‘What’s wrong?’
After a moment she blinked and shook her head. Her mouth pulled into a smile but there was a brittleness to it. ‘Nothing. Shall we go?’
Aware that to leave it much longer would make them late, he took her hand and together they left his apartment.
Only the cramping in his guts acted as a warning sign that something was very wrong.
CHAPTER TEN
ANNA’S NAILS, MANICURED FABULOUSLY by the beautician, dug into the palm of her hand. Stefano sat beside her in the back of the stretched Mercedes, filling the silence with talk of a new super-secure Cloud-based system his employees were developing. She made all the appropriate noises and asked all the obvious questions she would always ask but her thoughts were far away. A year ago away.
When he’d said they were going to the Grand Palace Hotel, she’d had an instant image flash in her head of being at that hotel with Stefano before, but just as the memory had crystallised another, equally vivid image had come to her of throwing a jug of water over him in his London boardroom, in front of the entire board of directors.
By the time they arrived at the hotel fifteen minutes after setting off, she wanted to tell the driver to turn round and take them back. She felt sick. Memories had come back to her—flooded back—and she wanted to sit somewhere on her own and make sense of them all.
Because none of it made sense. She’d already remembered arguments between them and had accepted them without dissection. She would have been more surprised if they hadn’t argued. She remembered missing him when he went away on business without her and, shaming as it was, remembered the fears and insecurities that had crept up on her.
What she hadn’t remembered until only a few minutes ago, and which Stefano hadn’t bothered to mention, was that she’d left him. More than that, she’d confronted him in his boardroom and lost total control of herself in front of everyone. What she still couldn’t remember was why or what the aftermath had been.
She had almost the entire picture there before her but the biggest, most significant pieces were still missing. Her painfully thudding heart told her that she didn’t want to remember.
The car door was opened and before either of them had moved from their seats, lights flashed around them.
The Tech Industry Awards, if one was to go by its name, promised nothing more than a bunch of eggheads crowded together in a room congratulating each other on their supreme eggheadedness. The truth was that these awards were prestigious and glamorous enough to rival the ceremony for any national film or music award. These were the awards the big players wanted and paid a fortune to sponsor. It was estimated the collective worth of the attendees this evening would make up the largest concentration of money in the world, and the press was out in force to cover it.
Above them, thick dark clouds had gathered. Anna gave an involuntary shiver. A storm was on its way and her foreboding only grew.
She made sure to keep her face inscrutable as she climbed out and took Stefano’s hand. Ignoring the shouts from reporters throwing inane questions at them—she distinguished at least three asking ‘who’ she was wearing—they went through the cordon opened for them. Waving at the thick crowd of spectators, they walked up the red carpet where only a select few journalists were allowed to stand.
As they passed one reporter doing a piece for camera, she caught some of what was being said.
‘Rumours of the Moretti marriage being over have been scotched by the couple’s first public appearance in six weeks.’
And then the reporter swung round and thrust the microphone in Stefano’s face.
‘If you could choose one award to win tonight, which would it be?’
‘I couldn’t choose just one,’ Stefano answered with the easy smile that made millions of women around the world long to bed him. ‘But whether we win anything tonight or not makes no matter. Moretti’s is the leading software manufacturer and app developer in the world, and the technology my dedicated staff are developing will change the face of the world as we know it.’
‘Fabulous!’ The reporter gave the vacuous grin that meant she hadn’t listened to a word of his answer and immediately turned her microphone to Anna. ‘What do you have to say, Anna, about the reports on your marriage?’
Anna responded with an identical vacuous smile. ‘What reports are you referring to?’
The reporter’s composure wavered for only a second. ‘The rumours that you had separated. Are we to believe that you two are still together?’
Stefano put his arm around her waist and opened his mouth to speak, but Anna couldn’t bear to hear another of his lies.
She smiled and made sure to inject sweetness in her voice. ‘I think my presence here with my husband can speak for itself. Enjoy your evening.’
And with a gracious nod and another wave to the crowd, Anna and Stefano were taken inside by a couple of burly bouncers.
His arm stayed around her waist in that protective fashion she’d always so adored. Outwardly he appeared completely unfazed by the reporter’s remarks. He’d buttered her up well for it, she thought cynically. Hadn’t he remarked when she’d been in the hospital that the press were always speculating on the state of their marriage?
If only she could remember those last pieces of the scene, she would know what had come after she’d drenched him in water.
Knowing Stefano as well as she did, she didn’t think it was something he would have easily forgiven her for.
If only she knew what had compelled her to do it in the first place...