The first four episodes in this explosive family drama!

The wealthy Marshall family is untouchable. Or so they thought. But when a car accident puts patriarch Harrison in a coma, cracks appear in the family facade. It seems Harrison had an awful lot of secrets, and he’s not the only one. His wife, Mariella, and children, Luc, Rafe and Elana, not to mention nephew Gabe, all have things they’d rather keep hidden.

Enter a mysterious figure called the Fixer... Who is this person, and what is the Fixer’s connection with Harrison? And with those cracks becoming ever wider, what sins will be revealed?

Super Rich. Super Sexy. Super Addictive.

Secrets of the A-List

Secrets of the A-List Box Set, Volume 1

Secrets of the A-List (Episode 1 of 12)

Joss Wood

Secrets of the A-List (Episode 2 of 12)

Clare Connelly

Secrets of the A-List (Episode 3 of 12)

Donna Hill

Secrets of the A-List (Episode 4 of 12)

Reese Ryan

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Praise for Joss Wood

“What an entertaining read!”

—Harlequin Junkie on His Ex’s Well-Kept Secret

Praise for Clare Connelly

“Another great story with heartbreaking scenes as well as steamy loving parts.”

—Goodreads on The Velasco Love Child

Praise for Donna Hill

“This intelligent and heartwarming love story suits the season...steamy.”

—RT Book Reviews on For You I Will

Praise for Reese Ryan

“Both characters are strong, and their relationship develops naturally, without any force or pretense. Readers will enjoy sharing their bumpy ride to their happy ending.”

—Publishers Weekly on Playing with Desire

Table of Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Title Page

Praise

Secrets of the A-List (Episode 1 of 12)

Introduction

About the Author

Episode One

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Secrets of the A-List (Episode 2 of 12)

Introduction

About the Author

Episode Two

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Secrets of the A-List (Episode 3 of 12)

Introduction

About the Author

Episode Three

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Secrets of the A-List (Episode 4 of 12)

Introduction

About the Author

Episode Four

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Copyright

Secrets of the A-List (Episode 1 of 12)

Joss Wood

A billionaire on the verge of death. And his family? In free fall...

The wealthy Marshall family is untouchable. Or so they thought. But when a car accident puts patriarch Harrison in a coma, cracks appear in the family facade. It seems Harrison had an awful lot of secrets, and he’s not the only one. His wife, Mariella, and children, Luc, Rafe and Elana, not to mention nephew Gabe, all have things they’d rather keep hidden.

Enter a mysterious figure called the Fixer... Who is this person, and what is the Fixer’s connection with Harrison? And with those cracks becoming ever wider, what sins will be revealed?

Super Rich. Super Sexy. Super Addictive.

Secrets of the A-List

About the Author

JOSS WOOD loves books and traveling—especially to the wild places of southern Africa. She has the domestic skills of a potted plant and drinks far too much coffee.

Joss has written for Harlequin KISS, Harlequin Presents and, most recently, the Harlequin Desire line. After a career in business, she now writes full-time. Joss is a member of the Romance Writers of America and Romance Writers of South Africa.

Visit her Author Profile page at www.millsandboon.co.uk, or josswoodbooks.com, for other titles.

Episode One

Prologue

“He’s in the hands of the trauma surgeon.”

“Status?” The words were supercharged verbal bullets. This information was well paid for—to hell with politeness.

“Bad. Head injuries, broken bones. He was thrown from the vehicle as it hit the guardrail. If he’d been wearing his seat belt, he would’ve been part of the fiery wreck at the bottom of the cliff.”

“Has the family been informed?”

“Not yet,” the EMT replied. “I presume one of the nurses will make those calls in the next few minutes.”

“Have the press gotten wind of the story yet?”

Imagining the young woman glancing toward the entrance to the ER—her brown eyes would be scanning the hallway for the more familiar members of the press corps. “Not yet, but they will soon. News that Harrison Marshall is in critical condition will spread like a California wildfire.”

A few low curses escaped. “Prognosis?”

The EMT remained silent, in preparation to deliver the bad news, and sucked in a deep breath. “Not good. Prepare yourself.”

Prepare yourself. Pity that suggestion didn’t come with a how-to manual.

The Fixer disconnected the call and looked down at the hand clutching the cell phone, noting with annoyance the trembling fingers holding the expensive phone in a tight grip. Breathe, dammit. He’s not dead.

Not yet, anyway.

The Fixer swiped a thumb across the screen of the smartphone and looked at the call log, realizing the last conversation they’d shared was probably shortly before Harrison’s Bugatti Veyron made its acquaintance with the highway’s low guardrail. According to another source on the payroll, a California Highway Patrol officer, the responding officers had few doubts that this was anything but an accident—the Pacific Coast Highway had seen many cars leave its surface thanks to its unforgiving twists and bends—but, because Harrison Marshall was Harrison Marshall, world-renowned hospitality entrepreneur, his accident would attract investigation. And attention.

Attention the Fixer did not need.

At least the authorities wouldn’t find Harrison’s last call suspicious, as there would be records of twenty other calls from Harrison to this cell number this week alone. With luck the authorities would assume that the much-ticketed Harrison had been speeding again and lost control of his car when he threw it around a treacherous bend.

Nobody had to know that there was a strong possibility that Harrison’s past—their past—had finally caught up with them.

The Fixer walked across the second-story living room and onto the upstairs balcony to grip the wrought-iron railing with a taut grip. Casa de Catalina, named after the wife of the first owner of this property, a wealthy real estate baron, had views of both the Santa Ynez Mountains and the Pacific Ocean. Like everything else at Casa Cat, as it was fondly called, the views were world-class. The Fixer idly wondered how much money Harrison and Mariella had spent restoring the sprawling century-old mansion. The budget probably matched the GDP of a small third-world country. It was huge, tastefully decorated, luxurious and rich...the hub of the Marshall empire. Would Harrison see it again? Could he be allowed to?

Alive or dead could be worked with, but brain injuries would be, well, difficult. To say the least.

The Fixer stared down, eyes bouncing from the bright blue pool to the red tiles of the guest cottage and the contrasting greens of the landscaped garden, not taking in any of the details of the opulent estate. Had Harrison asked for something someone wasn’t prepared to relinquish? Had he stumbled on a secret someone was prepared to kill for? Could someone closer to home have accidentally-on-purpose caused his car to leave the Pacific Coast Highway?

Or was this, simply, an accident?

The Fixer didn’t know, and that lack of knowledge grated, frightened. Knowledge was power, and the Fixer was always, thanks to the Marshall-Santiago empire, in the right place at the right time to acquire that knowledge—privy to so many private conversations and all sorts of shenanigans. All it took was a whispered suggestion that a stubborn and embarrassing problem could be solved by bending the rules—for a hefty fee—and word got around.

With Harrison’s “accident,” the spotlight would be very firmly focused on the Marshall family. Fuck. This news would be the leading story everywhere. The Fixer had no doubt that the Marshalls would rally together and face this challenge as a united front, but there was a strong possibility that the secretive nature of what they did would be revealed. No problem was unsolvable, however, as they had proved over the years. They’d dealt with vengeful wives and pissed-off discarded mistresses, bad business deals, royal muck-ups in foreign countries. They’d yet to fail, and now wasn’t the time to start. Not when so much was at stake.

Every problem held a solution, and the Fixer recognized the need to step away from the fear, the worry and the emotion of the situation. When one looked at Harrison’s accident as a problem, it was easy to see that the quickest and most efficient solution was for Harrison to wake up and talk—or for him to die. Harsh but true. This was one of the few situations when money, dammit, was not the answer. It would help, it would conceal and confuse, stir up the already muddy waters, but a broken body needed time and skill and luck to heal. For today, the Fixer could try to contain the situation. A waiting game would be played, with eyes and ears wide open.

The Fixer would give Harrison some time to recover.

But not too much. Before long some far-reaching and tough decisions on Harrison’s future would have to be made.

The Fixer would not hesitate to make those decisions. It wouldn’t, after all, be the first time...

Chapter One

Mariella Santiago-Marshall stood in the parking lot of St. Aloysius Hospital in her hometown of Santa Barbara, and abruptly realized that nothing would ever be the same again.

Harrison, God... Harrison was in there somewhere, broken. A car accident, they said. He was in surgery, they said.

Dios mío.

It was a plea, a curse, a demand. An appeal for mercy, a curse toward the God she wasn’t sure she believed in anymore, a demand for information.

Feeling tears burn the back of her throat, Mariella pushed her long black hair behind her ears and dropped her designer sunglasses over her eyes, sighing when the dark lenses cut through the glare. Habit had her eyes drifting over the busy parking lot, and she was relieved to see no paparazzi either sitting in cars or loitering, cameras around their necks and the thrill of the hunt in their eyes.

Mariella knew that it wouldn’t be long before the news of Harrison’s accident broke, so she’d take this time, this short period, to gather her thoughts and her composure.

Mariella’s eyes skittered to the automatic doors leading to the busy ER and touched the tip of her tongue to her top lip, tasting her expensive lipstick. Where was Harrison? What were they doing to him? Why couldn’t they tell her anything?

Frustration, anger and a need to walk had propelled her out of the ER, a part of her knowing that if she didn’t leave, she’d cause a scene of epic proportions. She was terrified, and when she got scared she lost control...

Tears burned a path from her throat to her eyes, and she quickly blinked them away, cursing herself for her weakness. Mariella Sofía Jimena Santiago-Marshall did not cry. Or, if she did, she never let anyone see her do it.

She was a Santiago, dammit, a part of a powerful, prominent family whose roots could be traced back to California’s early history and Don Juan Santiago, who saw California pass from Spain to Mexico and then into American hands. Juan’s warrior blood flowed through her veins. When their backs were to the wall, Santiagos came out swinging, and they always fought dry-eyed.

But damn, she wanted to howl, sob, fall apart. Mariella wrapped her arms around herself and fought the panic climbing up her throat. She wasn’t used to feeling helpless, out of control, useless. She’d been Harrison’s partner, his right hand, his shadow, his best friend and his wife for more than three decades, and waiting around, doing nothing, went against every instinct she had. There had to be something she could do...

There wasn’t.

Mariella had lived a life many envied and most were fascinated by; she was the wife of an immensely powerful man, the mother of three successful children—four, if she included Gabe, and she did—and the CEO of MSM Event Planning, the catering arm of Marshall International. But at this moment, everything she’d achieved, everything she was—strong, powerful, rich—meant nothing.

Her husband was teetering on the edge between life and death, and there was damn all she could do about it.

If she allowed it to, panic would bite and burn, her lungs would close, and the air would turn to soup.

If she allowed it to.

Mariella opened her mouth and sucked in a deep breath of fragrant September air and dug her pale pink fingernails into her toned bicep, the pain enabling her to push away the almost overpowering feeling of despair.

Santiagos didn’t buckle; neither did Marshalls. She was one by blood, one by marriage, and she wouldn’t embarrass either family by dropping to the grimy, greasy asphalt in a dead faint.

The first responder to the accident, a young highway patrol officer, had been waiting for her when she arrived at the hospital and had quickly, concisely recounted the morning’s events.

Mariella now had a better idea of how the accident had happened and wished she didn’t. His words played on an endless loop in her head.

“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.”

Mariella heard the familiar low but powerful growl of a sports car and her head snapped up. She narrowed her eyes and saw the snazzy silver Aston Martin convertible whip into the parking lot. Even at a distance, she could see the worry on Joe’s face, could sense his despair.

Joe Reynolds, Harrison’s oldest and best friend and business partner, their rock, was finally here, and she wasn’t alone. Joe was the strong rope that connected her and Harrison to the ground, their sounding board, their confidant and adviser.

There was no one else she wanted, or needed, at her side. She needed his strength to reassure her that everything would be all right, so she could be strong for her children.

Joe roared toward her, slammed on the brakes and in one smooth movement cut the engine and hopped, with all the energy of the twenty-year-old he’d been a lifetime ago, over the door panel. He hurried around the hood of the car and opened his arms, and Mariella stumbled into them, her face buried in his neck, the familiar scent of his citrus cologne drifting up to her nose. She placed her arms around his trim waist and pushed into him, seeking comfort, reassurance, waiting for his calm strength to seep into her psyche.

She felt Joe kiss the top of her head, his broad hands warm on her back. Here was comfort, support, a lifetime of unconditional love.

Her best friend, and Harrison’s, was here. The day could only improve.

Mariella, strong, confident, proud, felt a wave of emotion crash over her, and she finally, finally allowed her control to snap. She sniffed, hiccuped and allowed one small sob to escape. She would not allow tears to run down her cheeks, drip off her chin and wet the collar of Joe’s polo shirt, his tanned skin. She was Mariella Santiago-Marshall, and she would not allow anyone but him to see her as anything other than the tough, independent, composed woman the world knew her to be.

But this man, who’d known them for so long and who had seen so much, was the one person she could allow to see her cracks and chasms. In his arms was the only place she could show such weakness, such lack of control.

She both loved and hated that Joe had that power over her.

* * *

Luc Marshall did the ninety-minute drive from LA in an hour ten, which was fast, even for him. Throwing his Mercedes-AMG into the first parking space he could find, he shot out of the car, and his long legs ate up the distance to the hospital entrance. He barreled through the mirrored automatic doors and nailed the blonde at the reception counter with a hard look. “ICU?”

She responded to his brusque, taut tone with succinct directions, and Luc lifted his head in thanks. Too tense to wait for the elevator, he found the stairwell and ran up to the third floor, slowing down at the top of the stairs to rake his hand through his hair, to smooth down his tie. He was the medical professional in the family; if his mother and siblings saw how worried he was, they would lose it. It was better that he appear calm, that he pretend that their world hadn’t been tipped upside down, that he establish the facts and plan a course of action. All he knew was that his father had been in a car accident, that he was coming out of surgery and would be moved to the ICU shortly. He needed more facts, and it was his job to translate the medical jargon into words his family could understand and then guide them as to what to expect. To do that, he needed to detach, to be a doctor, to temporarily forget that the patient was his father, his role model, his flawed hero.

Luc took a deep breath and pulled open the door to the waiting room just outside the ICU, immediately noticing that Rafe stood by the window, staring down at the parking lot below. Rafe looked as if he’d just rolled out of bed—his hair was mussed and his jaw was heavy with stubble.

“New car?” Rafe asked, not bothering to turn around. “Your Tits and Ass practice must be doing well.”

Luc jammed his hands into the pockets of his suit pants and tipped his head back to look at the ceiling. He knew Rafe was trying to act normally—he jabbed Luc about being one of the best boob surgeons in the state and Luc mocked him about his inability to commit to anything—but today he couldn’t summon the energy to step into the ring with his younger brother.

“Not now, Rafe.” Luc said. He looked toward the closed doors leading to the entrance of the ICU. “Is he in there yet?”

Rafe lifted one shoulder. “They won’t tell me or Mom anything. She got so angry that she went outside for some air. Maybe you can find out.”

Luc nodded his agreement. He walked away from Rafe and crossed the room to the nurses’ station. Explaining who he was, he asked the duty nurse to page Harrison’s doctor, his doctor-in-charge voice suggesting that she not argue. The doctor was paged, and Luc was told to wait. He placed his hands on the counter and straightened his arms, looking down at the floor below him. He should join Rafe, should try to comfort his brother, but he needed a minute—or ten.

It was at a time like this that Luc wished that he and his brother were closer, that Rafe was someone he could lean on, who could sometimes support him instead of the other way around.

But, God, they were just so different and always had been. He was, on paper, the perfect child. He was everything his father had wished for in a son—handsome, brilliant, the top of his field—but not the field Harrison wanted Luc in. Instead of following his dad into the family business, Luc had followed his passion and become a doctor. Luc often wondered if Harrison ever looked beyond what he did to who he was. Luc had done everything right—he’d been a varsity athlete in college, a brilliant student in med school. Still, Harrison seemed to love him but didn’t know anything of the man he was beneath the model-son facade.

Luc felt his cell phone vibrate in his pocket, and he pulled it out, glad for the distraction. Relief turned to disappointment when he saw the name on the screen. His girlfriend Rachel wasn’t the person he most wanted to talk to. Luc knew that wishing she’d call him was like waiting for a boat at an airport—consistently futile. Luc let Rachel’s call go to voice mail and immediately regretted the decision. Rachel, and her father, Congressman Nicholas Franklin, would not appreciate hearing the news about Harrison via a friend or a news feed. Not up to talking to Rachel, he sent her a quick text message updating her on the situation. Luc stared down at his phone, resisting the urge to make another call...

That way madness lay.

She was out of his reach. He should accept that and move the hell on.

Luc heard hurried footsteps approaching and snapped up his head. He straightened as he watched the lanky frame of the middle-aged doctor approach, his tie askew and his eyes sunken from exhaustion. A hand was thrust in his direction. “Dr. Grant. You are Dr. Marshall?”

Luc shook his hand and folded his arms across his chest. “What’s the status on my father?” He saw and appreciated the respect that flashed in the older doctor’s eyes at his unwillingness to be mollycoddled.

For the next ten minutes, Luc listened to Dr. Grant detail his father’s injuries, the steps they’d taken to treat him and his prognosis. The explanation was full of technical and medical terms, but it was a language they both understood. Joe had passed on the information he’d gathered from talking to the cops about how the accident happened—too fast, car flipped, Dad was thrown through the windshield—but now Luc had solid and concrete information about Harrison’s prognosis.

“So, basically,” he mused, “I need to tell my family that Dad’s brain smacked against the inside of his skull on impact with the steering wheel or the windshield. After hitting the front of the skull, the brain probably bounced back and slammed against the back of the skull. Major forces were involved. There is tissue and blood vessel damage. And swelling. That’s why he had to be rushed into the OR to relieve the pressure, but the trauma has caused him to slip into a coma.”

“You know this,” Dr. Grant added. “If he survives the next two nights, he’s got a fighting chance, but the chances of him making a full recovery are—”

“Minimal at best.” Luc finished the sentence for him.

Dr. Grant nodded. “Yeah.”

Luc sent him a hard stare. “We’re not going to give up on him. Our family has resources...”

Dr. Grant sent him a sympathetic smile. “You and I both understand that there are some situations that money can’t fix—only time and luck can.”

Luc closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, Dr. Grant was striding away. Luc threw a quick glance across the room and noticed that Rafe hadn’t moved from his position at the window, his bottom lip between his teeth.

God, Rafe. It was easier to focus his attention on his brother than to think of his father hooked up to machines, bruised, bloody, broken.

Damn, his brother annoyed him. Luc didn’t give a shit about his sexual orientation, but Rafe’s lack of motivation, his aimless life, irritated Luc. Like him, Rafe was naturally talented at pretty much everything, including sports and academics. Everything Rafe touched turned to gold. He could be anything he wanted to be and be the best at whatever he did, but instead Rafe dabbled, moving from one interest to another—interior design one week, furniture design and landscape gardening the next. He was the dilettante Marshall, helping Mariella design and stage their bigger catering events, and he also worked as a consultant when one of the many Marshall hotels or restaurants needed a design revamp. From what he’d gathered, Rafe strode in, tossed his ideas around and left as abruptly, fully expecting the minions to implement his ideas. Rafe didn’t believe in getting his hands dirty.

Luc, as artistic as a lettuce leaf, knew Rafe was talented. He could see his distinctive signature all over the Marshall properties. He could be an amazing architect, interior designer, set designer, artist—he was that talented. He just had the attention span of a puppy. God, what a waste of that phenomenal brain.

Luc flicked a glance at the doors leading to the ICU. Harrison appreciated Rafe’s talent, but he related better to Luc, who was, he supposed, the more “conventional” of the two. Rafe had once told Luc, in a moment of rare, deep conversation, that he’d never lived up to Harrison’s expectations and walking in his macho older brother’s footsteps hadn’t helped. Of course, some of Rafe and Harrison’s emotional distance could be blamed on Rafe’s sexual orientation. Harrison paid lip service to the idea that it was fine that his younger son was gay, but the truth was that Harrison, a man’s man, wasn’t quite sure how to treat, or interact with, Rafe.

But if there was a chasm of misunderstanding between Rafe and their father, the same could not be said for Rafe and Mariella. Their mother and Rafe were exceptionally close, able to communicate with a look or a laugh. Of all of them, Mariella loved Rafe with a depth of feeling she’d never quite managed with him or their sister, Elana. No matter how much Luc tried to impress his mother, from exceptional report cards and success at any sport he tried to defending his brother from schoolyard bullies and his sister from bad boys—or any boys—Mariella never looked at Luc the same way she looked at Rafe, or even Gabe, his cousin.

He wished...oh, hell, he wished for so much. That his family was normal, that Rafe could find something or someone that made him happy, that Elana wasn’t such high maintenance, that the love of his life would...

Luc scrubbed his hands over his face. No point in going there.

Knowing that he needed to be strong, Luc pushed his shoulders back, walked over to Rafe and placed a hand on his shoulder. Rafe turned his head to look at him, anguish in his face and his eyes. “And?”

“He’s in a coma. He has a traumatic brain injury and a bruised spleen, various broken bones. It’s the TBI the doctors are most concerned about. The surgery relieved most of the pressure, but they have to wait for the swelling to subside before they can make a judgment call on his future. All I can say is that he’s in very bad shape and the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours are crucial. If he survives the night and tomorrow night, he has a slim chance.”

Rafe swore, and Luc caught the shimmer of tears in his eyes. “Goddammit,” he whispered.

Luc turned as the door to the waiting room opened. A nurse dressed in scrubs held a clipboard and sent them a quick, distracted smile. Luc frowned and looked around. “Rafe?”

“Yeah?”

“Where the fuck is Elana?”

Chapter Two

A good orgasm was when her vision started to fade, her head spun and her body shook. It was a blend of bungee jumping and skydiving, hot and sexy, heart-stopping, body-melting volcanic fun. Jarrod Jones, Elana decided as she floated back to the earth, gave her the best, and the most intense, orgasms. Ever.

It was no wonder that she was addicted to him.

Ignoring her ringing cell phone on the far bedside table, Elana yawned. Fighting sleep, feeling like he’d turned her inside out, Elana watched as he pushed himself off her and stalked, bare-ass naked, toward the en-suite bathroom across the room. Idly wondering if she should follow him into the shower and go another round—they seldom needed much time to recover—Elana looked upward and smiled at her reflection in the newly installed mirror above the bed. She looked good, she decided, dreamy and well loved. Very well loved. In her opinion she never looked better than she did when she still radiated that orgasmic glow. That was saying something, since she looked pretty damn fine all the time.

Long dark brown hair, huge expressive brown eyes, a peachy glow to her flawless skin. A body that rocked...

Her looks and body were her greatest asset, closely followed by her charm. She might not have Luc’s brains or Rafe’s talent, but she looked spectacular and she could, as her mother frequently commented, sell ice to Eskimos. That was why Mariella tolerated her presence at MSM Event Planning, where she worked as a party planner. She wasn’t as dedicated or enthusiastic as her co-workers and didn’t put in the hours like her colleagues. Instead she took on projects that interested her, worked only with people whom she liked, and she did a fantastic job, if the project ran smoothly. If not, she relied on Gabe, her cousin, to keep her on some sort of track. She also relied on him to pull her admittedly delicious ass out of the fire when she lost track of a detail or a deadline.

Gabe was smart and focused and dedicated. So Elana didn’t have to be.

Elana bit her bottom lip and stared at her orange toenails, her thoughts a million miles away from the expensive pedicure she’d acquired the day before. Looks and charm were all good and well, but she’d swap them in a heartbeat to be more like the rest of her high-flying family. The reality was that she was the family screwup. Like her world-famous chef and hotelier father and her ridiculously accomplished and smart mother, Luc, Rafe and Gabe made success look so damn easy, they’d never had a moment’s doubt that they’d conquer anything they turned their attention to. She hadn’t been that lucky.

Elana’s ringing phone pulled her out of her introspection. She rolled over, scooped up the flashy red device and looked down at the screen. Ten missed calls—Luc, Gabe, her mother, Thom. Gabe and Mariella were, no doubt, calling her to complain that she was late for work, and Thom would want to know where she was and what she was doing. Who knew what Luc was calling about. Elana winced at the number of text messages; she wasn’t in the mood for an ass-kicking from anybody. She needed another bout of fabulous sex and two cups of coffee before she could face the world that existed outside this luxury apartment.

Being with Jarrod was an integral part of her fantasy world, one she needed as much, or possibly more, than her real world. Damn that ringing phone! Elana saw that Thom was calling her—again—and let the call go to voice mail. Besides, she’d far prefer to think about her very sexy lover.

It had been a couple of months since she’d laid eyes on Jarrod at a party in Beverly Hills. From the moment their eyes met, electricity had crackled between them. He’d introduced himself, and Elana instantly knew that it wouldn’t be long before they saw each other naked. Jarrod was involved in the film industry, and there were rumors about a casting couch—or desk—and about his voracious sexual appetite. Elana listened to the gossip and immediately shrugged off the comments. It meant nothing to her—she wasn’t an actress looking for a break or a paycheck, and she obviously didn’t need his influence or money...

Jarrod was her fantasy man, a way for her to step out of her increasingly complicated life. He was her escape, her dalliance, her drug...

The phone in her hand rang again, and Elana grinned when she saw the name on the display. Yeah, Cassie was the one person she could talk to. Unlike her family and Thom, Cassie didn’t nag.

“One word, a simple hello, and I can tell that you’ve had a fabulous night. Where did he take you, what did you do?” Cassie drawled. “El Acantilado? The Polo Club? Swoosh?”

“Nowhere,” Elana answered. “We stayed in and screwed each other stupid.”

“I’m so jealous,” Cassie answered on a forlorn sigh. “Listen, I need to know if you’re going to come with me to Mark and Alex’s fashion show in New York next week.”

“I don’t know yet.” Elana shrugged. “I’m waiting to hear whether Jarrod has plans with Finola.”

“Does the ever-so-beautiful, stupid-talented and intellectual Oscar winner know that you are having an affair with her husband?”

Elana shrugged. “Jarrod doesn’t seem to be worried, so I’m not. Besides, I’m playing with fire, too.”

“Don’t get burned,” Cassie said, uncharacteristically serious.

“You know me, Cass, I’m fire and bombproof. I always land on my feet,” Elana assured her before disconnecting the call. She didn’t like intense conversations that made her examine her life or her motivations. She liked to keep her affairs simple.

And it was simple: Finola was Jarrod’s sun, and Elana was his moon. She and Jarrod saw each other when they could, and they were completely sexually compatible. They had fun together—she was allowed to have some fun, wasn’t she?

Jarrod walked back into the bedroom, a blindingly white towel wrapped around his hips, artfully tied to show off the ridge of abdominal muscles. Broad shoulders, long legs, slicked-back hair and predatory eyes. Damn right, she could have some fun! God, he was hot, and he had a way of looking at her that sent bolts of power to her core. Elana wiggled against the silk sheets, and passion flared in Jarrod’s eyes. His towel started to tent.

“Your phone is ringing,” he said, arms over his chest, one dark eyebrow lifted.

“Yeah, I know.” Elana shrugged. “I’m ignoring it.”

“It might be your fiancé,” Jarrod said, his tone amused.

“And do you take every call of Finola’s?”

The corners of Jarrod’s sexy mouth lifted. “Point taken.”

Elana tipped her head upward and dragged her fingernail over her right breast, watching, fascinated, as her nipple pebbled. “So, tell me, what does Finola think of the mirror?”

“Dunno. She hasn’t seen it yet.” His voice dropped an octave, and sex coated his words. “Do you like it?”

Elana’s core throbbed, and the moisture in her mouth disappeared. “I love it. I love watching you slide into me.”

“You up for another round?” Jarrod asked.

Elana nodded. “I haven’t seen you for two weeks, so we have some lost time to make up.”

Jarrod tipped his head to the side, his eyes narrowed. “Do you want to try something different?”

Elana’s heart stopped, stuttered to life again as adrenaline flooded her system. She’d heard rumors about Jarrod’s dark side, about his taste for certain practices, and she was intrigued, and curious, enough to find out what he had in mind. Her phone rang again, and she released a harsh curse. “This damn thing won’t shut up.”

A quick glance at the display told her that it was Thom. Again.

Elana slapped the phone upside down to silence the ringer. Annoyed, she opened the heavy bedside drawer and tossed the phone inside. Whoever wanted or needed her could wait.

Jarrod, and what he wanted and needed, came first. Or, as her previous experience with Jarrod had taught her, she would come first. Multiple times.

* * *

Mariella, lipstick reapplied and makeup perfect, walked from the elevator into the waiting room of the ICU, the three-inch heels of her designer shoes tapping the tiled floor. Joe’s fingers held her elbow in a light but reassuring grip, but she wasn’t about to fall apart. She had to be strong for Harrison, for her children, their company, for their future. They would get through this—they had to. Any other scenario was unacceptable.

Mariella stopped, pushed her oversize sunglasses into her glossy black hair and immediately looked at Luc, approaching her from the other side of the room. Her firstborn was a perfect mixture of her and Harrison, Spanish heat at war with European ice. Her olive skin, his father’s gorgeous blue eyes. Luc was steady, dependable, not one to rock the boat. An easy child, Mariella remembered, but consistent excellence could be, dare she admit it, annoying. Unlike Rafe, he didn’t have an artistic side that allowed him to be emotionally accessible. She wished Luc would allow himself to be a little more open; he needed to relax, be less analytical and more spontaneous. But those traits, she admitted, did make him an incredible doctor. Luc always did what was expected, what looked good. His latest girlfriend, the all-American beauty, was a case in point. Rachel Franklin was such a cliché...a spoiled blonde bombshell with fake breasts, shiny teeth and all the depth of a puddle.

Mariella pushed her chest out, thinking that her breasts had provided both pleasure and nourishment and were still fully natural. Big, bountiful, womanly—there wasn’t an ounce of plastic in her body. Okay, maybe a little Botox, but that didn’t count, surely?

Mariella waited for Luc to reach her and opened her arms, sighing when Luc lowered his head to drop a perfunctory kiss on each cheek. Why couldn’t he be warmer, why wouldn’t he allow her into his head and his life? Luc was, and always had been, fully independent, and Mariella hated—and admired—it. The world saw her as a strong matriarchal figure running herd on her family, staff and friends, but Mariella had little—no—control over Luc. He was completely independent of their money and did not need their influence. She couldn’t help him, advise him or protect him, and that made her feel twitchy. A mother should be able to do all, or at least one thing, for her child, but Luc? No, he had to forge his own path. Stubborn boy.

Luc pulled out of her grip, far too soon, and shook Joe’s hand. “How is he?” Joe asked, pushing his hands into the pockets of his chinos. Dear Joe—what would she do without him?

Luc shook his head. “It’s not good. He’s in a coma. He has extensive injuries. Mom—” Luc placed a hand on her shoulder and squeezed “—you need to prepare yourself. There’s a good chance...”

Mariella shook her head as she lifted her fist to her mouth. Digging deep, she sucked up some strength and looked her eldest in the eyes. “No, Luc. Don’t think like that. He will be fine.”

“Mom, he’s very badly injured.”

Mariella narrowed her eyes at him. “Get a second opinion. Get the best in the world. Get them here, get them now. Once those doctors have examined him, I will listen again, but, until then, we will have no talk of the possibility of your father dying. Are we clear?”

“I am a doctor. I do know what I am talking—”

Mariella couldn’t listen to any more. This was her life partner, his father, Luc was discussing. He wasn’t another patient; her life lay in a hospital bed beyond those doors. If she didn’t believe, who would? “I said, am I clear?”

Luc’s eyes slid away to look at Joe, but Mariella didn’t drop her gaze. Until Harrison recovered, she was head of this family. Luc closed his eyes in frustration, and when he opened them again, he gave her a curt nod. “As you wish, Mariella.”

Dammit, he only called her Mariella when he was pissed off with her. Mariella held out a hand to grip his, but Luc took a step back, retreating into his cool, calm shell. Luc handed her a mocking smile. “Rafe needs you. He’s taking this hard.”

He didn’t say it out of concern for his brother, Mariella realized as she walked toward Rafe, who stood by the window, ignoring their conversation. As she always did, she ignored Luc’s subtle dig about her preference for Rafe. The two boys were born competitive, and growing up their sibling rivalry had sometimes descended into outright war. But Luc refused to see that he had the advantage over Rafe, that the prosaic, unemotional attitude he’d inherited from Harrison made the world an easier place to deal with. Luc was an oceangoing liner, steady, stable, and Rafe was a rickety raft, at the mercy of the ebbs and swells of life. If all was well, he could be charming and ebullient, but when the tide turned, and he was faced with criticism and rejection, he didn’t have the resilience to ride the waves. She was his life jacket, his rescue craft, the person he leaned on. It made Mariella feel like she still had value as a mother.

Rafe turned to her, his gaze filled with despair. But when his arms went around her, when his hand rested on the back of her head, Mariella knew that he was trying to comfort her, to ease her pain. Darling Rafe. He was trying to be brave, but Mariella felt the shudder that passed through him, and she tightened her grip. She was his mother—it was her job to provide strength and comfort, leadership. She could do this—she could support Rafe, and the rest of her family, through this horrible time. Mariella drew big circles on his back, wishing that Rafe had a man in his life, someone who could comfort him, support him, when she wasn’t around. But he didn’t, and right now she was his chief source of comfort. No matter how much she had to do, how worried she was, she’d take on that role with alacrity. After all, she’d been doing this for most of his life, and she was damn good at it.

It only took a minute or two, and Rafe’s grip on her eased. He sniffed, lifted his head and sent her a watery smile. “Mom.”

Mom. The sound from those lips still had the power to melt her heart. She would die for this boy, she realized. She would die for any of her children. They were the beat of her heart, the reason she did what she did, the essence of who she was.

Mariella pushed Rafe’s hair off his face and swiped her thumbs under his eyes, wiping away the traces of moisture with her thumbs. She planted a kiss on his mouth and squeezed his cheeks. “Your father will be fine. Do you hear me?”

Rafe nodded, gratitude in his eyes. He’d needed someone to tell him that, Mariella realized. Luc had probably just hit him with the cold, hard facts. She didn’t doubt, not for one second, that Harrison was in grave danger, but she also believed in the power of positivity, in the strength of the human spirit and its will to live. Harrison still had so much he wanted to do; he would fight to stay in this world.

Seeing that Rafe was, mostly, composed, Mariella kept her hand on his back and turned back to face Luc and Joe.

“Where is Elana?” she demanded, realizing for the first time that her youngest wasn’t present.

Luc pushed his hand through his straight hair. “I’ve been calling and texting, but she’s not picking up. I’ve called Thom and told him the situation—he’s trying to reach her, too.”

Dammit, her wild child. Mariella’s lips thinned as she heard her phone ringing from her designer bag dangling from her shoulder. Pulling her cell out, she scrolled through her many missed calls. All clients. Nothing from Elana. She pulled up Elana’s number, dialed it and lifted the phone to her ear. Today was a workday and Elana should pick up a call from her or Gabe. Mariella felt her frustration rise when the call went directly to voice mail. Maybe Gabe had spoken to her...

Mariella’s head snapped up. “And where the hell is Gabe?”

Luc and Rafe exchanged a look that set Mariella’s teeth on edge. “Neither of you called him, did you?”

Luc, at least, had the balls to look her in the eye as he answered her. “He’s not exactly family, Mom.”

“He lived in your house, ate at your table, attended school with you since he was ten years old. He is my nephew, and our most valued employee. He. Is. Family.” Mariella enunciated every word. Her eyes flew from Luc and Rafe and back again. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“I’ll call Gabe,” Joe said, doing what he did best and defusing the tension between members of the Marshall family.

Mariella shook her head. “Thank you, but I’ll do it.” She glanced down at her phone and quickly accessed Gabe’s number. Unlike Elana, Gabe answered before the first ring could be completed.

“Tía?”

Mariella pushed her fist into her sternum, trying to push away the flare of rising acid. “Gabe, I need you at St. Aloysius. Harrison had an accident, and he’s in bad shape.”

Gabe swore. “What the hell happened? Is he okay? How bad is bad?”

Mariella looked up when Joe touched her arm. She followed his pointed finger and saw a doctor approaching, his face weary and so very, very grave. “It’s bad, Gabe. I have to go. Get here as soon as you can.”

“I’m on my way,” Gabe replied.

Mariella lowered the phone as the doctor stopped in front of her, holding out his hand. “Mrs. Santiago-Marshall, I’m Dr. Grant. We should speak. Come and sit down—you might need to make some decisions.”

* * *

Mariella, holding Luc’s hand, stepped into the corridor leading to Harrison and took a moment to steady herself. She could do this—she had to do this. No matter their differences, the arguments, the fights over control and power, Harrison was her husband. Her lover for more than three decades, her best friend.

“I’ll go in with you, and I’ll be able to answer any questions you have,” Luc told her as they approached the room. At the doorway, Luc pulled her to a stop and waited until she looked at him. The terror in his eyes almost dropped her to her knees.

“Mom,” Luc said, holding both her hands in his, “he has a TBI, a traumatic brain injury.”

Mariella tried to contain her frustration. She wanted to get inside, see her husband, feel his warm skin under her fingertips. “I know that, Luc.”

“I don’t think you do,” Luc replied. He lifted a hand, and Mariella knew that it was a silent request asking her to slow down, to listen to him. She didn’t want to—she just wanted to yank the door open and walk inside. “You need to hear this.”

The quicker he said what he had to say, the sooner she could see Harrison. “Get on with it,” Mariella stated, her patience running thin.

“Dad won’t look like himself. He might be cut up and bruised, bloated. There will be a ridiculous amount of tubes and pipes connected to him.”

God, did Luc think she was a fool? He’d been in a car accident, for God’s sake—she didn’t expect him to look like he’d just walked off a tennis court or golf course. Mariella placed her hand on the handle to pull open the door to Harrison’s room, but Luc spoke again. “All the machines have alarms on them. It’s important that you know that an alarm sounding does not automatically mean that there’s a problem or an emergency. The alarms are there to alert the staff to an upcoming task, like a drip change. The nurses are highly trained—”

“Can I see him now?” Mariella demanded, not wanting to hear any more of his lecture.

Luc looked frustrated. “Yeah, we can go in.”

Mariella shook her head and looked Luc in the eye. “I want to go in by myself this first time. I need to be alone with him.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Luc protested, shock crossing his face and skittering through his eyes.

“I don’t care whether you think it’s a good idea or not, that’s what’s going to happen,” Mariella replied, her voice cool. She was a Santiago, for God’s sake—she could do this. She had to do this, because she was a hairbreadth from showing Luc that she’d rather walk through the last level of hell than confront the reality of a brutally injured Harrison.

Pulling the last threads of her courage together, Mariella turned her back to Luc and stepped into Harrison’s room. Impressions bombarded her: two generic chairs next to his bed, puke-gray walls. The harsh smell of disinfectant in her nostrils, her shaking hands. She had to look at him. Mariella slowly, so slowly, lifted her eyes to the bed. His left leg was covered in a cast from ankle to thigh, and his right hand lay on the blindingly white sheet next to his cast. Two of his nails were torn, and there was blood under the rest. Ignoring her tightening throat, Mariella walked her eyes up his chest to the snaking coils of tubes and pipes. God, there were so many, the biggest of which were the two thick, bright blue tubes of the ventilator. A brace encased the strong neck she’d like to bite when they were feeling frisky, and his face, Dios mío, his face...

Beneath the tubes and equipment, Harrison didn’t look anything like the man she lived her life with. He was beyond battered, beyond swollen. He looked like a horror-house version of himself.

Mariella crossed herself and fought the urge to run from the room, screaming that this wasn’t her husband, her life, that this didn’t happen to people like them! She flicked an eye to the door and back to Harrison’s face. They’d taped his eyes closed, and Mariella wished she could see them. Harrison had the prettiest, prettiest eyes. They jumped from cornflower blue when he was amused to Carolina blue when he was focused to a Prussian blue when he was aroused. Mariella knew his eyes, could read his eyes, and she knew that if she could look into them, she’d be able to see if Harrison, in a coma or not, would make his way back to her.

Mariella pulled a chair closer to the bed and gripped Harrison’s cool fingers with her own. Feeling her head spin, she gulped for air and abruptly sat down, instinctively dropping her head to her knees. She could not faint, she would not faint! Yes, she felt heart-stopping fear and bone-crushing anxiety, but she wouldn’t be helping anyone if she collapsed. She needed to be strong, dammit. Mariella heard soft footsteps and looked up to see a nurse approaching the bed.

Her experienced, knowing eyes raked over Mariella’s face. “Are you okay, Mrs. Santiago-Marshall?”

“I’m fine,” Mariella stated, her tone suggesting that the nurse not argue with her. “Is there anything you can tell me?”

The nurse shook her head. “Time will tell. But talking to him couldn’t hurt. Tell him you’re here, let him know that he’s not alone.”

Mariella nodded, and when she heard the snick of the door closing, she looked at her husband—who looked nothing like her husband—and sighed. “I told you not to buy that stupid car, Harrison. I said that it was too powerful, that any car designed for a track shouldn’t be on public roads.”

Jeez, not even a coma gets me a break from your nagging.

Mariella almost smiled as Harrison’s sarcastic reply popped into her head.

“I’ll nag you until you come out of this coma, Harrison.”

God help me.

Mariella placed her elbow on the bed next to his chest and touched his bare chest, his chest hair flecked with gray. He looked old, Mariella thought. When did that happen? “We’ve spent a lifetime together, Harrison, and it can’t end like this. I won’t let it end like this.”

Not up to you, sweetheart.

His voice in her head was so loud that Mariella thought that Harrison had spoken aloud. But imaginary voice or not, the words were a powerful—and annoying—reminder that there were some situations, and people, she could not control. That had been the case with Harrison and, she admitted, had been, and still was, so damn attractive. When you were Mariella Santiago, a direct descendant of Don Juan Santiago, men tended to bow and scrape.

Harrison, big and brash, did the exact opposite, and his indifference to her history and status had intrigued her. It was only after they’d married that she’d realized how much influence her family’s social connections and her lineage played in his success. Harrison wanted to prove to her, to her family and to himself that he was worthy of her, and he’d done that. He’d worked his ass off, and he was seen as a rags-to-riches success. They’d met when he was a hotshot chef, poor but talented, and through grit, determination and sheer bullheadedness, he made the transition from innovative chef to restaurant owner to billionaire entrepreneur. His drive and relentless effort resulted in a company that began with his restaurants and expanded into specialty gourmet products, a television network, vineyards and a chain of hotels, cocktail bars and nightclubs.

Mariella filled her lungs with air, exhaled and did it again. Feeling calmer, she spoke again. “I refuse to accept that you might die, that you’ll leave me here alone. We have our children’s weddings to attend, grandchildren to spoil. Yeah, we scream and fight and bitch and growl, and there have been times that I’ve wanted to smother you in your sleep, but we’re a team. I need you. I can’t be Mariella Santiago-Marshall without you.”

An alarm beeped, and Mariella jumped, her head whipping around to look at the bank of machines keeping her husband alive. God, he would hate this; he would loathe the idea of being connected to this technology, to being kept alive by ventilators and brain shunts. Harrison was an I’ll-do-it-myself-or-move-on type of guy. If Harrison could talk, he’d be telling her to get him the hell off this crap and let him take his chances; it wouldn’t matter that his chance at survival without the machines was less than zero. It wouldn’t be the first roll of the dice he’d made against the odds. But that was business and this was his life...

A life that he’d come so very close to losing.

Chapter Three

They allowed Mariella to stay with Harrison for a scant fifteen minutes, the nursing staff telling her they’d given her five minutes more than they usually did. Mariella would never admit it, but she was grateful—she didn’t know if she could sit next to Harrison’s unresponsive body for much longer, the noise of the machines her only company.

God, how long would he remain like that? Mariella pushed her fingers into her long, lustrous hair and pulled it off her face. Her phone was still buzzing, and habit had her looking down at her screen. Jonas Halstead was both a friend and a client, but she wasn’t up to talking to him in either capacity right now. Friends and business could wait. For now.

Mariella, seeing that the waiting room was empty, frowned. She knew that Luc wasn’t particularly happy with her—nothing new—but she’d expected him to wait for her, along with Rafe and Joe. Where were they? Mariella looked around and saw a group of nurses standing at the window, their faces alight with curiosity. Instantly suspicious, she walked over to them, and her imperial command to move out of her way had an instant effect. The nurses moved aside, and Mariella looked down into the large parking lot, the one directly outside the main entrance to the hospital. The area was full of news vans and reporters waving microphones in front of her two sons.

Mariella muttered a curse under her breath and spun around, knocking the patient file from a young nurse’s hand. Too angry to apologize, she stormed toward the bank of elevators, silently cursing the inquisitive press. She could’ve anticipated this, she thought as she stepped inside the empty stainless steel cube. The Santiago and Marshall families, on an individual basis, were two of the wealthiest and most recognized clans in the world, and as a couple, every move she and Harrison made, their children made, garnered attention. They didn’t live in a fishbowl—they lived in the biggest tank in the busiest, most visited aquarium in the world. And what did Luc and Rafe think they were doing, dealing with the press on their own? They’d grown up in the eye of the cameras; they knew that you never held impromptu press conferences, that you didn’t step into the school of piranhas when they smelled blood in the water.

Dios mío!

Mariella slammed her hand against the emergency button of the elevator, and when it stopped, she pulled her bag off her shoulder. It was a long-ingrained habit to run a brush through her hair, to inspect her face. She wiped away a minuscule fleck of mascara from her underneath her left eye and slicked another layer of her trademark deep-red lipstick across her full lips. There, her armor was on. The cameras would flash when she left the elevator, and then the pack would converge on her. She wouldn’t flinch. She would take control of the situation, since her sons obviously couldn’t.

And where the hell was Joe and why hadn’t he stopped them? Mariella slammed the side of her fist against the emergency-stop button to set the elevator in motion again. Two seconds later it stopped again, and Mariella stared straight ahead as the doors opened. They mob was still outside, and no one had noticed her yet. Good.

“Mariella!”

Busted! Mariella did an internal eye roll as faces and cameras turned to look at her through the glass door. The men and women pushed their way through the automated doorway and formed a tight group around her, blocking the elevators in the process.

Mariella narrowed her eyes against the insistent, constant flashes of high-tech cameras. Needing to get to Rafe and Luc, she walked across the lobby, her expression daring any reporter to get in her way.

“How badly is Harrison injured?”

“Is he going to live?”

“What was the cause of the accident?”

“Was there anyone else in the car with him?”

Bloody hell. Mariella made a conscious effort to hold on to her temper. There was only one way to gain back control, and it was a tactic both she and Harrison used to great effect. She planted her feet, lifted her chin and pulled the corners of her mouth into a shark smile. That particular smile, it was said, had the power to shrivel the sacks of presidents, dictators and serial killers. The questions stopped, feet shuffled and Mariella scanned the crowd standing in front of her. When her eyes connected with some of the junior journalists, more than one tried to step backward. The lobby was now packed with reporters, security was looking anxious and the reporters were impeding the foot traffic moving in and out of the hospital. Rafe and Luc still stood just outside the doors, looking miserable.

Mariella lifted her hand. “I suggest that we move this outside, and if you stop shouting questions at me, I will give you a brief statement.”

The reporters, helped by security, escorted her through the automatic doors, and she took her place next to Luc and Rafe. She placed a hand on each of their backs before turning to face the members of the fourth estate. God, what to say? How to say it? She had to walk the line between showing them that she was genuinely worried—she was—and optimism, which she didn’t, currently, possess. She had to give them enough to satisfy them but not enough to exacerbate the situation and provide more speculation than necessary. Mariella felt like her head was about to explode.

“I can confirm that my husband was in a car accident earlier this morning. Harrison was flung from the car and sustained several serious injuries. I am not going to detail the extent of those, so do not ask. All I can say is that he has undergone emergency surgery and that he is in the ICU.

“I’m asking the press for privacy as we deal with these horrible circumstances.” It was standard practice to ask to be left alone, but it wouldn’t happen. “That is all I have to say at this time. I will have our press liaison release an update when we have more news.” Like hell she would, but she had no problem lying to the press.

“Where is Elana?”

“Was he speeding?”

“Where was he going at the time of the accident?”

Mariella turned away from the questions, relieved when the security personnel started to herd the group away from her. Mariella jerked her head at her sons, who stepped closer to her. Putting her back to the press corps, strategically positioned so that no one could photograph her face, she skewered them with a hot look before herding them away from the press and out of the range of their keen hearing. “What the hell do you think you were doing, engaging with them? We have a rule—any news fed to the press is sanctioned and signed off by your father or myself. What did you tell them?”

“Nothing more than you did,” Luc replied, sending Rafe an annoyed look.

“Thank God for small mercies.” Mariella felt the burn of tears in the back of her throat and clenched her hands at her sides. God, she couldn’t afford to fall apart, not here. Sucking up her last reserves of strength, she raked her glance over her sons again and shook her head. “I’m going upstairs to wait. If you two know what’s good for you, you’ll leave me alone until my temper is under control. Are we clear?”

“Crystal,” Luc muttered, his eyes blazing with fury.

“Yes, Mom.” Rafe nodded, looking contrite. “Sorry.”

Mariella, unable to stay angry when Rafe looked so very miserable, patted his cheek. “We will get through this,” she told him.

“Yeah,” Luc said, his eyes still cool, “but the question remains as to whether we will be everything that we were when we do.”

Mariella bit her bottom lip, bone-deep scared that he might be right.

* * *

Rafe watched his mother walk away and thought, as he frequently did, that his mother had the biggest set of balls in the world. Bigger, possibly, than his father’s, and that was a hell of a statement. Rafe turned his attention onto his still-simmering brother and wondered how long it would take for Mr. Perfect to blame this latest fiasco on him.

Ten, nine, eight, seven, six...

“You shouldn’t have answered that first question,” Luc told him in his oh-so-familiar patronizing tone. God, he was so sick of being in Luc’s firing line. “Once you answer one question, it opens the door to fifty more.”

“I told them that we had no more information than they did,” Rafe argued.

“They can smell bullshit from fifty paces, Rafe! Of course we know more than they do.”

“Like what?” Rafe challenged. “He had an accident, his Bugatti left the road and he’s in ICU with extensive injuries. I never said he was in a goddamn coma, did I? Why the hell are you busting my balls? You also engaged with them.”

If Luc could blame him for climate change and the Syrian crisis, he would. He was, he’d come to accept, a disappointment to his man’s man father and his incomparable older brother. Funny...if he’d been nerdy, geeky and awkward, his life would’ve been easier. He was just the opposite. He was possibly even more naturally gifted at sports than Luc and probably had a bigger brain. Every sport he tried he mastered; there wasn’t a test he couldn’t ace. His dad and Luc hated the fact that he jumped around, moving from opportunity to opportunity. He was wasting his talents, his intellect, they fumed. He had so much potential...

Rafe didn’t understand why his lack of commitment to any particular career bothered them so much. He had a lot of interests, and he liked having the freedom to explore them all.

He felt ill, sick with worry about his dad, but underneath the despair, resentment bubbled. Rafe was so tired of feeling less than because he chose to walk a path that was different than that of his father and brother, tired of the confused looks, the snide comments, the haughty condescension.

Rafe heard the discreet beep of Luc’s phone, indicating that he had a message. Luc pulled his phone from the inside pocket of his tailored Armani suit and looked down at the screen.

“Fuck, I can’t deal with that now,” Luc muttered.

Rafe frowned. “Problem? Was it a journalist?”

Luc looked up and nailed him with another supercilious, distant look. “No, it was an email saying that the American Association for Plastic Surgeons has nominated me for an award.”

Of course they had, because he was the perfect, successful brother. “What... Best Boob Uplift? Bodacious Booty of the Year?”

“Fuck you, Rafe.” Luc’s words erupted like bullets. “You’re just jealous because the only award you’ve received is the yearly what-the hell-are you-doing-with-your-life paper cup.”

Luc’s words held enough truth to feel like he’d taken a punch to the heart. “You love that, don’t you? You get off on telling me how useless you think I am! You’re such a control freak, but you can’t control me, and it drives you crazy.”

Luc looked around and slapped a hand on his chest. “Will you calm the fuck down and shut up? Do you want the press to come back?”

Grabbing Rafe’s wrist like he was a toddler, Luc pulled him to the end of the main hospital building and into a small alley. Above them was an open walkway the hospital staff used to move from the pediatric wing to the main building.

Out of sight of the parking lot, Luc released Rafe’s wrist and lifted his shoulders, still confused. “How did my idle comment about an email I received piss you off so much?”

“You deliberately mentioned it, wanting to rub my face in the fact that you are so much more successful than I am!”

“Not everything I say and do is about you, Rafe! Honestly—” Luc’s lip curled into a derisive snarl “—I genuinely don’t think about you much at all.”

“Why can’t you accept me for who I am?”

Luc’s fist clenched, and Rafe welcomed the anger in his eyes, the tension on his face. “I don’t give a crap about who you sleep with. This is about your aimlessness, your capriciousness.”

“Oh, here we go again! I like what I do and how I do it! You and Dad never got that, never supported my need to do something creative. And it’s not like you are saving lives in your fancy LA practice, so get off your stupid high horse! You’re the king of Botox.”

Luc gripped the bridge of his nose, and Rafe could see the tension building in him. He welcomed it—he felt like a valve under immense pressure.

Luc threw up his hands. “Our father is fighting for his life in there, and you’re out here screaming at me like a petulant child. Grow the fuck up!”

It was a refrain he’d heard all his life: get it together, Rafe. Stop being childish, Rafe. Why can’t you be more like your brother, Rafe? Well, here, today, he could try. By its own volition, his arm lifted, and Rafe plowed his fist into Luc’s perfect face. Nothing gave him as much pleasure as hearing the smack of knuckles against his cheekbone, the sting that rocketed up his wrist, the sheer burst of adrenaline. Shit, this was almost as good as sex. Possibly better, because, hell, it had been so long since he’d had any he couldn’t actually remember how good sex was.

Right here, at this moment, he felt like Superman and Wonder Woman and Hercules and Gerard Butler. He could kick ass—specifically, his brother’s ass. Then Luc nailed him in the stomach, and all the air rushed from his lungs and his knees threatened to buckle. Pain spread like a red tide through his body, but his anger roared and clawed. This time, this one time, he wouldn’t let Luc walk all over him. Rafe dropped his head and charged his brother, wrapping his arms around his waist and twisting so that Luc toppled over, falling to the sidewalk. Rafe’s blow skimmed his eye socket, and he barely felt Luc’s fist connecting with his jaw. As his head flew back, he saw Luc’s confused expression, the my-toy-Pomeranian-just-nipped-me look on his face.

“What the hell, Rafe?” Luc shouted in his ear, using his arms to push Rafe up and off him. He quickly jumped to his feet, his hand cupping the side of his face and his blue eyes blazing. “Have you lost your fucking mind?”

Possibly, yes. But it was worth it. And holding his own in a fight with his older brother was freaking amazing. It was, Rafe decided, worth the pain and a long time coming.

Luc slowly stood up and briefly closed his eyes. When he spoke, his words came out sad and solemn. “That award? It’s a recognition of the pro bono work I did for Médecins Sans Frontières, doing reconstructive surgery on kids with cleft palates, burns and other facial disfigurements. The T and A jobs? That money allows me to do that, so...screw you.”

Rafe stared at the ground and reluctantly admitted that while he got some good hits in, Luc’s last comment was the verbal punch that nearly dropped him to the floor.

Chapter Four

The blindfold and spanking were a little kinky. Elana, lying on Jarrod’s chest, the TV droning on in the background, was trying to decide whether she liked it or not. She liked how excited it made Jarrod—and he’d used that excitement to maximum effect.

It had been fun...well, mostly fun. She hadn’t minded the blindfold, but the jury was still out on the spanking. His big hand against her skin didn’t do anything for her but sting her ass. His growls that she’d been a bad girl and that she needed to be punished were too similar to what she’d heard all her life for her to be turned on. Nobody had ever, as far as she could remember, actually spanked her, but the threat was always tossed out when she became a little too much to handle.

Which was practically all the time. When she thought she might have pushed the envelope too far, she’d hightail it out of Casa Cat and belt down the driveway and onto the road, running the short distance to her best friend Thom’s house. Thom would calm her down, make her laugh, and an hour or three or four later, she’d wander home, hoping that the storm had blown over. No one worried where she was; they all knew that Thom’s house was her bolt-hole, her place to run to. Elana always returned to Casa Cat, but on her own time, according to her schedule.

Thom...jeez, he was going to be pissed that she’d been out of contact for so long. Elana twisted a piece of Jarrod’s T-shirt around her finger, wincing as guilt flooded her system. A massive red diamond solitaire rested on her ring finger, a symbol that she was planning to marry Thom in a few weeks. Dammit, whatever had possessed her to say yes to his proposal? Thom was wonderful, but...

Okay, so she didn’t quite love him, but he was her best friend, the one person who’d never disappointed her, never let her down. He knew her inside out and loved every flawed inch of her. But Thom couldn’t give her this. A hot, raunchy, sweaty time in bed. Oh, she and Thom made love, infrequently, but it was polite and discreet and quick. There was no swearing or laughing or rough demands and light bruises from his fingers pressing too hard and long scratches from her nails on his back. There was no passion between them and, dammit, she needed passion.

But...he was the only person she fully trusted. And their relationship, engagement and upcoming marriage was a fairy tale of epic proportions—he was rich and gorgeous! With his mother’s warm cocoa skin and dark brown eyes, she knew her groom-to-be was stunning with a capital S. And, true, they’d been friends all their lives. Her family adored Thom and his parents, and on paper it was a match made in heaven. But she needed to be with Jarrod, and she needed this outlet to blow off some steam. Thom was a lovely man, perfect for her...but she craved Jarrod.

Rock, meet hard place.

“Elana!” Jarrod said, shifting underneath her, his fingers pinching the skin of her waist.

Elana jerked away from him and sent him a blistering glare. “What the hell? That hurt, Jarrod!”

“I think you need to see this.” Jarrod lifted the remote and pointed it to the flat-screen television across the room.

The man was insatiable. “God, Jarrod, enough with the porn, okay? I’m wiped!”

“Not porn, Elana.”

A strange note in Jarrod’s voice made her look across the room. Jarrod had the flat screen tuned to his favorite channel, TMZ, and Elana rolled her eyes at the sight of two dudes brawling outside what looked like St. Aloysius Hospital. If her brain wasn’t fried from too much sex, she’d assume that the two guys duking it out were her brothers. Nah, it couldn’t be—her brothers were Marshalls, America’s favorite sons, and Marshalls didn’t fight in public.

“And we interrupt our ongoing coverage on Harrison Marshall’s car accident to bring you this breaking news. It seems like tensions are running high in the Marshall family at the moment. Shortly after an impromptu press conference with Mariella Santiago-Marshall, a hospital employee filmed Luc and Rafe Marshall coming to blows. The hospital worker was on the walkway linking the two building when she heard shouting and, looking down, she immediately recognized the Marshall brothers. Thinking that she’d snap a picture of the brothers consoling each other, she was shocked when their argument turned physical.”

Elana stared at the images flickering on the set, trying to process what she was seeing and hearing. Hospital? An accident? What the hell was going on?

Launching herself away from Jarrod, she scrambled across him, ignoring his grunt as her knee came quite close to his balls. She reached for the handle of the drawer and pulled it open, looking for her cell phone. Pulling it out, her heart pumping at a mile a minute, she groaned when she saw seventeen missed calls and dozens of text messages.

Shit shit shit shit shit.

Elana let out a whimper of despair and scrambled to her feet, looking around the bedroom for her clothes. Snatching her new Agent Provocateur bra off the floor, she pulled it on and quickly hooked it.

“Jeez, slow down, Elana,” Jarrod drawled, stretching like a lion basking in the sun.

Elana tossed him a scorching look. “My father has been in an accident, and my brothers are fighting! I’m not moving fast enough! Where the hell is my thong?”

“Go without,” Jarrod suggested. “That being said, that miniskirt I ripped off you was almost indecent, so you might give the press more of a show than you might want to.”

“You are such a jerk,” Elana snapped, thankful to see her tiny thong partly under the bed. She picked it up and pulled it up and over her legs.

“I’m the jerk that made you come four times last night alone.”

Five, but she wasn’t about to correct him. God, why was she thinking about sex when her father—Elana glanced at the rolling headlines at the bottom of the screen—was in the ICU with what were reported to be severe injuries? Elana felt tears slide down her cheeks as she tucked her fitted white shirt into the waistband of her asymmetrical denim Saint Laurent miniskirt. She slipped her feet into her cork Chloe platform sandals and picked up her Gucci bag. Were her keys in her bag? God, she hoped so. If not, she’d just get Jarrod’s doorman to call her a taxi.

“When will I see you again?” Jarrod asked as she headed to the door. Elana turned and looked at him, long and lean, his hand holding his sack, supremely confident and utterly selfish. God, she wished he didn’t turn her on.

“I don’t know, Jarrod,” she replied, her tone pointed. She gestured to the television and saw that they were running the footage of Luc and Rafe fighting again. Had Rafe really connected with Luc’s face? Jeez, she didn’t know he had in him. Returning her attention to her lover, she shrugged. “My family has gone into a spiral, my father could be dead for all I know, and you’re asking me when you are going to get screwed again?”

Jarrod shrugged and tried to look innocent. “Well, yeah.”

“You are such a prick,” Elana muttered before walking out of his bedroom.

Unfortunately she was the female equivalent, because, dammit, there was a part of her that was always thinking about when she could return, how soon she could sneak away to see him again.

* * *

Trans-Atlantic calls were always difficult, and when one tried to speak English in a French accent to a busy and stressed nurse, the process was slow and frustrating. She tapped her fingers against her eighteenth-century drop-legged table and imagined throwing the blue-and-white dragon jar against the closest wall. Ming Dynasty, she reminded herself, Jiajing period, late sixteenth century. Priceless. Extraordinarily expensive.

“You said you are calling from Paris?” the nurse clarified, her nasal twang hurting her ears.

“Oui. Yes,” she corrected. “I’m a friend of Monsieur Marshall. How is he, s’il vous plaît?”

“I am sorry, ma’am, I am not allowed to divulge any information about Mr. Marshall’s condition to anyone outside his direct family. That’s his wife or children.”

I’m Parisian, not a moron, she thought, annoyed at the explanation. She forced herself to breathe deeply and maintain control of her temper, remembering her last explosion, when she threw an engraved Dutch champagne glass, circa early eighteenth century, out of the window onto the terrace. The owner of this magnificent apartment on Boulevard Saint-Germain had not appreciated the way she expressed her disappointment with him and called her volatile Gallic temperament childish. She’d punished him for that, and he’d enjoyed every minute of it.

In fact, he’d begged for more.

Banging the receiver back into its cradle, Nora turned away, deeply frustrated. She wasn’t used to being thwarted, and when it did happen, it had the power to ruin the rest of her day.

She had her wants and needs, and she was very used to having both fulfilled in the shortest time possible. And, right now, it was crucial that she discover the extent of Harrison’s injuries and what that meant for her. Oh, she was sad for him, worried even, but her future would be determined by whether Harrison lived or died.

Merde! Stupid men and their stupid fast cars. Quel crétin!

She trailed her fingernails across the back of an exquisite leather sofa, enjoying the contrast of the blinding-white fabric and her bright red nails, like droplets of fresh blood on pristine country snow. Tipping her head to the side, she pushed a strand of her blunt-cut bob behind her ear and touched the two-carat diamond stud in the lobe. Was it wrong to want more than this magnificent apartment on one of the best streets in Paris? It was decorated to her exact taste and style; apart from a few exquisite antiques being used as accent pieces, the style was modern contemporary. The apartment opened up onto a terrace and garden, allowing her the privacy she, and others, so desperately needed. Modern art was chosen for maximum effect, all subtly erotic, sensuous, oozing sex appeal. Her art and her apartment were a reflection of herself, sophisticated, a little dangerous and utterly stylish.

She knew Paris, she adored Paris, but was it enough? Could it be when so much had changed? Plans had needed to be made even before Harrison’s accident, and now, today, her need was greater, the stakes higher.

Danger might be a factor. Nora shrugged the thought away. Danger didn’t scare her. Being poor did—and she wasn’t about to let that happen. She still had a few aces up her sleeve.

* * *

Gabriel Santiago stepped out of the elevator and immediately recognized the curvy figure walking a few paces in front of him. If it had been anyone else but Elana, he would’ve appreciated the round ass in a too-short faded denim skirt showing off a spectacular pair of legs. Since those legs belonged to his cousin, his quasi sister, his protective big-brother instincts bolted to the surface.

Ripped denim skirt and thousand-dollar shoes. Only in Elana’s world...

“Elana! Wait up!” Gabe ordered, and when she turned around, his eyes scanned her face. He could read her better than most; he saw the fear and uncertainty in her eyes and knew, from her quavering chin, that tears were very close to the surface. Her long deep brown hair, the exact color of excellent Colombian coffee, hadn’t seen a brush that morning, and he could see a fine rash on her cheek.

Razor burn. His cousin had just tumbled out of someone’s bed, and that someone, he was damn sure, wasn’t Thom. Not my circus, not my monkeys, Gabe thought. He had bigger problems to deal with than Elana’s sex life. In fact, he’d far prefer to assume that Elana didn’t have a sex life at all...

“Gabe!” Elana opened her arms, and Gabe pulled her slight frame against his chest, burying his nose in her hair. She was like a cold, wet puppy, he thought, a little alone and a lot scared. He gathered her hair into his fist and gave it a tug, like he used to do when she was a kid. As he expected, Elana tipped her head back to look at him.

“It’ll be okay.”

Elana stepped back and tried to pull a smile onto her face. “I normally believe you, Gabe, but today I have my doubts. How is he? What do you know?”

“Nothing more than what is on the news.” If there was ever a time that Luc and Rafe could drop their he’s-just-our-cousin routine, it should be today, but nope, neither of them had bothered to call him. Ignoring the slow, acidic burn of hurt, Gabe led Elana toward the doors leading to the intensive care ward, Elana’s hand in his. He was part of this family but not, part relative, part cousin, part servant. That wasn’t fair, Gabe thought—Mariella had never treated him like anything other than a beloved nephew. Neither, in fact, had Harrison. It was their precious sons who resented his presence in their lives, both in the Marshall empire and at Casa de Catalina. Neither Luc nor Rafe wanted to work at the family business, but they resented the fact that he did, that he had both Harrison’s and Mariella’s ears. They hated the fact that their parents trusted him with their family finances and consulted with him on all major decisions concerning the massive company they’d created. Because, while Harrison was the face of his empire, Mariella in many ways was the glue that held it all in place.

When he was small, Gabe had liked to pretend that Mariella and not Ana, Mariella’s younger sister, was his mother. Who could blame him for not wanting to claim Ana, a wild child, sexually promiscuous and drug-addicted party girl? He’d lived most of his life with Mariella and Harrison, twenty-three of his thirty-three years, and in all ways he considered them his parents. Ana was just his incubator. But when a prominent couple, California royalty, took on a child that was not their own, tongues wagged and turned vicious. He was called the “Marshall outsider,”

“the other one” or “the poor relative.” Two degrees in business, working his ass off, and California society still thought that the Marshalls were practicing nepotism by employing him.

Gabe rolled his shoulders, trying to dislodge the massive chip on his shoulder. Annoyed with himself, he slapped his broad hand on the door leading to the ICU and pushed Elana ahead of him. The waiting room, as he quickly noticed, was empty.

“Where are they? Where are my mother and my brothers? Joe?” Her face suffused with color, and tears shimmered in her big round eyes. Elana lifted her fingers to her mouth. “Oh, God, is Daddy dead?”

Acquire, assess, act. It was one of Harrison’s favorite quotes. Gabe tried to swallow, conscious of the lump in his throat. Harrison was the only father he had, and he couldn’t be dead. He wouldn’t allow that. “Take a breath, Elana, and let’s ask. Don’t make assumptions.”

“My father is in ICU, my family is not here and you can’t tell me how to feel!”

I’m your family, too, Gabe wanted to point out, and I’m trying to help, dammit. But, as he well knew, there was no reasoning with Elana when she was upset. He glanced at the nurses’ station and cursed when he saw that it was empty. Walking toward the second set of doors leading to the ward, he looked through the high windows set into the door and noticed that the nurses were hovering around a bed on the far side of the wall. Judging by the pretty toes he could see, the patient they were working on was not Harrison. He turned back to Elana and issued a terse instruction. “You call your brothers, and I’ll call Mariella. Maybe, between us, we can find out what the hell is going on.”

Elana nodded and pulled her bag off her shoulder to look for her cell phone.

“Elana?” Gabe waited until she met his eyes before speaking again. “I’ll get to the bottom of this, I promise. I won’t let the family down.”

* * *

Elana held Gabe’s eyes and slowly nodded as her panic receded. When Gabe looked at her like that, with those deep, serious eyes, wearing his I’ve-got-this expression, she knew she could take his word to the bank. He would do exactly what he said. Jarrod was hot fire and Thom quiet, steady rain, but Gabe was the solid rock beneath her feet.

Thom, hell. Elana looked down at her screen and saw his missed calls. She could imagine him running his hands over his face, a frown between his strong eyebrows. If she called Thom, he would pepper her with questions she didn’t have answers for, would question where she’d been and why she wasn’t picking up. Talking to him would be like pouring another layer of guilt onto the mountain she already carried around, and that load threatened to break her, mentally and physically. Jarrod was so much easier to talk to—his comme ci, comme ça attitude could be annoying, but he was uncomplicated. Jarrod was shallow, and right now, she needed shallow. It allowed her a place to escape, the freedom not to feel.

Sometimes, she would do anything not to feel. All her life she’d run away from situations and conflicts, choosing to flee rather than feel, deal. She’d run to Thom when she couldn’t cope with whatever was happening at home—her parents fighting, Rafe and Luc sniping at each other and taunting Gabe. As an adult she turned to Gabe to solve her work conflicts, to Thom when she needed a comforting ear and endless support, and to Jarrod when she wanted to escape.

She did a lot of running, a lot of avoiding, and Elana knew that it was a flaw she needed to address. The problem was that it was so much easier not to. Swimming at the shallow end of the pond, not putting in the effort, avoiding depths and currents, was a lot easier than wading into deeper waters. Besides, her father was dying, her family was falling apart and the renovation of Elana Marshall into a better version of herself could wait until this blew over. While she waited for more information, she could seek comfort. She could also choose to escape.

Door number one or door number two?

Elana glanced at Gabe and saw that he was involved in a tense conversation. She quickly moved away, her thumb hitting a much-dialed contact on her phone.

“Hey, it’s me...”

* * *

Technology, the Fixer thought, was awesome, and God bless those brainy nerds who developed the ability to combine ones and zeros and somehow convert those numbers into a live video and audio feed. The Fixer didn’t know how it happened but was grateful that it did. It made life so much easier.

Sitting in the expensive vehicle in the parking lot of El Acantilado, Harrison’s flagship restaurant, The Fixer stared down at the cell phone screen, eyes bouncing between the six tiny images on the phone. Touching the first screen, the picture zoomed in to reveal live footage of the helicopter carrying Harrison landing on the roof of Whispering Oaks, an isolated private clinic just outside Malibu. To the Fixer’s untrained eyes, Harrison’s transfer from the helicopter to roof and then into the elevator was as smooth as silk. After the helicopter took off, the Fixer closed that screen, enlarged another and watched the team push Harrison’s bed down a corridor lined with fine art. To those who didn’t pay attention, the clinic looked like a boutique hotel or an exquisitely decorated private residence. The grounds had been planned by a top landscape designer. There were two pools, one heated and one not, a gym and a massage room. There was a cozy library, a billiards room, various reception rooms. And that was the point—this was a new type of medical facility, where the patients could, if they had enough money and were healthy enough to do so, pretend that they were on vacation at a country house.

The medical staff moved Harrison into his room, and the Fixer watched as they did their thing. They operated as a well-oiled machine and the Fixer nodded, appreciative of well-oiled machines; it was, after all, the way the Fixer and Harrison ran their not-so-legal business.

It had started innocently enough, as a favor for a friend. Harrison’s school friend, a Californian politician running for the Senate, colored outside the lines with a woman who was not his social equal, and that liaison resulted in an illegitimate child. Harrison acted as the intermediary, negotiating silence and a move across the country, to where Harrison was conveniently building a new restaurant, by offering a vast amount of money and a change of identity. Harrison then helped one of his most talented chefs escape a drug charge by offering the investigating officer a deep-sea fishing trip on The Mariella, his state-of-the-art yacht. When a prominent stockbroker’s daughter was found on a tourist beach, sky-high, naked and in the arms of an equally naked, very underage teenage boy, Harrison fished her out of jail before the press latched onto that juicy story. Harrison saw his actions as helping out his friends; it was the Fixer who saw the economic potential of his benevolent interference.

The Fixer’s instinct had been proven correct, and they had the bank balances to prove it. Extricating the great and not-so-good of American society out of sticky situations proved to be a lot more lucrative than either of them could have imagined.

Harrison’s initial skepticism about their second business had been unfounded. He was a chef and a businessman, but the power appealed to him—Harrison liked feeling involved. Harrison didn’t care about the money their sideline generated—he had enough to last him several lifetimes—but he liked having the leverage, the inside knowledge, the ability to, if necessary, affect an outcome because someone owed him something. Could that be the reason he was lying in a coma, holding on by the medical thread of tubes and machines?

“Monitor the Captain very closely over the next hour. I want to know if anything, the slightest thing, changes.”

The Fixer heard Dr. Malone’s instruction, his voice filling the car through the top-of-the-line Bose speakers. Dr. Malone left the room, and the nurse scribbled on Harrison’s chart. Zooming in again, the words she wrote became clearer: “Patient stable, no discernible change in condition. Seems unaffected by transfer from St. Aloysius. Instructions to monitor closely for next hour.”

Good. The Fixer reduced the size of the screen and watched as the nurse left the room, leaving Harrison to lie there on his own. The Fixer frowned, wondering whether the move to Whispering Oaks was the correct one. It didn’t matter—it was the only card to play. The private hospital was specially designed for situations such as these, for patients who needed specialized care and ultimate privacy. The world would be shocked to realize who’d actually passed through the clinic’s doors: presidents, oil sheikhs, foreign dignitaries, dictators and divas had all sought help here. They’d been treated for everything ranging from depression to life-threatening conditions as bad, or worse, than Harrison’s. The Fixer had used the clinic before to treat a charismatic clergyman-turned-senator who suffered from a recurring bout of syphilis.

It had taken some quick maneuvering to clear the clinic so that Harrison was the only patient. Luckily, there had been only two patients in residence; one was discharged and the other was transferred to another facility, the Fixer arranging it so that only the most trusted and long-serving of the staff remained on the premises to care for the man they’d been instructed to call the Captain.

There were security cameras in each room, and it had been a breeze to hack into the clinic’s system and hijack the feed. The Fixer had eyes and ears on Harrison and, very importantly, on every visitor he received.

It was eavesdropping on steroids. But, as the Fixer had learned a long time ago, information was power, and it could be obtained by any means possible. Thanks to these tiny cameras, the Fixer would be the first to know Harrison’s status, whether he was stirring, awake or, frankly, dead. The Fixer idly wondered if Harrison would come around, and if he did, what he would say. Would he be lucid? Would he remember the events leading up to the crash? Would he be confused, clear minded, brain damaged? There were so many ifs and buts and uncertainties, and that left far too much to go wrong. The hidden cameras provided much-needed extra minutes. Being notified of Harrison’s condition could mean the difference between success and disaster, freedom and jail, life and death.

Those minutes gave the Fixer time to maneuver, to plot, to put safeguards, barriers and smoke screens in place. They were a safety net, an air pocket in a sinking ship.

The Fixer glanced at the clock on the dashboard, knowing that time was moving along and there were chores to accomplish, plans to put in place. Time spent in this vehicle, staring at this small screen, was time wasted, but the urge to wait, to watch, was strong. What a monumental fuckup. This wasn’t supposed to happen, not like this.

But the situation couldn’t be changed—it could only be managed. The Fixer tossed the phone onto the passenger seat and started the car, the stereo blaring. Needing quiet, the Fixer started to inform the onboard computer to turn the radio off when the announcer’s statement caught and held.

“A video of Luc and Rafe Marshall has, in recent hours, gone viral. While their father fights for his life after a horrific car accident, the two heirs to the massive Marshall fortune were seen trading blows outside St. Aloysius. Is this the first salvo in a fight for power to take over the reins of the multibillion-dollar, multinational company?”

The Fixer’s grip on the steering wheel tightened. “Well, shit.”

Seriously, the Fixer thought, whipping the car into a screeching U-turn, could this situation get any worse? The Fixer tossed a hard glare into the cloudless blue sky then peeled out of the parking lot. “And that’s not a fucking challenge, Universe.”

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