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 did you say?’ Gio’s voice rang with incredulity. Was he hearing things? He shook his head and focused again on his PA, a comfortably middle-aged woman called Agata.
She spoke again slowly, enunciating every word carefully. ‘Val-en-tina Ferr-anti. She’s outside right now, she wants to see you. And she looks determined.’
Gio turned his back on Agata for a moment and spiked two hands through his already messy hair, his whole body knotting with tension and something much hotter, darker. Already he could feel blood pooling southwards. His mouth tightened. So it hadn’t been an aberration. It was her, uniquely her, who was having this effect on him.
Perfetto. His body and libido were being awoken by the only woman in the world he could never have. Or more accurately who would never have him.
He turned around again, hiding his tumultuous thoughts behind an impassive expression. Valentina would not affect him today. She’d obviously just come to hurl a few more spiked arrows in his direction and he would withstand it if it killed him. It was his due.
‘Send her in.’
Valentina’s hands were clammy, and she smoothed them again on her worn jeans. She resolutely pushed down the memory of the words she’d hurled at Gio Corretti just days ago: I wouldn’t take your filthy money if it was offered to me on a silver platter. Her cheeks got hot with guilt.
What was taking his assistant so long? Perhaps she should have dressed up more? Instead of these old jeans, sneakers and a T-shirt that had definitely seen better days. Too late now. And anyway, it wasn’t as if she was trying to impress Giacomo Corretti. She was only here because he was literally the only person on the island of Sicily outside the sphere of his aunt’s influence.
Even though Valentina knew that Gio had built up a successful business, she’d been surprised when she’d come to his offices at his racetrack in Syracuse—to find everything so pristine and gleaming. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected, some level of obvious debauchery?
For a couple of years after Mario’s death, Gio Corretti became the most hedonistic playboy in Europe. Always a lover of extreme sports, he’d seemed to relish doing as many dangerous things as possible. He’d been pictured jumping out of planes, rock climbing with his bare hands, scaling the highest mountains in the world.
He’d also been pictured on yachts in the south of France, in the casinos of Monte Carlo and in the winners’ enclosures at Epsom and Longchamp, where he’d regularly won and lost millions of euros in the space of hours. And in each place a stunning woman on his arm, clinging to him with besotted adoration and euro signs in her eyes.
But contrary to that feckless image, his racetrack was a veritable hive of industry with smartly turned-out grooms wearing black T-shirts emblazoned with the Corretti Racetrack logo, leading sleek-looking thoroughbreds through the grounds, and gardeners tending the lushly flowering borders.
The most impressive part of the location was the racetrack which overlooked the Mediterranean Sea, giving it a vista unlike any other in the world. This wasn’t where Mario had died—Valentina didn’t think she could have come here today if it was. Mario had died on the smaller training gallops at Gio’s castello, because this racetrack hadn’t yet been ready.
Valentina heard the low hum of voices in Gio’s office where the friendly middle-aged lady had disappeared moments before and her belly knotted. Anger at seeing Gio again had been her impetus through this horrific week and the spectacular implosion of her career—anger is what had impelled her here because one Corretti had ruined her but only another Corretti could save her—but what if he was telling his assistant that he didn’t want to see her?
Just then she heard a sound like the door handle jiggling and she flinched and stood up, her heart thumping at the thought of seeing Gio again. What had she been thinking? She couldn’t do this. She was in the act of turning to leave when she heard a calm mellifluous voice announce, ‘Sorry to keep you waiting, Ms Ferranti, he’ll see you now.’
Gio’s body was locked tight as he waited for Valentina to appear in the doorway and when she did, in jeans and a T-shirt, with her hair loose over her shoulders in chestnut