Читать книгу Secrets Of The A-List Complete Collection, Episodes 1-12 - Cat Schield - Страница 23

Chapter Two

Harrison’s home office was right beside hers, separated only by a library. Mariella rarely bothered her husband while he worked. He had offices in most of their restaurants, and he conducted a lot of business from his car. When he chose to lock himself away in his home office, she left him to it. Lord knew she had enough of her own business to attend to.

Curiosity moved her toward the door now. She threw a glance over her shoulder, half expecting Harrison to appear out of nowhere. He’d never told her to stay out, she defended, still feeling like the worst kind of snoop.

What choice have you left me?

She spun the handle and pushed the door inward. There it was again. Harrison was in the air, his subtle, masculine fragrance just a hint that she caught because she’d spent her life loving everything about him.

She groaned. It was a visceral sense of loss that sharply assaulted her, plunging into her heart like a knife. His absence in the space that was so uniquely him renewed her profound awareness of the perilous situation he faced.

His tenuous link to life was one she wished she could strengthen. Other than relying on the doctors at Whispering Oaks, she was powerless.

Whispering Oaks. Her lips tightened as she remembered the place her husband had been mysteriously removed to. The infuriatingly evasive Dr. Malone, who, while he might have been world leading in his field, lacked the answers and assurances Mariella had sought.

Had the Fixer been given more information than Mariella? Did the Fixer have more of an insight into Harrison’s situation than she did? It was galling, to say the least. An unsavory idea that, twenty-four hours ago, she wouldn’t have entertained.

Now?

Mystery upon mystery flared inside her.

Harrison’s car accident had been sudden. There would have been no time to tidy up loose ends and hide his business from her.

It stood to reason that if there was a smoking gun in his life about the kind of work he was doing on the side, she’d find it here, in the room where he had spent so much of his time.

The garish painting of a red ocean washing over a purple shoreline drew her concentration, and though she despised the work, it brought an aching smile to her lips. She couldn’t call it art, despite the fact that the woman who’d created it had exhibited at the Tate Modern in London. It was a vile creation. Ugly and vulgar.

Harrison had hated it, too, but when it had come up for sale at the auction at Sotheby’s, he’d seen Lord Elliot Golding bidding wildly for the piece. Harrison couldn’t stand to let the pompous British hedge fund manager take the piece home—not after referring to Harrison’s signature soufflé as dry and flat.

He’d paid a fortune for the horrible thing, and he’d insisted on hanging it here, in his office, where he could look at it every day and remind himself how good it felt to win.

The smile dropped off her face; a grimace took over.

Providence and penance had been playing on her mind all morning, since the nightmare that had disturbed her sleep so vividly.

Their lives had been charmed. Too charmed?

Had Harrison paid the price for all the riches they’d received? Had the karmic wheel of justice decided it had paid too nicely for the Marshall family and that it was time to start calling in some favors?

Dios mío. A chill ran down her spine, slowly, menacingly.

She was getting swept away.

Mariella had breached the sanctuary of Harrison’s office for a reason—to search for more information. On the bank account, the Fixer.

On your husband, a little voice taunted from the recesses of her mind.

She ignored the voice and strode purposefully into the room, deeper, closer, pretending that she wasn’t doing something Harrison would resent.

She tapped her fingers on the edge of his desk, her eyes roaming over the stacks of books and papers that were piled high in two corners. She’d glimpsed these piles for months—when he occasionally left the door open and she breezed past, they’d been there like sentinels beckoning him to work.

They took on a new meaning now, and she pushed them over, not caring about the mess she made. Books, pages, magazines and an iPad fell to the carpeted floor. She knelt down, her fingers working feverishly to sort through each item. So many menus from all over the world—their restaurants and others.

Photos, but all of food. She smiled, remembering that frustrating penchant Harrison had for “snapping flavor,” as he’d called it.

Letters of offer on properties; she knew about each of those. The more she looked, the more she realized that Harrison had shared so much with her. There was nothing to indicate a secret life!

Perhaps Joe had gotten it wrong?

She moved around the desk to the computer and pressed the on switch. It pinged open straight away. Harrison had four passwords he cycled between; she put in each of them, and the fourth made the screen load up with icons.

“Got it.” She unplugged the laptop and moved to the Eames recliner in the corner of his office. Though they’d bought two, he’d only wanted one in his office.

“No one ever comes in here,” he’d pointed out simplistically. “The second would just be an expensive coatrack.”

Mariella sat down, trying not to think about the way the leather headrest had a depression from Harrison’s frequent occupation. Her finger moved over the mouse, clicking into files, opening emails, and her frown deepened.

Nothing. Nada. It was all as she’d expect. A lot of emails about their businesses—concise and cutting at times, but then, that was Harrison. He didn’t suffer fools gladly.

She opened up his calendar as a last resort, and her heart churned painfully to see his days come to life before her eyes.

Golf with Joe, 7:00 a.m.

Gabe—lunch.

Follow up city approvals—London.

Rafe meeting re: Vegas restaurant, 6:00 p.m.

SB Club menu tasting 2:00 p.m.

Luc—lunch.

Call Elana 3:00 p.m.

It was all further proof of his dedication to his family. There was nothing in here that showed he had a separate life. Nothing here to make her doubt her husband’s loyalty.

Large patches were blocked out for his trips, but these she knew about, too. Paris, where he was scouting a new restaurant that would rival Le Jules Verne for uniqueness and prestige. New York, where they had invested in their first share of a high-end dining and entertainment complex and he’d been more involved of late.

She was about to click out of the calendar when a single entry caught her eye, mainly because it didn’t make sense.

“After five,” was the caption, and in the more-information tab, she saw only a string of numbers.

Her stomach lurched; curiosity giving way to doubt. Was this the clue she’d been looking for? She dug her teeth into her lip, her mind spinning through possibilities as one might fiddle the lock on a safe.

Was this another bank account? She counted the numbers and shook her head. No, that wasn’t right. Offshore accounts tended to have really lengthy account identifiers.

And there was a ‘plus’ sign before the number.

Her pulse was raging so hard and fast she could hear it in her ears, pounding like the ocean in the midst of a storm.

On autopilot she reached for her phone and dialed the numbers on a hunch. She pressed the green button and waited.

Sure enough, the bleep-bleep-bleep sound informed her that the call was being placed over great distance.

It rang then, a muted, robotic noise, flatter than the call sounds she was used to.

Finally, after what felt like a very long time, a man’s voice answered.

He spoke in a foreign language. Mandarin? Cantonese? Mariella couldn’t tell. She opened her mouth to say something, but he pushed on. It was an answering machine.

She frowned, hung up and dialed again. This time, she stood from the chair and moved quickly across the room. Fingers that shook scrambled inelegantly for a pen, finally wrapping around an inky-blue Montblanc pen. She sought a piece of paper and selected at random the back of a photograph.

The machine answered, and the random words clicked down the line at her. Try as she might, though, she couldn’t discern a single word from the torrent of sounds.

With a curse of frustration, she called the number again and this time pressed the button on her phone that would record the monologue.

It probably wasn’t important, anyway. Harrison had contacts all over the world. She disconnected the call, cutting off the recording, and returned his office to its usual state. Whatever secrets Harrison was keeping, the answers were not to be found here.

* * *

“This is a fucking joke,” Luc grunted, his eyes glaring at the television as if he could reach through the screen and spear the content. Even like this, with his black eye and bruised cheek, his expression grim, his body slumped forward in the enormous bed, he was breathtakingly stunning. Rachel lifted her fingers and toyed with the strap of her La Perla bra. It was a custom piece Luc had given her a month into their relationship. He’d joked at the time that he wanted to adorn her breasts with something as beautiful as they were, even though he had been annoyed that they’d been enhanced by another surgeon. He certainly didn’t seem to have any problems with the end result of her surgery, if his obsession with running his hands over the generous curves was any indication. Besides, she’d had them done long before she’d met Luc—an eighteenth-birthday present from the daddy who would never disappoint her.

“What is?” Rachel didn’t like seeing him upset, even though it gave an edge to his handsome face, a passionate intensity that lit fires in her blood. Desire clenched her gut. Was it insensitive to be mentally undressing her boyfriend when his father was lying in a hospital bed, possibly inching toward death with every pained breath he took?

“This.” He nodded toward the television and winced sharply. “This chasing after my family as though we’re fucking entertainment.”

Rachel pursed her lips—though they were perfectly sculpted, that was a twist of genetics rather than surgery—and moved closer to Luc. When she stood beside him, his head was at eye level with her breasts and she leaned forward a little, provocatively close to his mouth. She put a hand on his shoulder, so smooth and warm, and ran her fingers over him comfortingly. “You are entertainment,” she said with an attempt to sound sympathetic. “You’re the Marshalls.”

His eyes narrowed, and he flicked a quick look at her before resuming his vigil of the television. “So?” A grunt. Not exactly a disagreement, but a sign that he didn’t like her observation one bit.

“So,” she responded slowly, her nipples straining against the gauzy lace of the bra, “you’re high profile. You know that.”

“This isn’t the opening of a casino, Rachel. It’s my father. Lying in the hospital.” His expression was hollow. “God knows if he’s going to make it.”

She thought of Harrison Marshall and nodded slowly. The man was a veritable goliath—and this coming from a girl who had a congressman daddy. But Harrison was different. He wasn’t straitlaced or dull. He had the kind of power and charisma that gave itself to playing outside the lines. She recognized those traits because Luc also had them in abundance.

“He won’t die,” she said with a confidence she didn’t necessarily feel. She hadn’t seen Harrison in the hospital, and the pictures of the crash site looked awful. His mangled wreck had been comparable to a soda can ready for recycling. The black Carolina Herrera dress she’d picked up in New York last month would be an excellent funeral option.

“How do you know?”

“Because he’s Harrison.” She curved her lips into a smile and moved closer, dropping a kiss against Luc’s dark hair. His cheek was cushioned between her breasts. She lingered, waiting for him to turn his head a little. To purse his lips against her flesh and kiss her. To throw her against the mattress and lift his strong, capable body over hers, straddling her, making her his. A shiver of anticipation danced goose bumps across her sun-kissed flesh.

“Rach—” He flinched away from her a little, intent on the TV.

She couldn’t have said which she felt stronger—rejection or frustration. Neither was in great enough measure to cool her jets. Rachel Franklin was no shrinking violet. She wasn’t dating one of the most eligible bachelors in America by accident. She’d seen Luc, she’d wanted him, and she’d gotten him. All nicely tied up in her bed and in her life—and she intended to keep him there. Theirs wasn’t a relationship that would peter out. Oh, no. Couples like them had one trajectory. Power couples begot power. Sex led to dating, which led to proposals and marriage, and babies, she supposed, one day, when she could face the ugliness and mess that entailed.

She sashayed toward the television with a deliberately sensual swagger then sat down on the carpet, stretching her legs in front of her. She curved her back, dropping a finger over her toes and letting her body move almost like a cat’s. Yoga was one of her favorite exercises. It kept her lean, not to mention flexible. She lay back on the floor and lifted her legs over her head, peeking at Luc to see if he was watching. That he wasn’t was only a temporary setback.

She stood and then walked her fingers down her legs until they connected with the carpet. Bent in two, she looked at him, knowing that her cleavage was the only thing he’d see if he looked her way.

“Such bullshit. They’re waiting for him to die, for God’s sake.”

“You know what the press is like,” she said, a real kernel of sympathy coming out of nowhere. “Anything for ratings.”

“Vultures,” he grunted. But he did know what the press was like. They’d been an active part of his life for as long as he could remember.

“Luc,” she said quietly, and was rewarded by the swiveling of his head. As predicted, his eyes dropped to her front, lingering on the provocative swell that was revealed by the gorgeous bra. “I know how worried you are. I can’t imagine how I’d feel if I were in your shoes. I mean, you and I aren’t that different when it comes to our dads.”

She took his grunt as an invitation to continue. His eyes were still on her breasts, but Rachel had the unpleasant suspicion that his mind was miles away.

She stood and planted one hand on her hip; the other she let run slowly over her cleavage. “Yeah,” she murmured huskily. “Both of us grew up in the shadow of famous fathers. It’s no easy thing to always be known as someone’s kid...”

“I wouldn’t say I’m in anyone’s shadow,” he retorted sharply—so sharply that Rachel realized she’d said something he really, really didn’t like. She’d inadvertently found a sore point, a chink in the veneer of a man she’d always presumed didn’t have insecurities. “And it’s been a long time since I’ve been referred to as Harrison Marshall’s kid.”

Interesting.

Weaknesses were always good to unearth, even in the man she planned to marry. Perhaps especially in him.

He pressed his fingers gingerly to his eye socket, feeling the bruise.

“What were you and Rafe fighting about, anyway?”

Luc rolled his eyes then winced. “The award.”

“From the American Association for Plastic Surgeons?” She frowned. Luc had mentioned it in passing. The whole thing had bored her a little.

“No. From NASA,” he snapped, then shook his head apologetically. “He just can’t exist in a world where I get acknowledged for my hard work. I’d hoped he would’ve been proud of me. No. He had to be an asshole. The bastard just doesn’t get it sometimes.”

“Doesn’t get what?”

“The media. The family. How to handle it. You have to be tough. Rafe wears his heart on his sleeve. And that’s really fucking unhelpful right now.”

Rachel had to suppress a smile. The characterization of Rafe was spectacularly unfair, though of the three men who’d grown up on the Marshall estate, Rafe was definitely the gentlest. She liked him. Oh, she’d have eaten him up for breakfast if she’d met him first.

And if he were at all interested in women.

Rachel compressed her lips, biting back on the inclination to point out that right now it was Luc who was guilty of wearing his heart on his sleeve. “It’s a tense time for everyone,” she murmured instead.

She watched as he lifted his fingers to his face, running them over the swollen bridge of his nose.

Rachel was torn. She hoped it wouldn’t be permanently damaged by the fight, because his face had been a damned work of art. At the same time, perhaps perfection could be improved. A little kink in that patrician nose could give the straitlaced Luc a hint of danger and drama that he was otherwise lacking. He might even look as though Santiago blood flooded his veins with passion from time to time.

Rachel sighed, changing the subject watchfully. “Speaking of hearts, did I tell you Cindy just got engaged?”

“Who?” Luc asked, reaching for his cell phone and staring at the screen.

“Cindy. My sorority sister?”

“Oh, right. Have I met her?”

So far as bait went, it was hardly a success story. “Not yet,” she purred. But he wasn’t listening. His finger moved across the screen of his phone and then he lifted it to his ear.

“It’s me.” His eyes were glued to the television. Pique and irritation dueled inside Rachel. She watched as he reclined against the headboard, his eyes shut. He had lovely eyes. A crisp blue as deep as the ocean and, at times, as stormy as the sky. His lashes were long, just like his mother’s. He was so hot. The total package. From a great family, handsome, a doctor, and his exotic heritage courtesy of Mariella and her Santiago roots had the added advantage of annoying her father just the right amount.

“I’m not coming in today. I have family matters to attend to. You’ll need to reschedule my appointments.” He disconnected the call abruptly and dropped the cell to the mattress.

For her part, Rachel was done being patient. “I think it’s a good idea you’re taking some time to deal with all this.”

His eyes held a hint of frustration. “I could hardly go to the office looking like I was hit by a truck.”

Rachel made a sympathetic noise and straddled him in one easy move. She lifted her hand to his naked chest, twirling her finger in swirling patterns over his defined pectoral muscles.

“Rach,” he said, looking over her shoulder at the television. “I’m really not in the mood.”

She dropped her head forward, running her mouth over one of his nipples, teasing it with her tongue. “Let’s see if I can do something about that.”

He smelled like the ocean and good-boy virtue. She smiled as she dropped her mouth lower, tasting his flesh, his stomach, all the way to the elastic of the boxer shorts he wore.

He tensed as she pushed them down, just far enough to free his beautiful dick. And it was beautiful. She moved her mouth lower, teasing him with her tongue, her fingers gripping his hips. She parted her lips and took him deep into her mouth. He tightened inside her, hard and long.

With a moan, she moved her mouth up and down his shaft, slowly at first, stoking him to a greater urgency of need, pleasuring him just enough to make him desperate for more.

His fingers curled in the lengths of her blond hair, tightening as his body answered hers.

He was hers. He always would be.

She swirled her tongue over his tip, tasting him and rising high above the clouds on the power of her possession. Even then, when he was bruised and distracted, Rachel knew how to give Luc everything he could ever want.

His cock was as hard as stone. She wanted to feel him explode, but Luc wasn’t a man to relinquish power for long. As his control began to slip, he dropped his hands to her shoulders and lifted her off him, holding her for a moment. Their eyes met, and he was right there in the moment. No thoughts of Harrison, the TV, the fight, his work were anywhere near what they were to each other.

He flipped her onto the mattress and kicked his shorts off. He didn’t bother removing her silky thong. His fingers pushed it aside so the elastic waistband dug into her hips. He paused just long enough to sheathe his length in latex, and then he thrust into her. Rachel cried out, arching her back, staring at the ceiling.

He was a great lover. Desire was rampant in her veins, but it wasn’t strong enough to push all thoughts from her mind.

She moaned softly as he moved within her; she was thinking about the gold-embossed invitations she’d seen in Martha Stewart Weddings the month before. Oh, they were a little too common for the wedding of Rachel Franklin to Luc Marshall, but if she could find something similar made in France or Italy, then they might just fit the bill.

She smiled as pleasure, power and anticipation supercharged her orgasm.

She had Luc right where she wanted him. Life was good.