in his eyes and her own heart beat faster in response.
She opened her mouth, not even sure what she was going to say, feeling the edges of incredible joy reach out to grab her. The moment hung suspended between them, but then just like that, the spectre of deeply ingrained fear and guilt rose up like a huge shadow to choke her. Memories: the shock of being told Mario was dead, the huge gaping hole left in the family. The excoriating grief and insecurity that had followed. The erosion of belief in