“Yes,” he says, “and you’re my wife.”
His wife, and his problem.
My uncle doesn’t just want the company back. He wantsme destroyed, and Rafe is standing in front of me, telling me he’s doing damage control.
The swirl inside me is sharp. Nipping at my heels, pushing at my head. I stare at him and wonder if he can see how badly I need to run right now.
“How do we fight it? He hasproof.”
“Breathe,” he tells me, but it sounds like an afterthought. “Our legal teams are working on the will. What does love of your life mean? It’s the will of a fanciful old couple and won’t hold up to legal scrutiny. Ben is betting it will. That’s a bet he’ll lose.”
“It’ll be a long, drawn-out process if we go down that road.”
Rafe nods once. His face is drawn in hard lines. I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen him this angry. “Yes. But I have the patience and the time. Resource-wise, I can bleed Ben dry.”
I can’t reach him when he’s like this.
My arms tighten around myself. Before, I would have argued with him.What about what I want?But I just feel a crushing shame and sadness instead. Ben is well and truly gone to me. My last piece of family. I knew it. It shouldn’t hurt. And yet I find that it still does.
Rafe’s happiness from the last few days is gone.
Because of me and my carelessness. He values efficiency, and dedication, and skill. And now he’s having to go to war on my account.
“Paige,” he says, and takes a step forward. Not darling. Not Wilde. “I’ll handle it. He won’t cause problems anymore. Not after this.”
“It’s my uncle,” I say. “I should be involved in the planning.”
It’s not what I want to say.Do you hate me for this?I want to ask.I’m sorry.But the words won’t come out.
“You don’t need to be.”
“You’re doing damage control,” I tell him.
His eyes return to mine, and the hardness there makes me feel all alone in the world. “Yes. Of course I am. He’s not going to come in and wreck this. You know that, right? I won’t let him.”
“Yes. I know.”
“I have work to do,” he tells me, and walks toward the steps to his office. “Call me if you need anything.”
But he’s already gone, leaving me and my roiling mess of emotions behind.
CHAPTER 65
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.
