A breath escapes me, and my hand on his hip brushes against his half-hard erection lying against his stomach. “Thank you.”
“Where do you want to live?” he asks.
I blink. “You live in Paris most of the year, right?”
“Yes. But I have a private jet and multiple properties. Do you want to move back to Gloucester?”
I must look like an owl, the way I blink at him. “You’d move there?”
“For you? Yes.”
“This was all I had to do to get my way? Love you?” I ask, shifting down along his body. I kiss his scar.
“AllI had to do, she says,” he mutters. “As if that’s not… oh.”
It’s something I haven’t done yet. Haven’t had the opportunity to, but there’s no time rush now. So I kiss the salty length of him and listen to his labored breathing.
And when I take him in my mouth and he tells me how good I am, how pretty I am, how I’m the best wife he’s ever had and the only thing he wants, I decide it doesn’t really matter where we live.
We’re late to dinner.
He lets me drive the boat, sitting on his lap, my hands on the steering wheel. His voice is calm and steady in my ear. The lake is glittering in the setting sun, the August wind against us still warm.
Docking is harder.
Rafe and I do it together and then walk hand in hand up the steps to Sylvie’s gardens. Her villa is more modest than Egeria, but it has a killer terrace, right out over the water.
All the designers are there.
Everyone has seen the news—they must have. But no one brings it up. Rafe keeps his arm around my shoulders after dinner, absently playing with my hair as Leelyn and I talk about our shared obsession with reality television.
It’s easy in a way I never knew it could be.
Afterward, I find myself alone with Sylvie by the dock. Darkness has settled over the lake like a comforting blanket, and the heat has died down.
I’m halfway through my third Bellini and can’t stop smiling.
“Sorry,” I tell Sylvie. “About all the lying. It wasn’t… We didn’t…”
She waves a hand. “Don’t mention it,chérie. You just keep him on his toes, all right?”
“I will.”
She sinks down on the chair beside me and stretches out her black-clad legs and loafers. “You two have reminded me of how Leelyn and I were in the beginning, you know. It’s been delightful to watch. See, I fought her so much, too.”
“You did?” That surprises me. The legendary designer and her wife seem like they can read each other’s minds.
“All the time. I didn’t want to give in to her, you see. And she wasn’t willing to accept whatever arrangement I offered her. What had worked so well for me in the past.” Sylvie turns to me with a raised eyebrow. “I am emotional, Paige. It’s one of my greatest strengths in designing. But I am also guarded, like with a fence, you see?”
“I do see,” I say.
“Leelyn looked at the fence and said ‘I will have you without it, or not at all.’ I hated her in the beginning. I wanted her, but I hated her.” She reaches into the innerpocket of her jacket and finds a slim cigarette. “You still don’t want one?”
“No, thank you.”
“Living comes with risks, you know. This is one of them.” She puts it to her lips. “Leelyn is another for me. Because love is a risk. But it is worth it. And I think it’s worth it for you and Raphaël, too, if you’ve agreed to put down the fences, yes?”
It feels hard to look at her. She has read us so correctly, and right from the start. “We have agreed to put down the fences. Yes.”
