Читать книгу Secrets Of The A-List Complete Collection, Episodes 1-12 - Cat Schield - Страница 25
ОглавлениеIt was a perfect afternoon. Sunny and bright, with the hint of a breeze carrying salt from the ocean. Elana breathed in deeply, waiting for the usual heady sense of relief the tang of the sea gave her.
But her nerves were too stretched, almost to breaking point. They were going to see Harrison at Whispering Oaks. She wanted to see her father, of course, and yet fear lodged in her heart when she imagined what might confront them. Would he be worse?
It wasn’t easy to get out there, either. Since his accident, the paparazzi had been camped out on the street near Casa de Catalina, though Santa Barbara PD had a few motorcycle cops perusing the perimeter. Going undetected meant eschewing their usual chauffeured limo and employing measures worthy of a spy drama. The cars Rafe and Luc had organized were understated and matching, so that they could take separate routes to divert any paparazzi who pursued them. Rafe had even said he’d bring baseball caps and dark glasses to keep their anonymity.
Elana had laughed when he’d suggested it, but she wasn’t laughing now.
Rafe and Luc were late.
Only a few minutes, but enough for her to be tempted to ignore their plans and take her own car. Just as she was contemplating asking a chauffeur to bring around the Merc the crunch of tires on gravel alerted her to someone’s arrival. She stopped walking and watched as the car pulled to a stop right beside her. It was a black sedan. A family car. Hardly the kind of thing any of them usually got around in. The windows were heavily tinted, and, Elana admitted grudgingly, it would definitely blend in to the crowds.
She waited to see which of her brothers would emerge and was relieved when Rafe stepped from the vehicle.
“Hey,” she said, unprepared for the wave of intense emotion that besieged her at her brother’s arrival. “You’re late.”
“Traffic was a bitch.” He grimaced as he stepped from the car. Dressed in slim-fitting jeans and a Façonnable polo shirt, he looked much the same as always. But when he flicked his aviator sunglasses onto his thick, dark hair, she saw he had a graze on one cheek and a bruise across his jaw.
“Ouch,” she murmured, standing on tiptoes to run her nails across the scrape. “It looks angrier than yesterday.”
He grinned and shrugged. “I’m sure Luc’s looking a lot worse.”
Elana nodded, dipping her head forward to hide her smile. When it came to a sparring match, she’d have put her money on Luc every time. But her heart would always have gone to Rafe. He just didn’t have the same motivation to win a fight as their perfect older brother, that was all. “Probably,” she said, meeting his eyes when she’d flattened any suggestion of amusement from her pretty face.
“It was stupid,” Rafe said after a moment. “I was just so fucking angry with him. He never misses a chance to sling mud my way. He’s such a pompous asshole.”
“Yep, he can be,” she agreed but couldn’t help adding, “Still, next time you get struck by the urge to put him back in his box, maybe choose somewhere a little less...”
“Visible?” Rafe supplied with a humorless laugh. He lifted his hand and dragged it through his hair, shaking his head ruefully.
“Um, yes. Public.”
“I wasn’t thinking straight.”
Elana put an arm around her brother’s waist and stared up at him. “None of us are. This is so messed up.”
The words were thick with unshed tears and even Rafe, in his distracted state, must have detected her grief. “Hey,” he said softly, tilting her chin upward with his thumb. “What’s going on?”
“Apart from the obvious, you mean?” She blinked away the sting of hot tears.
“Yeah. What is it?”
She shook her head from side to side, making a visible effort to calm herself. “Nothing. I’m fine.”
Rafe’s eyes narrowed, but he appeared to let the line of questioning drop. “How’s wedding planning going?”
Her laugh was soft. “Even for us, it’s going to be kind of epic.”
Rafe ran a hand over his jaw. It was covered in fashionable stubble; she heard the grating sound and out of nowhere thought of Jarrod. Elana’s gut clenched.
God, she needed to see him. Somewhere, in the midst of this crazy mess, sex with Jarrod would make sense of it all. Their affair was like a tiny island at the heart of a raging ocean.
“Epic is bad?”
“No, no,” Elana was quick to correct. She swore softly and put her hand out, grabbing Rafe’s wrist. “Rafe?”
She felt his eyes boring into her, seeing more than she wanted to show, and she looked away, her features heavy with regret. She didn’t see the way his own face bore a mask of apprehension, as though he, too, was burdened by a weighty confession.
“I... Don’t judge me, okay?”
“Judge you?” His voice was hoarse. “You kidding? I’ve got your back, Ellie.”
She smiled at the childhood nickname that only her dad used these days.
“What is it?” There was urgency in his tone, urgency Elana was quick to read as impatience with her, rather than any more personal bent.
The assuredness she’d had that morning shifted, drifting away for a moment. Marriage. Becoming a wife. A frisson ran down her spine.
“I’m... I’m just not sure I can go through with the wedding.”
A shocked silence surrounded them, heavy with recrimination and disbelief. Incredulity, too.
Taking his silence for censure—and heaven knew she’d had enough of that in her life—Elana rushed to explain herself. “It doesn’t feel right without Dad. How can I get married when he’s lying in a hospital bed? You don’t think I should, do you?”
Rafe put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close to his chest. He was warm and strong. He held her tight, stroking her hair, waiting for her to calm down, and then he loosened his grip. “Have you spoken to Thom about this?”
She nodded jerkily. Canceling the wedding at this stage would be a disaster. Her mom would flip. So would Thom’s parents. As for Thom, he’d made his feelings perfectly clear that morning.
“This morning,” Elana murmured. “At least, I tried to broach it, but he wasn’t what you’d call receptive.”
“Of course he wasn’t,” Rafe said with a hint of reproach. “He loves you. He proposed to you. And you guys have gone and invited pretty much everyone on the Forbes rich list, and all their friends. I think it’s a done deal now.”
“That’s not helping,” she muttered, shaking her head.
Rafe jammed his hands in his pockets, and Elana could see that the conversation was making him uncomfortable. She was pretty sure she could guess why, too. How many times had she failed to meet their family’s expectations? In fact, it was pretty much the only thing she was good at. Here she’d gone and done something no one had expected—she’d landed a sexy, gorgeous, wealthy, socially comparable bachelor as her fiancé and she wanted to bolt.
“I’m not going to do anything stupid,” she promised. “I just wondered if maybe we should wait a bit. Until we know what’s going on with Dad.”
Rafe kicked the toe of his loafer into the graveled drive. “Yeah, well, what if he never wakes up? You can’t put your life on hold forever.”
Elana paled visibly. It was almost exactly what Thom had said. “Jesus Christ. Forgive me for not being able to be so cavalier about my dad’s possible death.”
“He’s my dad, too,” Rafe pointed out with infuriating calm. “I’m not being cavalier about it.” He expelled a sigh. “I just feel like there’s something else going on here.”
Elana opened her mouth and then closed it again. Her eyes didn’t quite meet Rafe’s. “You’re paranoid,” she said finally, weakly. “I’m still reeling from all this. His life is literally hanging in the balance and I’m supposed to be staring down the barrel of festivity central? I’m just not there.”
“I don’t know if I’ve ever seen Dad happier than when you and Thom got engaged,” Rafe murmured.
“So?” Elana’s one-word response was the definition of stubborn.
“So—” Rafe’s smile seemed forced “—do you think he’d want you to put the whole thing off?”
Elana spun around and pressed her back to the sun-warmed sedan. Standing shoulder to shoulder with Rafe, she felt more estranged than she had in a long time. “I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do,” he said gently, bumping his shoulder to hers.
“God. Why are you so damned fired up for this wedding to go ahead?”
Elana sliced her gaze to his face and could have sworn she saw something like guilt dance in his eyes. Only for a second, and then it was gone.
When Rafe spoke, it was with an apparently relaxed demeanor. “I just don’t want you to make a mistake because you’re upset.”
A mistake? When Elana thought about marrying Thom, she had the same sensation as if she’d been dropped off the edge of a cliff and was in free fall. Splatting against the sidewalk was inevitable. Was it a mistake to ignore that intuition?
“We’re all on edge right now. If you ask me, this is a time to stay the course and stick to what we know is right.”
There was something in the way Rafe spoke that made her feel that she wasn’t quite seeing the entire picture. Rafe was the brother who listened to her. The guy who didn’t judge her for not being cut from the same dependable cloth as he and Luc were. So why wasn’t he listening now?
“I want you to be happy,” he said, as if reading her thoughts. “I just think... Thom’s a great guy.”
Thom was a great guy. Elana knew that. He just wasn’t necessarily the guy for her. She let out a small frown and shook her head slowly from side to side. “I think this whole thing’s just got me shaken up.”
“We’re all worried about Dad—”
“I don’t just mean Dad,” Elana interrupted. “I mean, of course, he’s right there at the top of my list. But what about all this other stuff? How can he have had this Fixer person running things, behind our backs?”
“I’ve been thinking about that, too,” Rafe said softly. “It doesn’t seem like him to keep secrets.”
“But he did. And big ones.”
“Even Mom seemed blindsided,” Rafe agreed.
“Poor Mom.” It was such a ludicrous description of the strong, fearsome Mariella Santiago-Marshall that they both laughed. It felt great to release steam. Elana put a hand on Rafe’s arm and shook her head, her eyes meeting his. “You know what I mean.”
He sobered. Of course he did. “She worked so closely with Dad. How could he have kept this, even from her?”
“I worked closely with him, too.” Elana winced. “I work closely with him. I think we should stick to present tense, don’t you?”
He nodded, a sense of urgency pushing him to confront the issue rather than grammar. “And? Did you ever notice anything?”
She bit down on her lower lip, the deep red lipstick cushioning against her teeth. “I don’t know.” She shrugged her slim shoulders, and a sea breeze rustled past, lifting a wisp of her dark hair over her shoulder. She pushed it back distractedly. “At the time, no, but now that I think about it?”
“Like what?” Rafe’s breath caught in his throat.
“He’s always really secretive about his office. I used to think it was just because he liked his privacy, but now? I don’t know.”
“You don’t think it was because you sprayed his office with Bollinger after your high school graduation?”
She laughed, because she knew it was expected of her, but Elana couldn’t stand being reminded of her past faults. All the many, many missteps she’d taken in her short life. She’d been drunk at the time, and it had seemed funny. But it had also been a long time ago. Elana wasn’t the only one who saw marrying Thom as a new start for her. She was certain that her family thought her irresponsible behavior would end the very second she said ‘I do.’
“That was ages ago,” she said, trying not to sound as defensive as she felt. “And he didn’t like you going in there, either.”
“No,” Rafe murmured, his eyes narrowing. “Dad was good at keeping me at a distance.”
Elana nodded, sympathy squeezing out her own sense of hurt. “Okay, Luc then,” she muttered. “The whole family was kept out of his office, and we never questioned that.”
“Because we trusted him,” Rafe said simply. “As did Mom.”
“She must be freaking out,” Elana said with a shake of her dark head.
“I have to believe this is all a misunderstanding,” Rafe said after a moment of quiet reflection had passed. “Dad’s a good guy. He loves us, loves this family. If he’s involved in business with the Fixer, he must have thought it was the right thing to do...”
“So why keep him or her a secret? Even from Mom?”
“I don’t know,” Rafe said. “Let’s just hope he wakes up soon so we can ask him.”
Elana might not have been as academic as her siblings, but when it came to people, she had an innate talent to understand them. She pushed off the car and came to face Rafe. “No, Rafe. We have to find out what’s going on. Otherwise I think... I think we could be in danger.”
Rafe laughed, until he realized she wasn’t joking. “Oh, come on, Elana! You’re making this out to be some b-grade MISSION IMPOSSIBLE spin-off.”
“Don’t dismiss this,” she said softly. “I’ve been thinking about it all night.” When she wasn’t thinking about ending her engagement or being screwed senseless by Jarrod Jones, anyway. “Something about this is really off.”
“No, it’s not. Dad had a car accident and we found out there’s something a little strange going on in his business. Something he’ll probably be able to explain away when he wakes up.”
“What if it wasn’t an accident?”
Rafe was very still. A thread of tension ran down his spine. Was it possible Elana was on to something?
“What do you mean?”
“Call it a hunch,” she said quietly. “But I think there’s way more going on here than we can see. And there’s one person I can think of who’ll be able to give us some damned answers.”
Rafe lifted a single dark brow.
“The Fixer,” she hissed impatiently. “Whoever the Fixer is, we need to find out. And we need to demand he or she tells us what happened.”
“You say that like it’s going to be easy,” Rafe said. “But Dad was able to keep this person hidden from his own family—probably for years.”
“But we weren’t looking before.” Elana lifted her head as the sound of tires crunching on gravel alerted them to Luc’s arrival. He pulled the car up just behind Rafe’s and opened his door. He flicked off the ignition, and Elana’s eyes winged together as she studied her oldest brother through the tinted windshield of the car.
Luc Marshall was different from her and Rafe. He was the most like Harrison—determined, intelligent and ruthless when he needed to be. Was it possible that the Fixer was far closer than they’d imagined? She lifted her face to Rafe’s and saw the same speculation in his expression.
“What’s going on?” Luc asked as he stepped out of the vehicle, his glance encompassing the both of them. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
* * *
The Polo Club sat perched on the edge of the Pacific Ocean. From the four-level building there were views in all directions—over the polo fields and then the ocean on one side, toward the mountains and forest on the other. It was one of their earliest acquisitions and it had always been special to Mariella for that reason.
At one time it had been the jewel in their crown. Mariella pulled into her reserved space and looked at it for a moment, feeling the swelling of pride that never failed to fill her when she contemplated how far she and Harrison had come.
This building was symbolic of that. It had history and prestige, like her when she’d met Harrison. But when they’d bought it, the previous owners had let it slide, so that the attention to detail and quality were no longer in place. Nobody believed it could be transformed.
Just like her parents had sworn she would regret marrying a nobody like Harrison Marshall. He hadn’t been good enough for Mariella Santiago. So they’d said!
How wrong they’d been. Three children, an empire, and thirty-two years of marriage to the man had shown her how important it was to hold fast. She had stood up to her parents and married Harrison despite their disapproval, and she would stand by him now, even when confusion about this mysterious Fixer made her wonder how many secrets he’d been keeping from her.
How adroitly he’d maneuvered this entire portion of his life away from her. How trusting she’d been—when he’d received calls and excused himself from the room, she had never doubted it was a business matter. A real business matter, not something strange with this sideline concern of his.
But she wouldn’t judge him. She was determined to listen to his explanation, and that meant waiting for him to wake up. And he would wake up. Just like he’d won her heart, faced her parents, and gone from a chef to a restaurateur to a billionaire.
Mariella squared her shoulders and stepped from the car, her slim frame silhouetted by the midday sun. It was a warm day. She relished the sensation of the heat on her back as she moved through the enormous glass doors.
She remembered the first party they’d hosted in the elegant ballroom. It had been a sensational affair—European royalty, sheikhs, American celebrities. Now, the restaurant and bar were busy. She moved past the din of conversation with her head bent and sunglasses in place, avoiding being drawn into any unnecessary conversation.
The staircase was made of marble and the banister was gold; an enormous crystal chandelier hung perfectly above it. Mariella took the stairs with her head still tipped forward, her mind running over Harrison, her children and the empire that she would need to keep in her own control. Not the Fixer’s.
The ballroom had been designed for maximum impact. It took the entire top floor of the building and had windows on either side, covered in dark red curtains. Mariella paused a couple of steps from the top and drew in a steadying breath then continued up. She removed her glasses at the top, sliding them into their case and replacing them in her handbag without breaking her step.
“Veronica,” she said as she entered, her gaze landing on the woman instantly. Veronica Waterhouse, a former Miss America, was still whippet thin and extraordinarily beautiful. Like most of her contemporaries, she’d had so many little modifications to her face that she hadn’t just halted the aging process—she’d reversed it and shaved several decades off her appearance.
“Mariella.” Her accent was clipped, courtesy no doubt of the sort of finishing school that women of her generation and social sphere had been encouraged to attend.
Mariella eyed Veronica’s cocktail, a full glass beside an empty, and nodded to one of the milling staff. “Mimosa.”
The bartender made a small gesture of understanding, and Mariella sat with ingrained elegance in the seat opposite Veronica. “I take it there’s a problem?” she prompted, trying to keep her irritation from her voice. “With the wedding?”
Veronica compressed her lips. “I hope not. I need everything to be just perfect. I’ve promised Katherine that her wedding will be the last word in style.” Veronica leaned forward conspiratorially. “Of course, you know what it’s like when they’re getting married. I imagine you’re going through this exact same thing with Elana. First they want this, then they want that—so many decisions, only one wedding.” Veronica laughed, a brittle sound in the cavernous space. “We hope!”
Mariella nodded, but her mind was rejecting the statement. After all, Elana had barely shown a glimmer of interest in her wedding plans. Weddings aren’t really my thing. Why don’t you surprise me? she’d told Mariella. The sense that it was slightly odd settled uncomfortably around Mariela’s shoulder. It was not something she had any mental space to reflect upon. Elana had always been a law unto herself.
“Yes, well, we want it to be just right. What would Katherine like?”
“Initially she was happy with the idea of caviar-topped oysters, but it seems Chester’s become mixed up in a conservation cause,” Veronica said with a hint of distaste. “Apparently caviar is on their hit list.”
Mariella suppressed an urge to roll her eyes. “Our caviar is the world’s finest, but if it would upset Chester...”
“Apparently it would,” Veronica was quick to agree. “Which would, in turn, upset Katherine. And...”
“We can’t have that,” Mariella clipped, beyond grateful when her drink appeared. She ran her finger up the stem of her mimosa. “We always source nonspawning Kumamoto oysters. They’re delicious on their own. We’ll skip the caviar.”
Veronica winced. “The problem is,” she said with a smile that bordered on apologetic, “Chester II is allergic, and Veronica thinks it might seem disrespectful...”
“I see,” Mariella said, nodding, moving a hand beneath the table and digging her fingernails into her thigh. “There was an excellent salmon sashimi with wasabi foam and wakame wrap served at the Vanderbilt fund-raiser last month,” she murmured. Harrison had raved about it.
“Oh. The one at MOMA?”
Mariella tilted her head in a small show of agreement.
“That’s more the ticket,” Veronica said with a nod, her lips pursed as if to say that only something good enough for the Vanderbilts would suit her little darling’s wedding.
How dare this woman bring Mariella to the Polo Club to discuss something as banal as the canapé selection for an event that was months away when Harrison was lying comatose? “I trust the coconut shrimp are safe?” Mariella mentioned the last item on the list, and Veronica nodded.
“They may come under Chester II’s allergy list, but I do so love a good coconut shrimp. They stay.”
Mariella nodded. Her mimosa was finished and so, too, she hoped, was this conversation. As if somehow reading her thoughts and sending her a lifeline, Mariella’s phone began to ring.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured, fishing it from the bag with a tight smile. Gabe’s picture looked back at her. Grateful as ever for her nephew’s innate ability to know exactly what she needed and when, she flicked a gaze at Veronica. “I have to take this.” She stood and moved a little away from the table, unconsciously drawn to the view of the ocean. The bright green of the polo fields was the perfect underscore to the drama of the sea. Her eyes chased the light that bobbed across the waves, following its glittering path all the way to the horizon.
“Hi, querido.”
“How’s it going with Bridezilla?”
Mariella’s response was wry. “I don’t know if she can be called Bridezilla, given that it’s her granddaughter’s wedding.”
“She wishes it were her own,” Gabe said. “If you’ve ever seen the way she looks at the groom, you’ll know what I mean...”
“Gabe,” Mariella said warningly but she laughed softly, and it felt so delicious to do so. The sunshine bounced off a wave and moved toward her. She reached her hand out, almost as though she could catch its beauty in her hands and draw it to her heart. “I’m just wrapping up here. I should get back—”
“Hang on,” he interrupted. A small wisp of cloud moved over the sun, momentarily removing its warmth from the window, leaving only a smudge of light across the sea. Something in Gabe’s tone had Mariella bracing for bad news.
“Gabe?” Her voice was quiet; it hid the panic that was rushing through her. Was it Harrison?
“Have you seen the TV?”
Mariella shook her head. The sun was back, but she didn’t feel its warmth now. “No. I... I haven’t had a chance.”
A small pause showed Gabe was weighing his words. She knew her nephew well; he was trying to spare her more pain.
“Just say it,” she said with quiet strength. Whatever it was, she’d be okay. She’d manage.
“There are reports that there’s going to be an exclusive interview with Harrison playing soon. Do you know anything about this?”
Frost sledged through Mariella’s veins. “That’s ridiculous,” she rejected, her words a grim rejection. “You and I both know he’s in no state to give an interview.”
“It’s being promoted heavily. I wouldn’t think they’d go to those lengths unless they had something—”
“Gabe,” she cut him off, “it’s not true. It’s a ploy for ratings, that’s all.” Ice gave way to volcanic lava. Fury was in her bloodstream, burning her from the inside out. “You know what the media’s like. They want to keep the story going, so they’ve invented more drama.” She swallowed, uncertainty plaguing her. “It can’t be true.”
“No, no, I’m sure it can’t be,” Gabe agreed.
“I just spoke to the clinic.” A frown pulled at her red lips as she thought of the conversation she’d had hours earlier with Dr. Malone at Whispering Oaks. “A while ago, anyway. This morning.” She thought with guilt of her hesitation to go to her husband’s bedside. If she’d been with him instead of drinking cold coffee and contemplating his business secrecy, then perhaps she could have subverted all of this. “They didn’t say anyone was there. Isn’t that why he’s in a place like this? To avoid accessibility? It’s just not possible.”
“Still, it’s a pretty bold move if it’s fake.”
Mariella expelled a breath. “You need to go to the clinic, Gabe. For all we know some member of the staff is blabbing for cash. Can you go and figure it out? Check on Harrison?”
“I’m calling you from the car. I should be there soon. I’ve spoken to Elana. She and Rafe were on their way when I spoke to her. Luc was going to follow them.” There was a pause as Mariella digested this, and as though he understood the direction of her thoughts, Gabe explained, “They took separate cars to create a diversion in case they were followed. Though it probably has more to do with the fact Rafe and Luc can’t be in a confined space without wanting to knock each other out right now.”
“Jesus,” she swore softly, running her fingertips over her necklace, pulling the pendant from side to side distractedly. “Let me know once you’ve arrived.”
She disconnected the call but stayed where she was, staring out at the ocean. It was beautiful, yet she saw only pain now. This ocean had witnessed her days and nights. It had wrapped around her biggest triumphs. It had been the backdrop to her life—a life that was falling apart.
Her children were at war? Why? Why now, of all times, would they choose to give vent to their differences? She took a breath to calm her nerves and plastered a smile onto her face. Veronica was standing as Mariella returned to the table. The older woman missed nothing, but her eyes scanned Mariella’s beautiful face and saw none of the inner turmoil that plagued her, because Mariella was an expert at obfuscating.
“Is everything okay?” Veronica asked, and Mariella understood that a desire to learn the latest motivated the inquiry. An unpleasant suspicion formed like a lead weight in Mariella’s gut. The timing of Veronica’s wedding meeting had seemed inconvenient and thoughtless to Mariella, but what if it had indeed come with a lot of thought? What if Veronica had wanted to position herself at the heart of the drama that was spreading like wildfire across the country? Was it possible that the society doyenne had just wanted news?
“Everything’s fine,” Mariella said with the appearance of calm.
Veronica’s eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly. “I’m so glad.” She lifted her Hermès Kelly off the table and looped it over her shoulder. “Shall we?” Veronica had moved around the table and put a solicitous hand on Mariella’s forearm. Suppressing her temper, Mariella nodded, walking beside Veronica toward the stairs.
“How is Harrison?” Veronica asked as they neared the top step.
Mariella moved to the banister, glad to break the physical contact with the woman who was morphing from inconvenient pest to gossiping bitch in Mariella’s mind.
“He’s—” She moved down the stairs slowly. An image of Harrison buffeted her, almost knocking the wind from her. His pale face, bruised, bloodied, scratched deeply. “He’ll be fine,” she said unconvincingly. She needed to do a better job than that, but Mariella hadn’t been prepared for the question. How foolish to come to a meeting such as this without expecting there to be some interest in her husband’s accident.
“Will he?” Veronica sounded almost as though she had some inside information.
Telling herself she was being paranoid, Mariella continued walking, a calm smile on her face that she certainly didn’t echo in her heart. “He’s Harrison Marshall,” Mariella said as they reached the bottom. She turned to face Veronica. “He’s never come up against anything he couldn’t beat.”
She moved in for a dismissive air-kiss, but Veronica gripped Mariella’s hands and stared at her intently. “You seem very calm, all things considered.”
Mariella’s heart turned over in her chest. “My husband was in a car accident. I’m concerned for him, but it’s not serious.” She wished, fervently, that her words were the truth.
“You haven’t heard, then?” Veronica said with what could have been sympathy or delight.
Mariella compressed her lips, waiting for Veronica to continue, knowing that the older woman was going to run like a freight train now.
“There’s some talk that it wasn’t an accident.” Veronica leaned closer, lowering her tone to an urgent whisper. “I’ve heard that his car was run off the road. Deliberately.”
“What?” The word escaped as air leaving a balloon. The very idea was anathema to her. It was impossible, surely!
“That’s what they’re saying...”
“What who’s saying?” Mariella demanded, but inside, there was a tornado of anger and doubt, of worry and grief.
“Well, everyone at the salon this morning.” The salon. The word was imbued with as much inference and scandal as possible. How could two small syllables contain such secrecy and gloating?
Mariella had to employ every single tool in her arsenal to remain unaffected. She shook her head slowly and rolled her eyes heavenward. “People will say a lot of things,” she murmured dismissively. The brakes failed. Or perhaps it was an animal. Or the sun bouncing off the ocean at just the wrong time. Her mind offered the scenarios that the police had given. Her mind was trying to comfort her. “But they’re not always true.”
He drove that road all the time. He knew every turn and pothole. It wasn’t such a sunny day, and he always wore sunglasses. The car, like our whole fleet of luxury vehicles, was inspected regularly. Her heart and stomach were overrun with doubts. She felt a bead of perspiration on the top of her lip. She needed to shake free of Veronica.
She needed...she didn’t know what she needed.
“Hmm.” Veronica pondered this pronouncement as though they were philosophizing hypothetically and not discussing the very real question of whether or not someone had made an attempt on Harrison’s life. “We shall see, I suppose.”
Mariella was coming close to losing her temper. “I have to go, Veronica. I’m pleased you’re happy with the wedding menu.”
Veronica’s eyes widened. Had she forgotten the pretext for this little tête-à-tête?
“Goodbye.” Mariella clipped across the marble floor, lifting her sunglasses out as she went and sliding them in place. A small group of paparazzi was waiting when she emerged. She flashed them a smile that felt heavy on her face and moved to her car.
“What’s the latest on Mr. Marshall?”
“Have you seen Harrison today?”
“Were you at his interview?”
“Is it true SBPD has ruled the accident suspicious?”
“Who would have it in for your husband, Mrs. Santiago-Marshall?”
She lifted a hand, her palm showing her lack of desire to engage with the pack. She slipped into her car and fired the engine, driving out of the parking lot more speedily than normal. Her heart was racing and, as she came to the end of the drive, she felt the sting of tears in her eyes.
Mariella thumped the steering wheel hard, her eyes lifting automatically to the rearview mirror to be sure no paparazzi had followed her and witnessed her telltale gesture of meltdown.
No one was behind her, but she turned the car into traffic and wove in and out of cars, wanting to put as much space as possible between herself and the Polo Club.
Speculation on the cause of the accident was inevitable. It had to just be rumor and misinformation. If there was any concrete evidence of foul play, surely the police would have informed her. Hell, they’d probably have suspected her. Her fingers dragged around the leather of the steering wheel, squeezing it tightly. Wasn’t that how these things usually went? Wife secretly hates husband, cuts brakes of his car? Except Mariella loved Harrison, and anyone who knew them would testify to that.
So where was this story coming from?
She thought back to what the police detective had said when he’d told her about Harrison’s crash, and her mind was blank. She’d still been reeling from the initial bombshell. “Accident investigators might prove me wrong, but it looks like Mr. Marshall lost control of the Bugatti as he navigated a particularly sharp corner. He swiped a boulder and the car lifted, the immense power flipping it over. Mr. Marshall wasn’t wearing his seat belt, and he was tossed through the windshield only seconds before the car crashed through the guardrail and tumbled down the cliff.”
Nothing conclusive had been said. Some theories had been floated, but had they been more in the manner of looking to placate her? They were vague and uncertain, nothing she could grab hold of and take comfort from. She took the turnoff toward the clinic, checking her rearview mirror, making sure she wasn’t being followed. Harrison’s location had to remain a secret. If, in fact, it still was. What possible reason could a network have for lying about an exclusive interview? Unless one of the nurses or doctors had provided information?
Her heart began to race faster.
Mariella simply wanted the world to stop. She wanted everybody to be silent so that she could think and see clearly. Who was her husband? If it wasn’t an accident, what possible reason could someone have had to wish to hurt him? And did that same person want to hurt her? Her children and Gabe? Were they all in danger?
She drove a little faster. She needed answers, and the clinic seemed like the best place to find them.
* * *
The house was eerily quiet. The usual servants were nowhere to be seen. Luc moved softly up the stairs, as though his footsteps might disturb someone or something if he wasn’t careful.
He didn’t have long. His mom was at the Polo Club, and Rafe and Elana would be halfway to the clinic by now. They’d be livid if they knew he’d doubled back to the house—but they wouldn’t know.
Luc’s being at Casa de Catalina was his little secret.
Yet they’d be expecting him at the clinic, and if he took too long to arrive, it would bring up questions he’d rather not deal with.
He heard a noise and paused, frowning, trying to detect which direction it came from. His eyes lifted, skimming the hallway and inadvertently meeting his own reflection in a large mirror opposite.
His brother had done a number on Luc’s face. He lifted a finger and patted the bruise gingerly, wincing as pain radiated through his cheekbone and toward his ear. Bastard caught him by surprise, that was all. If he had his time again, Luc wouldn’t let Rafe get away with it.
Another noise. Like metallic blinds hitting a window. It was coming from his father’s home office—the sanctuary that they’d all been told again and again was off-limits. Luc’s smile was grim. There were certain times when rules begged to be broken.
He pushed the door inward and was rewarded with the sight of the one person he needed to speak to, the sole reason he’d returned to Casa Cat instead of proceeding to the clinic.
He spoke first, the fear of being caught making the words tumble from his mouth. “I know it’s dangerous for me to be here.” He moved deeper into the office, pushing the door shut behind him to give them privacy. “But I had no choice. We need to talk, and it won’t wait.”
