44. Rafe
RAFE
I sleep like the dead.
No nightmare comes to wake me. It’s been more than a week since I had my last one. I blink awake once, and find her fitted tightly against me, my arm around her waist.
It’s still dark outside. She’s breathing deeply, and I know she’d hate this. That she made her way over to my side in her sleep.
But I like it too much to move away. So I closed my eyes and fall back asleep with her body cradled against mine.
When I wake up again, sunshine streams in through the window. The sheets are tangled and the bathroom is a mess of towels, and Paige is nowhere to be seen.
I run a hand over my face. Half of yesterday was due to the damn drugs making my heart race and my cock harder than it’s ever been. But I’ll be damned if the other half wasn’t knowing it was her hand around me and her eyes watching. And seeing her make herself come in that shower…
It was a dangerous game, but it might be the best one I’ve ever played.
My attraction to her is no longer something I can pretend happens only sometimes. It’s there. A fact of nature, and one that’s growing stronger day by day. It’s not a passing itch. I wonder if there’s any way around it, or if we have to fuck to get it out of our systems.
So what if we’re still arguing most days? We have this, whatever last night was, and it’s something we can give one another.
The bruise below my eye has bloomed into something much stronger. She’s not around, and I consider digging around in her bag for something to cover it.
I don’t know where she is.
I change into a pair of slacks and a shirt and look over at where my t-shirt still lies on the bed. She slept in it last night.
Fuck, I shouldn’t like that as much as I do.
I pull a cap low on my face to hide the bruise as much as I can. My phone pings, and I grab it on the way to put on my shoes.
Nora
Ben Wilde is outside. Come quick.
I’m moving before I finish reading it. The lobby is a blur of people, and I push through them all, taking the stone steps two at a time. Across the street stand West and Nora.
No Ben Wilde.
“He just left,” Nora says. She’s got her hand locked in West’s, who looks more pissed than I’ve ever seen him. “West threatened him a bit too much.”
“He was outside of the hotel. He was waiting,” West says in a half-snarl.
“Paige was here. She ran when we came out,” Nora says.
“Where did she go?”
“Down there. Toward the docks, just a minute ago,” Nora says. “Go.”
I’m already moving. Racing toward where she disappeared, across the street, and down to the long boardwalk along the marina.
There are tourists everywhere. Someone tries to sell me a keychain with Monaco emblazoned on the side. My eyes roam, looking for golden hair in a long braid or loose and moving with the breeze.
It takes me ten minutes to find her.
She’s pacing at the edge of one of the docks, arms wrapped around herself, looking over the ocean. There’s a frantic nature to her movements.
I walk out the dock with slow steps. Ben was here. Here, talking to her. Was it her he was waiting for?
I shove my hands into my pockets and come to a stop in front of her. It takes her a few more panicked paces before she notices me. Her eyes widen, and her chest lifts in quick breaths.
I recognize that look. I’ve seen it once before, when she couldn’t breathe in her wedding dress. She’s panicking. Her uncle talking to her had not been a good thing. When Paige is truly scheming, she is smiling. She’s not struggling to breathe.
“Rafe,” she says. Her eyes flick behind me, to the edge of the dock, like she wants to run again. But then her breathing speeds up. Like it did in my kitchen, with her tied into a silk wedding dress, tears in her eyes.
Seeing her like that last time had made me react on instinct. Now it feels painful to see, and I approach slowly. “Breathe, darling. Can you do that for me again? Breathe in and breathe out.”
She tries to take a ragged breath. But it comes out gulping. I wrap an arm around her waist.
“Let’s sit. That’s it…”
Our legs hang over the edge of the dock. She has always seemed to love the water. It calms her. She takes another deep breath. And then another. Her eyes are roaming, but they finally land on me.
I think of what I just saw. What I just said.
And now this.
I’ve wondered, of course. But I didn’t until this very moment, seeing her destroyed by a conversation with him, just how poorly her uncle has treated her. My free hand tightens into a fist at my side.
I’m going to hate that man until my dying day.
“I didn’t… he was waiting for me,” she says, and her breath comes in gulps. “He said… he said…”
Tears start to flow down her cheeks, and her hands find my knee, my shirt. Like they’re scrambling for purchase.
I open my arms in invitation. “Come here.”
She climbs into my lap, legs draped over mine. Her breathing is still fast, and I murmur into her hair that she should breathe. That’s all she has to do. Breathe.
“I’m trapped,” she says between sobs, her voice thin. “And I hate feeling trapped.”
“By who?” I ask. “By me?”
She nods, quick and panicked. “By everything. I have to make the company a success. I have to, or all this was for nothing. I have to—” she breaks off on a gulping breath. “He thinks… he thinks… we’re not in love.”
My hand strokes over her back. She’s crying now, warm tears against my neck. “We’ll talk later. Breathe for now. That’s it.”
It takes time. But slowly, breath by breath, she finds a rhythm to it again. Her hair smells like the hotel’s shampoo, from her shower last night.
I hold her tight and wonder what the worst thing I can do to Ben Wilde is.
Her hot forehead falls against my neck.
“Harder,” she murmurs.
I tighten the arms I’ve wrapped around her, and she sighs against me, like that’s exactly what she needed. Like I can hold her together.
Despite the warm weather, faint shivers pass through her. I hear a few footsteps walking behind us on the dock. Heading to and from the boats.
I ignore them all.
Her hand has found its way around my neck, and she’s holding on. Slowly, her breathing calms, and her body turns soft in my arms. It’s been a very long time since I held someone like this. Since they sought comfort in me.
“He ambushed you?” I ask, when she’s calm again, when her breathing is slow and steady.
Her calmness has given way to an anger in me.
“I didn’t know he was here,” she says. “I didn’t know he’d find me.”
“What did he say?” I ask. She doesn’t answer, her forehead still pressed to my neck, and I turn my lips to her forehead. “Paige. What did he say?”
“He’s angry. I betrayed my family, he said. That you’re using me.” She takes a deep breath. “He’s saying he knows you’re not the love of my life… He could ruin so much, Rafe.”
“He can’t access your company anymore,” I say. “My lawyers are on it.”
She nods, but I’m not sure if she understands me. If she takes it all in. I betrayed my family. From the little I’ve heard, I’m not sure if she was ever treated all that well.
“Paige,” I say again. “You and I are in this together. We have a unified goal. He won’t get in the way of that.”
She takes a deep breath and leans back in my arms. Her chocolate eyes are liquid, long eyelashes wet from her tears. She looks at me for a long few seconds before she closes them again, shutting herself away from view.
“I’m so embarrassed,” she whispers. “I can’t believe you saw that.”
“Don’t be.” I lean forward, my lips against her cheek, her ear. This might not be the right thing to say. But she loves our point game. “You helped me last night, when I was in a bind. You won that point.”
“So this is quid pro quo?” Her voice is stronger now, a hint of a smile to it.
“Not quite. I still owe you an orgasm, but it’s a start,” I say.
She takes another deep breath, and this time, it’s hitched with a tiny hint of a chuckle. “Good.”
“Good?”
“Yeah. I think… I think I’m better now.”
“You’re sure? You’re not going to jump off this dock if I let you go, are you? This isn’t a good place for a swim.”
She giggles. It’s a soft sound, tentative, and she shifts in my lap. “No. Not today.”
“Thank God.” I keep my arm wrapped around her waist. She might be ready to leave, but I’m not. “Does this happen often? The panic attacks.”
She looks out over the marina. Her long hair is tangled over her back, spilling like warm wheat, and I let it run over my hand. Just once.
“Sometimes. It started a few years ago, but… I thought I had it under control. Apparently not.”
I think of my nightmares. Of the clawing guilt, the turmoil under my skin, the only way I’ve learned to handle it. I thought I had that under control too. A system that no one else had to inspect or look too closely at.
A system no one else knew about.
“By distracting yourself,” I say.
Her eyes return to me. There’s a golden lock stuck to her temple, and I brush it back. “Yeah. I don’t like sitting still.”
“I’ve noticed.”
Her lips tip up into a tiny smile. It makes me want to kiss her, and that want momentarily makes it hard to think. It’s not the urge I’ve had before, the fierce pounding of lust for a woman who drives me insane. This is something far softer.
“Your uncle won’t be a problem. I can handle him,” I say.
She nods and takes a deep breath. “You once told me that you didn’t understand why I’d… why I’d… double-cross family.”
My own words, my own thoughts. Waves beat against the dock beneath us. “Yes. I said that. But I understand it now, darling.”
Her fingers brush over my cheek. “You just called me darling,” she says. “But there’s no one around to hear.”
“You can never be too thorough,” I murmur.
Her fingers linger on my cheek. “And you went out with your bruise like this. Anyone could have seen.”
“I got an urgent text,” I say.
“I’ll cover it up for you. Later.”
I press my lips to her temple. The urge is too great. “Thank you.”