Her mouth parts, like she doesn’t have a single responseto that. Karim steps up to join us and looks between us with practiced ease. He’s good at that. Practical and productive, and he never oversteps.
“The journalist is here. Are you ready?”
I nod and reach up to adjust the collar of my shirt. “Yes. Only preapproved questions,” I tell him.
“I’ll remind her,” Karim says, and disappears to fetch the journalist. This is the first sit-down interview I’ve given in years. The first one with Paige. It’s another opportunity to tell our rehearsed love story and get the word out there that I am, in fact, the love of her life.
Even if I bear the marks of her nails on my back at the moment.
Paige takes a deep breath beside me, and when I look over, there’s an easy smile on her face. She doesn’t look thoroughly fucked and annoyed. She looks happy.
A new bride.
The journalist introduces herself as Manon. “Thank you for agreeing to this,” she says. She speaks in clipped, international English, with a faint French accent. She must beLuster’s European correspondent.
The pleasantries don’t take long. She asks Paige how it is to work with her husband.
“We work surprisingly well together,” Paige says. “It was a shock to me.”
I drape an arm along the back of Paige’s chair. “It wasn’t to me. I saw her potential from the start. Paige is a brilliant businesswoman.”
“That’s his pickup line,” Paige says, and laughs with the interviewer. The mood is easy, if one ignores the tension underneath it.
I can only hope the interviewer doesn’t pick up on it.
Manon asks about our wedding, our dating story, about Mather & Wilde becoming a Maison Valmont brand. Wehandle all of it deftly. The answers are well rehearsed by this point.
“There have been some rumblings in the press about Ben Wilde, your uncle,” Manon says. “He is, as I’m sure you’re aware, a well-known icon in the American fashion industry. What is the situation there?”
I sigh, like I’m tired of the subject, and take the lead on it. Tell her as close to the truth as I can.
Paige nods beside me.
I don’t want her to have to go on the record defaming her only living family.
But Manon clearly wants Paige’s words. “You are no stranger to the world of design either.” She gives Paige a friendly smile. “You’re the granddaughter of Rhett and Jane Wilde, who transformed a Gloucester shipyard into a fashion brand that makes bags and leather goods.”
“That’s right,” Paige says. Her voice is upbeat. “I’m proud of our history.”
“Your parents were both key members of the executive team, together with your uncle, before their tragic death eight years ago.” Her smile turns consoling. “I’m so sorry about your loss.”
This topic was not preapproved.
I feel Paige tense beside me and watch as her hands come to knot in her lap. “Thank you,” she says.
“What do you think they’d say about the company’s direction, and your marriage, if they were here today?”
Anger licks down my spine, so fast it makes me lightheaded. Paige is breathing fast beside me. Her eyes flick from the interviewer to me in a way I’ve seen before.
“Paige?” Manon asks. “I understand if this is a sensitive topic, but I wanted to give you the chance to express yourself. It would help people understand the division that’s arisen between you and your uncle, I believe, if we could hear more of your perspective.”
Paige is spiraling.
I can see it in her shaking hands and her fast breathing. She hasn’t said a word.
“This interview is over. Please wait inside,” I tell the journalist, and nod to Karim to come over.
Her eyes widen in shock. But I don’t care what she thinks. I care about my wife, who’s about to start hyperventilating beside me. I pull her up and out of the chair. We need to be anywhere but here.
