Once a Moretti Wife

by Michelle Smart

  He hadn’t even noticed it ring. Christina had sent a courier to his apartment with a letter and some photos—photos of him as a child—ending her note with a number for him to call.

  She’d been waiting outside the apartment building.

  ‘Too busy to answer the phone for your wife? Too busy to call when I left a message and texted you asking you to call me?’

  ‘I didn’t get the messages until four in the morning when it was too late to call you back, but I did text you. I told you I would call you later in the day, which I would have done after the meeting you interrupted, but you jumped to the conclusion that I was with another woman. You stormed into my boardroom and accused me of having an affair in front of my most senior members of staff. You threw water over me.’ As the humiliation flooded back over him, his temper rose. ‘You broke your word. You said you would trust me. You lied to me!’

  Anna stared at him for the longest time, her lips parted but with no sound coming out. But then the colour rushed back across her cheeks and she got to her knees to thump the floor.

  ‘You selfish, selfish bastard. Twisting this all round to hide what you’ve done. I’ve made mistakes and done things I’m ashamed of but you took advantage of my amnesia just so you could have your revenge. You let me think I still worked for you! No wonder you didn’t want me calling Melissa—that wasn’t for my sake, it was to protect your lie! You’ve been lying to me for over a week!’

  ‘You hit me with a demand for a hundred million pounds!’ he shot back. ‘You knew I wouldn’t take that lying down.’

  ‘Of course I knew that! Why do you think I issued it?’

  ‘You wanted me to react?’

  ‘I wanted you to speak to me and I was crazy enough to think that demanding a hundred million and a load of your assets would force you to communicate. You’d cut me off. You fired me and blocked my number. You served me with formal separation papers. You changed the security number for the apartment so I couldn’t get in. It was like I’d never existed for you. I wanted to hurt you as much as you were hurting me. I knew the only way I’d be able to get your attention was by hitting you where I knew it would hurt the most—your wallet.’

  ‘You walked out on me,’ he reminded her harshly. ‘Did you think I would beg you to come back?’

  ‘I came back the next day and couldn’t get into the apartment. You didn’t even give me twenty-four hours before locking me out.’

  The cold mist in his head had thickened, nausea roiling in his guts as he thought of his own contribution to the mess that was the end of their marriage. He had cut her off. His pride and ego had been dented so greatly that he’d struck back before she could do any more damage.

  ‘Why did you want to get my attention so badly?’

  ‘Because I needed you and because, despite everything, I couldn’t accept we were over.’ She pinched the bridge of her nose and held out her other hand for the bottle. He took a nip himself before passing it to her.

  She took a long slug.

  ‘Don’t you think you’ve had enough?’

  Her hair swished as she shook her head. ‘Nowhere near enough.’

  The trembling anguish in her voice sent a fresh roll of dread through him.

  Her hands were shaking so much the bottle slipped from her hand and onto her lap, then rolled onto the floor.

  In silence they watched the transparent fiery liquid spill onto the dark carpet.

  ‘Anna,’ he said quietly, ‘why did you say you needed me?’

  Her face rose to meet his gaze. Her eyes were stark, her bottom lip trembling.

  All these weeks he’d been determined to think the worst. Anna had made assumptions but he had too. He could admit that.

  She swallowed a number of times before saying in a voice so small he had to strain to hear, ‘I lost our baby.’

  ‘What...?’ The question died on his lips as the cold mist in his head froze to ice.

  The devastation on her face was so complete that he knew with gut-wrenching certainty that he hadn’t misheard her.

  He could no longer speak. His tongue felt alien in his mouth.

  He gazed at his wife’s white face and huge pain-filled eyes and the room began to spin around them. His heart roaring in his ears, he reached out blindly for her but then his knees buckled beneath him and he groped the arm of the nearest chair before they gave way completely.

  Dio, what had he done?

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ANNA, HER STOMACH CHURNING, bile rising inside her, clenched her hand into a fist and shoved it against her mouth to stop herself from screaming.

  How she’d prevented the screams from ripping out of her when it had all come back to her that evening she didn’t know, could only guess it had been iron determination not to let the liar she’d married see her misery or the avid curious faces of their peers that had made her succeed. But now the words were out and there was no putting them back and it hit her like a tsunami that had been gathering into a peak and now came crashing down on her.

  That last piece of her memory had come when she’d glanced at the menu in the hotel and read that their first course was smoked duck.

  She’d been eating smoked duck in their Parisian hotel when she’d confessed to Melissa that her period was three days late.

  She’d never seen Stefano lost for words before, never seen him be anything but arrogantly self-possessed. Seeing the colour drain from his horror-struck face sliced through the protective shield she’d been clinging to and her whole frame collapsed.

  She fell onto her side and brought her knees up to her chin, wrapping her arms around them, and wept as she hadn’t done since she was fourteen years old and she’d woken to the realisation that she would never see her father again.

  The pain was unbearable, carving through her like a white-hot knife.

  Through the sobs racking her body, she was aware of movement. Stefano had shifted to sit beside her on the floor.

  It only made her sob harder. It was as if she were purging herself of all the pain in one huge tidal wave of grief. The loss of her father, her mother’s desertion, her sister’s betrayal and, fresher and more acute than all this, the loss of the man she loved and the child she’d so badly wanted.

  That was something else her amnesia had anaesthetised her against: her increasingly desperate need for a child. Stefano’s child. She’d sensed her marriage fragmenting around her and had tried to push the need aside, knowing theirs wasn’t the stable marriage one should bring a child into. It hadn’t stopped her craving one and when she’d discovered she was pregnant her joy had been so pure and true that for a few magical hours she’d allowed herself to believe that everything would work out between them and that Stefano would stop pushing her away and let her into his heart.

  Now, with her memories acutely fresh, she had to accept what she’d been unable to accept in the month before she’d hit her head and slipped into blissful ignorance: that their relationship was over and all her dreams were dead.

  It was a long time before the tears stopped flowing and her shuddering frame stilled enough for her to think clearly again. Her chest and throat sore, she dried her eyes with the hem of her dress and hauled herself into a sitting position with her legs crossed as she’d sat when she had been a child.

  Stefano, who hadn’t said a word, stretched his legs out beside her and gave a long sigh. ‘You were pregnant?’ he asked in a tone of voice she’d never heard before. He sounded...defeated.

  She gulped for air, wishing with all her might that she could lapse back into ignorant bliss. ‘Do you remember I switched the contraceptive injection I was using?’

  He nodded jerkily.

  ‘I forgot it was an eight-week course and not a twelve-week like the old one.’ She sucked in more air, remembering how all over the place she’d been emotionally at that time, how her fears about her marriage had come to cloud everything. ‘When I told Melissa I was three days late she couldn’t believe I hadn’t done a pr
egnancy test. She dragged me around Paris looking for a chemist so we could buy one.’ She almost smiled at the memory. It was pretty much the first time in a long while that she had been happy and the last time she and Melissa had been comfortable with each other. ‘I didn’t think I was. I thought it was the kind of thing women knew instinctively.’

  ‘But you were?’

  She nodded and swallowed back the choking feeling in her throat. ‘I was going to wait until the morning before I did the test but I couldn’t resist doing it when we got back to the hotel. I was so distrustful of the result that I dragged Melissa back out to get another one and that came out positive too. That’s why I called you. I was so happy I couldn’t wait to tell you.’ She cast him a rueful stare. ‘And I was feeling a bit guilty for not taking the test with you.’

  He raised a weary shoulder. ‘It doesn’t matter. You do everything with your sister. I’m used to it.’

  ‘You think that but Melissa didn’t see it that way,’ she whispered. ‘We used to do everything together, until I married you. I didn’t realise how lonely she was without me. After I left that message for you to call me back she sat me down and told me she was going to Australia.’

  Stefano whistled quietly.

  ‘She’d been planning it for months. She’d been secretly speaking to Mum and arranging it all. She’d booked her flights, booked the time off work... All she’d been waiting for was the right time to tell me. She picked her moment perfectly, when I was on top of the world with news of the pregnancy to dull the impact of it.’

  ‘And did it?’

  ‘Nope.’ She wiped away a tear. ‘We had a huge fight. We said some horrible things to each other. She called me a selfish bitch and she was right—I was. It was all about me and how I felt. See? Selfish. I left her in the hotel and went to the airport and stayed there until I could get a flight back to London in the morning. I didn’t sleep at all. I kept hugging my phone waiting for you to call me back. I was desperate to speak to you. I can’t describe how I felt—on the one hand thrilled and elated that we were going to be parents, a little scared of how you’d react, and devastated at what I perceived as Melissa’s betrayal.’

  ‘Why were you scared of my reaction?’ he asked hollowly.

  She wiped away fresh tears, struggling to keep her voice audible. ‘You’d become so distant. I knew you were angry that I suspected there were other women but I didn’t believe it. I did believe you but when you gave me that promotion and started travelling abroad without me... I thought you were bored of me.’

  Stefano’s voice cracked as he said, ‘I promoted you because you were the best person for the job and I knew I could travel abroad leaving my company in the best hands.’

  Promoting Anna had been a business decision. Anyone lucky enough to employ her would have done the same. And the time apart had done them good. Had done him good. Being together day and night hadn’t been healthy. He’d expected their marriage to be eventful and fun. He hadn’t expected to want to strip the skin from Anna’s body to discover the secrets of her heart.

  That had been dangerous. Unhealthy.

  He’d thought some distance was necessary. He hadn’t realised it would feed into her insecurities.

  ‘I became paranoid. I couldn’t sleep for thinking of all the women who would be flaunting themselves before you, lining themselves up to replace me.’ Her red eyes were huge on his. ‘I was terrified one of them would catch your eye and then the press published those pictures of you. I knew you were telling me the truth but by then I thought it was only a matter of when. I would wake every day wondering if it would be our last, always thinking, Is this the day he meets someone else? Is this the day he tells me we’re over?’

  ‘Anna, I made a promise to be faithful to you.’

  ‘No, you promised to tell me if you met someone you wanted to sleep with so I could walk away with my dignity intact.’

  ‘I kept that promise. I never cheated on you. I never wanted anyone else. I never gave you reason to doubt me.’

  ‘Stefano, our marriage was based on two things. Sex and work. When you started pulling away from me and leaving me behind it was like you didn’t need me any more. I knew you would never love me but I didn’t think it mattered. I thought it was a good thing, better than having someone say they would love me for ever and then cheat and break my heart.’ She shrugged and gave a choking laugh, then put her hand under her nose and closed her eyes. ‘Oh, the lies we tell ourselves,’ she whispered. ‘I was already in love with you when we married but in total denial about it. What I really wanted was for you to tell me you didn’t need to make that promise. I wanted you to say there would never be anyone else for you but me.’

  The spinning in the room had turned into a whirlpool.

  How could he have been so blind? So busy running from his own feelings that he’d dismissed Anna’s fears thinking his word alone should be good enough for her.

  He was feeling now. Feeling more than he had ever wanted, feelings he’d spent his life escaping from.

  ‘And then you found Christina in the apartment,’ he stated quietly.

  She lifted her knees to wrap her arms around them and rocked forward. ‘I lost my mind. Seeing a beautiful woman in our apartment dressed in my robe; it was my worst nightmare come to life. I wanted to hurt you. I was out of my mind. Truly, I wasn’t thinking straight. What I did in your boardroom... I am so ashamed. I don’t blame you for cutting me off as you did. I brought it on myself.’

  Every word that Anna said plunged like a knife into Stefano’s heart. How could she blame herself? This was all on him. If he hadn’t been so full of outraged wounded pride he would have seen something had been seriously wrong with his wife.

  But he hadn’t thought of her. He’d thought of only himself.

  Eventually he was able to drag out of his frozen throat the question he most feared hearing the answer to. ‘What happened to the baby?’

  ‘I lost it two days later.’ A huge shudder ran through her and she buried her face in her knees, fresh sobs pouring out of her.

  Feeling as if he’d been kicked in the stomach, Stefano pulled her to him. This time he allowed his instincts to take over, wrapping his arms tightly around her, pressing his mouth into her hair, wishing he knew the words that would make everything better and stop the cold agony he knew was consuming them both.

  She clutched at his jacket, her tears soaking into his shirt. ‘It was the only thing keeping me going. I know it must sound stupid but I’d pictured our baby. I’d planned its whole life out in my head...’

  ‘It doesn’t sound stupid at all,’ he cut in. In his mind’s eye he could picture their baby too...

  Fresh bile rose swiftly inside him and grabbed at his throat, making his head spin.

  ‘Where were you when you...?’ He couldn’t bring himself to say it.

  ‘In my hotel room.’ She took a gulp of air. ‘I’d checked into a hotel because I couldn’t face Melissa after our row and you wouldn’t let me anywhere near you.’

  ‘You were alone?’

  She nodded into his chest. ‘So, selfish creature that I am, I went back to my sister.’

  ‘You are not selfish,’ he stated fiercely.

  Anna had had to go through that trauma on her own?

  The only selfish one here had been him.

  ‘Aren’t I? I hated the thought of her seeing our mum.’

  ‘No,’ he contradicted, ‘you were scared you would lose her too. You lost both your parents when you were at an age when you needed them most. Your father, rest his soul, did not leave by choice but your mother did. Is no wonder you find it hard to trust people—the woman who should have been there for you left you behind.’

  And if he’d ever allowed Anna to open up to him during their marriage instead of avoiding any kind of intimate talk he would have known how shattered her mother’s emigration had left her. He would have known just how vulnerable she was and would have made that damned call to her ins
tead of telling himself she would be fast asleep and wouldn’t mind waiting.

  You did know she’d mind but you were running scared. Anna got too close, didn’t she? You were waiting for an excuse to push her away before she rejected you like everyone else you ever knew did.

  She hadn’t been asleep. She’d been in an airport waiting to return home to him with the best news of their lives and some shattering news of her own. She’d needed him.

  He squeezed her even tighter to him. ‘Melissa looked after you?’

  ‘Melissa always looks after me.’ Anna tilted her head to look at him. ‘She’s always been my lifeline, and you’re right, I was scared I’d lose her. We muddled along as well as we could but it was hard. We’d both said things we couldn’t take back. When she left for Australia it was without my blessing. She even left me a note asking for my forgiveness when it should have been me down on my knees begging for hers.’

  ‘Anna...’

  ‘No, please don’t make excuses for me. I’m not fourteen any more. I’ve always known how much Melissa missed our mum but ignored it under my own self-righteousness.’

  ‘Or did you ignore it because it meant you would have to confront how much you missed your mum too?’

  ‘Don’t say that,’ she protested.

  ‘You must have missed her. I always missed my mother and I never even knew her.’

  ‘Did you?’

  She sounded so surprised that he couldn’t help but give a grimace of a smile. ‘All my life. And I missed my father. I look now on all the years we missed out on when I could have known him and I think what a waste those years were.’

  ‘But do you regret cutting the rest of your family out of your life?’

  ‘Not at all. I will never have them in my life again but my situation with them is different from yours. I never loved them and they never loved me.’

  Since his nonno had died, Anna was the only person who had loved him. Lots of women had claimed to love him but he’d always known their words to be a pack of lies. Anna was...