A Shadow of Guilt. Эбби Грин

was coming in just as I arrived.’

      ‘How did you know where I lived?’

      Gio’s mouth tightened. ‘I asked around.’

      Valentina could just bet he had—and who wouldn’t give a Corretti the information they wanted? Seeing him here like this in the flesh when she’d just been feeling so vulnerable made Valentina prickly.

      ‘What do you want, Gio?’ She saw the flash in his eyes and realised she’d just called him Gio. Flutters erupted in her belly.

      ‘I’d like to come in for a minute if that’s OK?’

      ‘No, it’s not OK.’

      Valentina started to close the door but was surprised when she felt the resistance of Gio’s hand. Suddenly he looked quite intimidating.

      ‘We can conduct this conversation here in the doorway and give your neighbours something to listen to or you can invite me in.’

      Valentina heard the tell-tale creak of her neighbour’s door just then and very reluctantly let Gio come in. He went and stood in the middle of the small living area, which had the kitchen area just off it and a tiny bedroom and bathroom on the other side. Palatial it was not, especially when she thought about his castello.

      She smiled with saccharine sweetness. ‘Well, I don’t think you’re here for tips on how to live in a small space.’

      A corner of his mouth turned up and the flutters in Valentina’s belly intensified. Damn him.

      ‘No. That’s not why I’m here.’ He turned to face her then and she noticed that he’d changed out of his polo shirt and jeans, into a white shirt and chinos. His overlong hair curled over his collar, a lock falling near his eyes.

      ‘I’m here because you ran out today after saying you didn’t need me to help you. But clearly you were prepared to ask for help up until that point. You wouldn’t have driven across the island for nothing.’

      Valentina cursed herself again for having gone to him at all. She lifted her chin. ‘It was a bad idea. Everything is fine.’

      Gio crossed his arms. ‘I know my aunt Carmela—I’d imagine that everything is not fine at all.’

      Valentina’s belly lurched. Things weren’t fine. They were awful. But she wouldn’t ask Gio for help. She couldn’t. There was too much history between them. Along with all sorts of dangerous undercurrents she didn’t want to look at. So, a small voice asked her now, so why did you go to him today?

      Firmly Valentina opened her door again and stood aside. She looked at Gio but avoided his eyes. ‘I shouldn’t have gone to you today. I’d like you to leave now.’

      Gio looked at the woman standing so stiffly by the door and wanted to shake her. She’d come today for something. Exasperated now he said, ‘Look, Valentina, you know you can talk to me. You can tell me whatever it is, if you need something.’

      She looked at him then and for the first time he noticed that she was pale and she looked tired, shadows under her eyes. Worry on her face.

      ‘No, you look. Pretend you never saw me today. Now for the second time, I’d like you to leave. You shouldn’t have come all the way here.’

      ‘Valentina, for crying out loud—’ Gio broke off when a shrill ring pierced the tense atmosphere. He looked down and could see a mobile vibrating on the small coffee table. Automatically he bent to pick it up and saw that it said, Home. His gut clenched. Valentina’s parents. He handed it to her, saying, ‘It’s your—’

      But she cut him off. ‘I know who it is.’

      She took the phone and turned her back to him saying, ‘Mama?’

      Gio’s gaze travelled down over the glossy hair in messy waves over shoulders and slender back and then his eyes went to the rounded curve of her bottom. He wanted to walk up to her and pull her hair aside and press a kiss to the side of her neck. He wanted to encircle her waist with his arm, and feel the brush of her breasts on his skin. He wanted to pull her back into his body, moulding her to him. Instantly his body responded with a wave of heat. The sudden need was so intense he shook with it.

      It was a few seconds before he noticed that Valentina had turned and was looking at him, her face pale and stricken. Immediately he was alert, eyes narrowed on her. ‘What is it?’

      ‘My father has collapsed.’

      Gio was moving before she’d even finished speaking and they were outside and in his car a few seconds after that. Valentina rattled off the address. Luckily she didn’t live far from her parents, who had moved into Palermo after her father had retired from working at the Corretti palazzo.

      They pulled up outside the modest house and Valentina was out of the car and through the front door when Gio got out of the car. He followed her in, an awful hollow feeling in his belly. If anything happened to her father … Just then he saw the man on the floor, his face white. Valentina’s mother was sobbing over the body and he could see Valentina starting to shake violently.

      Gio came in and gently moved Valentina aside and then in cool authoritative tones instructed her to call an ambulance. While she was on the phone he knelt down beside Emilio Ferranti and listened for a heartbeat and heard nothing.

      Expertly Gio opened the man’s shirt and started CPR. He felt someone pulling his arm and saw Valentina’s face, white with worry and shock. ‘What are you doing?’

      Gio shrugged her off gently but firmly. ‘I’m giving him CPR.’ And then he bent to his task and didn’t look up until the paramedics arrived and pulled him to one side. He was breathing fast and sweating as he watched them hook Emilio up to various things. Then they put him on a gurney and wheeled him into the ambulance, with Valentina’s mother getting into the back. One of the paramedics was talking to Valentina, and then they were gone with the ambulance lights flashing and the siren wailing intermittently.

      Gio went up to Valentina. She looked at him, dazed. His heart turned over in his chest. ‘Come on, I’ll take you to the hospital.’

      He led her to the car and put her in, fastening the safety belt around her when she made no move to do so.

      When they were on the road with the lights of the ambulance just visible in the far distance he felt her turn to him. ‘The paramedic told me you probably saved his life. I … I didn’t know what you were doing.’

      Gio shrugged minutely. ‘Don’t worry about it, it can look scary.’

      ‘Where did you learn to do that?’

      A bleakness entered Gio and he didn’t say, I learnt how to do it after Mario died, when I couldn’t save him, or help him. Instead he just said lightly, ‘I run a business—I insist that all my staff have basic first aid training, including myself.’ Gio’s experience was a bit more than just in first aid, he’d actually done a paramedic training course. The way he’d felt so helpless next to Mario’s inert body had forged within him a strong desire never to feel that helpless again. The awful thing was that Mario had been alive for a while, but Gio hadn’t known how to keep him alive. And he’d died in Gio’s arms before the medics had arrived.

      ‘I … thank you.’

      Gio winced. ‘You don’t have to say anything.’

      The rest of the journey was made in silence and when they got to the hospital Gio pushed down the awful sense of déjà vu. The night of Mario’s accident, he’d hoped against hope that somehow miraculously they’d brought Mario back to life but when he’d got there he’d seen the small huddle of Valentina with her parents, crying. Valentina had rushed at him with her fists flying. ‘I knew something would happen. You shouldn’t have taken him out. He wouldn’t have gone if you’d not asked him….’

      The memory faded, to be replaced now by the frantic chaos of the