“I’m testing you. Think you can choose something I’ll like?”
“Debatable, since I can’t dress you in one of my shirts,” I say, “but if you dare me, you know I’ll always say yes.”
“I’m learning that. How much time do we have?”
I glance at my watch. “An hour or so before we need to be at Artemis. And I know the spot. Come.”
CHAPTER 48
PAIGE
Rafe directs me to a store farther down the street. It’s a beautiful city, and a beautiful day, and I’m excited to get to see the Artemis factory. But his comments aboutpetty family squabbles and mismanagementlanded a little too close to home.
That’s what I’ve been fighting against for almost a decade within Mather & Wilde.
We fit the bill for one of the companies he helps. He and his giant team of well-spoken, highly educated, talented Maison Valmont employees. So far I’ve yet to meet a single one that hasn’t been competent and kind.
It’s harder and harder to stay seated on my high horse.
He opens the door to the store for me with impeccable manners, as always. The place smells great and has plush, beige carpets. I’m pretty sure the staff recognize him. We’re greeted with warm professionalism and smooth French. Rafe puts a hand on my low back and asks if they’d mind switching to English.
It’s the kind of courtesy he never gives me when we argue. But here, in this place, he does. It makes my stomach tighten uncomfortably.
I’m notmeantto find him as intriguing as I do. To wonder about his nightmares and scars, his fighting and his family. And I’m certainly not meant to remember what he felt like in my hand, the sound of his labored breathing, his groaning words telling me how well I was stroking him.
We’re offered champagne, and Rafe walks around the room, inspecting the dresses. It’s strange, seeing him like this, having also seen him last week in that fighting den. Here, he is just as tall and broad, but he’s wrapped in polish and charm.
I wonder if there’s a middle ground between the two where the real Rafe lives.
I wonder if he ever lets anyone in to see that version of him.
Rafe picks out a few dresses. I walk beside him, the cool champagne soothing my sore throat, and talk to him the entire time. I make comments about dresses. Colors I like, shapes I don’t. Some are truths and some are lies.
After the third dress, he looks over at me with eyes that are far too amused for what I’ve been hoping for. “This is not going to annoy me. You think it will, but it won’t.”
I take another sip. “I am very good at annoying you.”
“Yes, but I’m finding myself increasingly… immune.”
The drink isn’t cool anymore. It sends bubbles of heat down my body. “Really? That’s frustrating. Why?”
His lips have that small curve to them, the one that shows off his left-sided dimple. “I think it may have something to do with your recent… charity work.”
It takes me a second.
And then more heat claws up my cheeks at the mention of that night, the one we said we wouldn’t talk about. The shot he took in Monte Carlo, his hardness, and the orgasms I helped him have.
“I didn’t know helping a man in medical distress counted as charity,” I say, trying to sound unaffected. “But I’ll take it.”
“I could have handled it on my own.” He turns to me fully, the intensity of him bearing down on me. “So it wasn’t really charity, was it? You did it because you wanted to. And you liked it, too.”
I look around in the tastefully decorated store, but there’s no attendant close enough to overhear. No one to save me from the heat pulsing over my skin. When I look back, his smile has curved into something crooked.
“Smugness doesn’t look good on you,” I tell him.
“Liar.” He runs a hand along his stubbled jaw, his wedding ring gold against his olive skin. Being attracted to my own husband is going to get me in trouble. “I owe you at least two orgasms, you know.”
“And you think now is the time to discuss that?” I ask. But I’m shifting closer to him.
