The Affair: Week 5 Read online

  Emma heard Mort’s question through what seemed like thick insulation. She stared openmouthed at the property sale document, her gaze glued to the black print. Buyer: Michael G. Montand of 3637 Lakefront Road, Kenilworth, IL. A strange tingling sensation sunk down her tailbone.

  “Yes,” she said through a constricted throat, suddenly conscious that Mort was looking at her expectantly. “I have heard of Montand.”

  “Michael Montand, the guy who makes those hot, superexpensive sports cars?” Jamie asked.

  Mort nodded, taking his computer back when Emma pushed it toward him on the Formica tabletop with numb fingers. She’d seen enough. There was no mistake. The address was familiar. The name certainly was. There was no doubt about it.

  Vanni had purchased her home just recently . . . since she’d first met him.

  Why had he done it?

  “Yep, that’s the guy. Montand cars are some of the best engineered in the world,” Mort was saying. “Montand inherited the company from his father, although he started his own company here in Deerfield. From what I understand, it’s even more lucrative than his luxury car business. He got his father’s brains not only for business, but engineering. Michael Senior could put an engine back together blindfolded and come up with revolutionary mechanical advances in his sleep. I understand his son is even more of a mechanical genius.”

  “You say it like you knew Michael Montand Senior,” Emma said, curiosity making her find her voice.

  “I did, a little,” Mort said, glancing up at her with sharp blue eyes. “We were both members of the local Lions Club. Montand didn’t come around that much—I imagine he joined to be polite when someone asked him. But I met him a few times. Knew of his reputation and business. Knew about his son, too,” Mort said dryly.

  “What do you know about the son?” Emma asked, her pulse beginning to leap at her throat.

  “Just rumors, mostly, although I did have a few real-life run-ins with him when he was a teenager,” Mort said in his easygoing manner as he shut down his computer and closed the lid.

  “You’ve actually met him?” Emma asked.

  Mort nodded. “I’d just become the sheriff here in Cedar Bluff when Montand Junior was finishing high school. He tested the police staff of a few towns along the North Shore when he was young.”

  “He was wild, huh?” Jamie asked, taking a sip of her coffee.

  “He was troubled, that much is certain,” Mort said reflectively, taking off his glasses and rubbing his eyes. “His dad and his stepmom had their hands full with him. Some of these rich North Shore kids are spoiled rotten, but Montand had more reasons than some for dabbling in juvenile delinquency, I suppose. He never struck me as a bad kid, just mad at the world. He lost his mother really young, from what I understand, and never got along well with his stepmother.”

  “He lost a twin brother, too,” Emma said quietly. Jamie looked over at her in surprise. “I’m familiar with him through a patient,” Emma sidestepped.

  Mort nodded thoughtfully. “A twin brother, huh? Well, that makes sense. We brought Montand in one night for underage drinking and getting in a fight with some South Side jerk who boxed part-time. Montand was only sixteen or so at the time. The guy he was fighting was a monster and years older than Montand, but Montand had held his own. In fact, he’d gone ballistic on the guy in the parking lot of some Cedar Bluff dive that’s not open anymore.” Mort shook his head in memory. “That kid had a death wish. He like was a lit firecracker, burning at both ends and inside out to boot. Once he cooled down, though, he was nice enough. He even fixed our busted police radio for us before his dad came in to post bail.” Mort shook his head distractedly. “A twin brother, huh?” he repeated. “I’d never heard anyone say that. I did hear he married young to a girl he met in college. Montand Senior was dead set against the relationship, and was furious when his son brought the girl home and presented her as his wife. Senior tried to get the marriage annulled, but Junior was having none of it. At least that was what the gossip was. And then he lost her, too.”

  “What?” Emma asked, praying she’d misunderstood the last detail of Mort’s rambling reflection.

  “Yeah,” Mort said, meeting her gaze and nodding sadly. “I don’t remember what the wife died of, but I think she was sickly from the get-go. They couldn’t have been married for much more than a year before she got ill, and then she was gone by the time their graduation date arrived.”

  His words pounded in Emma’s stunned brain with the pulse of her blood. “Just goes to show you, I guess. Someone might look at Montand and think he’s got it all—money, good looks, success, glamorous businesses and yet—”

  “It’s like life is playing some kind of sick joke on him,” Emma finished dully, recalling Vanni saying similar words that night on Lookout Beach when they’d differed on the topic of death.

  “Yeah,” Mort said, taking a sip of coffee. “There’s no fortune big enough that 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 reg
ard 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 all.”

  “I’m a tacked-on leaf of a very disreputable branch,” Niki replied dryly. “And I can think of one non-royal bird who is going to be extremely ruffled by your absence. No amount of Dellis diplomacy is going to smooth that over.”

  “I have complete faith you’ll make her forget I even exist,” Vanni said drolly as he plunged down the mountain, the sun-infused Mediterranean sparkling like liquid turquoise beneath a sky as smooth and blue as a robin’s egg. The particular committee member Niki was referring to was a very beautiful, married socialite who had been vying for Vanni’s attention since he was first introduced to her at her own wedding six years ago.

  “You must give Estelle credit,” Niki mused, and Vanni could almost see the glimmer of humor in his friend’s black eyes. “She remains convinced after all these years she can change your mind about taking a married woman as a lover. I myself was always a little confused by this American fastidiousness of yours.”

  “You know it’s got nothing to do with being American. It’s got everything to do with being Michael Montand’s son.”

  He didn’t recognize how bitter he’d sounded until he noticed the silence on the other line. He’d seen firsthand what his father’s frequent infidelities—what the ultimate betrayal—had done to his mother. No, Vanni was selfish, but he wasn’t cruel like Michael Montand.

  “What is this emergency, Van?” Niki asked, his Greek accent almost disappearing with his sudden, focused concern. “Does it have to do with that lovely nurse you brought to Cristina’s funeral? I recognized what she was wearing around her neck. How did you manage to get Prisatti to give her one? Or did you mislead him somehow as to the identity of the receiver?”

  “Do you think Angelo Prisatti thought it was for me?” Vanni asked sardonically.

  “No, not a chance,” Niki chuckled. “I’m just desperate to know what in the world you told him in order to get him to part with it. That’d be excellent knowledge for any single man.”

  “Only you would use a Prisatti angel to get a woman into bed.”

  “I don’t need to. But isn’t that why you used it?” Niki challenged glibly.

  “Why don’t you mind your own business?”

  “You sort of are my business, unfortunately. Are you sure you’re not more . . . unsettled by Aunt Cristina’s death than you’re letting on?” Niki asked.

  “It has nothing to do with Cristina,” Vanni said in a hard tone. “As for the reason I’m leaving, it relates to the fact that I can’t sleep, and leave it at that,” Vanni said, rounding a mountain pass.

  “You never can sleep,” Niki said with an air of stating the obvious.

  “Now it’s for a different reason, though.”

  He was telling the truth. He’d hardly had a moment’s rest since landing in France. Memories of making love to Emma would pop up at the most inopportune moments—on a walking tour with the rest of the grand prix committee of the race circuit, at a luncheon hosted in Cannes for the press, at an exclusive dinner he’d hosted at La Mer for the drivers that had started to dribble in from all over the world.

  He’d think of her incessantly in his empty bed at night.

  Her dark eyes haunted his dreams when he did catch a few hours. His sense of restlessness and hunger had mounted as the days passed. All he could seem to focus on were memories and fantasies of touching her, of breathing her unique scent, of holding her while she shook in climax . . .

  Yesterday, Neil Parodas had called and informed him that Emma had been one hundred percent correct in saying she was completely healthy.

  I’m not saying she experienced a miracle cure, of course, Neil had cautioned. There must have been some mistake if she was ever diagnosed with thalassemia. The most important thing, though, is that without a doubt, that girl is as healthy as they come.

  A strange sensation had gone through Vanni at the news. It was like someone had mainlined adrenaline into his blood. The world took on a lucid, vibrant cast that hadn’t been there before, the brilliant colors of the flowers on the terrace of his villa, La Mer, the bright blue sea below the cliffs shocking his brain. If he didn’t know himself better, he would have sworn that swooping feeling had been pure relief . . . euphoric joy?

  The rush of feeling had been so sharp and overwhelming, and so unfamiliar that Vanni wasn’t sure he trusted it. That didn’t diminish the emotion any, however.

  “Can you do me a favor?” he asked Niki presently as he turned onto the road to the airport.

  “Of course,” Niki replied.

  “Call Vera and let her know I’m returning a day early. Have her send a car over to the airport. I’ve tried to reach her several times and failed.”

  “What car do you want delivered?”

  “A fast one,” Vanni replied grimly before he signed off.

  * * *

  On Sunday morning, Emma almost ran down Amanda on the way out the door. The meeting was unexpected. Both of them were startled and flustered, given their new, strained relationship and sudden close proximity, laughing and trying to get around each other. She noticed Amanda’s heavy backpack slung over her shoulder

  She had to give her sister credit; Amanda had been incredibly dedicated to her schoolwork so far. Emma had been a little worried this new thing with Colin would distract her just when she needed focus the most as she started medical school. It had pleased her to see that didn’t appear to be the case. Amanda had been up at dawn to go to the library to study since she had to work the evening shift at her waitress job tonight.

  “Where are you off to?” Amanda asked breathlessly, leaving the front door open for Emma.

  “I thought I’d go downtown and do a little shopping.”

  “You’ve certainly grown uncharacteristically interested in clothes lately,” Amanda said, her expression friendly and amused, but curious as well. “It’s nice. I could never get you interested,” she laughed. She focused on the angel at Emma’s throat. “I suppose it all relates to Vanni?”

  Emma shrugged. Several times this week, Amanda had tried to broach the topic of Vanni Montand, but Emma hadn’t been willing to share much except to say that she’d met him on her last work assignment and that they’d begun seeing each other on a casual basis. Given everything that had happened recently with Amanda and Colin, she felt hesitant sharing intimacies with Amanda. It was a fact that she hated, but that didn’t make it any less true. She prayed for the prickly, uncomfortable atmosphere to ease between Amanda and her, but it certainly hadn’t yet.

  Besides, since discovering that Vanni had inexplicably bought her apartment complex, Emma was especially agitated on the topic of him. She wasn’t sure what to make of the fact that the man who made love to her with such ruthless precision and yet made it clear he didn’t “do” long-term relationships now owned her home. The whole scenario had left her bewildered and anxious. Talking about it with Amanda in the past would have probably helped her to clarify. All of that had changed, though.

  What had Vanni intended by i
t all? It certainly left her in debt to him . . . not in debt, but responsible to him, somehow. He could drop her and forget her anytime he chose, but she couldn’t remove him from her life so easily. Not when he owned the very rooms where she walked, ate, and slept.

  Besides the issue with her apartment, she was still very heartsore over the news about his young wife dying. She’d tried to find more information about his marriage and the identity of his former wife, but there hadn’t been anything online. Had Michael Montand Sr. used his influence, perhaps, to silence the news of his heir’s unapproved marriage and his wife’s untimely death?

  “It would be hard to see a man like him and not want to look good,” Amanda said, interrupting her chaotic thoughts. “I still can’t believe it. Vanni Montand. You always did have all the family luck.”

  Emma blinked. “I did?”

  “Sure,” Amanda said, giving her a slightly startled glance before she set her backpack down on the entryway bench.

  Emma gave a short laugh. “You’re the gorgeous one. You’re the brilliant doctor-to-be.” You’re the one who my ex-boyfriend preferred.

  Amanda’s smile faded as she took a step toward her. “Do you ever really see yourself in the mirror, Emma?” Emma just stared back at her. “You’re beautiful. And what’s more, you don’t even have to try and you are. It doesn’t surprise me in the slightest that you snagged Montand’s attention.”

  “Thanks,” Emma muttered, avoiding her sister’s stare.

  “And you know you’re every bit as smart as me. You took that incredible load in nursing school and still aced all your classes and clinicals. And lucky?” Amanda shook her head incredulously. “You beat death, for God’s sake. Mom used to call you her little miracle.”