The Affair: Week 8 Read Free Page B

kind of compulsion. I just . . . wondered what would happen. I wondered if I went far enough, if I’d be taken, too. I should have been the one who went on that afternoon. Not Adrian.”
    “No,” she said steadfastly. “
Neither
of you should have been taken. It was a horrible accident. And you were fortunate to live through it. Blessed. I’m blessed, because you’re here,” she said, kissing his skin. She exhaled shakily when she felt his fingers in her hair.
    “You never told me what happened,” he said. “When you died.” His hand opened at her back, and he made a soothing motion. He must have felt her tremble. His hand stilled. “I’m not asking because I’m curious to find out for myself, Emma,” he said wryly. She lifted her head, hungry to see his face. He met her stare calmly. “I’m not suicidal.”
    She studied him closely, then nodded, sighing in relief at what she saw in his eyes.
    “There was a feeling like floating . . . no, flying,” she said. “I was weightless. Comfortable. In control. But mostly, there was just a
feeling
,” she whispered, her voice cracking slightly with emotion. “A
knowledge
, and I knew even better than I know my own name that all was well . . . and that . . . things were
bigger
and deeper and wider than I’d ever begun to imagine, so big that all my fears were like a drop in the ocean of it.”
    “Do you think that’s what Adrian experienced?” he asked quietly. “Because when he was struggling, and I was trying so hard to keep him above the water . . .” He closed his eyes, and his pain was like a knife in her side. “He was
very
afraid.”
    “Vanni.”
    He opened his eyes slowly.
    “When the time came, he wasn’t afraid.
Please
believe me.”
    He stared at her face, rapt.
    “I’m sure enough for both of us,” she said in a pressured whisper.
    His rigid expression broke. He pulled her closer in his arms, and she slid further up his body so that her head nestled in the hollow between his shoulder and neck. She touched her lips to his pulse and closed her eyes at the feeling swelling tight in her chest.
    “When you swam out all those times, what made you turn back?” she asked him in a hushed voice after a moment.
    His hand cupped the back of her head.
    “I never knew,” he replied gruffly, a far-off look in his eyes. “Until now.”
    Emma’s eyes sprung wide. She hid her face in his chest, hoping he hadn’t noticed her flash of hope at his words or the pulse that had begun to throb at her throat.
    “Emma?” he said quietly, his fingers massaging her scalp.
    “Yes?”
    “When we return to the States . . . I don’t want any more of this talk about the weeks and the days. Do you understand?” he asked, his fingers stilling.
    “Yes,” she whispered against his chest, although in truth, his statement had brought up a dozen questions, all of which made her wildly anxious—but also intimidated—to hear his answer.

Chapter Thirty-nine
    Emma said good-bye to Mrs. Denis that night. When tears sprung to her eyes as they hugged, Mrs. Denis noticed.
    “There’s no need for that,” she soothed, smoothing Emma’s hair fondly. “You make Vanni happier than I’ve ever seen him, even when he was a boy. We’ll see one another again.”
    Emma nodded, but perhaps Mrs. Denis noticed the brittleness of Emma’s smile, because her expression fell. These days and nights with Vanni had been heaven-sent and poignant. Although wild, desperate hope had sprung into her breast out there on the beach when he’d insisted he wanted more than their total time of eight weeks together, he’d never returned her admission of caring. He certainly never suggested that their affair was anything beyond the sexual variety.
    He’d certainly never spoken the word
love
, as Emma had, and that absence was beginning to haunt her. Would he ever be capable of anything more than an affair—a sweet, sublime one, yes, but a sexual affair at heart