Once a Moretti Wife

by Michelle Smart

  Stung at his rejection, Anna got quickly to her feet. ‘I’ll see you in the morning, then. Night.’

  ‘Anna.’

  She ignored him to dart away from the table, not wanting him to see the mortification she knew would be written all over her face.

  After all his innuendoes and hungry looks, he was rejecting her?

  She couldn’t escape from the terrace quickly enough.

  ‘Anna,’ he repeated in a voice that demanded to be obeyed.

  Almost at the door, she reluctantly turned to face him. ‘What?’

  Under the soft glowing light she saw a knowing tenderness on his handsome face that took a little of the sting away.

  ‘You’re beautiful.’

  His words were so unexpected that she found herself gazing from the simple blue shift dress she’d chosen from her enormous dressing room, slipping it on with thoughts of Stefano in her mind, to him, the man she ached to make love to.

  Then he smiled wryly, poured himself another glass of wine and raised it to her. ‘Sleep well, bellissima.’

  * * *

  The house was eerily silent when Stefano headed down the stairs the next morning wearing only his robe.

  He found Anna at his desk in his office, his laptop open in front of her.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he asked with an easiness that belied the impulse to slam the lid shut.

  ‘Trying to hack into your laptop.’ She didn’t look at him, and nor did she look or sound the slightest bit penitent at what she was doing.

  ‘You can’t get into your own phone. What makes you think you can hack into this?’

  ‘Because you’re extremely predictable with what you use as your password.’

  Stefano had always given her free access to his laptop when she worked for him and he’d trusted her with his often-changing passwords for it. Of course, he only used it for work purposes and it was for this reason he didn’t want her getting into it now. It would take her all of a minute to discover that he’d sacked her and then all his plans would come tumbling down. Everything would come out and the revenge he was working so carefully towards would be ruined.

  He ignored the nagging feeling in his guts that it might just be a good thing for his plans to be ruined. ‘What do you want it for?’

  ‘To get onto the Internet.’

  ‘Why? To email Melissa?’

  ‘I agree with you that I shouldn’t speak to her yet but she must be worrying that she can’t get in touch with me.’

  ‘If she’s worried she’ll contact the office. They’ll tell her where we are.’ And then Melissa really would have something to worry about. She knew all about their vicious split.

  All he had to do was stop Anna contacting her for four more days.

  Her eyes lifted to meet his. She scowled but not before he read the hurt on her face.

  He hid his satisfaction.

  She was still smarting at his rejection of her the night before. Declining her open invitation had taken a huge amount of willpower and he’d had to keep himself rooted to the chair to resist following her inside and up to the bedroom. Dio, he had wanted her so badly it was a physical pain. Now, in the cold light of day, he could hardly believe he’d been so selfless. Being selfless was not on his list of attributes.

  There was no hint of any vulnerability in those flashing hazel eyes now. And she was stone-cold sober.

  ‘Is something troubling you, bellissima?’

  ‘No.’

  He sat on the edge of the desk beside her, taking in the tight shorts and the coral T-shirt that caressed her small, beautiful breasts.

  Her jaw clenched and she stabbed at the keyboard and hit return.

  Suddenly her face brightened and she cast him with a wicked grin. ‘I’m in!’

  The grin fell when she saw what was on the screen.

  It was a letter of termination he’d got Chloe to write for one of the men who worked in his development lab. He’d been reading through it before he’d remembered a meeting he was supposed to be at. Forgetting a meeting would never have happened when Anna was running the place alongside him. He’d left the laptop open and had just arrived at the meeting when a breathless member of staff had run up to inform him that his estranged wife had barged her way into his office.

  He’d closed the laptop without shutting it down on his return from the hospital and hadn’t opened it since.

  ‘You’re sacking Peter?’ she said, reading it quickly.

  ‘He’s been selling patent application details to one of our rivals.’

  ‘You have proof of this?’

  ‘Enough for me not to give him the benefit of the doubt.’

  ‘Have you confronted him?’ she asked suspiciously.

  ‘We had a little chat.’

  ‘Did I sit in on it?’

  ‘It was just me and him. I wanted to give him the chance to confess. His behaviour in that meeting was very...what’s the word? When someone can’t sit still or talk properly?’

  ‘Nervous? Jittery?’

  ‘Both of those. His body language made his guilt obvious.’

  ‘For heaven’s sake, Stefano,’ she exploded, sliding the chair back to slam against the wall. ‘Anyone hauled in for a private chat with you is going to act nervous and jittery. You can be terrifying and Peter is a nervous soul as it is.’

  ‘Someone is selling secrets from that department. Too many things are being leaked and he’s the only person it can be.’

  ‘Maybe the system’s been hacked!’

  ‘Maybe we have a traitor in our team.’

  ‘Who in their right mind would turn traitor on you?’ Now she was on her feet with her hands on her hips. ‘You’re a terrifying ogre but on the whole you’re a good person to work for. You pay extremely well and you’re generous with perks—you’ve one of the highest staff retention rates in the industry! I know Peter. You hired him as a graduate only a couple of months after you hired me. He’s as timid as a mouse but one of the brightest brains you’ve got, and he’s loyal. Are you really going to sack him without concrete proof?’

  ‘I can’t risk keeping him on!’ He conveniently forgot to mention that neither Peter nor any of his other staff or even his business had crossed his mind since she’d collapsed at his feet.

  ‘Have you even looked into the possibility that one of your rivals has infiltrated the system?’

  ‘Our system is foolproof as you very well know!’ he shouted back.

  ‘Rubbish! If even the Pentagon can be broken into then your system can be too. Do you want to ruin a life with no proof? Do you want to be sued for unfair dismissal?’

  ‘No one has grounds to sue me.’

  ‘Of course they do, you moron, if you treat them like this.’

  ‘Now you’re calling me a moron?’

  ‘If the boot fits then wear it!’

  This was what he’d missed in his month without her; someone to call him out and make him see things from a different angle. Everyone else was too damn scared to speak up.

  Everything had gone wrong since she’d left him. He couldn’t think straight, too consumed with his anger and humiliation at her hands to think clearly.

  Anna would never have let him meet an employee without a witness to report the unbiased facts and protect both parties.

  That he had the highest staff retention rates in the industry was down to her. Sure, all the wages and perks were his to be proud of but with Anna gone there was no one there to fight the staff’s corner, no counterbalance, no one to make him listen to reason.

  This was just as it had always been between them, Anna thought through the blood pounding in her brain.

  Stefano was facing her with the same angry stance she knew she must have, both of them glaring and snarling at each other until one of them backed down and apologised.

  Except this time she was wearing only a pair of skimpy shorts and a tiny T-shirt, and he...

  He was wearing a loosely tied dark grey robe with noth
ing underneath.

  And then, without her knowing how she got there, she was in his arms, his mouth devouring hers, he was kissing her, she was kissing him, in the way she’d yearned to for so, so long.

  Sensation such as she’d never known existed skipped over her skin and down into her pores. His tongue swept into her mouth, their lips dancing to a tune she hadn’t known she’d already learnt, and she swayed into him, closing her mind to everything but the feelings firing through her.

  This was everything she’d been dreaming of and more. His taste, his scent, the feel of his lips, the roughness of his stubbly jaw, the strength of his arms and the hardness of his chest crushed against her... It was heat in its purest, most carnal form.

  He rubbed his cheek into her neck and clasped her to him. His other hand gathered her hair together into a sheath and roughly, yet gently, he pulled her head back.

  ‘Now do you understand why we married?’ he asked coarsely. ‘That night we both drank more champagne than was good for us and I took advantage of it to kiss you, just as I did now, and you kissed me back.’

  His hand holding her ground her to him.

  She gasped to feel him huge and hard against her abdomen.

  No wonder they’d married so quickly. If she’d felt even a fraction of the desire in that car as was swirling through her now...it was the headiest feeling imaginable. No wonder she’d demanded marriage. It was the only thing that would have a hope in hell of putting him off the idea and leaving her safe.

  Yes! It wasn’t a memory that came to her then but a feeling, a certainty that this was how it had played out.

  She’d had no idea the attraction she’d held so long for him would turn her into fondue at his touch. She would have had to scramble to hold on to her sanity. But Stefano’s own sanity had been scrambled too and he’d agreed to her flippant remark.

  She didn’t need to hold on to her sanity now.

  They had made love many times in their marriage, and now she would get to experience it for the very first time all over again...

  Fresh sanity suddenly struck her.

  She didn’t know what to do.

  Stefano felt her hesitation.

  Cupping her cheeks in his hands, he gazed deep into her eyes and saw nerves merging with the desire, just as he’d seen the first time they’d made love on their wedding night, and with it he remembered that she had no memories of their lovemaking. None at all.

  Sex was the only aspect of their marriage he had no doubts about. Clever little liar that she was, no one could fake those reactions. It had never been a case of going through the motions for a quick release but a real, deep connection that had scorched them both. He knew he would never find that with anyone else and he hated her for it; hated her for destroying his faith in what they’d shared.

  For a few more days he could enjoy it all again but this, their first time together in over a month, was the first time for Anna. He had to remember that. When she’d confessed her virginity, although shocked, he could not deny his primal reaction had been elation that he would be her one and only.

  ‘I’m not making love to you in here,’ he said hoarsely before sweeping her into his arms.

  She hooked her arms around his neck but the trepidation was still there. ‘Why did you reject me last night?’

  ‘Because I was waiting for my Anna to come back. When you shouted at me so passionately...’ he kissed the tip of her nose ‘...I knew it was you.’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  STEFANO SHIFTED HIS HOLD so she was secure in his arms and carried her up the stairs.

  His Anna, he thought with a possessiveness that caught him off guard.

  Only his.

  But only for a few more days.

  He couldn’t think of that right now. Right now it didn’t matter that the whole reason they were here was so he could seduce her so thoroughly that when he publicly ended things between them she had the added humiliation of knowing she had willingly lost herself to his touch and screamed out the name of the man who was playing with her all along. All he wanted at that moment was to sink himself into Anna’s tight heat and lose himself in her.

  The bedroom door was open, the bed sheets still unmade from the frustrated, tortured sleep he knew they’d both shared.

  Something more had made him wait until he’d been certain she would be asleep before joining her, and it wasn’t just that he’d wanted to be sure she was truly recovered and sober. It was that nagging in his guts speaking to him, putting doubts in his mind.

  Now, having shared those searing kisses and felt her taut and hungry against him...

  He laid her on the bed and in a moment had shed his robe and climbed on top of her.

  Anna waited for him to kiss her again. He’d placed his hands either side of her head, his legs long and lean between her thighs, and he was staring at her...

  He was staring at her as if he could eat her whole.

  She thought of all the women that had been before her, those faceless women she had been desperate to keep away from, desperate not to know, terrified that if any of them were to meet her they would recognise the secret feminine signs of a woman in love. She had feared their pity. She had feared she would hate them for it. Now she was the one to pity them.

  It wasn’t possible that Stefano had looked at another with the hunger with which he was looking at her.

  Stefano was hers. All hers. She would never share him with anyone.

  How beautiful he was, as if sculpted in marble by a master and then injected with life. To feel him against her inner thigh, hot and ready, his own desire wholly evident even to a novice such as her...

  Flames licked her everywhere.

  She reached out to touch him again, pressing her hand to his chest, feeling the heavy thuds of his heart. She sighed and closed her eyes.

  Never had she imagined his skin would be so warm and smooth to her touch, or that the fine dark hair that covered his chest would feel so silky. Slowly she trailed her fingers down to the hard muscle beneath the damp skin of his abdomen and heard his sharp intake of breath.

  Still gazing at her, he took hold of her top and, with only the smallest movement from her, pulled it off.

  His devouring gaze took in every inch of her but she was far too gone to feel any embarrassment. Her only moment of shyness came when he tugged her shorts down and exposed her most private area. Even that shyness flew away at his deep groan.

  ‘Dio, you have the sexiest body,’ he said in a pained voice. Then he brought his mouth back down on hers and she wound her arms around him and responded with all the passion alive in her heart.

  Fresh heat enflamed her body, desire uncurling inside her, the yearning for Stefano’s possession growing.

  And as she rejoiced in all these wonderful sensations, she was jolted from the moment with a thought that had her turn from his hot mouth to gasp, ‘What do we use for contraception?’

  ‘You’ve had those injections since we got back from our honeymoon,’ he muttered raggedly, hardly pausing for breath before his lips found her neck and her heart accelerated at the thrill racing over her skin and the burning in her veins, all worries of contraception happily dispatched.

  Everything was heightened, all her senses were converging together. She started as she felt his mouth on her breast, then shut out the last of her nerves and succumbed fully to the pleasure being evoked in her every last cell.

  His mouth and hands were everywhere, kissing, nibbling, stroking every inch, bringing her desire to a boil that was on the cusp of spilling over. Every touch scorched, every kiss burned and soon she wanted so much more than this heavenly torture. When his lips found hers again, she parted her thighs at the same moment he put a hand to them.

  He muttered something, shifted, then took hold of himself and suddenly she felt him there, right at the place she most wanted him to be, and just as suddenly her fears returned and she froze.

  Stefano must have sensed something wrong for he stoppe
d what he was about to do and, the tip of his erection still poised in the apex of her thighs, stared intently into her eyes.

  ‘There is nothing to fear, bellissima,’ he whispered. ‘Nothing at all. I would never hurt you.’

  His lips came back down on hers and she returned the heady pressure of his kiss. As his tongue swept into her mouth she wrapped her arms around him then cried into his mouth as she felt him push inside her, so slowly and with such care that she could have actually shed tears.

  But then all thoughts of crying were swept away because he was inside her.

  All her fears were unfounded. There was no pain. She’d known in her head that there couldn’t be, that her virginity was only in her head, but that sensible voice hadn’t been enough to quell her anxiety that somehow her body would have forgotten along with her mind.

  There was only pleasure. Deep, radiating pleasure.

  In their time together Stefano must have learned exactly what she liked because the thrusts he was making inside her felt heaven-sent.

  His movements increased, the groans coming from his mouth in her ear making the pulsations inside her thicken. She put her lips to his neck and inhaled his tangy, musky scent, driving him deeper and deeper into her.

  The world became a distant blur, shrinking down to just them and this magical moment. The secret torch she’d carried for him for so, so long had been lit into a furnace and all she could do was let the heat from it burn until it reached its peak and she was crying out his name, over and over, pleasure rippling through her in long waves.

  Stefano gave a hoarse groan and drove so deeply inside her at his own climax that she wrapped her legs even tighter around him, wanting to savour every last bit of this incredible moment.

  When he collapsed on her with his face in the crook of her neck, she held him tightly. She dragged her hands up the length of his muscular back and up to his head, threading her fingers through the thick dark hair. She could feel his heartbeat hammering in time to hers and thrilled to know that he too had felt the joy she had experienced.

  ‘Is it always like that?’ she asked when she had finally caught her breath. Dull pulses still throbbed inside her.