A Shadow of Guilt

A Shadow of Guilt
ABBY GREEN

To Forgive a CorrettiThe last time Valentina Ferranti saw Gio Corretti she slammed the door on him and her youthful infatuation. She has always blamed Gio’s reckless behaviour for her brother’s death.But now, broke and her name slandered, Val needs help and there’s only one person she can turn to…the inscrutable man from her past whose green eyes flash with a passion that calls to her. Does she have the willpower to resist all that entails?

Every line in Gio’s face stood out in stark relief. ‘I told you last night, Valentina, I give you full permission to despise me. And believe me, I have every intention of making you despise me over and over again.’

He reached out with two hands and pulled her in to him before she could take a breath and then his mouth was fusing to hers. The kiss was desperate and brutal but electrifying. Anger and pain and remorse all clawed up within Valentina, seeking release. Desperately she clutched at his head, holding him to her, allowing no escape. Gio stopped, breathing harshly, his forehead resting on Valentina’s. She was dizzy with the sudden overwhelming surge of need mixed with adrenaline.

‘Hate me, Valentina … not yourself. This thing … it’s out of our control.’

About the Author

ABBY GREEN deferred doing a Social Anthropology degree to work freelance as an Assistant Director in the film & TV industry—which is a social study in itself! Since then it’s been early starts, long hours, mucky fields, ugly car parks and wet weather gear—especially working in Ireland. She has no bona fide qualifications, but could probably help negotiate a peace agreement between two warring countries after years of dealing with recalcitrant actors. Since discovering a guide to writing romance one day, she decided to capitalise on her long-time love for Mills & Boon

romances and attempt to follow in the footsteps of such authors as Kate Walker and Penny Jordan. She’s enjoying the excuse to be paid to sit inside, away from the elements. She lives in Dublin and hopes that you will enjoy her stories. You can e-mail her at: abbygreen3@yahoo.co.uk

A Shadow of Guilt

Abby Green

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

This is for my fellow Corretti Continuity Comrades. Thanks for the cyber help and support, it was lovely exploring and inhabiting the Corretti world with you all x

CHAPTER ONE

HE SHOULD BE in that coffin, and not his irrepressible best friend.

Giacomo Corretti stood in the shadow of the tall pine tree and watched as the coffin was lowered into the ground just a few feet away from where he was effectively hidden. The tight ball of ice firmly lodged in his gut was slowly spreading out to every extremity. He welcomed this even as he castigated himself for being a coward.

The small group of people around the coffin started to move, the priest’s final words of blessing lingering on the warm spring air along with the pungent scent of incense. It shouldn’t be warm, Gio suddenly realised, it shouldn’t be spring. The sea shouldn’t be twinkling benignly under a cerulean sky. He desperately wanted apocalyptic clouds to roll in off stormy waters, for everything to darken and for thunder and lightning to lash this place. To lash him to pieces.

He could hear the heartbreaking sound of Mario’s mother sobbing as she leant on her aged husband. The sound cut him in two. Gio would never have merited this outpouring of grief. The realisation was stark but brought with it no sense of self-pity.

In contrast, beside them with a stoically straight back stood their tall and narrow-shouldered daughter, Valentina. Her long chestnut hair was tied back in a plait and on her head was a black scarf. The ill-fitting black jacket and skirt she wore hinted at the coltish seventeen-year-old body underneath.

She didn’t have to look around for Gio to know every line on her face with instant recall. Pale olive skin as soft as a rose petal. The lush curve of her mouth and lips which more than hinted at a burgeoning womanly sensuality. She had the most extraordinarily coloured eyes, golden brown like amber.

Tiger’s eyes.

He could picture them flashing now with mock anger and a little bit of very real anger and fear whenever she’d caught her beloved older brother and Gio flirting with the danger they had loved so much.

As if the intensity of his gaze and thoughts had touched her, Valentina Ferranti turned around and pinpointed the exact spot where Gio stood, those almond-shaped eyes narrowing on him.

It was too late, he couldn’t run. She turned fully and looked at him for a long moment. She was pale and her beautiful face was puffy from crying. Her eyes were shadowed and grief-stricken in a way that no one should ever have to deal with before their time. He had done that to her. He had caused this irreparable damage.

His careless words came back to him from that night: ‘Don’t worry, I’ll have him back to his books before midnight just like Cinderella….’

Valentina’s desolation reached out to touch Gio and mock him. And then she was stalking towards him with long slim legs; her hands were curled to fists much like his, by her sides. Her face was contorted with the mad anger of grief.

She stopped just inches away. So close that he could smell her sweet fresh scent. It was incongruous in the midst of such misery.

‘You are not welcome here, Corretti.’ Her voice was rough and husky from crying and Gio’s insides contracted so much he wondered how he stayed conscious when he couldn’t breathe. But he was breathing and he marvelled at the human body’s instinct to survive, no matter what.

He took a breath. ‘I …’ He stopped when the familiar tightening of his vocal chords warned of humiliation to come but he ignored it. ‘I … know.’

The fact that he hadn’t stumbled over those completely ineffectual words came as small comfort. Mario, her brother and his friend, had been the one who had patiently helped Gio to overcome his chronic stutter which had lasted well into his early teens.

At twenty-two now, the sting of years of humiliation was still like a scar branding his skin. And yet in this moment, he longed to feel that humiliation again. So that he could be subjected to Valentina’s cruel laugh and ridicule. Except … she wouldn’t do that, she had never done that. She’d always been sweet and shy, and when he had stuttered in front of her she’d never used it as a tool to hurt, as almost everyone else had. Especially his family.

Suddenly Valentina lashed out, taking him by surprise. Her small fist connected with Gio’s chest with enough force to send him staggering backwards. Her voice throbbed with pain, ‘He was everything to us and thanks to you he’s gone. He was going to graduate from university next year and be a success, and you …?’

Valentina’s voice was sneering now. ‘What can you do for us now? Nothing. Get out of here, Corretti. You taint this place with your presence.’

Brokenly she added, ‘If you hadn’t encouraged him to go out that night—’ She stopped and bit her lip fiercely.

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.’