Chapter 34
RAFE
She’s furious.
There’s color high on her cheeks, and her eyes spark with it. She’s beautiful. She always is, but right now it’s like the pointed end of a sharp sword, ready to slide between my ribs.
She’s so sure she’s right, and she’s dead wrong.
I had to watch her flirt with someone else in front of me. It was brief. It’s unlikely anyone noticed. No one but me, because I seem to be so attuned to her that I’m always aware of her. Where she is in a room, who she’s talking to.
She aimed a wide smile at him. Pretty like the wings of a butterfly and just as flighty, still dressed in white as my bride.
After our dance, the boat makes its way to the dock in Bellagio.
It stops to drop off the majority of the passengers.
There are more hotels there, and they amble up the steps.
I spend the last few minutes talking with my mother.
She’s in high spirits. She loves celebrations, and people, and being seen.
The boat stops back at Villa Egeria, and the rest of the guests get off. Paige is laughing with my sister. I wonder if anyone else can hear the tension in her forced mirth.
I thank the captain for the excellent work and hand him an envelope with a large tip to be divided amongst the crew. The boat sets off again, heading toward its homeport.
My family and friends walk up toward the house. Everyone except Paige. She remains standing on the dock.
She leans precariously against the weathered stone lion, staring at me like we’re in a cage fight. I never, ever want to see her in one. But there’s no doubt in my mind that she would be fierce.
“Are you going to stay out here all night?” I ask. My voice comes out sharper than it should.
She’s made an assumption. It’s not a correct one, but it’s not like I can tell her the truth either.
“Why not? You’ve broken the deal. I’m not sleeping in the same bed as you.”
I take a step closer, my hands spread wide. “Look, I haven’t slept with anyone since I met you. I haven’t fucking kissed anyone since you sent me that first email. Why can’t you trust me on that? This is not a hickey.”
“Trust you?”
My jaw flexes. “Yeah. I heard how that sounded.”
“You’ve made it clear that you don’t trust me,” she says. “Why wouldn’t I do the same for you?”
Damn it. There’s so little between us that’s real, and I can’t give her this. I can’t give her the truth, because no one can know.
It can never get out.
Not to my team, my executives, my investors, my designers. My family. The media or the public. There’s a reason the fights are underground, with regulated entry and damn near capital punishment for bringing a phone or camera.
“That’s what I thought.” She steps out of her high-heeled shoes. Sky-high and sharp, just like her. “You couldn’t keep your dick in your pants for a few weeks?”
“I’m not an idiot. I don’t want to risk this being revealed as a sham marriage either.”
“Who is she? Is she someone who works for you? Or is it many someones? Do you pick up women in bars?” She reaches for her ponytail and tugs it out, leaving her hair a golden mane around her. “This concerns me, Montclair, and my interests, and yet you won’t tell me the truth.”
“I’m not fucking around.” Frustration seeps into my voice. I see her bare skin beneath my hands on that massage table and feel her in my arms. “You saw me this morning. I woke up hard. Does that seem like someone who gets laid regularly?”
“Then tell me you got that hickey on your own. Tell me you tripped, or it’s a burn mark, or anything. Just tell me someone else didn’t do that.” She points at my neck.
And I can’t tell her that.
It would be a lie, and for whatever reason, I can’t bring myself to look at her and give her something false.
Her eyes spark. It’s not the anger she’s shown me before. This is a fiercer kind, a more uncontrollable version. “I’m too hot,” she declares. “I think I’m going for a swim.”
I want to strangle her. “Paige, it’s past midnight.”
“You’re excellent at keeping time. But then again, your family basically invented the wristwatch.” She grabs the zipper of her dress and pulls it down, the sound cutting through the air like a ricocheting bullet. “Good thing it’s dark out here.”
“You’re not skinny dipping in the lake. There are people everywhere.” I take a step forward. “Listen to me, Wilde.”
“Why should I?” She shimmies out of the dress. It drops to the stone dock, and she steps past it, clad in only her lingerie.
This is becoming a terrible habit.
She reaches behind her and undoes her bra, then lets it drop the ground. My hands tighten at my sides.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” I mutter. It’s dark, but it’s not that dark, with the lights at the dock softly reflecting against the water’s surface. I can make out her soft curves, long lines, and her perky tits. “What is it with you and being topless all the time?”
She reaches for her panties. “If you’re so concerned, I won’t be topless. I’ll just be fully naked.”
“Damn it. Put your clothes back on. Right now.”
“What? Why would this bother you, if you’re not attracted to me? You’ve said you’re not.” Her voice is mocking, and I’m not looking at her. I’m looking at my boat. Rocking softly to the side. “Don’t look away, Rafe. This is nothing you haven’t seen before. Right, husband? Or are you too scared?”
“Too scared?” My eyes slide back to take her in. All of her, clad only in moonlight and the faint flicker of the lanterns, and it’s not bright enough. I can’t see as much as I want to.
But it’s still too damn much.
She’s gorgeous. Long lines, flared hips, trim waist. The curves I can’t get out of my head, and now this, the space between her thighs, bared to my view.
Everything inside me tightens at the sight. And suddenly I hate the darkness. She should be clad in light, illuminated and worshipped.
I want her so badly it makes my teeth ache.
She’s so close, and still so very far away.
“There are people in the house,” I say.
“Too bad.” She takes a step backward, and then another, getting perilously close to the edge. “At least I’m wearing my rings now. Just like you asked.”
She’s just not wearing anything else.
“Do not get in that lake. So help me God, Paige—”
“Tell me who you’re sleeping with.”
“I’m not fucking sleeping with anyone!”
“Then admit you were jealous on the boat when you saw me flirting with that guy,” she says. “Admit that you’re attracted to me and don’t want to be. Just tell me something that’s not a lie.”
I can’t do that. I stare at her instead, short nails digging into my palms. It feels like I’m tearing apart at the seams. The fighting is a part of me she’s never going to learn about. Its ugliness has no place near her.
“I thought so.” She turns and dives cleanly off the edge of the dock, her naked body cutting through the surface.
Fuck. It’s not as deep as it seems, and I stride past the clothes she left, toward the edge. The lake is cold and deceptively calm. There are currents, especially farther from shore, and I don’t know if she’s a strong swimmer.
I’ve been diving from this dock since I was a child. I know where to go. She doesn’t, and it’s pitch black. Damn her. I’m about to dive in myself when she surfaces two meters away from the dock.
“Oh my God!” she sputters.
“Are you hurt?”
“That’s cold. Oh shit. Very cold.” She swims forward, and I step onto the stone steps that lead straight into the water.
I extend a hand. “Get up here. Right now.”
She could have hit her head. She’s reckless, and I hate her for it almost as much as I hate myself. Her hand grasps mine, and I help pull her up. Her mane of golden hair is slick and dark around her shoulders.
She’s shivering.
I’m not wearing a suit jacket. It’s too damned hot for that, so I start unbuttoning my shirt instead.
“Do not do that again. Ever,” I tell her. I’m so angry it’s hard to think straight. She could have died. Floated away into the darkness.
“What are you doing?” she asks through chattering teeth. She’s wrapped her arms around herself, trying to stay warm.
“Not letting my wife die from hypothermia.” I wrap the shirt around her. I’m half-expecting her to toss it off, but she doesn’t. She hugs it close. “There are people everywhere. Why do you have this need to show everyone your naked body?”
My hands rub up and down her shoulders. I should have been more careful during that fight. He got a single lucky hit, my opponent, and of course it was somewhere visible. And now everything is collapsing with Paige.
“Why can’t you just tell me?” she asks.
I start buttoning the shirt over her chest, sealing away inch after inch of her soft skin behind the linen. “Can’t you just drop it?”
“No, I can’t drop it.” Her voice tightens. “If you’re sneaking out to meet up with a secret girlfriend, it’s going to get out, Rafe. You know it will. And I’m going to look like a fool, and our marriage even more of a sham.”
“You’re angry,” I say. The best defense is a good offense. “Or are you jealous? Why does this bother you so much?”
“If I’m jealous, then you were jealous on that boat. Of Antoine.” She takes a step closer, and just like that, she undoes all of my hard work. She slips my shirt off her shoulders and remains there, naked, only inches away. “You didn’t like seeing someone else interested in your investment.”
“No. I really didn’t.” My voice is almost a snarl.
He’s fired. Tomorrow.
“If you don’t tell me where you’re off to at night,” she says, “I’ll just have to find someone who will fuck me, too. It’s not fair that I have to stay celibate when you’re not.”
The words run like a hot poker down my back.
Fuck her. I imagine Paige’s face relaxed in bliss, her mouth half open, body on top of mine.
She’d be good in bed. She’d take what she wanted, and I would love giving it to her.
Hearing her moan, just like she did while eating that chocolate cake. We would keep score.
And the idea of her doing that with anyone else makes me want to die.
“You will not,” I say.