Who has a privatejet?
My new husband, apparently. It’s a level of wealth so far above anything I’m used to. I hope I showed him just how unimpressed I was by that, even though the plane was gorgeous. Like everything his company does, it was high-quality fabrics and leathers and understated elegance.
It’s my first time in Italy since I was fourteen and went on a two-week European trip with my parents. The passport officer tells me “Benvenuta, signorina” in a bored drawl and waves me on, and it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard.
When I first emailed Rafe, spending the summer in Europe wasn’t something I’d considered. I knew he lived and worked in Paris at the Maison Valmont headquarters, sure. But I hadn’t fully thought it through.
And I had no idea he usually spent the summers at a Lake Como villa.
But my trust stipulates that I have to marry for love.Love of my life,in fact, according to the clause my grandparents put in. It affected my parents and my uncle, and now me.
So we have to stay together. Perform together.
Which includes two months in Rafe’s Lake Como villa.
Apparently it’s close enough to Milan that plenty of designers filter in and out throughout the summer, and from the way he describes it, I imagine he closes deals over Aperol spritzes instead of in boardrooms. The conqueror doesn’t stop conquering, he just shifts his base of operations to a more summer-compatible location.
We pick up a car at Milan airport and he drives.
It surprises me, that he’s not the kind of man who’s chauffeured around. He struck me as the kind of man who was chauffeured around, to take every moment he could to spend on work. On stripping yet another old company down to the studs and using its legacy to sell key chains and mass-manufactured items to people worldwide.
I glance from his hand on the leather steering wheel to the window. We’ve been on the highway for a solid twenty minutes. The landscape shifts from farmland to suburbs and back again.
He’s a stranger, and he’s my husband, and we’ll have weeks ahead of us to continue working on how to integrate my company into Valmont’s on my terms.
I have no doubt that I’ll have to be the one to push for that.
He could easily hand it off to one of his executives, but I don’t want that. I married theowner. And I’m going to make it impossible for him to strip down Mather & Wilde.
No studs will show on my watch.
I lean my head against the headrest and close my eyes for just a second. The car continues to roll.
Just for a second.
“Awake?” he asks, and it’s been longer than a second. I blink my eyes open at the view outside. We’re not on a highway anymore. There are trees outside the window and the glittering blue of a large lake.
“Yes,” I say. He’s still driving one-handed along the curving road, and I look back out the window. It’s not the ocean I was raised with, but the sight of the deep blue is just as beautiful.
“This is the lake?” I ask. There’s a pulse of insecurity in my chest, and I do my best to fake confidence in my voice. Like none of this bothers me in the least.
“Lake Como, yes.” He slows the car as we enter a small town. Rows of houses are built on either side of the street, in varying colors of terracotta. One has roses overflowing from window boxes. There’s a bakery and a restaurant.
“This is Lenno,” he says. “It’s the village we’ll live in.”
“Your house is here?”
“Yes.”
I look out at the cute terracotta houses. Raphaël Montclair in one of these? It’s so unexpectedly quaint somehow.
But he keeps driving past them. He turns down a tiny street, away from the pretty houses, and pulls up to a wrought iron gate. On either side atop the gateposts is a small cherub-like figure, each clutching urns to their chests. A high hedge blocks any view of the property.
He rolls down his window and presses a button on the free-standing intercom. And then he says something in rolling Italian.
“Benvenuto,”the voice responds.
The gate opens slowly. The wrought iron gives way to a gravel courtyard, tall trees, and a large beige house. It’s at least three stories, with dark shutters and stone steps up to the front door. There’s a garage off to the side and beautiful, overflowing flowers in large planters. All around us are tall, tight hedges in deep green colors.
