Chapter 23
RAFE
Fuck.
I leave the guest room with Paige’s naked body behind and take the steps upstairs in two. It’s too early in the day for one of the cage fights and too late in the day to call off the whole thing.
I’m so fucking hard.
I lock the door of my bedroom behind me and step straight into my shower. I turn on the water and set it to freezing. It hurts against my oversensitive skin.
The skin she just touched.
I don’t touch women who don’t want me to. And despite Paige’s taunting, she doesn’t want me to touch her. I know that. She knows that, too, but she’s putting on a brave face. Neither of us asked to be in this position. Sylvie put us in it.
But she taunted me, and I tried anyway, but then she fucking moaned into the bench.
It was like a signal to my already overheated body and I felt my cock finally harden.
I kept it at bay the entire time she was touching me, but after we reversed positions, touching her soft skin, seeing the expanse of her body and then hearing that sound…
The water isn’t helping.
I shift it to warm and reach down to grip myself. I hate that she makes me want her like this. I hate her and the chaos she’s wrought in my life. When was the last time I had to jerk off in the middle of the goddamned day?
I don’t lose control. But here I am, spinning so far outside the rules I’ve set for myself.
I grip myself tighter than is comfortable, a fitting punishment for this disaster, and start stroking.
She shouldn’t turn me on like that. I’m stronger than this—a pretty woman never throws me off like this. So why does she?
I look down at my own erection, jutting angrily from my body. “Fuck it,” I mutter, and turn off the water. I walk, dripping, out to the dresser where I shoved her gift and pull it out. I don’t want the toy. I’m not fucking a sleeve when she’s the one I want to be inside of.
But I grab her perfume and her thong and return to the shower with the water off. Fisting myself with the lace, I stroke myself to the image of her body beneath my hands and her lips against mine.
It doesn’t take long. Angry, frustrated need pounds through my veins, and I think of the meanness in her voice when she taunts me. How frustrated she looks when I don’t give her the satisfaction. And the sparkle of victory in her eyes when she succeeds.
I can’t let her get into my system.
So I need to get her out.
When I come, it’s to the sight of her thong wrapped around my cock, and I imagine it’s the red of her nails gripping me instead. I end up with a hand against the tile wall and try to catch my breath.
Fuck.
I stormed out of that massage room.
Sylvie can’t know. I can’t lose her as a designer, and I can’t lose the point to Paige. I’ll be damned if I surrender because of my own body’s inability to behave. Now that the need is gone, anger takes its place.
I should be better than this. I am better than this.
My anger fizzles like hot oil in a pan. I clean off in the shower and pull on clean clothes. Maybe they haven’t finished downstairs. Maybe I can salvage this.
Coming helped, but damn if the thought of her in that room doesn’t make me half hard again. I ignore it and head downstairs to the guest room.
Colette stands outside the door. I give her a wide smile. “I’m so sorry about that.”
“That’s okay,” she says with a serene smile. “I think you can still make it up to her.”
“I should, yes.” I shrug a little, like I’m sheepish. “I didn’t like the feeling of oil all over. Couldn’t handle it. Not a big massage guy, usually.”
She nods, like that makes any kind of sense. She really is the picture of professionalism. “Of course.”
“I’ll pop in and see if she needs anything,” I say. But the door opens before I can step toward it, and Paige comes out. She’s back in her sundress with her hair in a loose braid.
We both say our goodbyes to Colette. I paid and tipped her already, and my driver will take her back to Sylvie’s place. Probably to report on how we did.
When Colette’s disappeared down the hall, Paige’s smile drops. “What was that?”
I lean against the wall. “We participated long enough. She believed us.”
“You ran away.”
“I had better things to do.”
A flush creeps up her cheeks. They’re free of makeup, her long eyelashes bare. “Better things than making sure our cover is tight? I don’t believe that.” She takes a step closer. “You dislike me so intensely that touching me for forty minutes is too much? I don’t believe that.”
My jaw flexes. “I’m not attracted to you.”
If I say it enough times, maybe I can make it true.
“Sure you’re not,” she says, and I hate the sarcasm dripping off her words. I hate how correct she is. “You know, I have all the reasons in the world to be cautious around you. But me? You won the company. Sure, you and my uncle don’t get along, but that can’t be the reason.”
I cross my arms over my chest. “Not who your uncle is. What your uncle did.”
“What he did? You mean trying to bankrupt the company?”
“No,” I say. There’s fire in my veins, so much of it, and it burns. “He negotiated in what seemed like good faith for over a year. All while he installed a mole in my team and hired trained professionals to terrorize my sister.”
Her face doesn’t change. “Trained professionals? Now you’re exaggerating. He had lawyers, yes, but nowhere near as expensive as yours, I’m sure. The Montclair machine is a—”
“I’m not talking lawyers. I’m talking about how he targeted my sister. His hired people pretended to stalk my sister. Sent her notes at her work, her apartment, anonymous text messages.”
Paige’s breath catches. “He did… what?”
“For almost half a year, he made her look over her shoulder and he drove me nearly out of my mind. It wouldn’t surprise me if he tried other things to split my focus, too.”
“That’s… I can’t… Why would he do that?”
“Don’t believe me? Ask him.”
“We don’t talk.”
“No, of course not. You double-crossed him instead.” The anger is a swarm inside me, swallowing me whole. “You think I don’t play by the rules? He broke the damn law. He confessed too, when West and I confronted him. Did you see his black eye this spring?”
Paige shakes her head slowly, but there’s pained denial on her face. “He told me he’d fallen on the golf course.”
“He fell, all right. And he’ll fall further still.” My hand tightens at my side. I shouldn’t feel this way for her. I shouldn’t want, I shouldn’t need. She’s related to him. We’re on opposite sides of a chasm and there’s no way to bridge it.
I should be stronger than all of this.
“If he hired a team to…” Her lips thin. “He always talked about how much he hated you and your father.”
“Your favorite dinner topic, no doubt.”
Her eyes meet mine again. “He’s been erratic this last year. There have been other things… I’m sorry, Rafe. He should never have gone after your sister. Business is one thing, but family is another.”
My clenched hand releases at my side. She didn’t know. For all my suspicions, she didn’t know. She might have double-crossed her own uncle, but she didn’t know this, and that tempers my own anger.
“Family is everything,” I say.
“I know that better than anyone,” she says, and there’s a world in that one sentence. She shifts from one foot to the other. “Will your sister come to the wedding?”
I imagine the two of them meeting. Paige’s wicked mouth and glittering eyes meeting my little sister’s newfound bite. I’ve always protected her. Too much, she’s recently told me.
“I want the chance to apologize,” Paige continues. Her chocolate eyes are clear, and there’s no taunting curve to her full lips.
She’s sincere.
She’s sincere, and she didn’t know about what her uncle did.
So I find myself nodding. “Yes. My sister will be at our wedding.”
“Great,” Paige says. She tilts her chin up. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s my turn to run from you.”
“I didn’t run.”
“You hurried,” she tells me, and walks past me toward the staircase. I watch her disappear and let her have the final word. Because she’s right, and the only person to blame for that is me.