Chapter 31
PAIGE
Rafe’s team is excellent.
The morning of my wedding, the only thing for me to do is show up.
There’s even a cup of coffee and chocolate waiting for me by the makeup chair.
Someone does my hair, too, and the team helps me get into the wedding dress.
Everything is organized down to a T. Both Nora and Amber come through, and I laugh and talk with them like all is fine.
And then it’s time.
I stand at the base of the stairs in the villa with Karim.
I can’t pace. The wedding dress is too tight for that, and too gorgeous to ruin.
I clutch the bouquet tight instead. It’s filled with purples and whites to match the setting sun, a theme I like but didn’t choose. Like most things about this wedding.
There’s no one here to walk me down the aisle.
I’ve known that would be the case since I was nineteen. That I would never have my parents here for my wedding. That didn’t bother me at the courthouse. That was a business transaction.
But this is an actual wedding. My wedding. My giant fake wedding.
The villa’s garden is filled to the brim with guests and photographers. For such short notice, the people in attendance are illustrious. It seems like people rearranged their calendars to be here. That’s how big this is.
That’s how important he is.
Chaos is usually my friend. It’s what I can lose myself in, how I drown out my own feelings of inadequacy and fear, but right now everything is painfully silent. Just me in this room, and Karim, standing quietly by the door, awaiting the right time.
I am perfectly alone. Like I have been for years.
I grip the bouquet so tightly that the stems dig into the flesh of my palm. Music plays past the terrace doors.
Please don’t have another panic attack, I tell myself, and pull up the hem of the gorgeous dress to look at the loafers I’m wearing beneath.
A classic pair of Mather & Wilde shoes. They’re wildly inappropriate for a wedding, but Sylvie’s dress skims the floor, covering them.
But I’m not going to walk down the aisle in anything else. My dress is one of his brands.
The shoes are mine.
That’s what I’m doing all of this for. It’s for the people working back home, who have hand made our products for decades. The company my parents loved. It’s how I keep them alive.
The music changes, and Karim looks over at me. There’s a kind smile on his face. “Are you ready?” he asks quietly.
I hope Rafe pays him a fortune. Not once has he made me feel insane for the business-transaction-turned-marriage that he has witnessed close up.
I nod and take a deep breath.
Then I step through the doors and out onto the terrace.
Chairs line the path through the garden. There are dozens of people I don’t know and a small handful I do. And at the very end of the walkway, in front of the villa’s famous fountain, stands Rafe and the officiant.
One foot in front of the other. That’s all I have to focus on.
I keep my eyes on him and not on all the people watching me, wondering, thinking, evaluating.
Rafe’s wearing a tux that looks tailored to his tall body, hands by his sides and his dark hair pushed back. He looks at me with an expression I can’t place.
It’s not joy. It’s not adoration or love. It’s not any of the things he’s meant to project to the onlooking audience, the people we’re performing for.
He looks at me like he knows me.
Like I’m his coconspirator in this, his partner in crime, his opponent on the battlefield. The nerves slow down inside me. He will be there to catch me at the end of the aisle. He has as much at stake as me.
I reach him and hand my bouquet to Nora on the front row. She gives me an encouraging smile. It’s amazing that she can be so kind after everything.
I put my hand in Rafe’s. He takes it in his steady one and meets my gaze. “Breathe,” he murmurs in the lowest of voices.
I do what he says and look up at him. He looks so good. All brutal lines and smooth elegance, and he smells good, too. Some kind of cologne.
The vows are a blur.
We decided to keep them short, and I snuck in a sentence about how I love his tenacity. You never give up, I say, and know he’ll catch the true meaning of those words.
To me, Rafe says he’s never met anyone who knows how to push his buttons the way I do.
The crowd laughs, and I paint a wide smile on my lips.
“You may now kiss the bride,” the officiant says. There’s heavy expectation hanging in the crowd, the eyes on us a palpable thing. Like a cloak that surrounds us. I didn’t realize it would feel as heavy as it does.
Rafe leans in, and he smiles a little, pausing a few inches from my mouth. “Behave,” he murmurs. He cups my face, angles my head back.
And then he kisses me like he’s won.
There’s none of the careful pretension of our first kiss at the charity gala. None of the burning desire of last night.
He kisses me like he’s done it a thousand times before. Like he knows my lips intimately, like I’m his, with a hot tongue that brushes over mine. And he does it all in front of this crowd of business associates and family and journalists who need to believe this is a real marriage.
It’s a dizzying performance. One that is good enough to almost make me believe he means it. My hand slides up, and I scrape my nails through his hair.
He groans and lifts his head. His eyes are dark on mine, and I’m dimly aware of applause ringing out around us. The smattering of cameras and the heavy presence of over a hundred people.
He leans in, lips against my ear. “Well done, darling.”
The praise is as unexpected as it is sincere. A breath escapes me. The first part is done. He grabs my hand, and we turn to the cheering crowd. I smile widely at them all.
But my pulse is racing for all the wrong reasons.