Her Venice Affair (The Albury Affairs) Read Free

had.”
    Loraine laughed so hard she fell off the couch. “’ Ain’t karma a bitch!”

 
    * * * *

 
    Riana caught the tears for the hundredth time that
night. She’d promised Loraine she wouldn’t cry, especially at work, because
their boss was a dragon lady. But she’d never felt so much anguish and
loneliness since her mother died.
    The death of her mother was so unexpected. One moment
they were all together with her brother Reno, laughing and joking as they
toured NYU, and the next she was getting a phone call from the hospital. They
had gotten into a car crush and Reno was lucky to have survived. Everything
went downhill from there.
    Immigrations discovered Reno was an illegal immigrant,
and after his two months’ recovery in hospital they deported him to Bahamas.
Riana was lucky. Their mother had come to America when she was pregnant and
Reno was four, so she became a citizen by birth. She wanted to go back with
Reno but he wouldn’t have it.
    “You would be throwing away the chance of a lifetime,”
he’d said. “Everything Mom went through to give us this opportunity would have
been a waste. I’m finished with college, and besides, I wouldn’t be able to pay
for your tuition if you threw away the scholarship.”
    And to top it all off, the man that drove their mother
out of New Providence, also known as her sire, had died and left his run down
hotel to Reno.
    Apparently, it had been Reno’s plan to go back home
for the inheritance, but he hadn’t wanted to tell her in case the hotel
business was a flop and he ended up stuck there.
    Reno had a point. Riana would have never agreed to
their mother being left alone and going back to save that man’s business, nonetheless. She may not have known her father,
but she despised him all the same.
    She shook her head, even more disgusted with the male species.
    How much time did a man, specifically her father, need
to admit that he was already married?
    Riana’s mother had been in for the shock of her life
when she’d gone to see him at his hotel and a lady with the body and the air of
a super model had demanded to know what Riana’s mom wanted with her husband.
    Just thinking about her mother’s pain made her want to
cry all over again.
    “Hey.”
    A gentle, deep baritone voice spoke behind her,
startling her. She quickly turned around, hurriedly wiping her cheeks dry with
the sleeves of her shirt. Getting fired tonight would just be the perfect
cherry on her disastrous day’s cake.
      “I’m sorry,
sir. Would you like me to get you anything? A drink, an appetizer, or
directions to the auctioning…” She stopped abruptly when the sound of his deep
chuckle filled the hallway. She groaned, ducking her head. She was rambling.
She always rambled when she was nervous.
    “I’m fine,” he said, amused.
    Riana felt his warm fingers at her chin. He pushed her
head up and she didn’t resist. Riana found herself staring at a wide chest,
broad shoulders, and muscular arms perfectly encased in a clearly expensive
black suit jacket before her eyes trailed up, taking in his amused face and the
deepest brown eyes she’d ever seen.
    “Hi,” Riana sighed.
    He chuckled, giving his head a slight shake. “Hi,
yourself.”
    He rubbed her chin with his thumb and Riana drew in a
quick breath, pulling her bottom lip into her mouth, her eyes still staring
into his.
    “Are you alright?”
    She nodded.
    “No more crying, okay?”
    She nodded.
    “Good. Because he doesn’t deserve you or your tears.
You are too beautiful to be crying over a dirt bag.”
    She nodded again, the edges of her lips rising to a
smile, her bottom lip still trapped between her teeth. She was too caught up in
the man’s mind melting looks to grasp what he was saying.
    How is it
possible for a man to be this hot? Her eyes did a slow perusal from his obviously designer shoes, to his thick
thighs, up his wide, jacketed upper body, and back to his Greek god face and raven
hair to match. It