“You’re scary too, you know. When you want to be.”
“I’m quietly scary. You’reactuallyscary.”
We stop in front of the doors. I take another deep breath and reach for the door handle. I was the one to ask for five minutes to freshen up before the ceremony, then took over fifteen instead.
I hope he’s standing in there annoyed out of his polished, controlled, strategic mind. I may be giving him access to my family’s company, but he’s going to have to pay dearly for that privilege.
I push open the door.
The room we’ve been given is pretty small. Large windows are covered with shades, and there’s gray carpeting. Inside are only a handful of people.
My lawyer is on the left side, leaning against a wooden table. She hasn’t sat down, like she’s ready for battle, ready to ride at dawn. I love her, even if I don’t like the price of her retainer.
Amy is the only friend I’ve told about doing this. It feels like no one would understand why I’d do this.
But no one loves Mather & Wilde the way I do. No one understands the pain of watching my uncle make all the wrong decisions after my parents’ death. Of watching our employees despair and the profits dwindle.
The other side of the room is busier. Three people instead of one. There’s a sharply dressed woman who screamslawyer, too,and beside her is a brown-haired man around my age with a scar through his right eyebrow.
But it’s the person between them that my eyes land on.
I recognize him right away from the pictures online. He’s taller than I thought, nearly a head above me, and I’m not short.
He’s listening to something his lawyer says and I only catch his profile.
His black hair is thick and pushed back over a tall forehead. The lower half of his face is covered in a five-o’clock shadow, and he wears a black suit despite the summer heat.
He nods and then looks around the room with narrowed eyes. Like he’s looking for someone.
Me.
I step into the room and walk across the carpeted floor. His eyes land on me and narrow in recognition. Then they drop down over my body in a clear inspection.
It’s so brazen that my teeth grind together.
This is the same man who has a reputation for ruthless excellence. Who demands nothing but the best from his employees, who inherited a luxury kingdom and has expanded it into an empire.
“Paige,” he says. His voice is deep.
“Raphaël.” I have to tip my head up to meet his gaze, and I hate him for that, too.
“You’re late,” he says.
I lift my eyebrows. “Oh, I’m sorry. Are you in a rush?”
He turns toward the courthouse clerk like I haven’t spoken. “Let’s get this over with.”
“Very romantic,” I comment.
He slides narrowed eyes to mine in a thoroughly unamused look. It makes my lips twitch. Oh, this man is going to give meso much fun.
There’s no hint of a foreign accent when he speaks. And why would there be? I was foolish to expect it. He’s half Swiss, raised mostly in Europe, but his mother is American. At least according to the information I’ve found on him online, reading article after article obsessively.
The officiant looks between us from behind square glasses. She’s a woman in her late forties, perhaps early fifties.
She’s no doubt been clued in that this isn’t a love match.
The ceremony is short. There are no vows. No music. Only the tense silence of people in the room who don’t like each other and the sound of my own breathing, my heartbeat audible in my ears.
