by Abby Green
Valentina told him she was fine to wander on her own after that. The truth was, Gio had been more than fair with her pay. He’d been positively generous. When she’d balked at the amount, he’d said, ‘I pay all my staff well, Valentina. I’m not interested in having people working for me who are grumbling about pay or overtime. I can do this, and so I do.’
Valentina surmised now that the vast wealth he’d built up from his horses came in handy when you wanted to keep your employees loyal. But for some reason that churlish thought didn’t sit entirely right. Gio hadn’t struck her as the type of person to buy his staff’s favour. They all seemed to genuinely like him.
She saw his tall form now in the distance and it made her heart kick in a very betraying manner. He’d spotted her and was striding towards her. Valentina had the abrupt urge to turn and run away fast but she didn’t. When he stopped before her he asked her how she’d got on and she told him. Dark glasses hid his eyes and Valentina had the perverse urge to take them off so she could read those changeable green depths.
She curled her hands to fists at her sides.
‘So you’ll start tomorrow then? There’s a lot to do in three weeks.’
Valentina nodded and looked away. ‘Yes, I’ll start tomorrow.’ She looked back to Gio and said haltingly, ‘I … just wanted to say thank you. You didn’t have to do this.’
Mario. Of course he had to do this.
The name hung in the air between them again, even though neither of them had said it. Gio shrugged lightly. ‘I’m always on the lookout for good staff and I think you’ll add an edge to this year’s Corretti Cup.’
He was perfectly solicitous and polite, much as Valentina would imagine him being with anyone else, and she suddenly hated that. She didn’t want to be just another employee. So what did she want to be then? The dangerous revelation of that thought made her step back hurriedly. ‘OK, well, I’d better get going.’
‘You know you can move into the staff quarters here if you like?’
Valentina shook her head. ‘No, with my father in hospital I’d like to see him every day. And my mother needs me.’
‘That’s going to be a killer of a commute. I don’t need you falling asleep in your canapés.’
Valentina glanced quickly at him and away again when she saw his rigid jaw. ‘It’ll be fine. I won’t let you down.’
She moved to leave and Gio put his hand on her arm. She stopped in her tracks, breathless.
‘I didn’t mean that you would let me down. I’m concerned it’ll be too much.’
Valentina forced down the tender feeling rising up and looked directly at Gio’s dark glasses where she was reflected as a tiny figure. She pulled her arm free and said coolly, ‘I’m not your concern.’
Gio’s jaw clenched tighter. ‘You are if you’re my employee.’
Valentina faced him directly, something dark goading her to say, ‘Since when have you cared so much for others or their safety?’
Gio seemed to blanch before her eyes and Valentina wished the words unsaid but it was too late. She stepped back before she said anything else. ‘You don’t need to worry.’
Gio watched Valentina hurry away in her black slacks and white shirt with her hair pulled back and he wanted to throttle her. Well, he wanted to kiss her, and then throttle her. He was glad of his glasses because he’d been staring at her mouth for the past few minutes, until she’d let that little barb slide out: Since when have you cared so much for others …
Gio swung away abruptly from following Valentina’s progress to the car park and paced angrily towards his own jeep which was nearby. He gunned the engine and made the fifteen-minute journey to his castello with his hands clenched tight around the wheel.
When he saw the familiar lines and ramparts of his home he breathed out and turned into the impressive driveway lined by tall cypress trees. As the castello came into view he had to concede as he often did that it was entirely too huge for just him, but he’d bought it more for the surrounding land which contained his small farm and more importantly his stud and stables.
It had used to also contain a small training ground and gallops but after Mario’s death he’d got rid of them, unable to look out his window and not see the prone figure of his best friend lying on the ground.
It was one of the reasons he’d taken off for Europe after Mario’s death and had spent the best part of two years in a blurry haze. Anything to avoid coming home and dealing with his demons. But he had eventually found his way back out of that black hole to come home. Now, he still trained horses but he was fanatical about safety and hadn’t been on a horse’s back in seven years.
Cursing this uncharacteristic introspection Gio swung out of his jeep and instead of going into the house, took a detour around it and made directly for the stables where he found Misfit, who whinnied in acknowledgement as soon as Gio drew near. Just being near his prize stallion made a level of peace flow through Gio, even though having met Valentina again he realised peace was bound to be elusive.
He caressed the sleek thoroughbred’s neck and face and chuckled softly before taking an apple out of his pocket, which the horse gratefully received. ‘You’re a rogue,’ Gio chastised easily. ‘You only love me for my apples.’ Familiar emotion welled up when he thought of how far he’d come with this thoroughbred.
His father, who had fancied himself as a bit of a horseman on the side, had installed state-of-the-art stables and training grounds at the family palazzo. It had quickly become a sanctuary for Gio, who’d had an innate affinity for the horses from the first moment he’d seen one.
Benito Corretti had bought Misfit as a yearling, unbroken, from a stud in Ireland. The colt had had a good pedigree but after several failed attempts to break him in by the head trainer, his father had declared curtly, ‘Send him to the meat factory. He was a waste of money.’
Gio had gone to his father. He’d been sixteen years old and hadn’t stuttered in a couple of years but in front of his father he could feel his vocal chords closing up the way they always had, but he’d swallowed hard and concentrated. ‘Father, give me a week—if I can’t break him by then you can do what you want.’
His father had been drunk and had taunted Gio cruelly, ‘Are you s-s-s-s-sure, G-G-G-Gio?’
His father couldn’t resist the chance to goad him. Gio wanted to punch him in the face but held his fists by his side. How many times had Mario counselled him that it wasn’t worth it to show emotion to his old man? As soon as he could he’d be gone from his family palazzo to set up his own business. Somewhere far, far away.
His opportunity to do just that had come much sooner than he’d thought. Gio had confounded everyone by taming the horse within a week and his father had said grudgingly, ‘You can have him then, seeing as how you put so much work into him—perhaps you’re not a complete loss to the Corretti name after all.’
Gio had seized his opportunity. He’d never excelled at school anyway, so he’d left his house that night and with the help of Mario had taken his horse to a stables nearby. In the following weeks Gio had searched for and found work at another stables near Syracuse, and had made a deal with the owner so that he could work for food and board while stabling his horse there for free. He’d trained his horse in his free time, honing him into a champion.
His boss had seen something in Gio and the horse—when he’d been transporting his own horses to race in England, Ireland and France, he’d offered to include Gio’s horse, Misfit. Gio had never looked back after that. Misfit had become a champion racer almost overnight and Gio had paid back his mentor and boss many times over.
He’d been winning millions at the biggest racetracks in Europe by the time he was nineteen, making a name for himself as a prodigiously natural trainer and then breeder.
Misfit had been retired for a long time now, but with his stellar track record, horse breeders from as far away as the Middle East and Ireland sent their mares to Sicily to be covered by the renowned stallion for astr
onomical fees. He’d already sired at least another dozen champions.
Gio ran a cursory but expert eye over his horse now and, satisfied that he was in good condition and comfortable, gave him a last affectionate pat on the neck. As he was walking back out of the stables all he could think about though was how the hell he was going to get through the foreseeable future with Valentina Ferranti around every corner….
By the end of the first week Valentina could hardly see straight she was so tired. She was driving almost two hours each way every day in her clapped-out car and after calling in to see her father in hospital it was usually after midnight before she got to bed, before getting up again at 5:00 a.m.
Her father’s condition was not good. He was on a waiting list for a major heart operation but it could take months for him to be next in line. The very real fear that he could have another heart attack, and this time a worse one before the operation, was constantly on Valentina’s mind. Not to mention her mother, who was beside herself with worry.
She was in the act of turning with a plate of pastries in her hands when the door to the kitchen opened, startling her. When Valentina saw who it was, the plate slipped out of her fingers, smashing all over the floor.
Even the sound couldn’t really jar her out of her exhaustion as she bent to start picking up the pieces.
‘Wait, let me do that.’
Valentina stood reluctantly and watched as Gio bent down at her feet and started picking up the biggest pieces. One of the evening cleaners came in then and Gio instructed him to clean up the mess. He took Valentina by the arm and led her out, protesting, ‘I should clean it up—it’s my mess.’
‘Leave it,’ growled Gio before letting her arm go and turning to face her outside the kitchen door. Nearly everyone else had already left for the evening.
Gio looked at his watch and asked, ‘What on earth are you doing here at 8:30 p.m.?’
Valentina flushed, far too aware of Gio’s earthy smell—musky and masculine. He must have been working with the horses. He seemed very tall and imposing right then, his broad shoulders blocking everything out behind him, making a curious ache form in Valentina’s belly. She hadn’t seen him much during the week and she only realised now as some tension ebbed away that she’d been unconsciously waiting for him. It made her angry and she glared up at him, hands on hips. ‘I’m working late because it’s the only quiet time in the kitchen when I can experiment with new recipes.’
‘Working late isn’t a problem, as long as you start work late, but you’ve been in every morning this week at 7:00 a.m., well before most other people.’
‘How do you know?’ Valentina asked suspiciously.
‘Because it’s my business to know these things.’
Valentina bit her lip when she could feel a retort springing up. She remembered the last time and how her cruel words had rang in her head for days afterwards.
‘Fine,’ she said grudgingly, ‘I won’t work so late from now on.’
Gio sounded grim. ‘You look exhausted, and I don’t believe you.’
Valentina looked up at him and was actually too tired at that moment to argue. All she could do was wearily pull her apron over her head and say, ‘Well, then you won’t stop me going home.’
Gio took her arm and all but frog-marched her out to where his jeep was waiting. ‘I’m driving you—you’re a liability.’
Valentina started to protest but he all but lifted her into the passenger seat and secured the seat belt around her. Her mouth was open to say something but when the hard muscles of his arm brushed her breast she shut it abruptly, heat flashing up through her body.
As grim-faced as Gio, Valentina crossed her arms and once they were on the main road to Palermo she managed to get out a strangled, ‘How am I supposed to get to work in the morning or are you providing a personal chauffeur service to your staff now?’
Gio sent her a quelling look. ‘It’s Saturday tomorrow so you shouldn’t be working anyway, but I’ll have someone drop your car home for you.’
When they were reaching the outskirts of Palermo, in about half the time it would have taken Valentina, she said, ‘I need to stop at the hospital first.’
Gio obliged and took the road to the hospital and when he got out of the jeep and met her at the front she stopped and said, ‘What are you doing? I can get a taxi home from here.’
‘I’d like to pay my respects to your mother if I may, and your father if he doesn’t mind.’
Valentina couldn’t speak. Guilt flooded her and she avoided Gio’s eyes. Under his questioning look she blurted out, ‘The truth is that my parents don’t know about … my job. That I lost it, or that I’m working for you.’
Gio folded his arms; his belly felt leaden. ‘And you think they’d be upset if they knew?’
She looked up at him. ‘Well, what do you think?’
A bleak feeling rushed through Gio. How could he have forgotten for a moment the intense and awful grief of that day by the graveside. He ran a hand through his hair and stepped back. ‘You’re probably right … it’s not a good idea.’
‘What’s not a good idea? Gio, I’m glad you came—Emilio has been asking for you.’
They both turned at the same time to see Valentina’s mother on the steps of the hospital where she’d clearly been getting air and had heard their last exchange. With no choice now, Gio followed a stony-faced Valentina and her mother into the hospital, his stomach churning at the thought of what lay ahead.
CHAPTER FOUR
‘WHAT DID YOU say to my father?’ Valentina hissed at Gio as they walked back out of the hospital an hour later.
Gio was still in shock himself at how Emilio had reacted to seeing him. Alone in the hospital room with the old man, Gio had steeled himself for whatever Mario’s father was going to say, expecting a diatribe or a level of hostility matched by his daughter. But the man had completely taken the wind out of his sails by saying a little stiffly, ‘First of all, thank you. I believe the reason I’m still alive is because of you.’
Gio had muttered something unintelligible, embarrassed.
And then Signor Ferranti had held out his hand. ‘Come here, boy … let me look at you.’
Gio had walked over and given his hand to Emilio, who had taken it in a surprisingly strong grip. His voice was rougher, emotional. ‘When we lost Mario … we lost you too.’
Gio’s mouth had opened and closed. His own emotion rising thick and fast. Eventually he’d got out, ‘But … don’t you blame me? Hate me for what happened?’
Emilio had let his hand go and pointed to a chair for Gio to sit down and he’d done so, heavily. Stunned.
‘I did,’ the old man admitted, ‘for a long time. It was easier to blame you than to believe that it could have just been a tragic accident. But ultimately, that’s what it was. I know well how reckless Mario was, you were as bad as each other.’
‘If I hadn’t had that cursed horse though—’
Signor Ferranti put up a hand, stopping Gio. He arched a brow. ‘Do you really think you could have stopped Mario when he wanted to do something?’
Gio’s chest was so tight he could hardly breathe. He half shrugged.
Mario’s father said gently now, ‘Mario followed you around like a puppy, wanted to do everything you did….’
A granite weight settled in Gio’s belly, the all-too-familiar guilt rearing up when he thought of the countless reckless activities he’d encouraged Mario to join him in over the years. Anything to alleviate his own sense of yawning loneliness. ‘I know,’ he’d just answered quietly.
As if sensing his self-flagellation though, Valentina’s father had said gently, ‘Gio, he worshipped the ground you walked on … just as I know you did him.’
Gio looked at Signor Ferranti in surprise. There was no condemnation in his voice, only weary acceptance.
‘For Valentina though … it was very hard for her to come to terms with. She was so angry … is still angry, I think.’
/> ‘Gio!’
Gio looked down at Valentina blankly for a second. He was still in the room with her father. They were outside the hospital doors now and her arms were folded and she was glaring up at him. There were smudges of weariness under her eyes and that made Gio’s resolve firm even more.
Now she’d got his attention she continued. ‘So are you going to tell me how on earth you had the nerve to propose moving my father to a private specialist clinic in Syracuse, let alone taking him to a hospital on the mainland for a major heart operation?’
Gio reigned in his temper which seemed to be growing a shorter and shorter fuse around this woman. He took a deep breath. ‘I offered to help your father and I’m glad to say he accepted. By moving him to Syracuse while he waits for the operation, you will be able to move into the staff accommodation at the racetrack. It’ll wipe out your commute and give you an easy mind with your parents so close. It’ll also ease their minds to know you’re not over-exhausting yourself.’
‘So you’re doing this to make things better for yourself?’ Valentina sneered. ‘Because you don’t want a fainting staff member serving your VIP guests?’
Valentina wasn’t sure why she was so angry, just that she was. Blistering. It was something to do with the way her father had shown no enmity towards Gio. And it was more than just gratitude for having saved his life. After a long private conversation, she and her mother had been allowed back into the room and the first thing her father had said to her was, ‘You should have told us about your job, piccolina….’
So not only had Gio told them about her disaster, they also now knew that she was working for him. And didn’t seem fazed by that knowledge at all. She’d looked at Gio accusingly but his face had been completely impassive.
If anything, her parents had been looking at Gio almost adoringly. And then her father’s consultant had come into the room and Gio had cleared his throat and announced what he would like to do to help.
Her parents had been taken aback by his audacious offer and Valentina had looked on in shock as her mother had gripped her husband’s hand and begged him with tears in her eyes to do as Gio suggested.
