A Shadow of Guilt(2)
The blood drained from Gio’s face completely. ‘I’m sorry … so sorry,’ he said faintly.
Valentina gathered herself once more, eyes dead. ‘It’s your fault. I hate you, Corretti—I’ll hate you for ever because you’re alive and he’s not.’
Her words fell like splinters of glass all over Gio’s skin. She was looking at him now as if she would push him all the way off the nearby cliff and happily watch him crash to pieces on the rocks below.
‘Come, Valentina, it’s time to go.’
They were both startled from the dark taut energy surrounding them when Valentina’s father materialised to take her arm. His voice was thin and weary. ‘This is not the time or place.’
Valentina seemed to crumple visibly and without looking at Gio again she allowed her father to turn her and lead her away. After a couple of metres though Mario’s father stopped. He looked back to Gio with impossibly mournful eyes and just shook his head sadly. The man had aged ten years in the space of just a few days. It was worse than if he’d spat at Gio’s feet or even punched him as Valentina had.
The truth was stark—if Gio hadn’t had the unlikeliest of friendships with Mario in the first place, if he hadn’t cajoled and pleaded with him to come out that night, this never would have happened.
In that moment Gio wanted to die more than anything else in the world. So badly he could taste it. Everything and anyone he’d ever loved was gone now. For ever. Everything good and promising and hopeful was broken and destroyed.
But, he knew with a bitter taste in his mouth that suicide would be too easy. Far easier than living with this pain every day. Living with the pain of knowing he had decimated an entire family and reduced them to this aching loss. This was his inheritance and he would live with it for the rest of his life.
Seven years later …
It was the wedding of the decade. Two of the most powerful families in Sicily uniting in holy matrimony. Valentina’s mouth thinned into a cynical line. Except everyone knew it wasn’t a love match between Alessandro Corretti and Alessia Battaglia. It was a bid for the ultimate power play, a way for the Corretti family to go on undefeated into the future for generations to come. If merging with their one-time bitter rivals was what it took, then so be it.
Valentina stopped what she was doing for a moment and put a hand to her chest. Even just thinking of the name Corretti made her feel slightly bilious. Not to mention the fact that she was at this very moment working at their behest.
Much as she would have loved to have been able to tell Carmela Corretti—the mother of the groom—where she could shove her job offer, Valentina didn’t have that luxury. She was the owner of a tiny struggling catering company and she’d sweated blood and tears to start it up and try to keep it afloat with her minimal staff. It was the only thing supporting her aged and ailing parents.
Carmela had a reputation, despite the vast Corretti wealth, of being very tight with money, and Valentina knew that part of the reason she’d been lucky enough to get the job had been due to her very reasonable prices. Read: ridiculously cheap. But it was the kudos of being hired for something as exclusive as this that would count in the long run, and the payment, in spite of not charging as much as her competitors.
As Valentina put the finishing touches to some beluga caviar canapés she couldn’t help recalling Carmela’s overly made-up and expressionless face when she’d looked down her patrician nose at Valentina a few weeks previously. ‘This has to be the most sophisticated event of the decade—the budget for the food itself will of course be limitless. If you mess this up, Ms Ferranti, you do know you won’t ever work on this island again, don’t you?’
Valentina had struggled not to look as panic-stricken as she’d felt. The very prospect of having to go to the mainland and leave her parents behind was not an option. Carmela was right though; if Valentina failed at this she would be lucky to get work as a part-time waitress in a pizza joint in Naples.
So she’d stifled the panic and said meekly, ‘Of course, Mrs Corretti, I know how important this is.’
And now she and her staff were being paid a pittance to create the most expensive caviar hors d’oeuvres in the world. Carmela had presided over a tasting of the sample menu Valentina had devised and that hour had been the most nerve-racking of Valentina’s career so far. And then she’d approved the menu with a mere dismissive flick of her impeccably manicured hand. Valentina had stood there in shock for a long moment before the older woman had spat out, ‘Well? What are you waiting for? You have work to do.’