Michelle Smart - Once A Moretti Wife

He should have known from that point that she’d wanted to catch him out just as much as the media had. She had wanted proof of his supposed infidelity.

Her hazel eyes were filled with the suspicion he’d become too familiar with. ‘What kind of issues?’

‘You’ve found it hard to be my wife. You don’t like the media.’ That much at least was true. Anna loathed being under the media spotlight. ‘There have been many stories about our marriage being in trouble. If we were to believe the press we’ve split up a hundred times since we married. It is all poppycock. We married quickly. It is natural for us to have the teething problems.’

Her nose wrinkled. ‘When you found me in your office it was as if you’d found the Antichrist trespassing. What was the argument about that made me sleep at Melissa’s? Was it that woman I saw you with?’

Dio, even with amnesia her mind ran to suspicion. He’d already told her there was no one else. There hadn’t been anyone else since they’d flown to California and their relationship had irrevocably changed.

‘That woman you saw me with is my sister.’

‘Oh. Sorry.’ She looked shamefaced. ‘I saw her getting out of the car after you and...’

‘And you assumed I was having an affair.’ She’d made that exact same assumption when she’d found Christina in their apartment. Finally she’d found the proof she’d been waiting for from the very moment they’d made their vows. If she’d bothered to ask for the truth he would have given it, but she hadn’t cared for the truth. All she’d wanted was evidence of infidelity so she could bleed him for as much of his hard-earned money as she could get her grasping hands on.

He’d planned to reveal his sister in court, in front of a judge, so the law could see Anna’s accusation for the entrapment it was. He’d looked forward to her humiliation. Now he had a different kind of humiliation in mind, one that would be far more pleasurable. If she retrieved her memories before he could pull it off then so be it. He would enjoy it while it lasted.

‘Sorry,’ she repeated. ‘I thought you were an only child.’

‘So did I until recently. I’ll tell you about it when you’re not so exhausted.’

On cue, she covered her mouth and yawned widely, then blinked a number of times as if trying to keep her eyes open.

‘Lie down and rest,’ he said. ‘The specialist will be here soon and then we’ll be able to go home and you’ll be able to sleep as much as you need.’

As much as he despised the very air she breathed, seeing her vulnerable and weak sat badly inside him, made him feel strangely protective. It made him want to hold her close and stroke her hair until she fell asleep. He much preferred it when her wits were sharp. It put them on equal footing. Her amnesia was a weapon in his own arsenal that he would use to his advantage but he wouldn’t unleash its full force until he was satisfied she was over the worst of her concussion.

She nodded and lay down, curling up in the foetal position she always favoured when she slept. After a few minutes of silence when he thought she’d fallen asleep, she said, without opening her eyes, ‘What did we argue about that was so bad I spent the night at my flat?’

‘It wasn’t anything serious. It’s still your flat too and you often stay there. We’ve both been playing games. We’re both stubborn, neither of us likes to admit to being wrong, but we always make it up.’

‘If it wasn’t serious, why were you so angry with me yesterday? You were grumpy for most of the time in the hospital too.’

Typical Anna. When she wanted an answer to something she was like a dog with a bone until she got it.

‘I was hurt that you rejected me. I didn’t understand you had amnesia. I was out of my mind with worry about you. Worry makes me grumpy. I’m sorry for behaving like that.’

Her eyes opened, an amusement he hadn’t seen for a long time sparkling in them. ‘An apology and an admission to hurt feelings? Have you damaged your brain too?’

He laughed and leaned over to press a kiss to her cheek. She scowled at the gesture, which made him laugh more.

It was as if this Anna beside him had been reset to factory settings before marriage had even been mentioned between them.

‘I know you have no memories of us. I have to be hopeful they will return.’ But not too soon. Too soon and he wouldn’t be able to fulfil the plan that had formed almost the instant the consultant had informed him that his estranged wife had amnesia.

Their wedding anniversary was now only nine days away. To celebrate it, he had a surprise planned for her that no amount of amnesia would ever allow her to forget.

CHAPTER THREE

ANNA GAWKED AS the driver came to a stop along the Embankment. She’d always been curious about Stefano’s home, situated in a high-rise residential complex overlooking the Thames, which, at the time of building, had been the most expensive development in the world. So naturally, Stefano owned the most expensive apartment within it: the entire top floor.

The driver opened Stefano’s door. Before he could get out she touched his arm, only lightly but with an instinctive familiarity she’d never used before. ‘You could be telling me anything about our relationship. I can’t disprove any of it. How do I know I can trust you?’

‘In all the time you worked for me did you ever know me to lie?’ he answered steadily.

‘I never caught you out in a lie,’ she conceded. In the eighteen months she’d worked for him their relationship had been nothing less than honest, brutally so on occasion.

‘So trust me.’ He held her gaze with that same intense look that sent tendrils of something curling up her spine.

‘It doesn’t seem I have much choice.’

If she could remember her phone’s pin code she could reach Melissa and ask her but even if she could, she knew she wouldn’t make that call. Not yet. The thought of speaking to her sister made her feel sick. She wouldn’t call her until she could trust she wouldn’t scream down the line at her and say things she knew she would regret.

She must have known about Melissa’s trip. Melissa’s letter had said as much. She’d asked for her forgiveness.

How could she forgive that? After everything their mother had done and put them through? Their father had been six feet under for less than six months when their mother had started seeing an Australian man she met through a dating agency. Anna, who’d been desperately grieving the loss of the father she’d adored, had tried to understand her mother’s loneliness. She really had. She’d resisted the urge to spit in the usurper’s tea, had been as welcoming as she could be, believing Melissa’s private assertion that it was nothing but a rebound fling by a lonely, heartbroken woman and that it would fizzle out before it really started. If only.

Three months after meeting him, nine months after she’d buried her husband, Anna’s mother had announced she was emigrating to Australia with her new man.

Stefano pressed his thumb to her chin and gently stroked it. ‘When your memories come back you will know the truth. I will help you find them.’

Her heart thudding, her skin alive with the sensation of his touch, Anna swallowed the moisture that had filled her mouth.

When had she given in to the chemistry that had always been there between them, always pulling her to him? She’d fought against it right from the beginning, having no intention of joining the throng of women Stefano enjoyed such a legendary sex life with. To be fair, she didn’t have any evidence of what he actually got up to under the bed sheets; indeed it was something she’d been resolute in not thinking about, but the steady flow of glamorous, sexy women in and out of his life had been pretty damning.

One of her conditions for accepting the job as his PA was that he must never ask her to be a go-between between him and his lovers. No way would she be expected to leave her desk to buy a pretty trinket as a kiss-off to a dumped lover. When she’d told him this he had roared with laughter.

When had she gone from liking and hugely admiring him but with an absolute determination to never get into bed with him, to marrying him overnight? She’d heard of whirlwind marriages before but from employee to wife in twenty-four hours? Her head hurt just trying to wrap itself around it.

Had Stefano looked at her with the same glimmer in his green eyes then as he was now? Had he pressed his lips to hers or had she been the one...?

‘How will you help me remember us?’ she asked in a whisper.

His thumb moved to caress her cheek and his voice dropped to a murmur. ‘I will help you find again the pleasure you had in my bed. I will teach you to become a woman again.’

Mortification suffused her, every part of her anatomy turning red.

I will teach you to be a woman again?

His meaning was clear. He knew she was a virgin.

Anna’s virginity was not something she’d ever discussed with anyone. Why would she? Twenty-three-year-old virgins were rarer than the lesser-spotted unicorn. For Stefano to know that...

Dear God, it was true.

All the denial she’d been storing up fell away.

She really had married him.

And if she’d married him, she must have slept with him. Which meant all her self-control, not just around him but in her life itself, had been blown away.

She’d taken such pride in her self-control after her mum had left. Events might fall out of her power but her own behaviour was something she controlled with iron will. All those teenage parties she’d been to when alcohol, cigarettes and more illicit substances were passed around and couples found empty spaces in which to make out... She’d been the one sitting there sipping on nothing stronger than a cola and taking great pride in the fact that she was in control of all her faculties. Her self-control was the only thing she’d had control of in a life where she’d been powerless to stop her father dying or her mother moving to the other side of the world and leaving her behind.

A different heat from the mortification ravaging her now bloomed as her mind suddenly pictured Stefano lying on top of her...

His eyes still holding hers as if he would devour her in one gulp, Stefano trailed his fingers down her neck and squeezed her shoulder. ‘Let’s get you inside. You must rest. You’re exhausted.’

Anna blew out a long breath and nodded. For once she was completely incapable of speech.

She’d shared a bed with him.

She’d shared more than a bed with him.

Trying desperately to affect nonchalance, she had no choice but to allow him to assist her through the grand atrium of his apartment building to his private elevator. It was either that or have her unsteady legs collapse beneath her again.

She’d always been physically aware of him before but with his arm slung protectively around her shoulders that awareness flew off the scale.

The dividing line she’d erected between them and worked so hard to maintain... Noting Stefano’s easy familiarity with her; the way he was so comfortable touching her now along with the flirting she’d long been used to... Yes, that dividing line had been demolished.

She just wished her body didn’t sing its delight at his new proprietorial manner with her.

It was such a relief to be led to a sofa to collapse onto that it took her a moment, catching her breath, to take stock of Stefano’s home.

Her home.

It was like stepping into another world.

She was sitting in a living room so vast and wide she felt like a toddler who’d stumbled into a ballroom, the room complete with a gold-leafed crystal chandelier gleaming magnificently above her.