Stefano strode through the hospital entrance with a spring in his step. It was at times like this, when he had something to celebrate, that he wished he still smoked. But smoking was a habit he’d kicked a decade ago.
He was going to bring his wife home. The woman who’d used, humiliated, left him and tried to blackmail him was going to be back under his roof. He had big plans for her.
Those plans would have to wait a few days while she recovered from the worst of her concussion but in the meantime he fully intended to enjoy her confinement. Anna hated being fussed over. She was incapable of switching off, always needing to be doing something. Having to rest for a minimum of a fortnight would be her worst nightmare.
It cheered him further to know he would be there to witness her live through this horror.
Stefano intended to keep his word and ensure she was well-looked-after while back under his roof. He might despise her all the way to her rotten core but he would never let her suffer physically. He could still taste the fear he’d experienced when she’d dropped in a faint at his feet and knew he never wanted to go through anything like that again. It amazed him that she’d been able to get into his offices without collapsing, something the consultant had been surprised by too. If he hadn’t been so angry at her unexpected appearance and unprepared for seeing her for the first time in a month, he would have paid more attention to the fact she’d looked like death warmed up.
Fate had decided to work for him.
Anna didn’t remember anything that had happened between them. The whole of the past year had gone, wiped clean away. He could tell her anything and with her confined to his sole care and her sister on the other side of the world, there was no one to disprove it. Judging from the way she’d blanched when she’d learned Melissa had gone to Australia, she would be too angry to make contact with her any time soon.
All he had to remember was to keep his bitterness that she’d fooled him into marrying her inside. Anna could read him too well.
He’d called Melissa as soon as they’d arrived at the hospital, knowing Anna would want her sister there. He’d been put through to her boss and told that Melissa was on leave and had been planning her trip for months. Considering Anna had never mentioned it—and she surely would have done—he guessed Melissa had put off telling her for as long as she could. Certainly, when the two sisters had gone away for their trip to Paris, which he had paid for as a treat for his wife and which Anna had returned from early, determined to catch him up to no good, she hadn’t known anything about it.
He found Anna alone in her private room flicking through a magazine, dressed in the same black jersey dress from the day before. She greeted him with a wary smile.
‘How are you feeling?’ he asked.
‘Better.’
He sat down in the visitor’s chair. ‘You look better.’ Then he grinned and ran a finger down her soft cheeks, causing her eyes to widen. ‘But still too pale.’
She jerked her face away and shrugged. ‘I slept but it was patchy.’
‘You can rest when we get home.’ The consultant had told him in private that the best medicine for concussion was sleep.
‘I just can’t believe I’ve lost a whole year of my life.’ She held the magazine up. ‘Look at the date on this. To me, it’s the wrong year. I don’t remember turning twenty-four. There are stories in here about celebrities I’ve never even heard of.’
‘Once we get you home I’m sure your memories will start to come back.’ But not too soon, he hoped. He had plans for his wife. ‘Do you not remember anything about our marriage?’ He wanted to make double sure.
‘Not a thing. The last I remember you were dating that Jasmin woman.’
Jasmin had been the date who’d got food poisoning an hour before his scheduled flight to California for the industry tech awards. It had been her illness that had given him the chance to coerce Anna into attending with him in her place. It was only because it was far too short notice for him to get another date that she’d agreed. That, and the designer dress he’d had couriered over from the designer personally had helped make her decision. The awards evening had ended with Anna insisting the only way she would have sex with him was if he married her.
He didn’t doubt her memories of their time together would eventually return. If anyone could bring them back, it would be his wife, the most stubborn, determined woman he’d ever met in his life. But in the meantime...
‘Our marriage is a shock for you.’
‘That’s one way to describe it,’ she murmured. ‘I’d promised myself I would rather date a baboon than go on a date with you, never mind marry you. Have you really never cheated on me?’
He forced his tone to remain light through the blood roaring in his veins. ‘Not once. We’ve had a few issues but nothing serious. We’ve been working through them.’
A few months ago he’d been pictured dining with one of his new Swedish directors, a blonde statuesque beauty he hadn’t felt even a flicker of attraction towards. Anna had shrugged the ensuing press melee off but he’d known it bothered her. A second photo a fortnight later, this time of him dining with one of his female employees in San Francisco, had only added fuel to the fire. He’d explained his innocence, proving the picture had cropped out the other half-dozen employees also dining with them, and
she had outwardly accepted it. But her distrust had grown and she’d no longer bothered to hide it. Her attitude had infuriated him so much he hadn’t cared to explain that he liked socialising when he travelled abroad without her because it made the time pass so much quicker.
He should have known from that point that she’d wanted to catch him out just as much as the media had. She had wanted proof of his supposed infidelity.
Her hazel eyes were filled with the suspicion he’d become too familiar with. ‘What kind of issues?’
‘You’ve found it hard to be my wife. You don’t like the media.’ That much at least was true. Anna loathed being under the media spotlight. ‘There have been many stories about our marriage being in trouble. If we were to believe the press we’ve split up a hundred times since we married. It is all poppycock. We married quickly. It is natural for us to have the teething problems.’
Her nose wrinkled. ‘When you found me in your office it was as if you’d found the Antichrist trespassing. What was the argument about that made me sleep at Melissa’s? Was it that woman I saw you with?’
Dio, even with amnesia her mind ran to suspicion. He’d already told her there was no one else. There hadn’t been anyone else since they’d flown to California and their relationship had irrevocably changed.