And what about the new wife? His niece?
West
Yeah, what’s she like?
James:
….are you not going to answer this, Rafe?
Alex
She looks pretty in the pictures. I’d imagine he’s confused right now. Probably too busy “arguing” with her to answer his poor, neglected old friends.
Rafe
Fuck off.
James
Well. That certainly sounded like a yes.
CHAPTER 10
PAIGE
Rafe can drive the classic wooden speedboat, too. Of course he can.
He has one hand on the wheel and the other in his pocket, zipping over the glittering lake toward the other shore. The wind whips at my hair. I should have put it up, but this feeling is too good. It calms the nerves speeding inside me like racecars on a track.
I’m having dinner withSylvie Li.
Mather & Wilde is my heart and my home, but it’s a far cry from this world. It’s not European glamour or red-carpet dresses. If the luxury industry is the solar system, my family’s company is one of the outer planets, circling around Maison Valmont’s sun.
Sylvie Li is inner circle.
I play with the new rings around my finger and think of all the people back home. Juliet in PR, and Tom, head of craftsmanship. I think of Marjorie, who knows the designs of our loafers like the back of her hand.
Hopefully they’ll realize what I’m trying to do. That it’s not a betrayal but an attempt to save us all. But seeing imagesof me waltzing around Europe next to world-famous designers? It’s not going to look all that selfless anymore.
I spin my ring another turn. Sometimes I hate my own spontaneity.
It’s a warm night, but Rafe’s driving fast, and there are goose bumps across my bare arms from the breeze.
I turn toward him. “We haven’t rehearsed a single thing!”
He glances at me. “Don’t improvise. Keep it simple.”
“Don’timprovise? We’ll have to improvise all the time,” I say. “Answering ‘no comment’ when they ask how we met isn’t very convincing.”
“I can hold them off,” he says. But his jaw is tense. He doesn’t like this any more than I do.
And maybe that’s why I say what I do.
“I’ve been thinking today,” I say.
He lifts an eyebrow, and it’s like I can hear the deeply infuriating thing he’s about to say.You think?
“Don’t say it,” I add.
