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 hernonna’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.
But when she’d returned to Sicily months ago, she’d finally seen the truth stripped bare. He’d never love her. Not because of something lacking in her, but because of his nature. Selfish, imperious and ruthless. He accepted only one way: getting what he wanted every time.
She’d never seen him violent, though her half-brothers spoke of the thrashings he’d meted out in their youth. Yet she could easily imagine him ordering the destruction of a rival business.
She opened her mouth to speak but Gio beat her to it, talking quickly as if wanting this over as soon as possible.
‘My father never rebuilt. We moved to the mainland. He had insurance money to start again but for a while he didn’t bother. He was depressed. Later he rallied and threw himself almost manically into building up his business again.’
Gio spread his hands. ‘But everything he did, every success, was a step on the way to besting your father. He wouldn’t stoop to violence but his one goal was to build a business bigger and better than Barbieri’s and smash him. It was a fixation. He had no time for anything else. No time for anyone, including me.’
Stella heard Gio’s pain and it went straight through her. She wrapped her arms around herself, cradling their unborn child. His story reminded her that there were no guarantees of safety in life. ‘I’m so sorry, Gio. For everything you lost.’
His mother and sister. The life they should have had together. And his father, lost in a way that she suspected had scarred Gio as much as the earlier deaths. She imagined him as a boy, missing his mother and sister, turning to his father for affection and reassurance and finding none.
How familiar that was.
