Instead he just brushes his fingers beneath my chin and takes a step back. “Liar,” he repeats, and sticks the champagne bottles back under his arm. He disappears down the hall, and I’m left with an ache inside and a mind ablaze.
CHAPTER 30
RAFE
“What the bloody hell was that?” Alex throws his arm around my shoulders when I return to the library upstairs. West is lining up a shot at the pool table, and James is leaning against one of the open windows, his eyes on me.
“Nothing for you to concern yourself with.”
“That’s a polite way of saying fuck off,” James says, “and it won’t work. What did you see, Alex?”
“Rafe here was kissing his new wife.”
West looks up and misses his shot. “What?”
I ignore them all and pour myself another glass of Alex’s whiskey.
“I’m going to repeat myself,” West says. “What?”
“It’s none of your goddamn business,” I tell them all, and toss back the glass. It burns away the taste of Paige. I hate it for that, but I’m grateful for it, too. Because the last thing I need to remember is her warm lips.
Or the way she arched into me, the long lines of her body, the softness she rarely shows. She liked that kiss. Goaded me into it, too.
And I’m scared of the things I might do to get to kiss her like that again.
“Everything you do is our business,” Alex says. “That ship sailed over a decade ago. It’s the same for all of us.”
James is in a tux, his bowtie askew, and he’s turning his signet ring around his finger. “She’s attractive.”
“We’re not having this discussion.”
“Why? Because you’re attracted to a woman you shouldn’t be? You’re not the first man to suffer that and you won’t be the last. West here knows that well enough.”
West grins. “Sure do.”
“I’mnotattracted to her. Why does everyone keep insisting that I am? She’s unreliable, irresponsible and unpredictable, and I don’t trust her.” I run a hand through my hair. “So what if I kissed her? I’ll have to do it again tomorrow.”
“It’s okay to be attracted to her. This is a safe space,” Alex says, and opens his arms wide. He’s holding an unlit cigar in one hand.
“You’re the definition of unsafe.” I grab the cigar from him and head toward the balcony. The lake is glittering and calm, the complete opposite of how I feel inside.
It’s hard to grasp that the siren in red who just bit my lip is the same woman who sobbed in my arms a few days ago. Both make me feel unsettled in ways I haven’t for years.
Both make me want more than I can have.
“I did suggest we race boats at midnight, but I was shot down. It’s a tragedy,” Alex says.
“We can’t end up in the papers,” I say.
“Don’t worry,” West says. “We can be irresponsible indoors, too.”
The rest of the night passes with the usual mischief. I lose money in poker and drink too much. All in all, it’s one of our tamer nights. There are no dramatic races. No boats, no cars, no motorbikes, and no horses. Nothing that might attract attention from the media.
One after another, West and James fall off to their rooms. Alex ends up sprawled on the couch in the library, his facetroubled in sleep in a way it never is awake. I roll my neck. It’s late. Too fucking late, really. I should sleep.
But I don’t think I’ll be able to.
Everything is quiet from the garden outside. The women have long since gone to bed, and I take the stairs down the villa as quietly as I can. There’s too much roiling inside me. Red silk, hot lips. Cold snow, and guilt, and a want so intense I don’t know how to handle it.
