His Bahamas Affair (The Albury Affairs) (2 page)

Loraine jumped at the
sing song French accent that came from behind the bathroom door.

Unable to keep the
panic at bay, she cried out as she struggled with her restraints, chaffing her
wrists with the silk ties.

“What the hell do you
want?” she yelled at the dark figure that now stood at the foot of the bed,
staring down at her.

Just his gaze made her
feel exposed and dirty. She turned her head away as she continued to struggle
when he pulled his shirt over his head and reached down to undo his pants. She
felt the bed dip at the foot and she cried out tagging harder.

“There is nowhere to
go, my sweet Loraine.
Vous êtes tous les miens
.”

“No! Let me go. I don’t
belong to you! Please! I’ll pay you whatever you want,” she begged, her sobs
now coming heavily.

The stranger shushed
her with a soothing tone as he climbed over her. Loraine screamed again, using
her legs to try and kick him off her. He fell hard on her, knocking the wind
out of her and trapping her under him.

“Get off me! Please get
off me!”

The stranger grabbed
her chin and turned her face toward him. She shut her eyes tight, sucking her
lips into her mouth. She wasn’t going to look at him and he was not going to
kiss her!

“Loraine, open your
beautiful eyes
mon
bonbon
. Come on
mon
amour
, let me taste your sweet lips.”

She shook her head,
struggling to pull her chin out of his grip.

“Loraine, wake up.”

Loraine paused, shocked
by the sudden change of his voice. She knew that voice.

“Loraine!”

She slowly opened her
eyes and her heart jumped when her eyes stared right into his evil grey ones.

“What do you want?” she
cried.

“
Joli
, those sweet red lips.” Then
his lips came down on hers.

“No!”

Loraine vaulted up on
her bed breathing heavily, rubbing her wrists. She quickly came awake looking
around the sun lit room and inspecting her surroundings to make sure she wasn’t
back in that horrid place again.

“Loraine, are you
okay?”

“What?” She blinked
repeatedly then settled her gaze on Riana, who stood at her bedroom door.

Riana’s thin dark brows
knitted together as she stared at her. “Are you alright? I’ve been calling you,
trying to wake you for the past five minutes.”

Loraine pulled her lips
in a tight smile, drawing slow deep breathes through her nose. Was she alright?
Hell no, but she wasn’t going to tell Riana that. The woman had gone through
enough nightmares for Loraine to add her own onto her pile.

She nodded, pushing her
hair out of her face. “Fine,” she answered breathlessly. “Why?”

Riana’s head reared
back. She looked at Loraine with the ‘you’re kidding me’ look and Loraine knew
she was forgetting something important.

Riana gave her a
sarcastic smile and Loraine was sure whatever it was she was forgetting was
about to get her a boot in the ass.

She shrugged. “Oh
nothing at all. It’s just that my wedding starts in two hours and my maid of
honor is still in bed!”

“Oh shit!” Loraine
exclaimed jumping out of bed. “I’m so sorry. Bad hangover. I’ll be showered in
five and ready for the glam squad.”

“Fine, just hurry.
Guliana doesn’t like to be kept waiting,” she pulled the door shut as she left,
leaving Loraine alone with the remnants of her nightmare.

She looked at the
bathroom door with apprehension, instinctively wrapping her hand around her
right wrist, expecting
him
to walk
through it, her heart racing in her chest.

“This is ridiculous!
He’s in Paris and you are in Rome with a security detail that rivals the
President of the United States. Get a grip!” she chastised herself, stomping
into the bathroom, turning the shower on and quickly getting her toiletry in
order.

“Today is a great
day…it has to be.” And for more than one reason.

After all the hell they’d
been through, Riana and Allan deserved to have their happily ever after.

Two months ago, they
both believed the other died when a psycho blew up Allan’s yacht. For two and a
half years they believed they’d lost their soul mates and it was complete torture
for the rest of them to watch the hell Allan and Riana went through. Riana had
it easier or harder, whichever way one decided to look at it, because she had
been pregnant with Allan’s child. A rumbustious little girl named Aurora, who’d
just celebrated her second birthday on Allan’s new yacht that he named
Mia Anima
Gemella
,
meaning my soul mate, with his love for Riana in mind.

Loraine was one of the
many who believed the notion of ‘true love’ was for those who lived with their
heads in the clouds. But seeing her best friend suffer without the love of her
life, and her happiness after they were reunited, it was hard to not believe in
true love. But one thing she was sure of, only those who deserved it were
blessed with it.

Did she deserve it?
Maybe, maybe not… but considering how her life had turned out so far, she was
more likely to attract another stalker than a soul mate, one who would truly
love her for herself. To be loved like that, by anyone would be… too good to be
true and very unlikely to happen to her. Hell, she didn’t get that kind of love
from her own parents and grandparents so, yeah very unlikely.

“
Cwazi
Wowi
,
Jiana
is waiting for
you!” her goddaughter yelled, banging her fists on the bathroom door.

Loraine turned off the
shower and stepped out. She was a little annoyed Aurora still called her ‘
Cwazi
Wowi
’ but soon she’d have
her retribution. The man responsible for that name was giving the bride away
and she had a few choice words for him.

Most of the wedding
party and guests had arrived a week after the bride and groom because Riana
wanted to spend Aurora’s birthday alone, just the three of them. Loraine
understood her. Allan had missed Aurora’s first birthday and so many other
momentous things. He felt cheated and guilty and Riana thought having some time
alone on that special day was what he needed. And she was right.

The man hadn’t stopped
smiling since she saw him at the hotel lobby when she arrived. Not even the
fact that they were staying in the Rome branch of the hotel that had ruined his
life seemed to bother him. It was funny considering he owned it. She remembered
he had grumbled for a month when Riana insisted they come back here—something
about fighting their demons.

Loraine understood his
apprehension. She’d done the same thing when she went back to Paris for
culinary school. She even stayed in the same hotel and in the same room,
determined to fight her demons. She’d stayed away from Paris for years, even
after the danger was long gone, just to avoid those demons. Facing them had
been a good idea when she got her acceptance letter from
Le Cordon Blue
culinary school, but now it was proving to be the
biggest mistake of her life.

Thirty months in Paris,
in the same hotel, in the same room and she’d survived without missing a wink
of sleep. But when she came back to the States, she began to relive that
horrible day every single night and she didn’t understand why. And it wasn’t
making things easier now that she lived alone.

“Maybe I just need a
vacation,” she mumbled to herself as she combed through her wet hair, “Yeah. A
month in peace and tranquility, that’s what I need.”

Aurora ran back into
Loraine’s room like the little whirlwind she was and grabbed the bottom of
Loraine’s robe, separating the front.

She quickly grabbed the
two sides together. “Watch it you little hellion or you’ll be seeing more than
you’re ready for!”

Aurora kept her hold on
the robe, as she pulled Loraine toward the door. “
Yody
says
hawy
up!”

Loraine gently pulled
her robe free of Aurora’s grip. “Alright I’m coming.”

“Now!”

“Now! Geez Louis!” she
yelled back picking Aurora up by the waist and hanging her upside down on her
shoulder as she made her way out of the room.

Aurora giggled,
chanting, “Pin, pin!”

“No spinning unless you
want to clean up the breakfast she just had,” Riana warned.

Loraine quickly put
Aurora down. “Yeah, that’s not going to happen.”

“
Infine
, finally,” Guliana
exclaimed pulling Loraine forward and pushing her down into the chair in front
of the mirror. “Quick, fix her hair and makeup. There is not time, hurry,
fretta
!”

She barked at the two
ladies who stood behind her and they jumped into action like soldiers at a
drill. Guliana had been Riana’s stylist in Venice almost three years ago. She
was the one who put Riana in a golden dress for dinner that apparently had all
the men’s jaws dragging the ground and women glaring daggers the entire night,
or so Riana says. Her best friend didn’t exactly do over the top sexy so
Loraine had a hard time believing her but the disappearance of that dress did convince
her some. She’d only seen that dress once when she was helping Riana arrange
her closet and Allan was the chief suspect for its vanishing into thin air.
Loraine never took him as a magician but he was the jealous type. So it was
probably cut up into little pieces then burned or buried.

“Do something about the
bags under her eyes. They are not very attractive,
molto
brutto
.”

Loraine turned to face
her but her head was quickly turned back around. “Hey, I don’t know what that
means but I have a perfectly good excuse for them!”

Loraine saw Melody,
Allan’s younger sister, chuckle through the mirror, seated on the couch with
Aurora on her lap. “Yeah, it’s called drinking and jetlag. Who gets drunk right
after getting off a seven hour flight?”

Someone
who wants to have a dreamless night
, Loraine thought to
herself.

“We were celebrating
the last days of Riana’s freedom.”

Melody snorted. “The
way you were drinking, I thought we were sending you off to prison the very
next day.”

Loraine stuck her
tongue out at her and Melody returned the gesture in kind. A few seconds later,
Aurora did the same thing making them laugh. Loraine had always had to watch
herself, especially her language, around the impressionable little girl. She
had a habit of repeating what she heard, especially if the word was difficult
to pronounce. She would repeat it and repeat it until she got it right.

“Anyone notice the
guest of honor didn’t touch her drink?” Amy commented conspiratorially.

Amy, the brunette
bombshell was Matthew’s wife. Matthew the hottest man Loraine had ever set her
eyes on, and, to her chagrin, happily married, and was Allan’s best friend. He
was the one who forcefully brought Allan back to the States from his
self-imposed exile after Riana’s supposed death. They made quite a couple, like
a married Adonis and Artemis and yet quite humble—something very rarely seen in
gorgeous and wealthy people. And their son Mark… wow! The kid was only three
and he was already a stunner.

But Loraine didn’t see
any hope in his dating future. Aurora had already laid claim to him. There was
no place he was that Aurora wasn’t and she made sure he followed her around
wherever she went. And he would, with a resigned look on his face like he had
an invisible leash around his neck. Loraine couldn’t wait to see how that would
turn out once they were old enough to understand romance.

Melody gasped. “You
don’t think… Loraine!”

Loraine shook her head
still before the hairdresser forced it. “I don’t know a thing,” she lied,
“maybe it was just nerves, and she did want to have a fresh face when she woke
up.”

“Unlike some people,”
Guliana mumbled under her breath.

Loraine narrowed her
eyes at her and she looked back with a wide eyed innocent look.
Yeah right!
“Aren’t you supposed to be
pulling dresses or something?”

She shrugged and walked
away with a hoity toss of her head.

“Nervous? I don’t think
so. Did you see how she was this morning? She was walking around like it was
any other day.” Amy shook her head. “I was a nervous wreck the morning of my
wedding.”

“Nervous enough to
run?” Loraine joked.

She’d always wondered
what went through the minds of the brides who waited until they were a few feet
away from the altar before they turned around and made a mad dash for the exit.
Like, at that particular moment, when her groom was looking at her with so much
love, waiting for her with anxious expectation to make her his wife, she has an
epiphany and realizes the mistake she was about to make. Why couldn’t she
realize that a week before or an hour before and save the groom the
embarrassment of being jilted at the altar?