He holds himself to exacting standards because it feelsunsafe to be anything but excellent. And he punishes himself for failure.
He doesn’t fight because it’s fun.
He fights because he thinks he deserves pain.
I sit there until the tears have dried. I sit there and wait, in the quiet and dark of this villa I’ve come to love, until a pair of headlights shine on the driveway.
The front door opens.
His face is half lit by the sconces, all sharp lines and hard angles. There’s a cut in his lip. He’s never come back with that before.
Rafe drops his bag on the marble floor and leans back against the closed front door, his eyes finding me right away.
Like he knew I’d be waiting.
“You went out fighting again?” I ask.
“I had to,” he says simply.
“I’ve asked you not to.” My voice is a little shaky, and I wonder if he can see the dried tears on my face. It feels like my heart is being torn out of my chest.
“I know you did. But I was careful. No one saw.”
“That’s not why I asked you to stop. It wasn’t for… for… potential PR reasons.”
There are dark circles beneath his eyes, his hair the color of ink. “Then why?”
“You know why. I don’t like seeing you hurt yourself. Tonight… was it because of what happened? With my uncle? Because I’m sorry about that. I didn’t tell you earlier, but I’m so sorry.” I press my hands against the edge of the worn wooden step I’m sitting on, as if it can ground me. “I know I embarrassed you. You care about your image, and then you were so… so cold about it all.”
“Paige, what are you talking about?”
“You were focused on fixing it. It was obviously a huge problem, and you needed to fix it right away.”
“For you,” he says. “Foryou.”
“I know it was my fault. Not logging out of that email server, and now everyone knows, the whole world knows?—”
“No.” He reaches out to brace himself against the wall. “Don’t, Paige. Stop apologizing to me.Please.”
I start to rise. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not. Come upstairs.”
He shakes his head again, just once. “I’m fine. It was just more intense than usual.”
I find his hand and pull him up the stairs. He follows at a slow pace. Fear wars with the myriad of other competing emotions inside me. Is he really hurt?
I get him into the bathroom and he sits down on the edge of the bathtub. He’s in nothing but a black t-shirt and a pair of slacks.
“I’m fine,” he says again, but his eyes are locked on me like he’s drinking me in. Like he can’t look away. There’s a haunted look in them.
“Take your shirt off,” I say in a low voice. He hesitates, but then he pulls it off so I can get a look at the other marks on him. There’s more blood along his forearm. Not a lot. Just streaks of it, like he’s wiped his arm across his lip a few times.
“Why can’t I apologize?” I ask him, and shove one of the villa’s towels under the lukewarm water of the tap. “It is my fault. And I know… I know how much your reputation matters to you.”
“It doesn’t. It doesn’t matter at all.” His voice sounds almost angry. “I thought it did, once. But it doesn’t.”
