26. Rafe
RAFE
The next day, I sit in my office and try to work. It’s always been something to attack. To throw myself into and lose myself to. Let hours slip away and focus on the next thing. The next meeting, the next email, the next acquisition.
Except for today.
I keep seeing Paige’s tearstained face. I hear her gulping sobs and quick breathing. Watch her try to contain herself while I worked to undo the buttons keeping her trapped.
She had a panic attack while trying on her wedding dress.
I didn’t know she had a single vulnerable bone in her body, but there she was, crying in my arms. Breaking apart in a dress custom made to hold her tight.
The only side she’s shown me has red-painted claws and a sharp tongue. A woman set on her goals, one of them being to annoy the hell out of me. I didn’t think I’d want to comfort her.
But there I was, seeing her come apart and trying to hold her together.
She let me.
Not that it meant anything. Anyone would have comforted her. Anyone would have held her through that. It would be inhumane to see the panic in her eyes and not try to quell it.
I look out the window again. It’s become a frustrating habit in the last twenty minutes, ever since Paige lay down by the pool in nothing but a bikini.
I think I preferred it when she stole my clothes. At least then she was covered. Now it’s all long legs, toned stomach, and her blonde hair loose around her. She’s bent one of her knees, propped her arms up behind her head.
She hated me for seeing her break apart yesterday.
I saw it in her eyes afterward, when the wall between us returned.
I can relate. You don’t show an enemy your soft spot.
You cover it up with armor and with well-crafted defenses.
You make yourself into a fortress. And if they ever come close to it—if they see the scar down your side—you make sure they don’t ask you about it.
I look back out the window.
She’s pretty when she’s angry and she’s pretty when she cries. It’s a good thing she’s frustrating ninety-nine percent of the time, to remind me of just why lusting after my own wife is the worst idea I’ve ever had.
I need to fight again. Leave the house one of these nights and blow off some steam. It’s usually the guilt that drives me into the ring. But right now, I wonder if having her around doesn’t do the exact same thing.
The next time I look up, my eyes stay.
Because Paige has taken off her bikini top.
She’s only wearing her bikini bottoms, arms by her sides, a green cap on her head shielding her face from the sun. Her skin is golden everywhere except her tits, which are a lighter color than her already-tanned skin.
Her nipples are pink.
I can see that all the way from here.
She’s lying out there like she doesn’t have a care in the world. But she knows where my office is. She’s been here before, and now she’s grabbed a chair directly in my line of sight.
This is revenge.
The balance of power shifted yesterday, when she cried in my arms. I watched her shatter, and she wants to prove a point. One she’s hinted at before. You’re attracted to me.
We’re still on the court, and she’s trying to win a point.
As revenge goes, it’s fucking perfect. Because I shouldn’t like the sight of my wife’s near-naked body. I shouldn’t care that she’s lying there topless where staff could see.
But I do.
I should be stronger than this, stronger than jerking off to her perfume and thong, stronger than lying awake at night thinking about her skin beneath my massaging hands. They say coveting your neighbor’s wife is a sin. But coveting your own feels worse.
I grab a shirt from my closet, since she seems to like wearing my clothes, and head downstairs.
Paige doesn’t look up when I approach. Up close, she’s even prettier. There’s rosiness to her nipples. They’re perfect, her tits, looking like they’d fit my hands. Beneath the swell of one is the tiny tattoo of waves along her rib.
Of course she’d be perfect naked.
A smile spreads across her face and she reaches for her phone. “Four minutes,” she says, and looks back up. “That’s how long it took you to come down here, from when I took off my top.”
I hold out the shirt in her direction. “Put it on.”
“Why? I’m in my home. And I’m in Europe.” She leans back against the sunbed and closes her eyes.
My gaze drops back to her tits. Fuck. She’s all softness here, with taut nipples.
“You’re here because you wanted me to come outside,” I say. “Or you wouldn’t be lying directly below my office.”
She doesn’t open her eyes. “Yes. And I don’t want tan lines ahead of my wedding.”
“You’ll burn. That’s the only reason I’m asking you to put on a shirt.” It’s a complete lie. I don’t want anyone else seeing her like this.
“Then maybe you should help me put on sunscreen,” she says.
I force my eyes away. “Asking me to touch you? Are you sure you’re not the one who’s attracted to me?”
She opens her eyes. “Please.”
“Please, what?” I raise an eyebrow. “You’ll have to be more specific when you beg me to touch you.”
“I am not begging.”
“Mhm. And yet you just admitted to doing all of this to lure me down,” I say. She loves to goad me. But she hates being goaded in return, and if she’s going to play this game, she won’t find it easy to win.
It’s better to focus on arguing than on her body.
“Maybe I just want to hear you admit it,” she says. “That you’re attracted to me.”
“And why do you want that?” I drape the shirt over the chair next to her. “So you’ll feel better about your attraction to me?”
She swings her legs over the edge of the sun chair, feet on the hot tiles. The movement resettles her golden hair around her shoulders and makes her tits bounce in a way I should not focus on.
The perfect handful.
Profit margins. Tennis serves. Winning.
“I am not attracted to you,” she protests.
“Sure you’re not.” I cross my arms over my chest. “Whether you are or you aren’t, we’re not alone in this house.”
“You don’t trust your staff?” She smiles a little, like that’s a winning point.
And under normal circumstances, it would be. I’ve always run a tight ship. Most of the people who work close to me and my family have been with me for years. They’re highly paid, highly valued. But after what her uncle pulled this spring, and the leak I found…
Media scrutiny on us is at an all-time high. How easy would it be for someone to snap a picture of her and sell it to the media?
“I don’t trust anyone,” I say instead.
I won’t look away from her gaze. Won’t give her the satisfaction of knowing just how distracting it is to have her in front of me, clad only in sunlight and bikini bottoms.
“God, that sounds depressing.” But she turns around and lies on her stomach on the sun chair. “I’d ask you to do my back, but we both know how you can’t stand touching me.”
It’s a challenge.
“You’re so obvious,” I say. I reach for the bottle of sunscreen and put a dollop on the center of her back. Her spine curves down to two dimples on her low back. I work my hands over the sun-warm skin and think of spreadsheets. So, so many spreadsheets.
Because it annoys her, I switch to Italian. “Mi fai impazzire, lo sai? E il peggio è che sei bellissima mentre lo fai.”
She turns her face to the side. “Stop arguing with me when I can’t understand it.”
“Non.”
“I heard something that sounded like beautiful,” she says, “so I’m assuming you told me you’re attracted to me. Thank you. I know.”
“No more tanning topless. You promised you’d be a perfect wife from here on out,” I tell her.
“And now I know that doesn’t involve being topless,” she says. “Lesson learned.”
“You knew that already.”
She turns her face to the side. “I suspected. You’re painfully predictable sometimes.”
“Oh, I am?”
“Yes.”
“Maybe it’s because you work so very hard at being unpredictable.”
Her eyes flash up to mine. “It comes naturally.”
“Let’s not lie, darling. I think you love thinking of ways to annoy me.
Do you lie awake at night?” I smooth my hands up, over the feathers of her shoulder blades.
“Plotting ways to get under my skin, like that would bother me, when I won. Because I did win, Paige. Mather & Wilde is mine. Your uncle is out.” I lean in closer.
“So if you want me to admit that I enjoy the view? You’re going to have to work harder. ”
“Do I?” she asks. Her eyes close, and a smile spreads across her face. “Because you’re still touching me, and I’m pretty sure there’s no sunscreen left.”
Damn it.
“Well, well,” a new voice says. “This looks cozy.”
It’s West. Up on the terrace, he’s standing next to my sister Nora and his sister Amber.
He’s shielding his eyes from the sun and looking at us with a tight expression.
But my sister doesn’t say anything. Her eyes are hidden behind a pair of giant sunglasses, but I have no doubt I’ll hear all about it later.
They’ve arrived early.
Fantastic.