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Смарт Мишель
Once A Moretti Wife
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WHEN ANNA AWOKE in the sterile hospital room, her head felt clearer than it had all day. The heavy pounding had abated but now came something far worse. Fear.
She didn’t need to open her eyes to know she was alone.
Had Stefano finally left?
The memory of their kiss flashed into her mind. In a day that had passed as surreally as if she’d been underwater, his kiss was the only memory with any real substance.
He’d kissed her. It had been almost brutal. A taunt. A mockery. The blood thumping through her at the feel of it had been the final straw for her poor, depleted body. She’d collapsed. And he’d caught her.
He seemed to think they were married. The hospital staff were under the same impression.
Swallowing back the panic clawing at her throat, Anna forced herself to think.
Her memory of the day might be blurry but she remembered snapshots of it. Stefano had carried her to his office sofa while shouting for someone to call for an ambulance. He’d travelled to the hospital with her. He’d been with her through all the prodding, probing and questioning she’d endured when she’d been awake and coherent enough to answer. He’d even come to the scan with her. If it weren’t for the dark tension radiating from him she would have been grateful for his presence, especially since Melissa hadn’t shown up.
Where on earth was she? It wasn’t possible that she could be on a flight to Australia. She wouldn’t have done that without telling her. No way. Besides, they lived together. Anna would have known!
Just what the hell was going on?
Never mind all the so-called marriage nonsense, which had to be some kind of elaborate hoax, but since when had Stefano hated her? They’d always sniped at each other and communicated through sarcasm but it had always been playful, with no sting intended. Today, despite his seemingly genuine concern for her health, it had been like having a Rottweiler guarding her with its teeth bared in her direction.
The door opened and the consultant from earlier stepped into the room, clipboard in hand. She was followed closely by Stefano.
Anna’s heart rate accelerated and she eyed them warily. They had the look of a pair of conspirators. Had they been talking about her privately?
‘What’s wrong with me?’ she asked.
The consultant perched herself on the edge of Anna’s bed and smiled reassuringly. ‘You have a concussion from your fall last night.’
‘I don’t remember the fall,’ Anna said. ‘My sister wrote it in a letter...have you got in touch with her yet?’
‘Her flight hasn’t landed.’
‘She can’t be on a flight.’
‘She is,’ Stefano chipped in. He was seated on the visitor’s chair just a foot from her bed, his stance that of a man who had every right to be there. Even if she were to ask for his removal, no one would dare touch him.
His break away from her bedside seemed to have done him good though as he’d lost the Rottweiler look he’d been carrying all day. He looked more...not relaxed, not happy exactly, but...pleased with himself.
‘Melissa’s taken a month’s leave to go to Australia and celebrate your mother’s fiftieth birthday,’ he finished.
‘That’s not possible.’ The stab of betrayal pierced her hard. ‘She couldn’t have done that. I’d know.’
‘The chances are you did know,’ the consultant said. ‘Your scan has come back clear...’
‘What does that mean?’
‘That there’s no bleeding on the brain or anything we need worry about in that regard, but all the evidence is pointing to you having retrograde amnesia.’
‘Amnesia?’ Anna clarified. ‘So I’m not going mad?’
The consultant’s smile was more like a grimace. ‘No. But it appears you have lost approximately a year of your memories.’
Anna exhaled in relief. Amnesia she could cope with. There had been moments during the day when she’d thought for certain she was losing her mind. And then she remembered Stefano’s insistence that they were married...
‘Don’t tell me I’m actually married to him?’
Now the consultant looked uncomfortable. ‘You’re on our records as Anna Louise Moretti.’
There was silence as the meaning of this sank into Anna’s fragile head.
She didn’t know what was worse. Being told Melissa had gone to Australia to see their mother or being told she was married to Stefano. Discovering that there was life on Jupiter would be easier to comprehend.
She turned her head to look at the man who claimed to be her husband. His long legs were stretched out before him, his tie removed and top button undone. He was studying her with an intensity that sent little warning tingles through her veins. It was the look he always gave when he was thinking hard, usually when he was debating to himself whether he wanted to risk his money and reputation on a particular venture.
When Stefano chose to back a business he didn’t hold back. He gave it everything. He thrived on the gamble but liked the odds to be in his favour. He liked to be certain that he wasn’t going to be throwing away his time, resources and money. It didn’t matter how many reports she produced, he would play it all out in his mind, working through it on his own mental spreadsheet.
And now that gaze was directed at her, as if she were a business venture that needed to be analysed. He was mentally dissecting something and that something had to do with her.
‘We’re really married?’ she asked him.
A slow smile spread across his face as if she’d said something amusing but the focus in his eyes sharpened. ‘Sì.’
None of this made sense. ‘Why would I have married you?’
He shifted his chair forward and leaned over to speak directly into her ear. His warm breath stirred the strands of her hair, making her pulses stir with them. ‘Because you wanted my body.’
His nearness meant she had to concentrate hard to form a response. ‘This is no time for your jokes. I wouldn’t marry you. I have self-respect.’
He sat back and spread out his hands. ‘No joke. We’re married.’
‘I don’t believe you.’ The very idea was preposterous.
‘I can give you proof.’
‘We can’t be.’
There was no way she would have married Stefano. He was gorgeous, funny when he wasn’t being brooding and impatient, and rich, but he also had a revolving door of girlfriends. She had always maintained that she wouldn’t touch him with a ten-foot bargepole and had told him so on numerous occasions.
Always he’d responded with a dazzling grin and, ‘You can’t resist me for ever, bambolina.’
To which she’d always replied with her own grin turned up to full wattage, ‘Watch me.’
This time there was no comeback. He pulled out his phone and started tapping away. After a few moments he leaned over to show her the screen. Her pulse made another strange leap at his closeness and the familiar scent of his tangy cologne that had always filled their workspace. She blinked and focused her attention on what he was showing her.
It was a photograph of them standing together on a beach. Stefano was dressed in charcoal trousers and a short-sleeved open-necked white shirt. She wore a long white chiffon dress that had a distinct bridal look to it, and was clutching a posy of flowers. Oh, and they were kissing.
Anna stared at the screen for so long her eyes went dry. Her heart was pounding so hard its beats vibrated through her. When she dared look at him she found him watching her closely.
‘Did you drug me?’ She could hardly believe the evidence before her. It wasn’t possible. It had to be fake.
‘We married on the twentieth of November. Our first anniversary is in ten days.’
‘That’s impossible.’ She did some mental maths. She remembered as far back as her Spinning class, which had been the day after bonfire night, November the fifth.
He expected her to believe she’d married him two weeks later? Did he take her for a complete idiot?
But then she looked again at the photo on his screen.
‘We married in Santa Cruz,’ he supplied. ‘It was a very... I can’t think of the word, but it was quick.’
‘Spontaneous?’
‘That’s the word, sì.’
Despite the mounting evidence she still couldn’t bring herself to believe him.
‘If we’re married, why did I wake up in my own bed in mine and Melissa’s flat?’
There was only the barest flicker of his pupils. ‘We’d had a row.’
‘About what?’
‘Nothing important. You often stay the night there.’
‘Why were you so angry to see me in the office this morning? And why has Chloe taken my desk?’
‘I told you, we’d had an argument.’
‘Cheating on me already?’ she asked, only half jesting.
There was a tiny clenching of his jaw before his handsome features relaxed into the smile that had always melted her stomach. ‘I’ve never cheated on a woman in my life.’
‘You’ve never stayed with a woman long enough to cheat.’ Stefano had the attention span of a goldfish. He thrived on the chase, growing bored quickly and moving straight onto the next woman to catch his eye.
‘We’ve been married for almost a year and I’ve never been unfaithful,’ he stated steadily.
‘Then what were we arguing about?’
‘It was nothing. Teething problems like all newly-weds deal with. You weren’t supposed to be in this week so Chloe’s been working at your desk.’
The image of the blonde woman following him out of his car popped back into her mind. She had no memories of that woman but the way she’d reacted to her, the way her already tender stomach had twisted and coiled, made her think she had met her. ‘Who was that woman in your car this morning?’
Before he could answer, the consultant coughed unsubtly. Anna had almost forgotten she was there.
‘Anna, I appreciate this is hard for you. There are a lot of gaps in your memory to fill.’
She sucked in her lips and nodded. A whole year of memories needed to be filled. A whole year that she’d lost; a big black void during which she had married her boss and Lord knew what else had occurred. ‘Will I get my memories back?’
‘Brain injuries are complex. There are methods that will help retrieve the memories, things we call “joggers”, which are aids to help with recall, but there are no guarantees. The country’s top specialist in retrograde amnesia will be here in the morning to see you—he’ll be able to give you more information.’
Anna closed her eyes. ‘How long do I have to stay here for?’
‘We want to keep you under observation for the night. Providing there’s no further issues, there’s no reason you can’t be discharged tomorrow after you’ve seen the specialist.’
‘And then I can go home?’
But where was her home? Was it the flat she’d shared with her big sister since she was fourteen? Or with Stefano?
The nausea that had eased with the help of medication rolled back into life.
She couldn’t have married him. Not Stefano of all people.
‘You’ll need to take it easy for a few weeks to recover from the concussion but your husband’s already assured me he’ll be on hand to take care of you.’
‘So Stefano knows all this? You’ve already discussed it with him?’
‘I’m your next of kin,’ he said, his thick accent pronouncing ‘kin’ as ‘keen’, something that under ordinary circumstances would make her laugh. Right then, Anna felt she would never find anything funny again.
‘No, you’re not. Melissa is.’ Melissa had been her next of kin since her sister had agreed to take sole guardianship of her when she’d been only eighteen and Anna fourteen.
The uncomfortable look came back to the consultant’s face. ‘Anna, I understand this is difficult for you but I can’t discharge you unless you have somewhere to go where you will be looked after, for the next few days at least. Your husband is your next of kin but you don’t have to go with him. Is there anyone else we can call for you?’
Anna thought hard but it was hopeless and only made her head start hurting again. The only person she was close to was Melissa. They both had friends—lots of them—but it was only each other that they trusted. Their friends were kept on the fringes of their lives and there wasn’t a single one she could impose herself on for however long it took to be deemed safe to care for herself.
But Melissa was on an aeroplane flying to the other side of the world to visit the woman who’d abandoned them for a new life in Australia with a man she barely knew.
The betrayal sliced through her again, tears burning in her eyes.
‘Anna, your home is with me.’
She closed her eyes in an attempt to drown out Stefano’s hypnotic voice. She wished she could fall into the deepest sleep in the world and wake to find the normal order of things restored.
The sad truth was there was no one else who could take her in or, if there was, she couldn’t remember them.
Whatever was wrong with her head though, wishing for something different wouldn’t change a thing. Her world might be all topsy-turvy but this was her reality now and she needed to deal with it. Bawling her eyes out and burying her head in the sand wouldn’t change anything.
She looked directly at him. ‘I don’t remember it being our home. I don’t remember a thing about us other than that you’re my boss and the bane of my life, not my husband.’
Was it her imagination or was that satisfaction she saw glimmer in his eyes?
‘I will help you retrieve the memories. I don’t deny our marriage can be...what’s the word? Like many storms?’
‘Tempestuous?’ she supplied, fighting the urge to smile.
‘That’s it. We are very tempestuous but we’re happy together.’ He straightened his long frame and rolled his shoulders before flashing his irresistible smile. ‘I need to get back to work and get things arranged so I can care for you like a good husband should. I’ll be back in the morning for when the specialist gets here.’
He handed a business card to the consultant. ‘If you have any concerns, call me.’ Then he leaned over and placed the briefest of kisses on Anna’s lips. ‘Try not to worry, bellissima. You’re the most stubborn woman I know—your memories won’t dare do anything but come back to you. Everything will feel better once you’re home.’
The endearment, bellissima, sounded strange to her ears. The most endearing term Stefano had ever used towards her before had been bambolina, Italian for little doll, which he’d thought hilarious. He’d often said he would mistake her for a princess doll were it not for her blunt tongue.
Anna watched him stroll from the hospital room, the good, faithful husband leaving to sort out his affairs so he could dedicate his next few weeks to caring for his poor, incapacitated wife, and all she could think was that she didn’t trust him at all.
Until her memories came back or until she spoke to Melissa, whichever came first, she would have to be on her guard. She didn’t trust Stefano any further than she could see him.
* * *
Stefano strode through the hospital entrance with a spring in his step. It was at times like this, when he had something to celebrate, that he wished he still smoked. But smoking was a habit he’d kicked a decade ago.
He was going to bring his wife home. The woman who’d used, humiliated, left him and tried to blackmail him was going to be back under his roof. He had big plans for her.
Those plans would have to wait a few days while she recovered from the worst of her concussion but in the meantime he fully intended to enjoy her confinement. Anna hated being fussed over. She was incapable of switching off, always needing to be doing something. Having to rest for a minimum of a fortnight would be her worst nightmare.
It cheered him further to know he would be there to witness her live through this horror.
Stefano intended to keep his word and ensure she was well-looked-after while back under his roof. He might despise her all the way to her rotten core but he would never let her suffer physically. He could still taste the fear he’d experienced when she’d dropped in a faint at his feet and knew he never wanted to go through anything like that again. It amazed him that she’d been able to get into his offices without collapsing, something the consultant had been surprised by too. If he hadn’t been so angry at her unexpected appearance and unprepared for seeing her for the first time in a month, he would have paid more attention to the fact she’d looked like death warmed up.
Fate had decided to work for him.
Anna didn’t remember anything that had happened between them. The whole of the past year had gone, wiped clean away. He could tell her anything and with her confined to his sole care and her sister on the other side of the world, there was no one to disprove it. Judging from the way she’d blanched when she’d learned Melissa had gone to Australia, she would be too angry to make contact with her any time soon.
All he had to remember was to keep his bitterness that she’d fooled him into marrying her inside. Anna could read him too well.
He’d called Melissa as soon as they’d arrived at the hospital, knowing Anna would want her sister there. He’d been put through to her boss and told that Melissa was on leave and had been planning her trip for months. Considering Anna had never mentioned it—and she surely would have done—he guessed Melissa had put off telling her for as long as she could. Certainly, when the two sisters had gone away for their trip to Paris, which he had paid for as a treat for his wife and which Anna had returned from early, determined to catch him up to no good, she hadn’t known anything about it.
He found Anna alone in her private room flicking through a magazine, dressed in the same black jersey dress from the day before. She greeted him with a wary smile.
‘How are you feeling?’ he asked.
‘Better.’
He sat down in the visitor’s chair. ‘You look better.’ Then he grinned and ran a finger down her soft cheeks, causing her eyes to widen. ‘But still too pale.’
She jerked her face away and shrugged. ‘I slept but it was patchy.’
‘You can rest when we get home.’ The consultant had told him in private that the best medicine for concussion was sleep.
‘I just can’t believe I’ve lost a whole year of my life.’ She held the magazine up. ‘Look at the date on this. To me, it’s the wrong year. I don’t remember turning twenty-four. There are stories in here about celebrities I’ve never even heard of.’
‘Once we get you home I’m sure your memories will start to come back.’ But not too soon, he hoped. He had plans for his wife. ‘Do you not remember anything about our marriage?’ He wanted to make double sure.
‘Not a thing. The last I remember you were dating that Jasmin woman.’
Jasmin had been the date who’d got food poisoning an hour before his scheduled flight to California for the industry tech awards. It had been her illness that had given him the chance to coerce Anna into attending with him in her place. It was only because it was far too short notice for him to get another date that she’d agreed. That, and the designer dress he’d had couriered over from the designer personally had helped make her decision. The awards evening had ended with Anna insisting the only way she would have sex with him was if he married her.
He didn’t doubt her memories of their time together would eventually return. If anyone could bring them back, it would be his wife, the most stubborn, determined woman he’d ever met in his life. But in the meantime...
‘Our marriage is a shock for you.’
‘That’s one way to describe it,’ she murmured. ‘I’d promised myself I would rather date a baboon than go on a date with you, never mind marry you. Have you really never cheated on me?’
He forced his tone to remain light through the blood roaring in his veins. ‘Not once. We’ve had a few issues but nothing serious. We’ve been working through them.’
A few months ago he’d been pictured dining with one of his new Swedish directors, a blonde statuesque beauty he hadn’t felt even a flicker of attraction towards. Anna had shrugged the ensuing press melee off but he’d known it bothered her. A second photo a fortnight later, this time of him dining with one of his female employees in San Francisco, had only added fuel to the fire. He’d explained his innocence, proving the picture had cropped out the other half-dozen employees also dining with them, and she had outwardly accepted it. But her distrust had grown and she’d no longer bothered to hide it. Her attitude had infuriated him so much he hadn’t cared to explain that he liked socialising when he travelled abroad without her because it made the time pass so much quicker.
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.
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