A Shadow of Guilt(64)

Gio smiled. ‘You know what this means, of course?’

‘What?’

Gio’s eyes glowed dark green with emotion. ‘Kiss me first,’ he said throatily. Carefully Valentina reached up and pressed her lips to his. Despite the delicacy of Gio’s injuries, she could feel his arm tighten around her as the inevitable spark lit between them.

Groaning softly Gio pulled back. Colour was in his cheeks now, replacing that deathly pallor, and Valentina touched his jaw with her hand, her fingers tracing his mouth. Gio kissed her fingers. ‘What it means is that you’re going to marry me and we’re going to live happily ever after….’

Valentina’s hand stilled and her eyes widened on his. Giddiness rushed through her entire body but along with it came a tendril of trepidation and she bit her lip. She whispered, ‘I’m scared, Gio … I think I’m scared to feel this happy….’

Gio pulled her closer. ‘We have love—as long as we have love, there’s no need to fear anything.’

‘Love..’ Valentina smiled tremulously. ‘We definitely have love.’

Two years later …

Valentina felt the baby kicking in her belly and automatically put her hand there. She smiled when she sensed a presence and a much larger hand came over hers and an arm snaked around her distended midriff to cup her close to his body. Gio. Even now, tremors of awareness went through her especially when she could feel him hardening against her bottom.

One of his hands came up to cup one very full and sensitive breast and her blood got even hotter. Valentina blushed and whirled around within Gio’s arms, dislodging his questing hand, and looked up with mock outrage. ‘Do you really think your guests have paid to see you mauling your heavily pregnant wife?’

Unnoticed in the background the crowd were going wild as the annual Corretti Cup race was drawing to an exciting finish. Neither Gio or Valentina gave two hoots right then if a unicorn suddenly appeared and won the race instead of the hotly tipped favourite, who was, of course, one of Gio’s horses.

Gio smiled lazily, his hand coming back up to cup her breast again, this time kneading it gently so that Valentina couldn’t help but moan softly.

‘You seemed to enjoy being mauled in bed this morning very much if I recall.’

‘You’re insatiable, Signor Corretti. I’m merely doing my wifely duty to keep you happy.’ She smiled prettily and he threw back his head and laughed out loud, infusing Valentina with a bone-deep sense of contentment to hear him sound so happy.

Just then she spotted something out of the corner of her eye and said with happy resignation, ‘I think it’s time to rescue my parents. Maria’s looking suspiciously overexcited and tired which spells trouble.’

Gio turned to follow his wife’s gaze and smiled indulgently when he saw his fifteen-month-old daughter squirming to be free of her doting grandparents’ embrace. She was trouble, all right, more than taking after her late uncle Mario with her mop of dark brown curls and mischievous eyes.

Gio turned back to Valentina and looked down, his heart swelling with love. Her pregnant belly pressed against him and he felt full up … with love and contentment and peace—for the first time in his life, peace.

‘We’ll rescue them in a minute, but first …’

He didn’t even need to say it. Valentina lifted her mouth to his, wound her arms around his neck and they kissed as if for the first time all over again while the crowd went wild behind them, the favourite horse striding easily home to victory.


Read on for an exclusive interview with Abby Green!





BEHIND THE SCENES OF SICILY’S CORRETTI DYNASTY:

with Abby Green



It’s such a huge world to create—an entire Sicilian dynasty. Did you discuss parts of it with the other writers?

Yes, we set up a Yahoo loop so that we could discuss our various stories and try to make sure that they all interlinked correctly, and that we had the same details about key events.

How does being part of the continuity differ from when you are writing your own stories?

This is a much more collaborative process than working on your own (obviously!), so it’s nice to feel that support from the other authors. Also, we work off a bible that gives us the bones of our stories, so we don’t have to worry so much about coming up with the main plot!

What was the biggest challenge? And what did you most enjoy about it?