Once A Moretti Wife

‘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.’