The Affair: Week 5 Read Free Page A

could ever tempt me into that young man’s shoes.”
    “Amen,” Jamie agreed fervently.
    Mort blinked, seeming to come to himself. He gave his daughter a fond glance and patted her hand that sat on the table. “It was just a much too spicy cheeseburger,” he reassured her under his breath. Jamie grinned up at him wryly and Mort winked.
    “So that’s the man who now owns your apartment complex, Emma,” Mort said, dropping his hand. “I hadn’t heard he’d ventured into real estate, but with money like his, I suppose it’s smart to diversify. I’m glad he’s taken care of things so quickly at your place. That bodes well. Maybe Montand has overcome all his adversities and become a decent man. I’d like to think so, anyway. I’ve heard good things about his business dealings. And I liked him as a kid.”
    “Emma?” Jamie asked, a strange expression on her face. She set down her cup and placed her hand on top of Emma’s frozen one where it rested on the table. “Are you okay? That glow I was talking about earlier seems to have made a run for it. Your fingers are freezing,” she said, concern etching her face as she chafed Emma’s hand with her own.
    Emma forced a smile. “I’m fine,” she lied. “It’s just the air-conditioning.” She squeezed her friend’s hand to reassure her and changed the subject to a safer one. In her head, however, she never left the topic of what Mort had revealed about Vanni. Her attention kept going back to it like it would a sharp wound.
    * * *
    That afternoon when she got home, she received a call from Dr. Parodas’s office. Neil Parodas himself was on the other line, calling to give her the test results from Vanni’s and her exam. He gave the information in such a friendly, amiable manner, it was difficult to be uncomfortable about his knowing the reason for the tests. He proclaimed both of them to be in excellent health. She hung up the phone and stood in her empty kitchen.
    Another barrier of intimacy between Vanni and her had been removed. She’d agreed to have sex with him without protection.
    She recalled what Mort had told her today about Vanni’s young wife dying. Surely the sympathetic pain she experienced at the information was beyond what it should have been, given how long she’d known him . . . given their agreement? It worried her, that sharp ache when she considered his suffering. His loneliness.
    She stared out the window over her kitchen sink and also remembered the other shocking information Mort had given her.
Vanni
was the one responsible for making sure every item on her punch list was completed with the highest efficiency. He owned her home. He didn’t own her, though. Not if she could help it.
    Surely she was a fool for not grasping at every little tidbit of protection she could get in this affair with Vanni Montand?

Chapter Twenty-three
    Vanni spoke to Niki using a hands-free headset during his very swift drive between his villa near Saint-Jeannet and the airport on Sunday morning. An emergency had called him away from a planned meeting with some top officials in regard to the race in two weeks’ time.
    At least if felt like an emergency to Vanni. Others might disagree.
    “Just smooth things over for me, won’t you? Make something up. You’re good at that,” Vanni was saying as he took a hairpin mountain turn with the ease of long practice.
    “I resent that,” Niki told him, his unconcerned, mild tone at odds with his words.
    “Only because you assumed I meant making up stories to your various women,” Vanni said with a distracted smile. “In fact, I meant you’re a natural diplomat. It’s in your genes.”
    “We are talking about smoothing
royal
feathers here. That’ll cost you double for the favor,” Niki replied, referring to one member of the Montand French-American Grand Prix planning committee who was a relation to the neighboring state’s monarchial family.
    “You can do it. You’re part of their family, after