Chapter Thirteen
‘It’s not me he hates. It’s my family.’
‘But you have no family. Just distant cousins.’
Stella watched Gio’s grim expression lighten. ‘You remember that?’
Of course she remembered. Every detail of their time together was branded in her brain. She blinked, reading what might have been eagerness in those grey eyes.
Before today she’d have thought it impossible, but after what had just passed between them, and his apology, she wondered if he felt the way she had when he’d recalled her night-time jogging.
She’d felt a tendril of warmth unfurl inside. As if his remembering meant he cared.
It was so hard to keep her distance from Gio. Physically, mentally and emotionally. Even through her outrage at him snatching her from the wedding, her feelings for him were jumbled. And intense.
She’d seen and heard the change in him when she’d explained her trip to Rome. There’d been regret and guilt, and he’d been horrified when she’d accused him of having sex as some power game. That had moved her, for it had been obviously real.
Or was wishful thinking clouding her judgement? But what had he to gain with lies now? Her intuition had been sharpened by the last few traumatic months and her inner voice urged her to listen and give him the benefit of the doubt.
He’d misjudged her and apologised. Frankly, she’d lived with her father and brothers so long she wasn’t used to apologies. That alone set him apart.
She hated that her expectations had lowered so much.
Was it possible she’d misjudged Gio as he had her?
She wasn’t sure anything excused his actions, but she was desperate to understand.
‘It’s not about you, personally?’ she clarified.
She couldn’t get distracted. She needed to understand this feud and she’d discover why he’d hijacked her wedding.
‘No. I just represent what he hates. What he can’t forget.’
There was one thing her father hated above all else. Shock made her blurt out, ‘He lost out to your family on something? In a business deal?’
It didn’t seem possible. Her father never lost. Once he set his mind on something he always won through. It was one of the things that made him so formidable.
‘Not a business deal.’
Gio’s jaw set like stone. Not just his jaw. Naked above his swim shorts, his honed body was tense, muscles bunched, even the tendons in his forearms and neck standing proud. His hands, hands that could be incredibly gentle when he caressed her, curled into fists.
‘You hate him,’ she whispered.
‘With every atom of my being.’
Gio drew a deep breath that lifted his impressive chest, then exhaled as if forcing out something painful. Stella fought not to be distracted by all that masculine enticement.
‘What did he do to make you pursue a vendetta?’
She knew her father was ruthless and that he hid many things from her. She was tired of being in the dark.
Gio rubbed his chin, then forked his fingers through his hair, as if needing a physical outlet for his emotions. ‘I’m not pursuing a vendetta. He is.’ Gio paused, frowning. ‘Or was. Since my father died it’s been only straight commercial rivalry, nothing more.’
The skin at her nape drew tight and unease trickled down her backbone. It had been more than commercial rivalry? How much more? ‘Tell me.’
Gio’s gaze changed as if he looked at something faraway. ‘My parents met in Sicily. My mother was local and my father moved there from the north when he inherited a hotel. They fell in love and married, working together to run the place.’
Stella nodded. She knew the Valenti commercial empire predated Gio, though it had expanded enormously since he took it over.
‘We lived on the premises, my parents, my sister and me. It wasn’t a luxury hotel but it was in a premium position and they worked hard to build it up.’
‘They were competitors with my father?’
A furious glitter of emotion sparked in Gio’s eyes.
‘Not in the beginning. But your father saw mine as a rival. My mother was beautiful and Barbieri wanted her, but she’d have nothing to do with him.
Even before my father came on the scene she’d rejected Barbieri.
She knew he was vicious and unscrupulous.
But the more she said no, the more he wanted her.
When my parents fell in love he took it as a personal insult.
According to my parents, he used to bully people into getting what he wanted. He never learnt to handle rejection.’
Stella swallowed hard. It was true, her father was a bully. He’d always used persuasion with her, convincing her that his way was best. But she’d often agreed to something because it was easier than provoking his anger.
‘You’re right,’ she murmured. ‘He doesn’t accept rejection.’
She thought of the time her father had insisted she end her friendship with Ginevra, the sweet-natured girl with whom she’d become friends while others teased Stella about being a foreigner.
He’d objected to the friendship because Ginevra’s family was poor and he wanted Stella to mix with ‘a better class of people’, as befitted the daughter of a successful entrepreneur.
When she’d stood by her friend, he’d ripped Stella out of the local school and sent her to a private one, full of privileged girls who looked down their noses at her.
Gio continued. ‘He was incensed when my parents married and took every opportunity to undermine their business.’
Stella stiffened. ‘Undermine how?’
For some time she’d suspected her father cut corners with development approvals and other roadblocks to his plans. He spent time wining and dining those in authority but she’d never seen actual evidence of wrongdoing.
Gio shrugged. ‘Everything from sabotage to regrettable accidents. Food orders delivered to the wrong address. Staff offered better-paying jobs and leaving with no notice. Scathing reviews written by people who’d never stayed at the hotel but were friends of Barbieri. Damage to property.’
‘So a feud started between the families?’
‘No. My parents wouldn’t use such tactics. They put all their focus into the business, building a good team and a great reputation. As the years progressed, despite problems, the hotel flourished. Then, just before I turned six, they had enough money for a big renovation.’
He paused, looking at his hands fisted on his thighs.
‘What happened? Was the renovation successful?’ She’d never heard of the Valenti family owning a hotel in Sicily.
He snorted derisively. ‘It was never finished. There was a gas explosion in the kitchen. It happened on the weekend when no one was supposed to be working there. By the time the fire brigade arrived the whole place was ablaze. It was gutted and my father never rebuilt.’
‘That must have been appalling. Your poor parents.’
Silvery eyes skewered her from under dark eyebrows.
‘You really haven’t heard this story, have you?
’ His mouth flattened. ‘My mother didn’t see the hotel ruined.
We’d moved out temporarily but she returned that day because she realised she’d left her nonna’s recipe book behind.
She took my sister with her while I stayed with my dad.
Neither my mother or sister survived the blast.’
‘Gio!’ The ache in Stella’s throat was so sharp she couldn’t get more words out. She leaned forward, her hands closing around his fists. Eventually she whispered, ‘I’m so sorry.’
She’d lost her mother and knew the depths of grief that brought. But her death had been the result of illness. To lose family in such circumstances! It was almost impossible to comprehend.
For a long time neither spoke, but finally she processed the implications of what he’d said. She straightened, withdrawing her hands from his, shocked and compelled to reject his unspoken implication. ‘You think my father had something to do with it.’
When his eyes met hers she saw sympathy there. It couldn’t be. Her father was ruthless but not that ruthless.
‘One of the workmen was found at the site, injured but not badly. He hadn’t been employed by my father but by a subcontractor, who it turned out was a close friend of Alfredo Barbieri.
The explosion was investigated and put down to negligence by the workman.
He was responsible and, because of the loss of life, served a prison sentence.
But while he was locked up Barbieri supported his family handsomely and when he was released he got permanent work doing maintenance for Barbieri. ’
Stella sucked in her breath, pressing her hand to where her heart thrashed wildly.
Gio shook his head. ‘Your father would never employ a man in one of his precious hotels unless he trusted him to do a good job. He wouldn’t allow shoddy workmanship, that much I know.’
Gio was right. Her father wouldn’t employ someone whose negligence had taken lives.
Unless there were other factors…
Stella thought she was going to be sick again, but it had nothing to do with her pregnancy. ‘You think he paid the man to destroy your family’s hotel.’
And Gio’s mother and sister had died as a result.
‘It’s what my father believed, and the locals. But despite an investigation there was never proof it was anything more than an accident.’ He paused then added, ‘I’m sorry, Stella. It’s not what you want to hear about your father.’
He was apologising to her?
She wrapped her arms around her middle. ‘No, it’s not.’
The truly horrible thing was that, while stunned, she felt no need to demand proof from Gio.
Scarily, she could imagine the tragedy happening, not because of shoddy workmanship but because of her father’s ingrained need to win against the man he saw as a rival. What did it say about her father? About her, that she hadn’t realised fully what sort of man he was?
She swallowed, her throat raw. Her father wasn’t likeable, yet she’d spent much of her life trying to live up to his demands. She’d explained away his coldness, telling herself if only she tried harder things would change between them.