‘It doesn’t matter now, can’t you see that?’ she prompted gently. ‘We love each other, and we have all of the future to show each other that, starting now,’ she added enticingly.
‘Not here—’
‘Exactly here,’ she looked up at him unflinchingly.
‘But what happened here last time!’ He looked as if the thought pained him.
‘That’s the reason it has to be here,’ she smiled. ‘We have a few ghosts to exorcise.
‘You’re sure?’ he still looked uncertain.
‘Very,’ she took his hand and led him in the direction of the bedroom. ‘This is a change,’ she teased. ‘It’s usually you trying to drag me to bed!’
His mouth quirked into the ghost of a smile. ‘I just want everything to be perfect between us this time.’
‘Everything is perfect between us,’ she assured him. ‘And it can only get better. Trust in me, Nick,’ she encouraged as she began to unbutton his shirt.
His eyes were almost black with emotion. ‘Can you trust me, that’s the problem? I let you down once when you most needed me, how can you be sure I won’t do it again?’
She stripped the shirt off his shoulders, letting it fall to the ground, feeling the way his body leapt with response in spite of himself. ‘I know you well enough now to know you would have been at my side if you had known about the baby. Neither one of us can continue to brood about the past, about what might have been, we have to go forward, Nick, or not at all.’
His arms moved about her as he crushed her against his bare chest. ‘I couldn’t live without you, Danielle. For God’s sake don’t leave me!’
‘I never will,’ she promised.
‘My marriage to Beverley was a matter of expediency, a business merger that never worked because we just didn’t love each other. But I’ll love you for the rest of my life,’ he told her fiercely.
She knew that, knew that once his love was given Nick would never take it back. And he had given it to her.
* * *
‘You were wonderful, darling,’ Nick lifted the hair at the back of her nape to kiss her, his dinner jacket discarded on a chair, his shirt partly unbuttoned.
Danielle turned into his arms. ‘A dinner party for ten of your business acquaintances is child’s play compared to being your wife,’ she dismissed teasingly.
He looked down at her with warm grey eyes. ‘Has the last six months been so difficult for you?’
It had been the most wonderful six months of her life. Nick treated her as if she were the most important thing in his life, and he was certainly the most important in hers. Only one thing persisted in marring her complete happiness, and after all this time it was something she tried not to think about too often.
‘Not bad,’ she gently mocked him, wrapping her arms about his neck, feeling his instantaneous response to her nearness even as she felt her own senses stir. ‘Not too bad at all really,’ she teased.
‘Not bad!’ he groaningly derided the description, burying his face in the throat. ‘You make me feel guilty enough to take up the reins of my business again, and now I have to invite those people tonight because I’m so rarely at the office this is the only way they can get to see me!’ he said wryly.
‘I don’t make you stay at home,’ she feigned innocence.
‘You don’t exactly kick me out of bed either,’ he said dryly.
Neither of them had done much work the last six months, the slightest excuse giving them reason to stay at home together, and as Nick said, it was usually in bed. ‘I’m not so stupid to deny myself that pleasure,’ she gave him a smile that spoke of remembered satisfaction, none of their heated passion for each other fading the last six months of marriage, in fact it seemed to have deepened.
‘Talking of pleasure. …’ He looked pointedly in the direction of the bed, the two of them having shared the master bedroom in the Andracas house since their return from a month’s honeymoon on Nick’s yacht.
Danielle never argued with him when he suggested they make love, and after showering together in the adjoining bathroom they became immersed in the pleasure of pleasing each other, passion quickly rising as urgency possessed them.
She felt the usual sense of disappointment as Nick momentarily left her to open the drawer in his bedside cabinet. As he turned back to her she wasn’t quick enough to hide the wistful expression in her eyes.
He became suddenly still beside her. ‘What is it?’ he said sharply. ‘Darling, what’s wrong?’ he frowned.
She forced herself to smile naturally, entwining her arms about his neck. ‘What could possibly be wrong?’ she said throatily.
Uncertainty flickered in the depths of his eyes. ‘For a moment you looked—sad.’
‘You’re imagining things—’
‘No,’ he spoke with his own haughtiness. ‘Danielle, tell me what’s wrong.’
She sighed, recognising his determination to have an answer. ‘I prefer to make love to you without the interruption of—contraception,’ she admitted huskily.
His face became shadowed. ‘You know the doctor advised you not to go on the pill.’
‘Yes,’ she sighed again.
‘Danielle?’ he prompted gently.
She evaded his gaze. ‘It’s nothing.’
‘If it bothers you then it’s something,’ he persisted.
She chewed on her bottom lip for several seconds before turning to look up at him. ‘I would prefer it if we didn’t have to use contraception at all,’ she met his gaze unwaveringly.
Nick seemed to pale. ‘What are you saying?’ he said gruffly.
‘Darling, I know we never discussed it before we were married,’ she smoothed the rigidity of his cheek. ‘And perhaps it’s just that you don’t want us to have children just yet, but I don’t know how you feel about it!’ she finally spoke of the one thing that had darkened the horizon for the last six months, Nick always careful not to take any risks of their having a child.
‘You want children?’ he looked at her searchingly.
‘Don’t you?’
‘I’m more interested in your answer,’ he evaded.
She bit her bottom lip to stop it trembling. ‘I thought you would want children,’ her voice quivered emotionally. ‘I thought—’
‘Darling, I do,’ he folded her tightly in his arms. ‘But after Nicole I didn’t want to put you through that heartache again just for the sake of my male pride.’
‘Nicole dying was an accident, Nick,’ she comforted him in a voice that was beginning to lighten with hope. ‘She was just born too early. There’s no reason to suppose it would happen with another baby.’
‘I couldn’t be sure you would want another baby.’
‘I want one, I want several, maybe half a dozen,’ she added with a catch in her voice.
‘That’s ambitious,’ some of the tension began to ease from Nick’s face.
‘You can do it, darling,’ she lightly teased, the shadow fading as she sensed his own eagerness for a child.
‘We can do it,’ he corrected throatily. ‘Maybe we’ll have the first one by Christmas if we start now.’
‘That’s only ten months away!’
‘I’m ambitious too,’ he murmured before his mouth captured hers, the two of them soaring up to the plateau of ecstasy they always enjoyed together.
* * * * *
Now, read on for a tantalizing excerpt of Michelle Smart’s new book,
ONCE A MORETTI WIFE
Stefano Moretti wants revenge from his wife, Anna, for leaving him. Her losing all memory of their marriage is his chance… He’ll seduce her, then publicly divorce her. But soon there’s something he wants more—Anna, back for good!
Keep reading to get a glimpse of
ONCE A MORETTI WIFE
CHAPTER ONE
HOW MUCH HAD she drunk?
Anna Robson clutched her head, which pounded as if the force of a hundred hammers were battering it.
There was a lump ther
e. She prodded it cautiously and winced. Had she hit her head?
She racked her aching, confused brain, trying hard to remember. She’d gone out for a drink with Melissa, hadn’t she? Hadn’t she?
Yes. She had. She’d gone for a drink with her sister after their Spinning class, as they did every Thursday evening.
She peered at her bedside clock and gave a start—her phone’s alarm should have gone off an hour ago. Where had she put it?
Still holding her head, she looked around but saw no sight of it, then forgot all about it as her stomach rebelled. She only just made it to the bathroom in time to vomit.
Done, she sat loose-limbed like a puppet on the floor, desperately trying to remember what she’d drunk. She wasn’t a heavy drinker at the best of times and on a work night she would stick to a small glass of white wine. But right then, she felt as if she’d drunk a dozen bottles.
There was no way she could go into the office… But then she remembered she and Stefano had a meeting with a young tech company he was interested in buying. Stefano had tasked Anna, as he always did, with going through the company’s accounts, reports and claims and producing her own summary. He trusted her judgement. If it concurred with his then he would invest in the company. If her judgement differed he would rethink his strategy. Stefano wanted her report first thing so he could digest it before the meeting.
She’d have to email it and beg illness.
But, after staggering cautiously around the flat she shared with Melissa, holding onto the walls for support, she realised she must have left her laptop at the office. She’d have to phone Stefano. He could open it himself. She’d give him the password, although she was ninety-nine per cent certain he’d hacked it at least once already.
All she had to do was find her phone. Walking carefully to the kitchen, she found a pretty handbag on the counter. Next to it was an envelope addressed with her name.
She blinked hard to keep her eyes focused and pulled the letter out. She attempted to read it a couple of times but none of it made any sense. It was from Melissa asking for Anna’s forgiveness for her trip to Australia and promising to call when she got there.
Australia? Melissa must be having a joke at her expense, although her sister saying she was going to visit the mother who’d abandoned them a decade ago wasn’t the slightest bit funny to Anna’s mind. The letter’s postscript did explain one thing though—Melissa said she’d gritted the outside step of the front door so Anna wouldn’t slip on it again, and asked her to see a doctor if her head hurt where she’d banged it.
Anna put her hand to the lump on the side of her head. She had no recollection whatsoever of slipping. And no recollection of any ice. The early November weather had been mild but now, as she looked through the kitchen window, she saw a thick layer of frost.
Her head hurting too much for her to make sense of anything, she put the letter to one side and had a look in the handbag. The purse she’d used for a decade, threadbare but clinging to life, was in it. It had been the last gift from her father before he’d died. Had she swapped handbags with Melissa? That wouldn’t be unusual; Anna and Melissa were always lending each other things. What was unusual was that Anna didn’t remember. But they must have swapped because in the bottom of the pretty bag also sat Anna’s phone. That was another mystery solved.
She pulled it out and saw she had five missed calls. Struggling to focus, she tapped in the pin code to unlock it.
Wrong pin. She tried again. Wrong pin.
Sighing, she shoved it back in the bag. It took enough effort to stay on her feet, never mind remembering a code with a head that felt like fog. It was times like this that she cursed their decision to disconnect the landline.
Fine. She’d flag a cab and go to the office, explain that she was dying and then come home again.
Before getting dressed, she took some headache tablets and prayed her tender belly could keep them down.
She always put the next day’s clothes on her bedroom chair and now she hugged them to her chest and gingerly sat back on her bed. Where had this dress come from? Melissa must have muddled their clothes up again. Not having the energy to hunt for something else, Anna decided to wear it. It was a black long-sleeved, knee-length jersey dress with a nice amount of swish at the hem but it took her an age to get it on, her limbs feeling as if they’d had lead injected into them.
Damn, her head.
She didn’t have the energy to put on any make-up either, so she made do with running a brush gently through her hair and then she staggered to the front door.
On the rack in the entrance porch was a pair of funky black boots with thick soles she hadn’t seen before. Surely Melissa wouldn’t mind her borrowing them. That was the best thing about living with her sister; they were the same dress and shoe size.
She locked the front door and treaded carefully down the steps. Finally luck was on her side—a vacant black cab drove up her street within a minute.
She got the driver to drop her off across the road from the futuristic skyscraper near Tower Bridge from where Stefano ran his European operations. As Anna waited at the pedestrian crossing next to the road heaving with traffic, a shiny stretched black Mercedes pulled up outside the front of the building. A doorman opened the back door, and out came Stefano.
The green light flashed and, working on autopilot, she crossed the road, her eyes focused on Stefano rather than where she was walking.
A tall blonde woman got out of the car behind him. Anna didn’t recognise her but there was something familiar about her face that made it feel as if nails clawed into her already tender stomach.
A briefcase whacked her in the back and, startled, Anna realised she’d come to a stop in the middle of the road, dozens of other pedestrians jostling around her, some swearing.
Clutching a hand to her stomach to stem the surging rise of nausea, she forced her leaden legs to work and managed to make it to the pavement without being knocked over.
She went through the revolving doors of the building itself, put her bag on the scanner, waited for it to be cleared, then went straight to the bathroom, into the first empty cubicle, and vomited.
Cold perspiration breaking out all over, she knew she was an idiot to have come in. Her hangover—was it a hangover? She’d never felt anything like this—was, if that was possible, getting worse.
Out of the cubicle, after she’d washed her hands and swirled cold water in her mouth, she caught sight of her reflection in the mirror.
She looked awful. Her face was white as a sheet, her dark hair lank around her shoulders…
She did a double take. Had her hair grown?
After popping a mint in her mouth, she inched her way around the walls to the elevator. Two men and a woman she vaguely recognised were getting into it, chatting amiably. She slid in with them before the doors closed.
She punched the button for the thirtieth floor and held onto the railing as it began the smooth ride up.
All talk had stopped. She could feel their eyes on her. Did she really look so bad that she’d become a conversation stopper? It was a relief when they got out on the floor below her.
A gaggle of secretaries and administrators worked in the open space in front of the office Anna shared with Stefano. They all turned their heads to stare at her. A couple were open-mouthed.
Did they have to make it so obvious that she looked this awful? All the same, she managed to get her mouth working enough to smile a greeting. Not one of them responded.
She looked around for Chloe, her newly appointed fresh-faced PA who cowered in terror every time Stefano made an appearance. Poor Chloe would not be happy to know she’d have to take on Anna’s duties for the day.
Anna hadn’t wanted a PA of her own. She was a PA! But Stefano had thrown so many responsibilities her way in the year and a half since he’d poached her from Levon Brothers that when he’d caught her working at nine in the evening, he’d put his foot down and insisted on hiring someone for her
.
‘Do I get a new job title?’ she’d cheekily asked, and been rewarded with a promotion to Executive PA and a hefty pay rise.
Maybe Chloe was cowering in the stationery cupboard, waiting for her arrival so she could hide behind her. The girl would get used to Stefano soon enough. Anna had seen it with most other employees. It was that mixture of awe and fear he inspired that curdled the stomach, but eventually the curdling settled and one could hold a coherent conversation with him.
Anna had skipped all these stages herself but had seen the effect Stefano had on others too many times not to sympathise with it. He inspired terror and hero-worship in equal measure.
She let the office door shut behind her and came to an abrupt halt. For a moment she forgot all about her pounding head and nauseous stomach.
When Stefano had offered her the job and she’d learned it entailed sharing an office with him, she’d said on a whim that she would only do it if he decorated her side in shades of plum. Her memories of her first day working for him were ones of laughter, when she’d walked into the sprawling office and found one half painted a functional cream, the other varying shades of plum.
Today the whole office was cream.
She’d just reached her desk when the door flew open, and Stefano stood there, as dark and menacing as she’d ever seen him.
Before she could ask if he’d had an army of decorators in overnight, he slammed the door shut and folded his arms across his broad chest.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘Not you too,’ she groaned, half in exasperation and half in pain. ‘I think I had a fall. I know I look awful but can’t you pretend I look like my usual supermodel self?’
It had become one of those long-running jokes between them. Every time Stefano tried to cajole her into coming on a date with him, Anna would make some cutting remark, usually followed by a reminder that his preferred dates were the gorgeous supermodel type, whereas she barely topped five foot.
‘You’ll get neck-ache if you try to kiss me,’ she’d once flippantly told him.
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