Once A Moretti Wife

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.

Floor-to-ceiling windows covered the entire perimeter and from one aspect gave the most amazing view of the Thames—was that Westminster Bridge she could see in the near distance?

Not a single memory was jogged by any of it. She’d lived here for almost a year but she was seeing it for the first time.

She looked around wondering where everyone was. ‘No staff?’

‘I don’t have staff. The concierge service runs my housekeeping for me and I pay them a fortune for it.’

When Stefano had first made his fortune in his home town of Lazio, he’d employed live-in staff but had soon learned to dislike having other people in his space. Housekeeper, cleaners, butler, chef, gardener...the list had been endless. Being waited on hand and foot sounded fantastic in theory but in practice it was a drag and he’d put the staff on day-only duties within weeks.

He was a fully grown man who’d been caring for himself since he was fifteen. He didn’t need someone to dress him or run his baths. He saw his peers with their homes full of enough staff to fill a cinema and thought them fools for allowing themselves to revert to infancy.

It was all the fawning he couldn’t abide. That was one of the reasons he’d been so keen to employ Anna as his PA. She’d been completely unaffected by meeting him, a reaction he hadn’t received in years. In a business setting he was used to fear being the primary reaction; in his personal life he received desire from women and enthusiasm from men, both sexes looking at him with dollar signs flashing in their eyes. Anna had looked at him with disdain.

He’d strolled into the Levon Brothers offices when they’d been in early discussion about him buying the business from them and she’d been behind the desk in the office guarding theirs. He’d handed her his coat as he walked past for her to hang for him and heard a sarcastic ‘You’re welcome,’ in his wake. He’d paused at the door he’d been about to open and looked at her, standing with his coat in her arms, challenge set in her eyes, jutting chin and pursed lips.

‘What did you say?’ he’d asked.

‘I said that you’re welcome. I meant to say it in my head just as I’m sure your thanks for me taking your coat off your hands was said in your head, but it slipped out.’

It had been a sharp salutary reminder of the importance of manners, something no one had dared to pull him up on for many years and it had taken a scrap of a woman to do just that.

He’d put a hand to his chest, made a mocking bow and said, ‘Thank you.’

She’d nodded primly and crossed the room to hang his coat on the stand. Shorter than the women who usually caught his eye, she had the most exquisite figure, perfectly proportioned. He remembered exactly what she’d been wearing that day, a billowing checked skirt that had fallen below her knees, long tan boots with spiked heels, a tight black vest and a fitted khaki-coloured jacket, all pulled together with a thick belt with studs that looked sharp enough to have someone’s eye out.

‘Do I dare ask if you make coffee?’ he’d asked, fascinated by her.

‘You can ask but beware—refusal often offends.’

Roaring with laughter, he’d gone into his meeting. Within an hour, when the beautiful, sarcastic secretary had been brought in six times to explain the report she’d compiled for him but which the idiots running the company didn’t understand, he’d known he was going to buy the company and poach her to be his PA. It turned out Anna was the real brains behind Levon Brothers. Without her by their side and covering their messes, it would never have taken off. With her by Stefano’s side, Moretti’s could only strengthen further.

It had been the best business decision he’d ever made. He’d learned to trust her judgement completely.

He’d believed her to be as straight as a line. He’d thought that with Anna what you saw was what you got, when all along she’d been nothing but a grasping gold-digger.

Now the bravado that always shone in her eyes was muted by alarm. ‘It’s just you and me here?’

‘We like our privacy,’ he said. ‘We can walk around naked without having to worry that we’ll frighten anyone.’

Her cheeks turned the most becoming crimson but she raised a tired brow and wanly retorted, ‘I can assure you I won’t be walking anywhere naked within a mile of you.’

Amused by her stubbornness even when she was so clearly ready to fall into a dead sleep, he whispered into her ear, ‘And I can assure you that when you’re feeling better you will never want to put your clothes on. Believe me, bellissima, we spend a lot of time together naked.’

‘If I don’t remember it then it didn’t happen.’

Studying the firm set of her lips, he remembered what it had been like between them when they’d first married. He’d had no idea she was a virgin until she’d blurted it out when they’d walked into the bridal suite hours after exchanging their vows. She’d stood as defiant as she did now but there had been something in her eyes he’d never seen in her before: fear. That had been a bigger shock than her declaration of virginity.

He’d made love to her so slowly and tenderly that night that when he’d felt her first climax he’d been as triumphant and elated as if he’d been the first man to conquer Mount Everest. That night had been special. Precious. And it had only been the start.

Once Anna had discovered the joy of sex she’d been a woman reborn and unleashed.

She had no memories of any of it. When he next saw her naked, for Anna it would be the first time, and he remembered how painfully shy she’d been then.

He took one of her hands and razed a kiss across the knuckles. ‘Can you walk to the bedroom or shall I carry you?’

Her eyes flashed and she managed to inflect dignity into her reply. ‘I can walk.’

She allowed him to help her to her feet and held onto his arm as he led her to the bedroom he’d slept alone in for the past month.

The last twenty-four hours had brought such a change to his fortunes that Stefano was tempted to wonder whether it was he who had suffered a bump to his head.

His wife was back under his roof and shortly to be back in his bed.

He caught her unconcealed surprise when he opened the door to reveal a room cast in soft muted colours and dominated by an enormous emperor bed.

‘We chose the decor together,’ he told her. ‘You chose the bed.’ It had been the first thing they’d bought as a married couple. He’d known she would hate sleeping in a bed he’d shared with other women.

And now they would share it again. Anna needed to know that this was theirs, a bedroom they’d created together, a room they’d made love in hundreds of times. He needed to consolidate in her mind that they were a properly married couple and that it was natural for them to sleep together.

He couldn’t begin to dissect his own feelings about sleeping by the side of the woman who had played him for a fool so spectacularly.

‘Seriously?’ she asked in a voice that had gone husky.

‘S?. And when you’re better I can promise you’ll enjoy it as we always used to. But all that can wait. Consultant’s orders are for you to do nothing but rest for the next few days. I promised I would take care of you and you know I am a man of my word.’

He always kept his word. To his way of thinking it was what separated humans from animals. He’d married Anna giving his word that he would be faithful. He’d given his word that if he ever felt the impulse to cheat he would tell her before acting on it and they would go their separate ways.

She’d given him her word too. She’d promised she would trust him. Her word had been a lie. Her intentions had been a lie. It had all been a lie. Their entire marriage had been built on lies and deception. No sooner had she left him than she’d hit him with her demands for a massive slice of the fortune he’d built from nothing.