The Affair: Week 7 Read online

  The Affair Serial

  WEEK ONE

  WEEK TWO

  WEEK THREE

  WEEK FOUR

  WEEK FIVE

  WEEK SIX

  WEEK SEVEN

  Because You Are Mine Series

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  Titles by Beth Kery

  WICKED BURN

  DARING TIME

  SWEET RESTRAINT

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  RELEASE

  EXPLOSIVE

  One Night of Passion Series

  ADDICTED TO YOU (WRITING AS BETHANY KANE)

  EXPOSED TO YOU

  One Night of Passion Specials

  BOUND TO YOU

  CAPTURED BY YOU

  The Affair

  Week Seven

  Beth Kery

  InterMix Books, New York

  INTERMIX BOOKS

  PUBLISHED BY THE PENGUIN GROUP

  PENGUIN GROUP (USA) LLC

  375 HUDSON STREET, NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10014, USA

  USA • Canada • UK • Ireland • Australia • New Zealand • India • South Africa • China

  penguin.com

  A Penguin Random House Company

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  THE AFFAIR WEEK SEVEN

  An InterMix Book / published by arrangement with the author

  PUBLISHING HISTORY

  InterMix serial eBook edition / October 2014

  Copyright © 2014 by Beth Kery.

  Excerpt from Exposed to You copyright © 2012 by Beth Kery.

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  Cover design by Sarah Oberrender.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) LLC,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  eBook ISBN: 978-0-698-15089-8

  INTERMIX

  InterMix Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group

  and New American Library, divisions of Penguin Group (USA) LLC,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  INTERMIX® and the “IM” design are registered trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) LLC

  Version_1

  Contents

  Titles by Beth Kery

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Excerpt from Exposed to You

  About the Author

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Adrenaline, happiness, and Vanni’s seemingly unquenchable sexual appetite assured that Emma only got three or four hours of sleep that night. Nevertheless, when he awakened her by nuzzling her cheek and ear the next morning, Emma immediately buzzed with alert sensual excitement. She opened her eyes to a room infused with pale gold morning light and fresh, sea-infused air.

  Who had time for sleeping when being awake was so sweet? Who had time for sleeping when they were falling in love?

  Don’t think about that, a voice in her head warned. Don’t be stupid.

  “Would you like to start our day with a swim?” Vanni asked her, his voice a sexy, sleep-roughened rumble near her ear, and she promptly forgot her dire mental warnings.

  “Yes,” she replied, turning her head to find his lips with her own. “I still can’t believe I won all that money,” she sighed a moment later when he lifted his head and she stared up at him, muzzy and warm from his kiss. “Did it really happen?”

  “I’m sure Mario is wishing it didn’t, but it most definitely did,” Vanni said, smirking slightly. “You couldn’t have shoved his idiocy in his face any more forcefully. What are you going to do with your winnings?”

  “I don’t know,” she said blankly. “I suppose Amanda could use some of it. Medical school isn’t cheap.”

  His brows slanted. “You are not giving found money to your sister,” he said darkly.

  “Why not?” she said, although she thought she already knew the answer. “Vanni, I don’t have a vendetta against Amanda. We’re working on things in our way. I wish you’d stop imagining me victimized. I love my sister. My mother would have wanted—”

  “What do you want, Emma?” he interrupted as he coiled a tendril of her hair around his finger. She looked up at his face as her heart throbbed an answer. He looked beyond beautiful to her in the morning light, his thick hair tousled and bracketing his sea-colored eyes, whiskers sexily darkening his lean jaw. She touched his shoulder, wondrous yet again at the delicious denseness of muscle covered so tautly in smooth skin.

  “I want to be happy,” she whispered.

  “Are you?”

  “Yes,” she said without reservation. His small smile made her happiness swell.

  Yes, for these diminishing weeks and days and hours, she was nothing short of ecstatic.

  * * *

  Instead of swimming in the terraced pool area to the right of the villa, Vanni led her to the cliffside, where they descended the long, meandering white staircase, the bright sun shining off the Mediterranean blinding her. There was a small beach when they reached the bottom and a floating dock forty feet out from the shore.

  “Heaven,” she whispered several minutes later when they’d crawled onto the suspended dock and they lay side by side, panting slightly from their swim, the hot sun quickly drying their wet skin. The sea surrounded them like a rippling, sparkling blue-green gem. “Were the beach and the dock here when you were a child?” Emma asked, turning on her hip to face Vanni.

  “Yeah,” he said. He turned toward her as well, bending his arm and using his hand to prop up his head. She stretched her right arm above her and laid her cheek on top of it, letting his solid body block the sun for her. It was heaven in and of itself, to gaze up at him against a backdrop of a clear, robin’s-egg blue sky, the waves rocking the dock gently. His small nipples were tight from the cool water, his ridged abdomen moving in and out slowly above his low-riding swim trunks. She wanted to touch him everywhere, but couldn’t decide on what delectable spot, so she just ate him up with her gaze. Vanni, on the other hand, was more decisive. He put his hand on her naked hip and moved it back and forth ever so slightly, gliding it against her damp skin. “It used to be Adrian’s and my favorite spot,” he said. “We had an au pair from Switzerland who came down here with us every day during our summer vacations. She was very dedicated and patient with us,” he mused. “I didn’t realize until years later
she was one of my father’s lovers.”

  She didn’t respond for a moment.

  “When he died, were you still angry at him?” she finally asked.

  He blinked and cupped her hip tighter in his palm. “Do you mean did I forgive my father for all of his infidelities? For his constant disapproval of me? For bringing Cristina into our life?”

  “For being who he was,” she replied. “Nothing more. Nothing less.”

  He inhaled slowly. “No. I don’t suppose I have.” He stared into the distance behind her, his eyes seeming to glow between the narrowed slits of his eyelids in his shadowed face. “Maybe it’s time I did. Maybe.” She gave in to her urge and touched a hard pectoral muscle. Something about his quiet thoughtfulness in regard to his father caused her conscience to prod and poke at her.

  “Vanni?”

  “Hmmm?” he asked, rubbing her hip lazily.

  “There’s something I know you don’t want to talk about, but I feel obligated to bring it up,” she said reluctantly.

  She felt him stiffen slightly beneath her stroking fingertips. He looked down at her.

  She inhaled for courage. “When Cristina was dying, she made me promise that I’d tell you something. The problem is, I wasn’t sure how long you were standing there behind me. I wasn’t sure how much you heard.”

  His rubbing hand stilled. His mouth pressed into a hard line. For a few awful seconds, she thought he was going to turn away from her, shut her down like the last time she’d tried to broach the topic with him.

  “Please,” she whispered. “Try to understand. It was her dying wish, and I promised. If you don’t let me tell you, I’ll feel the weight of that promise forever.”

  He bowed his head slightly. “When I walked in, she was saying something about how a child shouldn’t have been left to feel so much . . .”

  “‘No man forced to feel so little,’” Emma finished when he faded off. “She meant you, Vanni. She knew that . . .” Emma swallowed thickly, trying to gather herself. “She knew that you blamed her for Adrian’s death, but she also you knew you blamed yourself. She begged me to ask you to forgive yourself.”

  He just stared down at her. Emma’s throat ached with emotion.

  “She was highly aware of her shortcomings,” Emma continued, knowing it was too late to turn back now. “She understood that she was petty when it came to your father, that she couldn’t stand sharing the spotlight with you and Adrian. She felt she was meant to be a mistress, that she wasn’t good enough to be a wife or mother. I think she was sadly realistic about the fact that her personality was cast in stone. I think she grieved over the fact that she wasn’t made of better stuff. She couldn’t change, she couldn’t make herself less selfish, but she regretted that truth. Deeply, I believe.”

  “That makes no sense,” he stated with quiet forcefulness, his hand dropping from her hip. “If she truly regretted her actions, she would have chosen to take responsibility for them.”

  “I don’t think she thought she was strong enough. She thought very little of herself.”

  “There are very few women on this planet who think as well of themselves as Cristina did,” he stated bitterly.

  “Maybe it looked that way. On the surface,” Emma agreed. “A woman like Cristina wasn’t the type to ever show her vulnerabilities. She hid behind her looks and glamorous life and beautiful clothes. She didn’t trust enough to let anyone see the truth. But I think she regretted not only Adrian’s death more than either of us can ever begin to understand, she hated her inability to help you deal with your guilt and grief after Adrian died. She was incapable. She knew it, and that absence in her character haunted her. She knew that because she didn’t claim blame for what happened to Adrian—because she couldn’t take responsibility—that you shouldered a heavy portion of that guilt. Illogically and unfairly, true, but that didn’t stop you from carrying that burden. That’s why she begged for your forgiveness at the end above all others.”

  “She begged for my forgiveness because I was the only one left standing!”

  “No,” Emma said firmly. “She understood that because of the circumstances, you were the one whose forgiveness meant the most. Not just to her. To you. And not just for her. For you.”

  He jerkily started to sit up, and then stopped himself just as abruptly. Emma’s heartbeat started to pound in her ears. He reminded her very much of a trapped animal in those seconds.

  Yet he didn’t move. He didn’t flee.

  “I told Cristina once I wasn’t her judge,” Emma said softly, reaching to caress his whiskered jaw. He flinched slightly at her touch, but then he stilled. He clenched his eyelids shut. “I’m not your judge, either, Vanni. What’s between you and Cristina is your business. But I promised her I would tell you. And for my sake, I hope you do forgive that little boy you once were. You were a child. It wasn’t your fault. And . . .” She hesitated. “Adrian may have died, but part of him is in you. It always has been, Vanni.”

  “Enough,” he bit out quietly through a tense jaw. He slowly opened his eyes and she saw the fierce maelstrom of emotion frothing inside him. She held his stare, difficult as it was.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I felt obligated to say it. I have, ever since she passed.”

  “Then you’ve met your obligation,” he said.

  She nodded, her concern for him and her love and so many other unspoken things shining in her eyes. She couldn’t stop it.

  “Dammit, Emma,” he grated out, and then suddenly his mouth seized hers and he was pulling her against him. She gasped at the impact of him, all of his chaotic emotions finding an outlet in physical need. She’d never felt his desire to be so sharp, so focused. His hunger was furious . . . single-minded. She moaned into his mouth as he rolled onto his back on the dock, bringing her on top of him, their fused mouths never breaking. His hands were everywhere, kneading her back muscles, squeezing her ass, pushing her tighter against him. She moaned, her desire sparking to full flame at the sensation of his cock swelling against her belly. He pulled her higher against him, rubbing her pussy against the long column of his cock, using his hold on her bottom. She held on to his shoulders, overwhelmed by the sudden storm of him, tangling her tongue with his, knowing she was drowning in her need and unable . . . unwilling, to save herself.

  His hands moved at her back and he was drawing off her bikini top. He slid her farther up his body until she planted her hands above his head on the dock, bracing herself. Then his mouth was on her nipple, his stiff, wet tongue laving furiously, his mouth applying a sinful suck that made her whimper and flex her pussy against his hard midriff for relief. She stared out at the glittering blue sea, too overcome with pleasure and emotion and need to actually absorb what she was seeing.

  His head feel back as he cupped both of her breasts in his hands. She saw the snarl that shaped his mouth as he watched himself touch her, his fingers plucking at the sensitive flesh, urging it to grow harder and stiffer until she wiggled her hips against him to get relief on her sex and called his name.

  He glanced up at her briefly, the hard glitter in his eyes stealing her breath, and then he was sucking her other breast, drawing on her until she cried out sharply as desire stabbed at her from clit to her deepest core.

  He rolled her onto her back and came on top of her.

  “I’m going to fuck you,” he grated out ominously. “I’m going to fuck you hard for making me feel so much.”

  Emma’s mouth dropped open but she couldn’t inhale. Her lungs had stopped working. It was like being pressed against the outer limits of an inferno that stole all the oxygen in the vicinity.

  “Vanni! Van!” someone yelled.

  He started to reach for her bikini bottoms as if the voice hadn’t penetrated his furious lust.

  “Vanni,” she said shakily, her eyes burning with emotion. “Someone is calling you. I think it�
�s Mrs. Denis.”

  “Vanni,” Mrs. Denis called again from on top of the cliff, her voice drifting and eddying in the sea breeze. A muscle jumped in Vanni’s clenched jaw as he scored Emma with his stare. He turned slightly, still shielding her naked breasts, and waved. Emma strained to see over his shoulder. At the top of the cliff, she saw Mrs. Denis standing there, her white apron showing up starkly against a dark blue dress.

  “I’m coming,” Vanni bellowed.

  Mrs. Denis waved once more and turned back toward La Mer.

  “We’d better go,” he said after a tense moment. “She wouldn’t have called if it wasn’t important.”

  Emma nodded, still finding it difficult to catch her breath.

  He reached for her discarded top and handed it to her. He waited until she’d replaced it and then jogged and leapt, making a perfect dive off the dock, knifing through the sea. Emma followed him. Despite his obvious disquietude, he waited for her to surface before they swam back together toward shore. The cold water was a slap to her hypersensitive nerves and dazed arousal, forcing her into alertness . . . forcing her to consider what had just happened.

  When they climbed on to the shore together, however, and Vanni made a point of avoiding her gaze, her uncertainty mounted.

  * * *

  She knew deep down she was right to have spoken about Cristina’s dying words, but that didn’t make her regret Vanni’s emotional turmoil in regard to them any less. Not that he was behaving tumultuously at the moment, she acknowledged later as she watched him in the distance, talking to a racing official as he paced on the terrace. During the walk back up to La Mer, his typical controlled façade had seemingly rebuilt itself. He’d calmly listened to Mrs. Denis’s news that a driver had crashed during the early morning practice session, and then immediately dived into action making phone calls.

  “Don’t look so worried,” Mrs. Denis said soothingly as she opened a covered dish, revealing eggs and bacon. The housekeeper had had breakfast ready for them on the terrace when they returned, but Vanni had told Emma to go ahead and eat while he attended to some phone calls. “The race official who called said that the driver wasn’t hurt. His car was all right, too, but the course was damaged.”