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Gio’s voice was sterile, clipped. ‘A virus, a very rare virus. It gets into a horse’s brain and induces paralysis among other things. The horse sinks into a coma and dies within a couple of days. There’s no cure.’
‘Gio … I’m so sorry.’
‘Why? It’s not your fault.’
Valentina winced when she was hurtled back in time to the graveyard when she’d told Gio it was his fault
that Mario had died. Never more than at this moment did she have a full understanding of the pain she’d caused with her grief and anger. Guilt, bitter and acrid, rose upwards.
‘Gio …’ Her throat ached. ‘I’m so sorry … about everything.’
Gio looked at her, his eyes burning in his face. With that uncanny prescience that he seemed to have around her, he knew exactly what she meant. His grim smile did little to raise Valentina’s spirits.
‘Once … I wanted nothing more than to hear you say that. To know that you possibly didn’t despise the very air I breathed.’
The ache in her throat got worse. Valentina shook her head. ‘I don’t despise … you, the air you breathe.’
‘It’s too late, Valentina.’ He gestured towards his horse. ‘Don’t you see? It’s all too late. Everything turns to dust in the end—it’s all completely futile.’
Tears pricked Valentina’s eyes now to see the bleak despair on Gio’s face. ‘No, Gio, it’s not all futile, it’s not. It’s terrible that Misfit is dying and I wish he wasn’t but he’s had a wonderful life with you.’
Gio laughed curtly. ‘Just like Mario had a wonderful life until it was snatched out of his hands.’
Valentina reached out a hand but Gio backed away, rigid with tension. He put his hands up as if to ward her off.
Slowly he lowered his hands back down. ‘Do you know that I’ve slowly begun to believe that what happened that night wasn’t all my fault? That it was just a tragic accident.’
He shook his head. ‘We’d finished with the horses and were calling it a night. I still had plenty of time to get Mario home … but then he saw Black Star, loose in the paddock. Mario started to plead again, just for one attempt to ride him, to see if he could possibly have the magic touch….’
Valentina’s heart was breaking in two in her chest. ‘Gio …’
But he wasn’t listening to her, or was ignoring her. ‘I wasn’t going to let him. I said no and walked to the stables with Misfit. When I got back outside, Mario was putting a saddle on Black Star … I could see the stallion was already edgy. I told Mario to leave it alone … but he wouldn’t listen. He’d swung up onto his back before I could stop him, and Black Star went berserk. He jumped the paddock fence but his back leg got caught. Mario went down and Black Star landed on him, crushing him before I could get to him. The damned horse just got up and walked away, dragging Mario behind him until I could get to him and free him … but it was too late.’
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.’
