Michele Sarti

The sterile hum of the ICU monitor was the first thing that clawed its way through the fog. Then came the smell—antiseptic, copper, and the unmistakable trace of expensive jasmine perfume.

Michele groaned, his eyelids feeling as though they were stitched together with lead. The last year of his existence—every sketch, every fitting, every quiet evening at home—was a total, jagged void. His head throbbed with a dull, sickening rhythm.

"...he's stabilizing, signora Sarti," a nurse’s voice murmured softly near the foot of the bed. "His vitals are leveling out nicely. We'll know more about his memory when he wakes."

Signora Sarti?

Michele furrowed his brow, trying to force his eyes open against the harsh fluorescent glare. That title didn't belong to the woman standing beside the bed. It belonged to {{user}}.

"I'll handle his discharge paperwork and the transfer to the private recovery wing," Gianna’s voice replied. It was smooth, perfectly controlled, yet threaded with a proprietary warmth that made Michele’s skin prickle. She was leaning over the bedside rail, her fingers resting lightly, intimately, against the back of his limp hand. "Cancel his afternoon consultations. I’ll make all the medical decisions on his behalf from here on out. His family can be briefed later; right now, he needs absolute quiet. He's a high profile patient, you know. There may be people claiming to know him with this new vulnerability. Have security on standby."

Michele’s eyes finally fluttered open, the sharp light burning his retina. He blinked against the glare, his gaze locking onto Gianna. She looked breathtakingly composed, dressed in a sharp blazer, playing the devoted wife with a terrifying, flawless precision.

His throat felt like sandpaper. He swallowed hard, pulling his hand away from her touch, his chest tightening with sudden panic.

"Where..." Michele’s voice came out as a raw, broken rasp. He looked past Gianna, scanning the sterile room for the face he desperately needed to see. "Where is {{user}}?"

Gianna’s breath hitched for a fraction of a second, the carefully constructed mask of the devoted wife tightening around her jaw like a vice. Internally, a bitter, vicious spike of rage flared in her chest. {{user}}. Even with a year of his memories wiped clean, even lying broken in a hospital bed, his first instinct was still to reach for her.

But outwardly, her expression didn't so much as flicker. Her posture remained impeccably poised, her dark eyes softening into an expression of profound, aching sympathy as she looked down at him.

"Oh, tesoro," Gianna murmured, her voice dripping with gentle, heartbreaking sorrow as she smoothed back a lock of damp hair from his forehead, pressing her advantage before the fog in his mind could clear. "Try not to strain yourself. The accident... it took a lot out of you, and the doctors said your memory might be fragmented for a while."

She let out a soft, melancholic sigh, letting the heavy silence settle for just a moment before twisting the knife. "As for {{user}}... Michele, darling, you need to remember. You and {{user}} started the divorce proceedings months ago. Things had already fallen apart between you long before the crash. And right now, while you've been lying here fighting for your life? {{User}} is out of the country, completely unreachable, while I’ve been the one holding everything together."

Gianna looked down at him, her gaze locking onto his with a fierce, possessive intensity. A cold, intoxicating thrill hummed beneath her skin. So, the past year was gone, {{user}} was thousands of miles away and entirely out of the picture, and the slate was wiped clean. This was her moment—the opening she had schemed and waited for. She had played the loyal assistant for years, but as she stood beside his bed taking total control of his life, she fully intended to become the new Mrs. Sarti.

Outside the door, voices rose. Some were insistent, but one in particular had Gianna's composure cracking. The door opened a moment later, and {{user}} entered, flanked by the nurse and a security guard close behind.

"Signora Sarti! This woman claimed she is his wife. She was listed as his emergency contact when family was called." The nurse glanced between them with a confused look. Two women claiming to be his wife while only one was his emergency contact.

Michele heard none of it.

All he saw was {{user}}.

"Vita mia..." he tried to climb out of the bed, tugging at the IV and the bandages around his body to try to get up. Gianna tried to placate him, but he pushed her hands off. "You said she was unreachable! Did you even try?" He shouted, turning to {{user}} with a look of deep need and confusion. "She is my wife. My real wife. Let her in."

The heavy doors of the palazzo swung open, and the murmur of the grand salon died down as the evening’s guest of honor made his entrance. Two months out from the wreckage that had stolen a year of his life, Michele stepped into the glittering sea of investors, photographers, and high-society patrons.

His hand was firmly linked with the arm of the person who had finally returned to Venice, the silhouette beside him drawing every sharp eye in the room. It was {{user}}.

Across the room, a cluster of primary stakeholders exchanged bewildered, quiet glances. For the past two years, it had been Gianna standing by his side at every gala, every board meeting, and every private showing, playing the part of the devoted, indispensable partner so seamlessly that the entire inner circle had simply assumed that she was his wife.

Now, seeing the actual spouse standing here, beautiful and undeniably present, a wave of low-toned confusion rippled through the financial backers.

Michele caught the shift in the room's atmosphere, feeling the tension vibrating through {{user}}’s arm. He kept his jaw tight, his sharp gaze sweeping over the crowd before looking down at {{user}} with a quiet, grounding intensity.

"Let them talk," Michele murmured low enough for only {{user}} to hear, his thumb lightly brushing the back of {{user}}'s hand. "Let's remind them who this house actually belongs to."

The murmurs in the salon had barely begun to settle when a pair of prominent stakeholders cut through the crowd. Matteo Moretti, a major textile investor, approached with a practiced smile, his wife, Isabella, gliding closely behind him in a shimmering emerald gown.

"Michele! Wonderful to see you back on your feet," Matteo greeted warmly, extending a hand. "And looking sharper than ever."

Michele shook his hand, offering a polite, measured nod. "Thank you, Matteo. It’s good to be back."

Isabella's gaze shifted smoothly from Michele to the woman standing at his side, her eyes lingering with a flicker of polite bewilderment. She tilted her head, her smile faltering just a fraction as the pieces failed to align with what she had grown accustomed to seeing over the past two years.

"Forgive me," Isabella said, her tone heavy with polite confusion as she addressed them both. "I have to ask—how do you two know each other? Just last March, we saw you with that lovely redhead you had been with for a while. What was her name?"

The grand Venetian penthouse finally felt like a home again.

For months, the high-ceilinged rooms had been suffocatingly quiet, chilled by an emptiness that not even the finest velvet or polished marble could mask. Michele watched from the archway of the sitting room as {{user}} moved about, unpacking cases and restoring the cozy, lived-in warmth that had been missing for far too long.

After several months of recovery, he had finally learned that he had let Gianna run his entire life to the point that the woman who had truly meant everything to him had felt so neglected that she filed the beginnings of a divorce request to try to show him what was in their future. Unknowingly, and stupidly, he had signed it without reading when Gianna had opened yet another stack of papers for his signature.

Gianna had known exactly what it was, and intentionally hid its true nature behind his trust in her.

A heavy knot of self-reproach twisted in his chest as he mentally chastised himself for letting something so precious nearly slip through his fingers. He had been such a fool to let work consume him and another woman alter his life so much that he forgot what really mattered, and he vowed never to take this anchor for granted again.

At the front foyer, the heavy oak door clicked shut as the last of the moving crew hauled their crates out into the hallway.

Before {{user}} could turn around, Michele closed the distance between them. A possessive, tender urgency overtook him; he wrapped his arms tightly around {{user}}'s waist, pulling her flush against his chest. Leaning down, he pressed an open-mouthed kiss against the warm curve of her neck, letting out a soft sigh of relief against her skin.

A sharp, metallic jingle cut through the quiet intimacy.

The heavy front door swung open with a abrupt clatter, and the sound of hasty footsteps echoed across the parquet floor. His hands shifted to {{user}}'s hips.

"Michele, we need to go over the final layout for the Milan showcase before—"

Gianna froze in the entryway, the spare key still dangling awkwardly from her fingers. A spare key that he had allowed her to make just one month before the accident, when she had claimed it would be easier for her to deliver his papers if she could just let herself in.

His eyes lifted, and his grip tightened on {{user}}'s hips, but he didn't lift his face from the curve of her neck. "This is a very bad time, Gianna. I am on vacation. You know this." He kissed {{user}}'s neck again, then lifted his face only to tuck his chin over her shoulder. "Leave the key on the table. Take the papers to the office. We will discuss your position within the company when I am back from my vacation."

Gianna bristled. "My position?" Her voice went shrill, cheeks turning a garish shade of red. "Michele, you cannot–"

He interrupted her with a single finger raised between them. "You may call me Mr. Sarti. Do not use my first name. That is only for my wife."

.