Chapter 63 Rafe
RAFE
“Look at this.” Paige is sitting on the edge of my desk, and she’s holding up her laptop with news headlines. There’s a picture of us in Monaco, alongside a giant headline. Luxury’s latest lovebirds seem legit.
“That’s terrible copywriting,” I say.
She laughs. Her hair is loose around her shoulders, and she’s sitting directly on top of a pile of documents I need access to, and she smells good. I smooth my hand up her bare calf. “Yes, but it’s great news,” she says. “We’re selling it. It’s working.”
“And the news cycle is shifting,” I add. “No one is going to care for long.”
“Hopefully this is what they’ll remember. When it dies down.” She leans back, bracing her hands against the edge of the desk. She’s still wearing the watch I gave her.
She told me how much she liked it this morning, after another tennis match. She carefully took it off before diving into the lake after we’d finished playing.
I don’t deserve her. I know it, and it’s like a stone in my shoe, the knowledge every time she smiles at me and thanks me and touches me. That she is more goodness than I will ever deserve in this life.
Her trust is the greatest thing I’ve ever been given, and I have to make sure I live up to it.
“Your uncle’s lawsuit is close to being settled,” I tell her. “The legal definition of love of your life is flimsy at best. Your grandfather’s will is… well.”
“From a different time.” She smiles at me, and it’s like the rays of the sun. “So you think we’re done with him soon?”
“Almost positive,” I tell her.
She looks down at my hand, where it’s brushing over the smooth skin of her calf. “Come with me to Gloucester sometime soon. I’ll show you the Mather one of the world’s most celebrated designers and the owner of the world’s largest luxury conglomerate.
I hold her fate. But she holds part of mine.
“No,” I say. “It’s not.”
“Ah. I have been correct, then. Things changed a few weeks ago?”
“Yes.”
“I am very perceptive,” she says, and her smile widens. “Maybe I will leave Maison Valmont one day, maybe I won’t. But it won’t be because of this.”
“Thank you,” I tell her, not knowing entirely what I feel about all of it. Across the terrace, Paige is in an animated conversation with Leelyn. She looks happy.
“Don’t feel played,” Sylvie says. “You two were trying to deceive us. We just had a little fun back.”
I run a hand along my jaw. “Yes. I can see that.”
Sylvie stubs out her cigarette. “Let’s go be with our wives and leave business talk to tomorrow.”
If only business could be entirely separated from my wife.
Because by the morning, it’s all anyone can talk about.