The Affair: Week 5 Read Online Free PDF Page A

get out of it.”
    A lightning flash of arousal went through her.
    “A few items I’ll need for what?” she asked, choosing to focus on the safer topic.
    “For your trip.” He arched his dark brows significantly. “To the Côte d’Azur?” he prompted as if he was gently reminding her of something she’d forgotten because she was so clearly befuddled by his kiss and nearness.
    “To the French Riviera?’ she asked skeptically.
    He smiled, slow and brilliant. She felt that smile at the very pit of her being.
    “Now you’re getting it. We leave on Tuesday.”
    “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said bemusedly as he took her hand.
    “It’s simple. I have to be back in France soon for the buildup to the race and the race itself. We’ll go back in a few days, but when I go, you do. I want you there with me.”
    “You do?” Emma asked. She blinked and glanced around at the familiar surroundings of the department store, trying to ground herself. She’d been flying around in his eyes for a moment. “I can’t. I have work.”
    “You’ll take a vacation,” he said, pulling on her hand. She fell into step beside him. “You can call the office tomorrow, ask for time off.”
    “Maybe, but it might be kind of tricky getting it on short notice,” she said, scurrying to keep up with his long-legged stride, her heart starting to pound with excitement in her chest despite the craziness of his proposal.
    “It’ll be fine. You need a vacation. You’ll love the Côte d’Azur . . . and my house there.” He gave her a gleaming sideways glance.
    “
Maybe
,” she hesitated, swept away by the sheer force of him. “It’s
possible
I could figure out something for work . . . but what about—”
    He shook his head and pulled her in front of him as they neared the revolving doors. “I’m not going to this damn race without you,” he stated flatly. “Now . . . let’s go finish your shopping so that I have you to myself,” he said with grim determination, nodding toward the door.

Chapter Twenty-four
    It was easy to be swept away by the power of his personality . . . by his intense attractiveness. By the time she sat in the passenger seat of a fierce-looking, ebony Montand convertible, reality hit her.
    “I have a bone to pick with you,” she told him, smoothing her ruffled hair out of her face as he zoomed out of the parking garage. She’d never known a person to make such tight hairpin turns so effortlessly.
    “What about?” he asked unconcernedly.
    “I found out about you buying my apartment complex.”
    He brought the car to an abrupt halt in the garage.
    “How did you find out about that?” he demanded, eyebrows slanting.
    “That friend’s father who I told you about? The cop who was going to help me with my deadbeat landlord?” she clarified hotly, all of her confusion and irritation over the discovery blazing high in her suddenly. “Why did you do that? And why didn’t you tell me?”
    He shrugged slightly. “Because I thought you might react like this.”
    “Of course I would. And will you answer my question?
Why
?”
    He began driving again. “I didn’t intend to originally. When you told me about your trouble with your landlord, I had someone at my office look into it, just to see if I could nudge your owner into fixing all the stuff at your place.”
    “You shouldn’t have done that. I could have taken care of it myself,” she said, scowling. He continued like she hadn’t spoken.
    “The person I had working on it reported to me that Arthur Tamborg, the owner of your apartment complex, was in some seriously dire personal and financial straits and wasn’t responding to most phone calls. I had a look at his financials and decided the apartments he owned weren’t a bad investment. It was his lame management that was tanking things. So I decided to take the properties off his hands. I promoted somebody in order to manage, made a decent personal investment,”