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The next morning Anna woke up in her second strange bed of the week—the third if one counted the hospital bed—and stretched before turning her head to the sleeping figure beside her.
The early morning light illuminated him perfectly and for the first time she allowed herself the pleasure of gazing at Stefano without interruption from the doubts in her own head.
Making love to him had been beyond anything her imagination could have conjured up.
She covered her mouth to stifle the laugh that wanted to explode from her. If she’d ever imagined it to be even half as good as it had been she would have resigned on the spot. There was no way she could have dealt with working by his side day by day with those rampant thoughts.
The second time had been even better. And by their third time the last of her inhibitions had been vanquished.
Having got so little sleep she should be shattered but she wasn’t. She had never felt anything like this, as if there were a beehive in her chest, all the worker bees buzzing to make honey inside her.
Climbing out of the bed carefully so as not to wake him—although, as she’d already learned, an earthquake would have trouble disrupting Stefano’s sleep—she tiptoed naked out of the bedroom and walked to the bathroom at the other end of the landing.
She shut the door behind her and headed straight to the window to look out at the cerulean sky.
It was going to be a glorious day, she could feel it in her bones.
She ran the bath and added liberal amounts of bubble bath to it, then climbed in.
Doing nothing more than lying there in the steamy suds, she gazed out at the beach. In the distance she could see someone walking a small dog, the first signs of life in Santa Cruz. She wondered if she and Stefano had ever spoken of getting a dog. She’d had one as a child, a soppy cocker spaniel that had been as daft as a brush and as useful a guard dog as a packet of pasta.
An image came into her mind, so vivid that she bolted upright.
Making love to Stefano in their London apartment.
She hugged her knees, the image forming, becoming more than just a picture in her head. This was a memory, pure bona fide remembrance of them being together.
Anna had no idea how long she sat in that bath, her attention wrenched away from the view, thinking as hard as she had ever done, so hard her brain hurt. It wasn’t until there was a tap on the bathroom door that she realised the bathwater had turned cold and the bubbles gone.
‘Come in,’ she called, startled out of her reverie.
Stefano strode in wearing nothing but a pair of white cotton boxers slung low on his hips and a sexy lopsided grin. His sleep-tousled hair swayed as he walked to her and crouched down to rest his arms on the side of the bath.
‘You should be in bed.’
She raised a brow at him, her senses jumping in so many directions just to see him so that it took a moment to find her tongue. ‘I’m remembering things.’
Stefano’s stomach lurched.
He’d woken to an empty bed and with only one thought in his mind, namely finding his wife and dragging her back to it. In the middle world of sleep and waking, and distracted by the ache in his groin, this time he’d been the one to forget everything.
He searched her face carefully. There didn’t seem to be anything dark or suspicious lurking in her clear gaze, only animation.
He allowed himself a small breath of relief. ‘What are you remembering?’
‘Us. Patches of us. Our wedding.’ Her cheeks flushed with colour and she lowered her voice. ‘Making love for the first time.’
‘What are your memories of that?’
She palmed his face with her hand, a look of bliss spreading across her beautiful face. ‘It was wonderful. You were wonderful.’
His chest filled with emotion. ‘What else?’
‘Business meetings. Did you promote me?’
He nodded. ‘Nick retired. I gave the job to you.’
