Chapter 22
PAIGE
Colette is a soft-spoken woman in her thirties with a high ponytail and a no-nonsense demeanor.
She sets up a massage table in the downstairs guest bedroom and tells us to prepare for both of our sessions.
She’s a clear professional, arriving with an array of oils, a scent diffuser, and her own stack of towels.
Rafe is first out. I walk in when he’s already lying face down on the table, a towel draped over his midsection, and Colette offering me oil. I slowly rub it into my hands and watch Rafe’s prone form.
We both agreed there was no way out of this. Sylvie will ask Colette about this later. How were they? Did they seem… in love? It’s another performance.
But it’s a very different kind.
I’m meant to be intimately aware of him, so I step up and put a hand on his shoulder. It’s strong beneath my hand, the skin warm. “I’m ready,” I tell Colette.
There’s so much of him.
She shows me where to put my hands, to warm up the skin of his back and smooth over muscle. He has more of it than I’d thought. There are grooves by his shoulder blades and the skin is taut over his wide shoulders.
I’ve never touched anything but his hand before. And one single, quick kiss. But this should be easy. Objectively speaking he’s a very handsome man. And objectively speaking he has a very nice back.
It’s unfair that men can get this much muscle. Back when I trained more, it was hard to get visible muscle definition in my arms, and here he is, with corded muscle and defined shoulders.
He’s quiet. Tense, too.
Colette remarks on it, and I can feel it in the warm skin beneath my hands, the stiffness of his muscles. Colette helps me identify a knot, and I knead it under her guidance.
“You have to work less, honey,” I tell him in my sweetest voice. Touching him doesn’t feel hard. But it should, and it feels like a betrayal of my own goals that it’s so very easy to smooth my hands over his warm skin.
“I’ll get some more oil,” Colette says. She turns around, and I take the moment to press down hard on the knot.
There’s a muffled groan against the massage table. “I’m sorry,” I say. “Was that too hard?”
“Perfect,” Rafe grinds out. It’s the first time he’s spoken since I entered.
“You’re so tense.” I dig my thumbs into his traps like Colette showed and lean in closer. “You should relax more. Scheme less.”
Rafe can’t turn his head. But I hear the words, faint and muttered though they are. “You’re one to talk.”
Colette returns with a glass bottle of floral-smelling oil. “Here. You do the honors.”
I smile back at her and show her what I’ve learned over Rafe’s back. I’m softness itself, so caring and so very kind, and don’t press too hard while she watches.
“This is a fantastic way to strengthen a relationship,” she says, and moves down to massage his calves while I focus on his back. “Work this into your routine once a week, and it will do wonders.”
“That’s a great idea,” I tell her.
And it probably is, if you’re a real couple.
My hands slide over his wide shoulders. He’s annoyingly well-built. He mainly sits at a desk. I don’t know why he needs all these muscles.
It’s wasteful.
And he kissed me. It was professional, and brief, and absolutely not something I should’ve lain awake over in the quiet of my bedroom thinking about. He kissed me like he carries himself. Restrained and calculated.
There was no crack in his facade.
My hand slides down his side, over his ribs. He flinches slightly. I pause on his lower back and look over at Colette. She hasn’t noticed. She’s digging into his calves.
I look up at Rafe. Is he ticklish?
I smooth a hand lightly over the same spot, but he doesn’t react again. That’s when I notice the faint discoloration. He has a bruise in its last stage, just slightly darker than his olive-toned skin.
A bruise?
“Is everything all right?” Colette asks in that same soft voice.
My hands start moving again, away from the edge of the towel and up his back. “Yes. Absolutely.”
Rafe’s stiff again. I dig my thumbs into the muscles of his shoulders on instinct. Why does he have a bruise that size?
Eventually, Colette tells us that it’s time to turn over. She handles the lifting of the towel, and I take a step away, my hands warm from the oil and his skin. Rafe turns on the table and lies face up with the towel over his midsection.
I shouldn’t care what’s beneath it. If he’s wearing a pair of briefs or if he’s completely naked. I shouldn’t be the least bit curious. It shouldn’t matter that he’s shaped like a Greek god.
Or that he kissed me like it was a chore, when I had hoped for him to break. You’re attracted to me. I gambled on that being true, but he held his composure.
The flickering lights in the room play over his skin and his taut stomach, the faint outlines of abs and the broad chest. It’s smattered with dark hair. He has a happy trail down his stomach, disappearing beneath the towel.
“We’ll start on the arms,” Colette says. She walks around the table. “This is a great time to check in with your partner.”
I reach for his hand and hold it in both of mine. He has a signet ring on this hand, with a faint B on it. Must be the boarding school he went to.
His expression is carefully blank, the mask I’ve learned he wears when he’s playing a part. But his eyes…
“Are you doing okay, honey?” I ask him.
“Mhm,” he says. This is not the Rafe who laughed at my tattoo with a wineglass in hand yesterday. This is a man who has battened the hatches and locked himself up tight.
I stroke up his forearm, mirroring Colette. “Relax.”
“I am relaxing,” he says, and it’s so clearly a lie that it makes my lips twitch. I look over at Colette, but she’s not watching us. She’s good at that. Being present and also giving us privacy. I can see why Sylvie spoke so highly of her.
“Mhm,” I say, mimicking him. “Be honest. You’re thinking about spreadsheets right now.”
He looks up at the ceiling. “No, I’m not.”
“Good.” I massage his upper arm and focus on the movement and not his green eyes in this lighting. “Let’s pretend I believe you.”
There’s a muffled sound from Colette, almost like a chuckle.
“You have just as much trouble relaxing as I do,” he tells me. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you do nothing for a full hour.”
It’s true. I didn’t know he’d noticed. I meet his eyes and can’t think of a single thing to say.
“Then this is good,” Colette continues, her voice still like honey. “A moment for you both to decompress together. Come, let’s switch sides, Paige.”
I walk around the table to his left side and reach down to take his hand. That’s when I notice a jagged dark-red scar along the side of his torso, at least eight inches long.
My movements pause, his hand in mine.
What the hell? It looks old and fully healed, but it’s big enough that it must have been life-threatening. That’s not something that happens from falling off a bike as a kid.
It must have hurt like a freight train.
I look up at Rafe. He’s watching me, his expression sharp. Don’t you fucking dare ask, it says. The hand I’m holding curves, gripping my fingers. I glance over at Colette. She’s right there, working on his other shoulder, her head bent.
If I were his wife in truth, I’d have seen this scar a thousand times. I would know the backstory. So I look down at his hand, at the wedding ring on his finger, and I gently squeeze his fingers back.
I won’t ask.
He relaxes against the table and I continue to follow Colette’s instructions, even as my mind spins. I always thought he had a privileged background. And he clearly did. But something caused that scar.
The only thing I can think of is his brother’s death. It was mentioned in a few articles, but never more than a sentence or two. An accident in the mountains many years ago. Are the two related?
Despite my hatred of this man and his tactics, of his ruthlessness in pursuit of profit and Maison Valmont’s never-ending greed, I find myself…
Curious.
And that might be the most dangerous emotion of all.
“How are you two feeling?” Colette finally asks. “Are you ready to trade places?”
“Yes, absolutely,” I say. There’s a tingle of nerves down my spine. I showered before this and I’ve gotten plenty of massages before. I’ve never been a prude.
But it will be his hands on my body.
“Great. I’ll leave you for a few minutes. Get comfortable beneath the towel,” Colette tells me, and steps out of the guest bedroom.
Rafe immediately sits up. He keeps the towel at his waist, and I turn to face the wall.
“We don’t have to do this,” he says.
“We’re already doing it.” I hear the sound of rustling fabric and keep my eyes locked on an abstract painting across the room. “It would be suspicious if we didn’t keep going.”
“Yeah, well, we don’t have to,” he says.
“Can I turn around?”
“Yeah.”
When I turn, he’s back in a pair of dark slacks, and he’s pulling on a t-shirt. His hair is mussed and there’s a flush to his already tan face.
“It’s just a massage,” I tell him in a low voice. “And that’s Sylvie’s personal masseuse.”
“I’m very aware of that.”
“Why do you want to end it?” I can feel the burning of my own pulse. “I managed to play my part. It’s fine. It’s all for the cause.”
His jaw tenses. “I’m just offering. In case you don’t want to.”
“Are you worried you’ll like touching me a bit too much?”
Rafe’s face remains carved from stone. “You’re too damned mouthy for your own good, Wilde.”
“I know.” I take a step closer and reach for the hem of my dress. “But I’m not scared.”
He watches me in silence as I pull the dress off. I’m standing there in my underwear, just like I was after the fountain, and I meet his gaze defiantly.
“We’re finishing this,” I tell him.
He turns his back to me, jaw still working. I unclip my bra and toss it away before sliding in beneath the towel on the table. I keep my fresh thong on.
Colette thinks she’s left a happily married couple in here who’ve seen each other naked a million times. If only she knew.
I breathe in the freshly laundered scent of the towel and try to relax.
“Ready?” he asks. I nod against the bench.
He calls Colette back in, and they talk in murmured voices about the first steps. She starts working on my back and then lets him take over. His large hands come to rest on my shoulder blades.
Oh.
I tense, but then he runs a hand down the length of my spine in a barely-there touch, and a shiver runs through me. I don’t know how long it’s been since someone touched me like that. I’ve had a few hookups in the two years since my last relationship, but it’s been months since the last one.
His hands splay out on my lower back, brushing over the flare of my hips, before he moves back up to my shoulders. He pushes my hair gently to the side and massages my neck. His pressure is light, like he doesn’t want to hurt me.
Unlike me.
Goosebumps ripple up my arms. This wasn’t meant to feel this good. Every press of his palms sends heat rushing through me, settling low in my belly. And he’s only touching my back.
It’s been too long since I was touched. That’s all it is.
It’s not him. It’s just the fact that he’s showing kindness, even if it’s forced, after more than a week of arguing. Tension melts from me with the heat of his touch.
His hands soothe down the outside of my torso, fingers brushing lightly against the sides of my breasts. He digs into the muscles of my low back, and I can’t help it. A sigh escapes me.
His hands freeze. And then he’s not touching me anymore. “One moment,” he tells Colette, and I hear the sound of footsteps.
The door closes a moment later.
There’s perfect silence in the room, and with it, my own embarrassment.
“Sorry about that,” I tell her and try to laugh. “He’s a workaholic.”
“I noticed he had difficulty relaxing during his massage,” Colette says. Her hands take over where Rafe’s were, competent and professional. “I think that means he needs it the most.”
“Oh, I couldn’t agree more,” I say.
I close my eyes and try to steady my breathing. It shouldn’t matter if Rafe doesn’t want to touch me. I didn’t want to be in this position either. It’s not like I asked for this. Or for the way my body responded to his.
I do my very best to relax for the remaining minutes and chat with Colette to do damage control. We’re still in love, trust me. Him running out of here five minutes into my massage means nothing.
Rafe doesn’t return. He was so bothered by the simple act of touching me that he left the room entirely.