Her Venice Affair (The Albury Affairs) (21 page)

She sat down next to Matthew opposite Allan. He had
that stupid paper he kept caressing in his hand. What the hell was written on
it that had him so fixated?

The edge of his lips turned up in a faint smile.
“You’ve been my little sister for twenty-two years, so I know what going on in
your head.”

“And what would that be exactly?”

“You hate her. Riana. You blame her for the pain I’m
in.” He looked up.

 
Melody pressed
her lips together to keep from making a sound. For once he didn’t have that dead
look in his eyes. She felt like he really saw her, unlike those other times
that made her doubt her own existence.

“It’s not her fault. It’s all mine.”

“No it’s not!” she half-yelled.

Allan looked down at the piece of paper again.

Melody groaned. “For crying out loud what the hell is
on that stupid paper!”

“Melody!” Matthew reproached, elbowing her.

“It’s all right.” Allan looked at her the way he used
to when he was trying to gauge her next reaction to a bomb he was about to
drop. “Promise not to tear it up?”

“I have a feeling if I did you would suffer another
break down.” Matthew elbowed her in her side again. “All right, I promise.”

Allan looked down at the paper and stroked it. Then,
with much effort on his part, he held it out to her. Melody was offended by his
mistrust. She almost told him to keep it when she saw one word that practically
screamed at her.

She didn’t take it. Her hands were preoccupied
covering her mouth. She could do nothing about the tears, but she was not going
to wail and make her brother feel worse.

Allan retracted his hand and pressed the paper to his
chest. He leaned his head against the glass wall and his long hair tumbled
forward to cover his face. “I failed to protect them and now you’ll never know
if you were going to have a niece or a nephew.”

Melody shifted to move closer to Allan but Matthew
held her back.

“Hey, tell Melody about the time you and Riana got caught
making out at the
Colloseum
!”
he said with a laugh.

Melody caught on to what he was doing. He wanted to
make it okay for Allan to remember without the memories being painful.

Melody whistled. “At the
Colloseum
? A public, historic
place! Really, Allan!”

Allan smiled and looked up at them and for the first
time she was sure in two years, his eyes lit up with laughter. “It wasn’t my
fault. I don’t know why, but she jumped me!” He chuckled. “She got me so hot
and bothered we almost had sex against the pillar. And we would have if we
weren’t interrupted.”

Melody covered her ears. “
Eeeew
! I don’t need the picture
of my brother’s naked ass in my head!”

Another miracle happened next. Allan grabbed her hands
and pulled them down, away from her ears. “The security guard thought he was in
for a live porn show!”

Melody fought weakly to get out of his hold. “I still
have an innocent mind! Do not corrupt me!”

Allan released her and leaned back against the glass
wall. Melody felt all her hope die when he drew back into his somber cocoon.

What
happened? We were making progress! Just a second ago he was laughing!

“You two would have gotten on well together,” he
whispered.

Matthew playfully punched his knee. “Probably because
they were the same age!”

“I always knew you were into little girls,” Melody
teased and thank God she got the result she was aiming for.

Allan chuckled. “She might have been young in age and
yes, I’ll admit she had a teenage girl’s face. But she was an old soul and
there was nothing innocent about her life.” His lips lifted in a leering smile.
“Or her body.”

Melody slapped his knee. “
Perv
!”

“Why don’t you tell us about her?”

When Allan went silent, Melody echoed Matthew’s
suggestion. “Tell us about your trip to Italy. I’d like to know the woman who
tattooed her name on my brother’s heart.”

Allan let out a shaky sigh. “She’s my soul mate.”

She wanted to hug him when she saw tears run down his
face but she knew she shouldn’t. He needed his space if he was going to talk.

Allan cleared his throat then began. “Riana
Albury
is the love of my life, the mother of my first
child, and I’ll miss her and the life that never was.”

* * * *

Allan stood staring at the wall, biting down the pain
as the memories assaulted him.

Why did
they pick this place?

Fine, he had refused to set foot in what used to be
New York’s
Casa
Italiano
hotel but why out of all the other hotels did they pick this one?

He slowly raised his hand, his breathing growing
labored as he moved closer to the wall. Tentatively, like he was about to touch
an open flame, Allan placed his shaky hand on the wall.

His heart lurched.

He closed his eyes and pressed his forehead against
the cold surface.

He could see that day in his mind like it had happened
yesterday. Just standing there made him relive each and every second of the
moment his life had changed forever.

Her tears and her sobs as she cried over her broken
heart and the fierce determination that came after to get over her
disappointment and move on.

Her startled gasp as she jumped around to face him.
Her saucy, brown green eyes, red and wet from crying, as she stared up at him
and the immediate babble as her mouth tried to cover her emotional state.

He rubbed at his aching chest. He missed her babbles.

How her breath hitched when he trapped her against the
wall,
this wall
. Her heavy lidded
eyes as she swallowed and the pink tip of her tongue as she absently wet her
lips.

He could actually smell her, feel her breath against
his neck as she pressed against the wall like a frightened cat and yet excited
as she waited for what they both silently wanted.

Yes, he could relive his first encounter with Riana
like it was just happening.

Why did I
come here?

Because it had been two and a half years of waiting
for something he was too much of a coward to do himself—Riana was right about
him in that regard. Because Melody convinced him the best way to honor her
memory was to make her dream come true. She had wanted to teach art, but she
couldn’t because—

Allan swallowed the lump in his throat.

If Riana couldn’t teach, at least the kids with dreams
like hers could get the opportunity to explore their talent.

He came because he was tired of the stress he caused
his friends and sister. He’d never seen his sister cry so much—he knew it was out
of frustration, sorrow, and helplessness. She’d cried even more when she saw
his scars. He wanted to do this for her before he went back to his ‘could have
been’ life, trying to imagine what his son or daughter would have looked like
if its father wasn’t such a coward.

Would his daughter have had her mother’s smile and
eyes? Would she have babbled nonsense when she was nervous or laugh just because
she was happy? Would daddy’s little girl have been just like her beautiful,
gentle, loving mother?

Would his son have had his eyes, his attitude as he
tried to live up to the Sinclair name? How much of an impact would his mother
have on his misguided career? Would he have had gotten her easy going, stop-and-smell-the-roses
attitude to balance out his own serious, take-charge attitude?

It was sheer luck Allan was still alive. The scar that
told of how his flesh was ripped from his side by a bullet, just like the scar
on his shoulder from his venture in the burning yacht, were just symbols of his
unlucky brush with death. But the lucky shot was the bullet that went into his
ribs, breaking loose fragments of bone that pierced his lung causing a
collapse. It was supposed to have killed him.

That lucky shot quickly turned unlucky when it failed
to do its job.

But his way of thinking only caused Melody more grief.
She’d cried when she saw his naked torso. He just stood there watching her
anguish unable to do or even
feel
anything at her sorrow. He didn’t even feel present. Matthew came just in time
to do what he couldn’t after a moment of horror as he too stared at the failure
marked on Allan’s body.

Without a word to either of them, Allan walked into
his room, went to the en suite bathroom, showered, trimmed his beard, dressed
in his tuxedo that was now one size bigger, then walked back to his room, sat
on his bed, and waited to be retrieved. He heard the apartment door open and
close, followed by silence. He thought they had left him behind and he was
spared the torture of facing society so he went back to his favorite spot only
for the door to open an hour later. Matthew had come back for him, and Melody
was to go to the event with his wife, Amy.

So Allan was now here at the event, wishing he wasn’t,
tired of being bombarded with questions as to where he was, false concern as to
how he holding up, and hypocritical interest as to what he was going to do now
that he was back in the world of the living. They wanted Allan Sinclair,
billionaire, businessman extraordinaire. What they didn’t seem to realize was
that man wasn’t back and never would be. He’d died in that fire with Riana. All
that was left of him was a shadow.

“Nothing but a shadow, that’s what I am.”

“Allan…”

Allan groaned turning away from her voice, keeping his
head pressed against the cold wall. If he ignored her long enough she was bound
to go away.

He heard the clip clop of her shoes as she came round
to stand before him. He opened his eyes to face her and met hope and hidden
agenda shining in hers.

“Allan, how are you?”

When all he did was just stare down at her wishing she
would disappear, she stepped closer her hand raised, about to touch him.

“Don’t!” he whispered with just enough force to make
it sound like a warning.

Her smile shook as she lowered her hand. “But Allan…my
love, all I want to do is help you grieve. It’s not your fault she died in that
fire.”

Allan felt the pain begin to suffocate him. He had
barely heard a word after she said ‘love’. Riana’s cries filled his mind as she
uttered those three words he refused to return. ‘I love you’. Then he saw the
nightmare that had haunted him every night without failure and plagued him
while he was awake.

Riana crying those three words as she burned in that
fire, as her heart stopped beating after the report of a gunshot…all that after
Anthony had—

He pressed his eyes shut as he tried to dispense of
the vision and croaked out, “It is my fault.”

He turned away from her, struggling to pull air into
his constricting pipes. The pain in his chest increasing with each beat his
heart made.

I wish I were
dead!

“Allan—”

“Theresa!”

Allan rubbed his itchy shoulder as he pulled in a deep,
relieved breath into his lungs.
Matthew
will get rid of her!

Matthew stopped between them and Allan tuned out what
they were saying, only noting that it ended with the clip clop of her shoes
fading away.

“Allan…twenty more minutes and then we can leave.”

Twenty more
minutes!
Allan tugged viciously at
his hair. He couldn’t take one more second! Hadn’t he done enough? Hadn’t he
made the required appearance? He wanted to go home, back to Italy where Riana
still was. Back to her memory and remains. That’s where he would still be if
not for Matthew.

“You just have to stand next to Melody as she makes
her speech, then we can leave.”

Stand next to his sister as she praised the woman he
loved.

The woman he failed to protect.

The mother of the child he had practically denied when
he refused to say those three little words.

No. He couldn’t do it.

Allan turned to face Matthew to say just that when his
mind played a dirty trick on him.

It just couldn’t be. But how his heart came alive in
his chest, beating so hard like it was ready to explode the few seconds he
watched her walk down the junction that joined his hallway to hers.

“It can’t be…”

Matthew turned to look at what Allan saw before he
turned back. “What?”

“Tell me you saw her?”

‘Who?”

“The woman who just passed with Melody!” he yelled.

Matthew took a cautious step back. “Black girl, long brown
hair with the white, shiny dress? I don’t know who she is. She was speaking to
Melody at—Allan wait!”

He didn’t. He took off running chasing after her
before she disappeared.