Chapter 38
PAIGE
One day I’m getting married on a glittering terrace overlooking Lake Como.
The next I’m wiping blood off Rafe’s knuckles, heart pounding.
And now I’ve checked into one of the most luxurious hotel rooms I’ve ever seen, with windows overlooking the yacht-filled harbor of Monte Carlo. When the others told me what they were planning, I said I wanted to come with immediately.
Travel is movement, and movement is safety.
The more time I have to think, the more I’ll see Rafe in front of me. Tired and sweaty and more intense than I’ve ever seen him, his eyes so close to mine. It was like I’d finally seen the real him. Edges smoothed off and our usual arguments paused.
There was honesty in that small closet. Fear, too. But the honesty is what scared me most of all. He is messy, just like me.
I don’t know how to handle it. So I packed a bag for Monaco instead. It’s only a three-and-a-half-hour drive, but James arranged helicopters, and I got to see the Italian countryside and the French Riviera from the sky in one single ride.
Rafe didn’t take off his sunglasses the whole time.
Not even when we checked into the grand hotel.
He headed upstairs to our room while Nora, Amber and I went for a quick round of shopping.
Amber talked to us about investment strategy, Nora picked out outfits for all three of us and I spent extra time in the changing room answering emails to colleagues at Mather & Wilde.
Things are flowing surprisingly smoothly at headquarters with Rafe’s lackey there as the new CEO. My friends on the inside are keeping me updated. This is what I wanted, but it feels oddly empty to not be needed after years of keeping the company from crumbling under my uncle’s incompetence.
We stop for lattes before walking back to the hotel. “You’ve been to one of these parties before,” I ask Nora, “right? I heard a rumor.”
“Just one.” Her cheeks heat up.
“Wait, what’s that reaction?” I ask. “Tell us everything.”
She does, and excitement drums louder inside me with every dizzying detail. The mention of people having sex makes my mind perfectly blank for a second. I know that’s not the focus. The focus is the poker game and winning back whatever Alex lost.
But it’s hard not to think about that part.
When I open our hotel room door, Rafe’s coming out of the bathroom. He’s wearing a towel around his waist, hair wet, the scar on full display. There’s a dark bruise spreading over his opposite ribs.
I stop in my tracks. “Hi.”
“Hello,” he says.
We haven’t really had a chance to speak without others around since the other night. I don’t know where we stand. Judging from the wariness in his eyes, neither does he.
“Your eye.”
“Yeah,” he says. “The bruise is getting worse.”
“That’s why you’ve been wearing sunglasses the whole day?”
“Yes. Too noticeable?” he asks.
I shrug. “A little. It would be weird if you wore them to the party. But I have makeup. I mean, I could help to try and conceal it.”
He’s quiet for a beat. “You would help?”
“Yes. If you want me to.”
“Yes. Thanks.” He heads to his open suitcase. I set down my shopping in the meantime and pretend I don’t hear the rustling of clothes, the sounds of him getting ready. Fabric over damp skin.
“What did you buy?”
“Clothes for tonight,” I say. “Nora picked out outfits for all three of us. She’s good at that.”
“She is, yeah.”
“I paid for their dresses too, by the way, with the card you gave me.”
“You’re good at spending my money,” he says. It’s impossible to read his voice, if that’s mocking or a simple fact.
“I see it as a personal challenge.” I grab my makeup bag from deep within my suitcase.
“I’ll come with you one day, you know.” He walks into view, framed by the doorway of the bathroom. “See how much you like it when you have to pretend to like something hideous.”
I walk past him into the bathroom. He smells good. Clean and soapy. “My shopping spree in Milan was enough, thank you.”
“And yet you keep stealing my shirts.”
I smile. It’s the one thing I can’t stop doing. There’s something about his pristine wardrobe, with pressed shirts and steamed linen, that invites anarchy. “And you hate it so very much, don’t you?”
“Loathe it,” he says. His voice sounds so close in here, amplified by the marble. “Have you canceled that penis enlargement you booked?”
I rummage through my makeup bag for concealer. “No. Not yet.”
“I don’t need it,” he says, and sits down on the ledge of the bathtub.
“Well,” I say, and turn back to regard him. I try very hard to just focus on his skin and the bruise. “I don’t know that for certain.”
His lips tug into a smile, and I quickly shake my head. “Don’t say another word.”
His smile widens, but he’s quiet. I step between his splayed knees. I felt him hard against me, that night on the dock. But it wasn’t enough to tell. Not that I would want to know either way. It doesn’t matter.
“Sit still. This might hurt a little,” I say.
“You’ll enjoy it, then,” he says.
I think of watching the punches land yesterday, watching him absorb them. Hear his inhale at the pain. No, I think. I won’t.
But I don’t say that part out loud.
“Your skin is more olive-toned than mine.”
“More what?”
“Olive-toned. But I’ll mix it with some bronzer afterward… it should work. Will it be dark at the party?”
“I assume so.”
“Good.” I pad concealer against the ring beneath his eye. The skin didn’t split, and it’s not too swollen. With some luck, changing the coloring will be enough.
“I like your sister,” I say. She told me all about the new fashion line she’s designing. “She knows clothes.”
“Mhm. She does.”
“Does she work with you? At Maison Valmont?”
“On and off,” he says. “She has a seat on the board, of course. But she wants to design her own collection first. I hope she’ll join me one day.”
I use my fingertip to pad the concealer into his warm skin. He doesn’t flinch, but it must be sore. He means join him in running the empire. Of course. Now he does it mainly alone.
“Does she know?” I ask. “About the fighting?”
His eyes flash to mine, and he’s silent for so long that I think he won’t answer me. But then he sighs. “The guys know. But not her, and not Amber.”
“You two seem close,” I say. It’s hard, when you’ve never had a sibling, to imagine the bond. As a child, I was so jealous of my friends with sisters.
“Nora can’t find out,” he says. There’s a warning note in his voice.
“Why not?” I ask.
“She’d worry, and I don’t want her to worry. That’s my job.” His jaw works. “Not hers.”
I lean back. There’s such conviction in his voice. His eyes look up at me, and for a moment I can’t think of a single thing to say.
I once dismissed him as a man who didn’t care about anything.
I know now that was very wrong.
Rafe’s eyes are unreadable. “Are you thinking about what to demand in return for your silence?”
I start dabbing foundation back on his bruise and ignore the way my heart speeds up. It’s a logical assumption on his part. We make bets all the time. Demands and games and concessions.
It’s the language of our marriage. The only common language we’ve ever spoken.
But it feels dirty to ask for something in return for this. I don’t understand why he fights. Not yet. But he’d preferred me thinking he was breaking a promise of celibacy than to tell me the truth.
I focus on his bruise. “After Monaco… can you look at my proposal for the new Mather & Wilde direction? I know it has to go to the people in charge. I know that. But I want your eyes on it, too,” I say.
His eyes are valuable. He delegates, sure, but his word is law within Maison Valmont.
This is why I’m here. Why I married him.
To save my employees and my family company. I didn’t marry him to do this. To kiss him on docks and fly in helicopters and help him hide secrets from those he’s closest to.
“All right,” Rafe says.
I lean back. “All right?”
“It’s a fair trade.”
“Wow.” The bruise is covered, mostly. I’ll have to go over it with my bronzer to even out the change in skin tone. But the one on his neck, the one I thought was a hickey… that’s still there.
I start gently padding his neck.
He shifts.
“Hold still,” I tell him.
“I’m sitting still.”
“You moved.”
He looks at me while I pad foundation onto his skin. “It’s not a trade,” I say. “I mean, I know we said it was. But I’m not going to tell Nora regardless. I wouldn’t do that.”
He stays silent until the bruise on his neck is entirely covered, and I start brushing bronzer on with whisper-light touches.
“Thank you,” he says, and I wonder if I’m the one getting off lightly here. I raced after him in anger last night and found something so different from what I expected. And now this.
Life with him is many things, but it’s not boring.
“Tonight,” he says. “I should prepare you.”
“Nora told me a bit about the party. Although she has no idea who the woman throwing it is.”
He closes his eyes. “I hate that my sister has been. I hate that she’s going again.”
“It sounded cool.”
“Don’t be excited, Wilde.”
“Why not?”
He opens his eyes again, and they burn on mine. “Because you excited is a dangerous thing, and this party will be dangerous enough.”
“But you like to live dangerously,” I say, and think of last night. The cage, the shouts, the fists. Of his arm wrapped tightly around me as we left that place behind.
“Not this kind,” he says.
I lower the brush. He’s done, and I need to change into the new dress so we can leave with the others. We won’t receive the address to the party until the hour before. The secrecy around this party is enormous.
Rafe doesn’t let me take a step back. His hands land on my hips instead, locking me in place between his splayed knees.
“Listen to me.” His hair is damp and curling lightly at his temples. “Where we’re going tonight? I need you to behave.”
“The perfect wife,” I say. “I know. Or will there be more expected of me? Nora mentioned that sometimes these parties get…”
“Sometimes they do,” he says. His green eyes dip briefly to my lips. “Don’t drink anything you haven’t ordered yourself from a bartender. Don’t take any pills offered to you, and no shots. Don’t suggest a game with a stranger, don’t make any bets, don’t disappear into any rooms.”
My mouth dries. “Okay.”
“I mean it. You love chaos, but not tonight. Can you do that for me?” He shakes his head slowly. “Vivienne is not someone to be trifled with.”
“She runs these parties? Who is she?”
“Someone with too many connections and a penchant for drama.”
“Who will be there?”
“Everyone,” he says. “I have to play poker half the night. Behave when I’m not around to supervise you.”
“I’m not a child.”
His eyes flash. “No, you’re absolutely not.”
“And you’re insistent. If I didn’t know better,” I say, and slide the tip of my index finger along the sharp edge of his jaw, “I’d say you’re worried about me.”
They’re his words from last night. The hands gripping my waist flex, fingers digging in. “I know better than to underestimate you,” he says. It’s not a no. He made me promise after the fight that I’d never follow him again, never put myself in danger.
“Should the guests think that we’re real? You and me?”
“Yes. Nothing is recorded at these parties, but influential people go. Getting an invite to Vivienne’s parties is… well. Few people decline.” His eyes narrow. “I’m going to kiss you tonight.”
It’s not fear that spreads through me. It’s not hatred, either. I’m almost scared at the complete absence of those very sound, very logical feelings.
“Oh no,” I say. “I know how much you hate doing that.”
He’s closer now than he was a minute ago, his breath ghosting over my mouth. “I absolutely detest it.”
“Not as much as I do,” I say. “I gave you a chance to practice, but you’re still a terrible kisser.”
“And you’re the worst wife I’ll ever have,” he says, and brushes his mouth against mine. It’s a barely there kiss, and my eyes flutter closed, my body arching into him. Yes.
That’s when I feel his lips turn into a smile. “Come,” he says, and gets up. “We should get going.”