CHAPTER 59
RAFE
Afterward, I pull her panties back up to cover the mess I left behind. She tugs her skirt down and covers her tits again, the rosy nipples disappearing. There’s a beautiful flush on her cheeks.
We don’t play tennis.
“I’m still angry at you,” she tells me, and heads toward the steps without looking back.
“We have the interview at four!” I call.
“I know!” She calls back, and disappears up the gardens toward the villa.
I head in the opposite direction and dive into the lake to try to calm my racing heart.
Three hours later we’re sitting on the terrace next to each other, a few minutes before the journalist is set to arrive, with Karim setting up everything around us.
Paige has showered too. We’re both sitting there with damp hair and only a foot of distance between us, about to pretend to be madly in love.
She has her arms locked over her chest.
I should have told her myself. Of course I should have.
But she shouldn’t have gone off like that. I’m doing all of thisfor her, and she can’t see it. I can’t tell her that either.
I can barely understand it myself.
“Are you still angry?” she asks me, and makes a show of looking at her nails.
I glance her way. “Angry? No.”
“You look it.”
“And you look furious.”
She looks over at me, her eyes once again a cool, dark chocolate. “I have a reason to be. But you’re definitely angry.”
I shake my head slowly and look to confirm that Karim is well beyond hearing distance. “Angry, no. But I’m not someone who doesthat. I don’t fuck my wife on a tennis court in the garden for anyone who walks by to see. I don’t have sex without a condom. I don’t lose myself, darling, yet here I am.”
Her eyes widen. “You’ve never? Without a condom?”
“No,” I say tightly. Feeling her heat without one has scarred me. I’m already craving her again.
She swallows, but that’s the only sign of emotion on her controlled face. “And for anyone to see? The security is pretty tight here. You’ve told me that yourself. Given me a list, in fact, of how to make sure the gate closes properly and that the alarm works.”
“I employ people who have access.”
“I don’t mind if they saw.”
“I fucking do,” I mutter.
Her eyebrows rise, and there’s that glittering in her eyes again. We’re back to taunts. It’s a familiar piece of clothing to wear with her, but it’s not my favorite one anymore.
My favorite is her in my arms late at night, soft, feverish confessions whispered against my neck.
“I didn’t know you valued your modesty so much.”
I turn toward her. “I don’t. I value mywife’s.”
