Her Venice Affair (The Albury Affairs) Read Online Free PDF Page A

don’t make a right Riana.”
    Riana sighed. Loraine had a point. Running off to
Venice with a guy she’d just met, and of course with no passport, was a little
daft. She had one more paper to write before she finally finished University,
and then she would head to the teacher’s training college that began in two
months’ time. She needed to stop chasing after love just because she was lonely
and concentrate instead on her future. She wanted to be an art teacher in a
high school and that was where her focus was staying. Maybe in another five
years she could try this whole love thing again.
    “Loraine, you are—” she was cut short when Loraine hit
her elbow making her hand shoot up and a male voice boomed thirty thousand
dollars.
    Riana rubbed her throbbing elbow. “What the hell
Loraine!”
    “Allan’s up on the stage and he’s staring daggers at
you.”
    “What?”
    She grabbed the tray out of Riana’s hand and placed it
and her own on the nearest table. She then turned Riana full body to face the
stage. Allan stood there looking intently at her, the edges of his lips turned
up in a slight smile and his arms crossed over his chest. He looked like a king
staring down at his subjects.
    She sucked in her lower lip, butterflies fluttering in
her chest. Yup, he was Greek god material.
    “You better start participating actively if you want
to go to Venice.”
    Riana’s brows furrowed in confusion. “But you said—”
    Loraine silenced her with a wave of her hand. “Oh shut
it. I say a lot of things I don’t mean. Now do you want to go to Venice or
not?”
    “Fifty thousand!” the woman next to Riana yelled.
    Riana placed a hand over her ringing ear. “But I don’t
have the money.” She watched the hands shoot up all over the room and she felt
desperate. They were at eighty-five thousand already. These women are horny vultures!
    Loraine rolled her eyes. “I’m sure he doesn’t expect
you to pay for it. He said bid to win, he didn’t say anything about you paying
right?”
    “No, he didn’t.” But
he didn’t say he would pay either , she thought.
    “So what are you waiting for?”
    “Ninety thousand!”
    Then the hands stopped shooting up and the room went
silent. That was the final bid and no one was going to up it. She turned to the
source of the shout to get a look at the lucky girl with ninety thousand to
spend on her trip to Venice, but the
room was too crowded.
    Loraine clucked her tongue. “Riana, it’s between you
and the slut in the hooker dress and Allan doesn’t look the least bit amused by
your silence.”
    Riana turned to Allan and Loraine was right. She was
sure the others in the room couldn’t tell but his eyes showed how furious he
really was with her. She saw the fingers of the hand tucked under his arm move
up. He wanted her to bid higher.
    “Isn’t that too much?”
    Loraine knocked her elbow again and yelled, “One
hundred thousand!”
    “Loraine!” Riana hissed, stepping away from her and
rubbing her elbow.
    Loraine pulled her back. “Does he look hard for the
cash? Look around you Riana. Do any of them look hard for the cash? He probably
spends that much in one day buying a suit or flying his dinner in from Paris.
He’s a damn billionaire!”
    “But it’s not my money to spend!”
    Loraine shook her fist in Riana’s face, tightening her
grip on her arm until it hurt. “Riana, outbid that slut and go to Venice or I
swear I’ll break your perfect little nose!”
    “One hundred and fifty thousand!” Riana yelled leaning
away from Loraine and her fist, taking the threat seriously. She liked her nose
as it was.
    Then she spotted the slut in the hooker dress charging
toward them from behind Loraine. “We’ve got trouble!” she whispered.
    “This is ridiculous! This waitress can’t afford that!”
She protested, settling a seething look on Riana.
    Loraine stepped in between them, shielding Riana.
“Whether or not she can afford it is none of your business.