Chapter 65 Rafe
RAFE
No one hurts my family.
I’ve always lived by that philosophy. No one… except me, it seems. Because it’s when I fail that they hurt. Paige has a target on her back because of me.
I should have handled Ben earlier. I should have foreseen this, had that will dissolved, taken the precautionary steps. He followed her to Monaco and I held her when she cried instead of making sure he was cowed into staying the fuck away from her.
That failure is on me.
Guilt drives me like a whip the rest of the day. It crystallizes my focus. I need to fix this and I need to atone for it. For the look of devastation and sadness on her face. That she’s been let down once again by family.
I need to prove that she can trust me to handle this. That I’m the one she can turn to. But you always let them down, a voice whispers in my head.
Like I did with Etienne.
I’ve lived my life avoiding mistakes, being the best, but they keep seeming to creep in. I’ve lived with the guilt like a ghost that refused to haunt me properly. Always hovering just out of reach, impossible to exorcise and just as impossible to ignore.
I have to fix this.
I spend the next hours locked in my office.
It’s not hard, once I start, to pull up the relevant documentation.
Ben Wilde mismanaged Mather my brother did the same.”
“That clause in the will is paper-thin and you know it.”
His voice turns low. “Paige never understood what it cost to lead. The expectations and the pressure to carry on something greater than yourself. I couldn’t let it fail. That’s why I kept expanding. It couldn’t fail.”
“Ben, let me level with you. There’s so much I could do to make you look like the most incompetent man that’s ever lived.
You will never work again. You won’t be given a seat on any board.
Your name will be completely persona non grata in the fashion space.
You know I can do that. I know everyone and everyone knows me.
Whatever friends you think you have, they will turn on you the second I put the full force of Maison Valmont into this. ”
He’s quiet on the other end of the line, but I know he’s listening to every single word.
“You built your reputation and family on a legacy, but I’ll make sure everyone knows what kind of man you are,” I say.
“Your poorly thought-out, misogynistic power play against a young woman… How about we let the world judge who really failed the company: you or Paige, hmm? I’ll take my chances,” I say.
“You wouldn’t,” he says. “You care about your reputation.”
Another day, maybe. In a lifetime before Paige danced into my life, with sparkling eyes and a quick mouth. But there are bigger things to care about now.
But not for Ben. He only has his reputation left. It’s the last thing he clings to.
“I don’t. I care about Paige.”
“She’s my niece,” Ben says.
“No. She’s my wife,” I snarl back, “and you’ve forfeited the right to call her family.
You will never contact her again unless she reaches out.
Ben, I always win. You know this. That’s why you fought me for so long.
But you have no cards left to play, and I hold them all.
Give up before you lose the little you have left. ”
“Fuck you,” he mutters. But it’s weak, and it’s shaky, and I can taste victory.
“That’s not what I want to hear.”
“Fine,” he says, “fine, you win. I understand.”
“Good. Now I’m going to distribute these documents to the rest of my team with explicit instructions to make all this public if you ever raise a finger again.”
“I understand,” he grinds out. “I pity my niece, you know, if she has to spend every day with you.”
“Aw, acting like you care? How sweet. Goodbye, Ben. We’ll never talk again.”
“No, I don’t expect we will,” he mutters.
The phone line goes quiet. I lean back in the chair and take a few deep breaths. Fuck. He said it to wind me up, but it still gets me. I pity my niece if she has to spend every day with you.
The only thing I can think of is Paige. Of her face earlier. She looked so devastated.
This should get him off her back. But it’s not enough to fight against the ghost in the room, the guilt between my ribs.
I’ve never wanted anything as badly as I want her love.
And there’s no way I deserve it.
All she ever wanted was to save her company. She never wanted to marry me, and she never wanted to be in the news. She never wanted any of this.
And she’s only a target because of me.
My father and I drove a wedge into her and Ben’s relationship by slowly acquiring all those Mather & Wilde shares over the years. The hammer I struck when I exercised those rights a few weeks after finding out about Ben and my sister.
She wouldn’t be in this position if it wasn’t for me.
It took everything to not crush her to me earlier and ask for forgiveness. Instead I did the best thing I could. I promised her that she’ll never hurt again because of her uncle’s actions.
When I leave my office, it’s almost midnight. The door to my bedroom is closed. She must have gone to bed, and I close my eyes, picturing myself sliding beneath the covers. Pulling her against me and telling her it’s fixed. It’s solved. I handled it for her.
But the guilt pulsing inside me won’t let me.
There’s only one thing that can stave that off, and it’s pain. Punishing myself for the sins of the past. So I head out to the car instead, a pounding pulse and the acrid taste of guilt.