“I’d never dream of it,” he says easily. Which means hewasthinking it. “Whathaveyou been thinking about? You’re the PR expert.”
He says it without a trace of sarcasm, but I know it’s there. Hidden between the syllables. Everything with him is a dagger.
“We sell this as a Romeo and Juliet story.”
His gaze slides back to mine. “Preferably with a different ending.”
“Preferably,” I agree with a roll of my eyes. “But the premise works. I wasn’t meant to be attracted to you, and it was inconvenient for you to want me, but it happened.” I have to speak loudly to be heard, and there’s something ridiculous about half screamingattracted to youover a boat engine.
“Right. Just one problem. It’s not inconvenient,” he says. “It was extremely convenient. That’s why we got married.”
“Yes.Iknow that.Youknow that. The media is certainly suspecting it and running with it. But we’ll tell them it wasn’t. That we fought the attraction. We’ll say that it developed slowly… maybe over the last year.”
“We kept it private because we knew the press would be interested,” he says.
“Yes. The best lies are half-truths, and we’d be giving them a half-truth. Our marriage was necessary for the merger. We can’t pretend it wasn’t. But we can say that it wasalsofor love.”
He taps his fingers against the steering wheel. “You Wildes are so good at being duplicitous.”
My hand curls into a fist, the ring on my finger digging into the meat of my palm. “None of us ever instigated a hostile takeover insecret.”
“Don’t worry,” he says. “You still manage to be plenty hostile.”
“If I’m hostile, it’s because I’m married to the one man I hate more than anyone else,” I snap. And then I take a deep breath. I shouldn’t let him see that he can get to me.
“More thananyoneelse?” Rafe asks. “There are some atrocious people in the world. Mass murderers. Sadists. Genocidal freaks. People with?—”
“And yet, you top the list. Fascinating, isn’t it? What does that tell you?”
“That you don’t value human rights,” he says, “or you never read the news. Neither is particularly flattering.”
I cross my legs to keep the short skirt I’m wearing from riding up. “Or that I suspect you’re the worst of them all. You disappeared last night. I saw your car come back around four in the morning. Who’s to say you didn’t go on a little killing spree?” I shift forward on the chair and nod at the hand he has locked tightly on the steering wheel. He has long fingers. Broad hands. Short nails. “You have a lot of rage, don’t you,Montclair? Locked beneath those fancy suits. Hidden behind all that polish… you’re a killer.”
His gaze slides to mine. There’s a bottomless flare of anger there, flashing darkly behind those eyes.
The triumphant smile on my lips freezes in place.
But then his expression returns to the faintly bored, handsome one I’ve come to know. “I don’t know if it’s flattering or pathetic,” he says, “that you spend so much time psychoanalyzing me.”
“Know your enemy,” I say again.
“You married yours, so I think you’re far past that.” He puts the boat in a different gear. His voice is colder now. “We’re almost at Sylvie’s. I’d ask you to refrain from acting like a brat, but I think that’d be pointless.”
“Don’t worry. I only act like that with you.”
“I feel so special.”
The pier can’t come fast enough. I want to get far, far away from his side. “I know what’s at stake here, and it’s both of our reputations. So I’ll bury my complete distaste for you deep, deep down. Can you do the same?”
He slows the boat as we approach the pier. Gardens open up beyond it, and a beautiful terracotta house. It’s smaller than Villa Egeria, charmingly nestled against the mountainside. A few boats already bob, tied up at the pier, their guests already inside.
Rafe ties up the boat with practiced ease. He stands on the pier and holds out a hand to me. Even when he’s furious, his manners remain in place.
“It’s always buried,” he says, and his hand closes around mine. “You haven’t seen any of it yet, Wilde.”
CHAPTER 11
PAIGE
