Chapter 15
PAIGE
I wake up with a headache the next morning.
After my shower, I push open the doors to my small balcony on the second floor of the villa. I sit in my fluffy robe, feet up against the wrought iron, and look out over the gardens, the lake, and the mountains.
And the fountain.
I can’t believe I did that. Sylvie and Leelyn loved that little stunt. Rafe, not so much. After he dropped me off in the guest bathroom, I showered and changed, and then I found the party mostly over.
He was nowhere to be found.
So I went to bed and ignored the way it felt to stand in nothing but my underwear in front of him. I’m going to ignore it today, too. Some things belong to the night.
I wonder what he thought of my little gift. It was so very impulsive, and I’d already had a bit to drink when I did it. Sneaking into his bedroom, I put the male sex toy on the center of his made-up bed alongside a newly bought red thong and an unopened bottle of my perfume.
Ridiculous, of course. I mostly bought all of it to spend more of his money, but the idea was too good to resist.
A happy-celibacy present.
Now, a good corner section of my bedroom is filled with decadent bags. The spoils of war. I bought some truly outrageous things, but some are beautiful. Pieces I’ve never been able to afford before.
But it’s too much. I can’t keep it all. I just don’t want to return it and give him the victory.
Maybe I can sell it all and donate the money to a charity.
Spending his money was petty, but it felt so good to be petty.
For so many years I tried to resist. Be the bigger person and ignore my uncle’s harsh words.
Work around his impulsive spending or rise above office politics to foster a strong environment for my colleagues to thrive in. It’s been exhausting.
The team back in Gloucester aren’t awake yet, but there are plenty of emails for me to respond to. Messages from Mather & Wilde’s board and from the PR team. They’re all on high alert now too, with the press attention.
I fire off email after email with quick fingers. The messaging to our customers has to be consistent. We’re not changing. We’re the same as we’ve always been. You can trust us.
Even if we’ve sold out to Maison Valmont and Raphael Montclair.
I email a list of questions to Rafe, and at the top is one I’ve emailed him about before. I do not want any of our staff let go. It was something his lawyers didn’t let me add in our negotiations. But now that I have his attention, I’m going to make him agree to it.
My chest starts to tighten.
The consequences of my actions catching up with me.
I don’t want to have a panic attack. Normally they come at night, when I’m lying alone in bed with my thoughts and nowhere to hide. But this one comes out of nowhere, and soon there’s no way to stave it off.
Hot tears slide down my face.
What am I doing? There’s no one I can talk to about this. About how desperately important it is that the company survives, because it’s the only thing I have left of my parents. It’s all on me. I’m the only one who can manage it, and I don’t know if I am managing it.
My breath comes in gulps.
I feel like I’m dying. I know I’m not, but the tether on my logical reasoning is faint. It’s a balloon drifting in the wind, and it’s so hard to keep hold of the string.
I curl up on the floor of my bathroom.
The tiles are cool against my forehead. I cry, feeling like I’m about to break, and try to hold on to the knowledge that it won’t last.
It never lasts. That’s the only good thing. Nothing lasts.
When it’s over, I drag myself back into the shower. The warm water washes over my puffy face and tired eyes, and I take deep, wonderful breaths. I stopped going to my therapist right around the time Rafe revealed the extent of Valmont’s ownership of my family company.
Everything went into crisis mode.
My uncle decided to decimate the company rather than let him have it, and every day became a fight. There’s no time for me to fall apart or to work on myself. There’s still no time.
I blow-dry my hair and pat my face with a cold cloth. By the time I head downstairs, I’ve hidden all evidence of the weakness I can’t let Rafe see.
Can’t let anyone see.
The house has been restored from the dinner-turned-party last night. The large, airy rooms look pristine again, and the double doors are open to the terrace to let in the warm breeze from the lake. Branches from a large olive tree in a terracotta pot sway outside the kitchen door.
I grab breakfast from the kitchen and chat with Antonella. With each sip of cool water and easy conversation, I feel more and more like myself. It’s easier to push away what happened earlier.
“Do you know where Rafe is?” I ask.
“He’s meeting with his PR team, I believe,” she says. She’s filling up the wine fridge in the kitchen, the radio playing crooning Italian songs. “He always has busy mornings.”
I blink. “His PR team?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“Thank you so much.” I slip off the chair and hurry up the stairs to his study. I find him sitting in the same chair as last time, but he’s not alone. There’s a redheaded woman and a dark-haired man sitting opposite him. It is a meeting. An actual meeting.
Rafe looks up. “Ah. She finally made it. Paige, meet Wren, head of Valmont PR, and Karim, my executive assistant. They flew in this morning to start working on our wedding.”
I should be in this meeting. I know it, and so does he, judging by the smug freaking look on his face.
“Thank you for informing me,” I say.
“I knocked on your door this morning. There was no response.” He nods to the empty chair next to the redheaded woman named Wren. “Have a seat.”
I can’t believe I was turned on by him last night. Now I want nothing more than to be as far away from him as possible.
But instead of running, I sit and smile widely at both of his associates. I might want to strangle him with his own starched linen shirt, but I’ll be damned if anyone else thinks of me as difficult.
He’s the only one I want to drive insane.
“Thank you both for helping us with this,” I say. “I’ll be a team player in any way I can when it comes to public perception. What have you discussed so far?”
They’ve done impressive work. Wren walks through her idea of giving a big fashion magazine an exclusive.
“We’d give Luster an exclusive interview, as well as the first pictures of the wedding and details of the planning,” she finishes.
She has an Australian accent, and I’m continually struck by how international Rafe’s team is.
I’m guessing he only hires the best, and it doesn’t matter where he has to relocate them from.
“It’s invasive,” he says.
“It’s brilliant,” I say.
Wren smiles. “It is both, yes. But it gives us a chance to control the narrative as well as the stamp of credibility from a huge publication. We’ve set up a wedding cake tasting for you tomorrow, to be photographed.
Luster will be sending a local correspondent from Luster Italia.
After that, I believe Karim has something planned. ”
“Yes,” he says, and opens a binder. “You’ll come back here and try wines for the wedding.
There will be a brief photography session, not more than ten minutes or so.
But the decisions you make tomorrow will make it into your wedding, so it’s not just for show.
” He has a faint, polished French accent.
“I don’t care about the cake, the food, or the wine,” Rafe says. “Make whatever decisions are best.”
I roll my eyes. “It’s to make it look real.”
“I understand that,” he says, eyes on mine, “but looking real and being real are two different things.”
“Trust me, I know all about that,” I say, and think of him carrying me yesterday, his arms around me.
“We’ll take care of everything that’s not public,” Karim interjects. “Tomorrow is only so elaborate because of the photographers. But the wedding invitations, for example, have already been designed. We went with cream paper with a subtle sheen and deep lavender text.”
“The list of guests?” Rafe asks.
“I’ll have it ready for you both to approve tomorrow after your wine tasting. Invitations will go out the next day.”
I press my hands together to steady myself. “Sylvie said she was designing my dress. Is that still… possible?”
“Yes. She’s insisted. I have a fitting booked for you in a few days, here at the villa,” Karim says. “It’s two days after the charity event in Milan that you’re attending. I just confirmed your attendance.”
Large letters on the binder spell out Wedding. Wow. We’re really doing this. I open it up to see the invitation there. Paige and Rafael, it says, and it looks entirely strange. Beautiful. But like it’s someone else’s wedding.
I close the binder. “Thank you for all your help,” I tell them both. “Do you have my number, Karim? And you, Wren?”
They look at each other. “Yes. Mr. Montclair has given us everything we need.”
“Good,” I say. “Right. That’s good.”
Rafe’s eyes move over us three. He’s in the same seat he was in last time, silhouetted by open windows and the lake beyond. He looks so at home here. There’s no trace of a hangover on his too-angular face, like he wasn’t up too late and didn’t drink too much.
“Will you excuse us?” he asks Wren and Karim.
They rise and step out of the office, the door shutting behind them. I curl my hands tight over the armrests of my chair. “You have to tell me when meetings like this are happening,” I tell him.
He lifts an eyebrow. “I tried to.”
“Not by a single knock early in the morning after a party that didn’t end until two!”
“You found your way here, didn’t you?” He leans back in the chair. “Besides, you would have been informed after.”
“I don’t want to be informed. I want to be involved.” I narrow my eyes at him. “Is this retaliation for last night?”
He looks relaxed, with that large leather binder on the table between us. Wedding. But there’s a tightening in his jaw. “I’m not that petty, Wilde. That’s you.”
“So it is retaliation. Huh.” I lean back, mirroring his stance. “So I got under your skin that much?”
“Not even a little bit.”
“The more you deny it, the more you confirm it.”
He says something in Italian. It’s a single sentence, but there’s clear emphasis on the final word.
Annoyance makes my fingers twitch.
“Talk to me in languages I don’t understand all you want,” I tell him. “I’m guessing you just told me how much you liked my little present? You’re very welcome, dear husband.”
His eyes narrow. “It’s not a present if you paid for it with my card.”
“Aw, so you liked it. Fantastic.” I get up and grab the binder. My heart is beating fast. “Judging by how tense you are, you might have to use it again, though. Can’t have my fake husband have an aneurysm from the sudden celibacy.”
His teeth grind together. “I did not use it.”
“Oh, really? Was it too big for you?” I cock my head. “I tried to get the medium size. Maybe after your enlargement.”
“Did you like that? Thinking about what would fit me and what would turn me on?” He braces his hands against the wooden desk. Very broad hands. “You think I’m attracted to you, but you’re the one who’s got a twisted mind.”
“I just can’t have you sneaking out in the middle of the night again for a hookup,” I fire back, “so I’m handling you. But I’m not the least bit interested in your… habits.”
“Sure you’re not. You just did it out of the goodness of your heart.” He narrows his eyes. “You just want me to say I’m attracted to you.”
“Because it’s blatantly obvious,” I say, with far less conviction that I feel. That was drunk me speaking, high on champagne and life and the anger in his eyes. But I can’t back down. Never, not with him.
You don’t show weakness around a predator.
“So that’s why you added your perfume?” He leans over the table. “Do you want me to think of you while I use it?”
The image flashes in my mind. Of him, a hand wrapped around his hardness, standing beside the large bed I’ve now seen twice. His too-handsome face tight with pleasure and that mask of control slipping.
I stand up. “The very last thing I care about is your pleasure. Did you see my email?”
His eyes don’t leave mine. “I did.”
“Will you answer it?”
“I’ll consider it.”
I take a step toward the door. “If you answer, I promise I’ll give you a full evening of peace and quiet. Wouldn’t that be nice?”
“You’re playing dangerous games, Wilde,” he says.
I look over my shoulder at him, hand on the doorknob, and something tightens in my stomach. He says it like a warning.
But I hear it like a promise.