by Abby Green
Tears were streaming down Valentina’s face now, silent sobs making her chest heave. She struggled for control. When she could speak she said thickly, ‘You’re right, it wasn’t your fault … and I should never have—’
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.
Three weeks later …
Valentina looked at herself in the cracked mirror of her tiny bathroom in Palermo. She was pale and wan, dark shadows under her eyes. And her eyes … they looked dead. Valiantly she pinched her cheeks as if that could restore some colour but it faded again just as quickly.
She felt empty and her body was one big ache of loss. She sighed deeply. This wasn’t meant to be so painful. The choice she’d made when she’d stood in front of Gio three weeks before … Her mouth twisted at herself. It hadn’t been a choice. It had been a deeply ingrained reflex action to protect herself. She was a coward. The worst kind of coward.
Gio. Valentina’s hands tightened on the sink—just his name was causing a physical pain in her belly. She’d been terrified she’d see him yesterday when her parents had been brought to a private clinic in Palermo, so that her father could continue his convalescence closer to home.
But it hadn’t been Gio who’d come to make sure everything was OK; it had been an assistant, the same assistant who had taken over informing Valentina what was happening. When Gio hadn’t shown up, the mixture of relief and pain had been almost crippling.
Her mother had taken one look at her and pulled her aside. ‘Valentina—’
And Valentina had cut her off, afraid that the maternal concern would undo her completely. ‘Mama, please … don’t.’
But her mother had ignored her and said gently, ‘Valentina, talk to him. He deserves that much at least.’
Valentina stood up straight. Did Gio deserve that? Did he deserve to hear what she had to say? To hear the awful shameful secret she’d kept secret for so long? The secret her mother knew because she’d witnessed the moment when—Valentina bit her lip so hard that she tasted blood.
For the first time in weeks, Valentina felt a sense of purpose. She would tell Gio … everything. And then if he still wanted her to leave, she would go and perhaps one day this awful yawning ache in her heart would ease.
A couple of hours later Valentina pulled up in the staff car park of the Corretti racetrack. When she got out she asked someone if they knew where Gio was and they directed her to the training ground.
When she got there she could see Gio in the training enclosure. One or two people were gathered around, watching him at work.
The horse pranced skittishly but Gio held the reins firm and murmured low soothing words. Valentina felt weak, her eyes automatically devouring his tall broad form. He looked thinner, leaner. His hair looked messier, as if he hadn’t cut it. The lines of his face were unbearably stark and she recalled his bleakness when Misfit had been dying. She recalled the flare of hope dying in his eyes.
She stopped a few feet away from the railing and as if sensing her presence he looked right at her and the air flew out of Valentina’s lungs. It was like a punch to the gut and the thought reverberated in her head: How on earth did I think I could live without this?
Gio’s eyes widened and his mouth opened. And then everything seemed to happen in slow motion…. As he mouthed her name—Valentina—she heard the intense yapping of a dog and saw a flurry of movement to her right as someone burst into the enclosure, clearly chasing the small terrier dog who had no business being in this area.
People started shouting as the dog ran between the horse’s feet, barking energetically. Gio’s eyes were still on her though, wit
h a kind of sick fascination, as the horse reared high and his front hoofs caught Gio on the chest, knocking him backwards. There was a sickening crunch as Gio’s head hit off the railing behind him and then he was inert on the ground.
Valentina was unaware of moving; she was only aware of kneeling beside Gio’s supine form and holding his head in her lap, his face deathly pale. She took one hand away from the back of his head and it was covered in blood.
She wondered who was screaming hysterically for an ambulance and only realised it was her when someone put a hand on her shoulder and said, ‘It’s here.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
‘HE’S AS STABLE as can be. He was lucky that his skull wasn’t fractured and that his ribs are just badly bruised. He’ll be in a lot of pain for a couple of weeks.’
‘OK, thank you.’
The doctor looked kindly at Valentina. ‘You should go home and get cleaned up. The sedative will have knocked him out for a while.’
Valentina smiled but it felt brittle. ‘I’m fine, I’d like to stay.’ The doctor eventually shrugged and left the private Palermo hospital room. Valentina had asked them to call Gio’s mother but they’d been told that she was away on a short trip. Yet another stark reminder of Gio’s isolation which had made her heart bleed.
Valentina turned back to the man lying on the bed. He was covered by a sheet from the waist down, but he was naked from the waist up, with strapping around his chest where his ribs had been injured.
A white bandage was around his head and his face was still almost as white as the bandage. Valentina felt tears burn her eyes again and she went back to the chair beside the bed.
He looked so young and defenceless like this. Sniffling and wiping at the tears that just wouldn’t stop, Valentina took Gio’s nearest hand in hers. It was completely lifeless. She bit back the surge of panic and reassured herself that the doctor had said he’d be fine.
A lock of hair had fallen down over the bandage on his forehead and Valentina reached up to push it back. The feel of the silky strands under her fingers made them tremble and she quickly clasped his hand again in both of hers.
Somehow with Gio here like this, not looking at her with that distant expression, it was easier to start talking….
‘Gio,’ she whispered, ‘I know you can’t hear me but I need to tell you something—a few things actually. And I know I’m being a coward when you can’t hear me….
‘The thing is, I don’t know if I’m strong enough to tell you when you can look at me and see me for what I really am … and then watch you turn your back on me. I don’t think … I could survive that.’
Valentina took in a deep shuddering breath and focused on his mouth. ‘The thing is that I love you too. I’ve loved you for so long, Gio—far longer than I ever admitted it to myself.’ Her voice dropped even lower. ‘I remember being seventeen and wanting you so much, craving your attention and yet being scared witless of how you made me feel.’
Valentina smiled a watery smile. ‘You and Mario together … you were so dynamic, full of life. He never could quite keep up with you but yet he never resented you for it. I think he felt accomplished enough in his own way, separate to you.
‘There’s something though that I have to tell you—to explain why I’ve been so angry with you. The evening Mario died.’ Valentina stopped for a moment and then went on painfully. ‘We got the phone call to say someone was injured, but not who. All we knew was that one of you was in trouble and that you were being transported to the hospital in Palermo….’
Valentina felt as if she were standing apart from herself, listening to the story too.
‘When we got there, frantic, a doctor came to us and said, “We couldn’t save him.”’ Valentina’s hands tightened unconsciously on Gio’s.
‘The fact was that we still didn’t know who had died. And I thought.’ Valentina’s voice broke slightly. ‘I assumed that it had been you. The pain was indescribable. But then … I saw you. You were standing there, in the corridor, and the relief was so overwhelming … and then I suddenly realised what that meant. That Mario was dead, not you. And that my worst fear had been losing you, not my own brother.’
Valentina smiled wanly. ‘You see, it was only when we saw you that we realised who was dead. My mother had seen my reaction. She knew and that merely compounded my own guilt and confusion, along with the pain of realising that it was Mario who was dead.’
She looked down at Gio’s hand in hers. ‘I’ve been so ashamed for so long … when I saw you at the funeral I lashed out, unable to bear the fact that you were making me remember that I’d have preferred my own brother to be dead, and he was….
‘When I saw you again at the wedding … it all came back. I thought I’d buried it. I thought I’d forgotten you … but I hadn’t. And I still wanted you which made things even harder.
‘When you told me you loved me, I couldn’t believe it. The thought of saying those words back to you … of loving you and possibly losing you the way I’d lost Mario … It was too terrifying … it is terrifying. But not as terrifying as it was to see you lying on that ground today.’
Sobs rose upwards again and Valentina choked out, ‘The past three weeks have been hell … but I thought that’s what I could live with for the rest of my life. I thought I could protect myself by leaving you … but I can’t. I love you, Gio.’
Suddenly overwhelmed with all she’d said, Valentina went to take her hand out of Gio’s but to her shock her hand was taken in a tight grip and a soft growl came from the man on the bed, ‘Where do you think you’re going?’
‘Gio …’ Valentina breathed out, her heart pumping.
His eyes flickered open slowly and he winced at the bright light for a few seconds before they came to rest on Valentina. Her breath caught in her throat. She was suddenly ridiculously aware of how deranged she must look after hours of crying and the panic-filled helicopter ride to the hospital.
‘You have blood on your cheek….’ Gio let her hand go and lifted his to touch her cheek with a finger.
Valentina closed her eyes and prayed for control. ‘I … must have got some of your blood on me….’ When his hand dropped again she tried to wipe at it ineffectually with the sleeve of her top.
Nervousness made her babble, and also not wanting to see Gio’s reaction as to why she might be there. ‘The doctor says you’ll make a full recovery. Your ribs are bruised and you’ve got a nasty crack to the head but it’s not fractured.’
Just saying the words though was bringing it all back and Valentina struggled to hold back the tears of emotion.
‘I don’t give a damn about that.’ Gio’s eyes were very dark all of a sudden, and alert and intent, on Valentina.
‘You don’t?’
‘No.’ He shook his head and then winced minutely when it obviously caused him pain. He opened his eyes again and found and took Valentina’s hand in a tight grip. ‘What I want to know is did I really just hear you say you love me, and all that other stuff, or was I dreaming?’
Blood was rushing to her head and Valentina whispered, ‘How much other stuff did you … think you heard?’
‘Everything … I think …’ Gio said grimly.
Hesitant, Valentina said, ‘About Mario and the hospital?’
‘Yes, dammit. Valentina.’
Valentina gripped Gio’s hand back and closed her eyes as if that could help. Not to see Gio’s face when she said this. ‘It wasn’t a dream. You heard it, and I meant every word.’
There was silence and after long seconds Valentina opened her eyes again to see Gio with his head back on his pillow and a smile playing around his mouth. ‘You love me….’
Feeling slightly disgruntled at his easy insouciance when Valentina felt as if she’d just been pulled from a train wreck she said curtly, ‘Yes, I do.’
Gio’s smile faded then to be replaced by something more serious. His hand moved up her arm and he said, ‘Come here, I need to touch you.’
; ‘But your ribs—your head … I’ll hurt you.’
Gio shook his head, this time more gingerly. ‘You could never hurt me as much as you did when you walked away after I told you I loved you.’
Fresh tears pricked Valentina’s eyes and Gio’s hand tightened on her arm. ‘But I’ll forgive you everything if you just come here right now.’
Carefully Valentina stood up and perched on the side of the bed. Gio’s voice was husky. ‘Closer.’
Giving in, Valentina kicked off her sneakers and came down full length beside him and tried to ignore his painful intake of breath when he lifted his arm to move it around her so that she was cocooned against him, her head in his shoulder, her hand resting on his abdomen, below the strapping. She felt herself relaxing into his hard form, her curves melting into his body.
She felt him draw a breath into his chest and he said in a carefully neutral voice, ‘Why did you decide you wanted to stay at the castello after seeing the garden, where Mario died?’
Valentina lifted her head to look at Gio. She remembered the excruciating way he’d shut her out—how ready he’d been for her to flee, because he’d obviously expected her to be upset. She could see now how he might have misread her reaction.
She willed him to believe her, to understand. ‘When I saw the garden … and walked the labyrinth, I didn’t feel as if Mario was there, or I did … but in a very peaceful way. He always loved visiting you at the castello so much. He was so proud of your achievement. I just … I felt happy there, secure. That’s why I wanted to stay.’