Kate Hewitt - Scandals Of The Ruthless - A Shadow of Guilt

His mouth tightened. Valentina might desire him but she would never allow him close again. And if he had a shred of conscience, he wouldn’t touch her again. The problem was, Gio didn’t think his conscience was strong enough to overcome the physical craving racing through his blood, or the possessiveness he felt.

* * *

The following afternoon Valentina went back to her rooms to change for the second evening’s champagne reception. The second day had passed off as successfully as the first, so far, and she was finally allowing herself to relax a little. She’d even managed to stop for a moment earlier, while checking one of the corporate boxes, and had got swept up in the spine-tingling finish of the main race of the day.

The sheer scale of the event and amounts of money being bet and won made her eyes boggle. She’d never seen such luxe wealth in her life. And amongst all the excess had been Gio—surveying everything and everyone around him. More than once she’d seen him dip his head discreetly to one of his staff who would rush off and avert a potential crisis or situation. But what had struck her again more than anything was how alone he’d looked, and how that had made her feel.

One of her very first memories was of playing outside her father’s workshop at the palazzo while Mario helped him inside, and watching the lone figure of a young Gio as he’d watched his father’s stable hands exercise the horses on their gallops.

Just a couple of hours ago as she’d stood in the background with a tray of empty glasses, Valentina had had to suppress the almost overwhelming urge to put down her tray and go up to him and slip her hand into his. She’d found herself imagining him looking down at her and smiling back...and squeezing her hand.

The tray of glasses had been shaking in her hands before she’d come to her senses and rushed off again. And now as she let herself into her rooms she shook her head. What was wrong with her? Why was her mind taking such flights of fancy? She had to admit that her virulent anger had become something else, but it was not tender. No matter how many times that soft emotion seemed to be taking her unawares.

When Valentina had put down her bag and was in the centre of her room she noticed the clothes through the open bedroom door. She went in to see that there were two floor-length evening dresses and one shorter cocktail-length dress in clear protective covers hanging off the doors of her wardrobe. Lined up below were three pairs of shoes all colour coded to go with the dresses. Laid out on her bed she could see more bags and on her dresser she could see jewellery boxes.

Stunned, she walked closer. The dresses were gorgeous, the stuff of fantasy. One was dark red, another royal blue and the cocktail dress was strapless and black with a beaded lace overlay that made it sparkle.

She backed away and saw the boxes on the bed. Feeling a sense of dread she opened one and lifted back gold tissue paper to see the wispiest, most delicate underwear she’d ever seen in her life. Hurriedly she closed it back up again.

It was only then that she noticed the white square of paper with a typewritten message near the biggest box..

Valentina, I hope you don’t mind that I took the liberty of ordering you some dresses. You’d mentioned that you hadn’t had time to shop....

At the bottom of the note there was just a simple G.

First of all Valentina felt the predictable rise of hot rage—how dared Gio presume to buy her clothes? But then the note was so impersonal—he hadn’t even written it by hand. He must have got his secretary to type it out.

Then her cheeks got hot with embarrassment. Had he thought she looked completely out of place last night in her chain-store dress? He’d told her she looked stunning but the truth was that he’d probably offered up that platitude to every woman there. She’d never catered for such a prestigious event before; she’d never had to dress up.

She saw her dress now, hanging where she’d left it last night on the back of the bedroom door, and it looked unbearably shabby and worn next to these designer concoctions of perfection. Her embarrassment levels went up a notch. Gio evidently didn’t want her showing him up with his important guests and friends.

For a second intense vulnerability hit Valentina when she entertained the notion of putting one of these dresses on, and seeing Gio’s reaction to her. Would he want her then? In spite of her unwelcome virginity? Did she want to seduce him?

Humiliation, never far, made hot colour seep up into her face and rebellion fired her blood as she ignored the beautiful creations and resolutely pulled on her own dress and shoes. Valentina pushed down the voice telling her she was being ridiculously childish and when she was ready she left her room to go back to work.

* * *

It was some hours later before Valentina felt the familiar tingle of awareness. Much to her chagrin, she’d just dropped a pen from nerveless fingers for about the tenth time that evening and was bending down to pick it up.

His impeccably polished shoes came into her line of vision and she sucked in a deep fortifying breath before straightening up.

Her mouth dried. Tonight Gio was wearing a white shirt and that white bow tie. It was slightly askew as if he’d been pulling at it impatiently, giving him a rakish air. Faint stubble lined his jaw. Valentina struggled to find her equilibrium, hating that he’d caught her before she had a chance to compose herself. And then she thought of the typed note and the dresses, and forced ice into her veins.

She hitched up her chin and said in her coolest voice, ‘You didn’t have to go to the trouble of sending someone out to buy me dresses. If you’d told me what was required I could have taken an hour to go out and buy something myself.’

Gio’s eyes flashed with displeasure. ‘The idea was that you choose one to wear tonight.’

Valentina welcomed the surge of anger and glanced around to make sure no one was near before hissing at him, ‘I’m not one of your mistresses, Gio.’

Gio opened his mouth to respond but suddenly they were interrupted by one of his aides, who Valentina dimly recognised as working on the equestrian side of things.

He was saying sotto voce, ‘Excuse me Signor Corretti, but Sheikh Nadim of Merkazad has just arrived with his wife. I thought you’d want to know. We’ve settled his horses into the stables already.’

Valentina knew that Sheikh Nadim was one of the most important guests Gio had been expecting. She saw a muscle clench in Gio’s jaw and felt quivery inside. He just looked at her for an intense moment and then bit out a curt, ‘We’ll continue this later.’ And he strode off with his PA.

Valentina had little time to think about his thinly veiled threat because she was quickly swamped by more guests and making sure that everyone was being catered to, and that the champagne was kept flowing.

* * *

Much later, Gio was ripping open his bow tie and opening the top button of his shirt as he made his way to Valentina’s rooms. It was long after everyone had finished up for the night.

Sheikh Nadim of Merkazad, an old friend of Gio’s, had invited him back to his hotel for a nightcap and he hadn’t been able to refuse. Gio usually loved any chance he got to talk about horses and racing with Nadim, but not this time. Eventually his friend had chuckled ruefully and said, ‘I’ll release you from your misery. Go and find her, my friend. I know that tortured look well. I saw it in my own mirror often enough.’

Gio shook his head now—he couldn’t ever imagine when Nadim and his Irish wife, Iseult, hadn’t been completely and soppily in love. In truth he found it hard to be around them—to witness that level of utter devotion and absorption. It made him feel all at once claustrophobic and yet curiously restless, yearning for something he couldn’t articulate.