A Shadow of Guilt(60)

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 anything good, solid, dependable. The awful chasm of loss.

That night in the hospital when for a moment—Valentina shut it down. She couldn’t bear for him to see that in her eyes now. The guilt she still felt.

She was standing on the edge of that chasm of loss and pain all over again and she knew she wasn’t brave enough to take the leap, to lay herself bare. Her heart spasmed once, painfully. She could feel it contracting in her chest, withering.

She closed her mouth and shook her head minutely in answer to some question that Gio hadn’t even asked out loud. The flare of hope died in his eyes, and something died inside her.

Gio turned away from her and picked up the towel from the ground and walked back to the stall. Without turning around he just said, ‘The vet is due here soon. Just go, Valentina. We’re done.’

Valentina couldn’t move though. She was rooted to the spot. She saw Gio’s hands come up to the stall posts and grip them so tight that his knuckles shone white. ‘Valentina, for the love of God, just. go.’

Finally, she could move and Valentina whirled around on the spot before rushing from the stables. Her throat was burning and her eyes were swimming. She almost knocked down the vet, who was just walking away from his car.

When she got into her car it took her an age to start it up because her hands were shaking so much and when she drove out of Gio’s castello she had to pull over into a layby where she doubled over with the grief and pain. As she wept and hugged her belly she told herself that this was better, this had to be better than loving and losing all over again, because if she loved and lost Gio … she’d never recover.