by Maya Blake
The deafening roar from the crowd brought tears to her eyes. She swallowed, composed herself and grasped the mic once more.
“Thank you. My family and I are honored and touched that you’re here to celebrate with us tonight.” Another, louder round of applause filled the room as her family crowded around her.
“So, Mariella, what’s next on the giant to-do list?” a member of the paparazzi shouted.
She looked into the crowd and winked. “That’s for me to know and for you to salivate and tweet about when you find out.” More laughter rippled through the room. “But until then, every single drink is on the house tonight. DJ, turn up the music and I’ll see you all on the dance floor!”
The DJ immediately cranked up the music to deafening levels. A group of millennials who’d barely been restraining themselves flooded the dance floor to the tune of Bruno Mars’s “24K Magic.” Mariella handed off the mic and stepped off the stage. Only to have her bubble of happiness ruthlessly deflated by the sight of her sister plastered against Joe. Ana’s hands were creeping around his waist, headed for his ass.
Red-hot anger fired through her bloodstream, ripping away every lock she’d placed on her self-restraint.
Enough was more than enough!
It’d been hard enough standing up there on the stage, extolling the virtues of her cheating husband and the myriad secrets that loomed larger and multiplied with every passing day. Even worse was the reality that she didn’t know whether Harrison would wake up long enough to give her the answers her soul demanded.
She would absolutely not stand by and pretend she didn’t care as Ana pawed and salivated over Joe. Mariella knew very well her sister was doing it to get a rise out of her. But tonight she’d stepped on her last nerve.
With a smile still pinned on her face, she strode coolly and calmly through the crowd, accepting congratulations and welcoming friends and acquaintances.
When she reached her sister, she placed a gentle, manicured hand on her shoulder.
“Ana, would you come with me for a minute, please?”
Ana’s eyes widened before she frowned. “Ah...the waiter is getting me a drink. Maybe after—”
“No. Now. Please.”
Without giving her a chance to reply, Mariella tightened her grip and nudged her sister firmly toward the front of the nightclub. With her announcement of drinks on the house, almost all the guests were headed for the bar, with only the VIP guests being served by designated waiters in their lounges.
She would be ensured more privacy at the front than in the ladies’ room, where she’d originally planned.
“Mariella—”
“Excuse us, please, Joe,” Mariella interrupted before he could waylay her. She couldn’t deny that some of her anger was directed toward him for not stopping Ana’s advances.
Dios mío, she knew men were led by their cocks, but she’d wanted to believe some could resist witches like her sister for one damned minute.
“Ooh, looks like it’s sister-bonding time,” Ana called out as Mariella herded her away from the crowd.
At the entrance, she smiled at the bouncers and shoved her sister out of the front door.
* * *
The front lot was deserted, as she’d hoped. Save for the valets who momentarily glanced their way when she marched her sister away from the front entrance, Mariella and Ana were alone.
The magic of free booze and a world-class DJ, Mariella mused cynically.
After the noise inside, the silence out here was so deafening she could hear her heart pounding loudly in her ears. After a moment, the tinkling of the fountain intruded. Then, as if her senses had burst wide open, the sound of cars and honking horns on the street came roaring in. She blinked rapidly as the neon lights that spelled the name of the nightclub named after her daughter flashed into her eyes.
Her daughter.
Her family.
Her special night.
Ruined by her selfish, impossibly aggravating sister.
Mariella rounded on Ana, who’d wrenched from her grasp and now stood three feet away, teetering on her heels.
“You are unbelievable, do you know that?” Mariella snapped, her voice wobbling with the depth of her anger.
Ana rolled her eyes. “Oh, here we go. What imaginary sin have I committed now?” she slurred.
“Imaginary? Are you fucking kidding me? Or are you just too shit-faced for anything to register anymore?”
“I am not drunk!” Her protest lost all credibility when she immediately followed it with a loud hiccup.
“Jesus. You’re a disgrace!”
Anger sparked through her sister’s eyes. “I’m a disgrace?”
“Yes! From the minute you arrived in Santa Barbara, all you’ve done is make me ashamed to call you my blood. When you’re not drinking yourself into a stupor, you’re being rude to my staff or raiding my wardrobe. We’re not the same size, by the way, so that shit stops today.” Mariella saw the valets looking over at them, but she was too far gone to stop. This had been so long in coming, a freight train couldn’t have stopped her.
“If you say so—”
“I do say so! And don’t even think about saying a word about you being a size smaller than me.” She threw her hands in the air. “I don’t understand you, Ana. How could you behave like this when you knew how important tonight was to me?”
“I’m still waiting for the big reveal on exactly what I’ve done wrong to cause the mighty Mariella to use so many swear words,” she replied waspishly.
“You really want me to list it out for you? Fine! You, starting the evening by flirting with every person with a dick in the restaurant. You, waving to total strangers who thought you were off your head on drugs or something. You, aggravating Gabe—”
“He’s my son, in case you’ve forgotten,” Ana slashed at her.
“Neither of us have forgotten, but what you can’t seem to get through your thick head is that he doesn’t think of you as his mother!”
Ana gasped, but Mariella wasn’t anywhere near finished.
“And last but not goddamn least, you slobbering all over Joe. Don’t you have any pride at all? Or do you blithely disregard any signs that a man doesn’t want you simply because you think you’re irresistible?”
Her sister burst out laughing. It wasn’t the ladylike sort. Ana doubled over, clutching her stomach as mirth shuddered through her body. When she straightened, her mascara was smudged from the tears streaming from her eyes. “Wow, and you think I’m unbelievable? You have the nerve to lecture me on keeping my hands off men who don’t belong to me, when you’ve been fucking your own husband’s business partner while your darling Harrison’s been in a coma. You can judge me all you want, sister dear, but if you’re brave enough to look up the definition of cheater and hypocrite, you’ll find your name in bold black letters, not mine. I know exactly who I am, and your sins are much worse than mine. Trust me!”
Mariella would never know whether it was the urge to shut up the juicy secret that spilled so easily from her sister’s mouth or whether her anger had just reached uncontrollable proportions. She suspected it was a large dose of both.
Before she could stop herself, before common sense could remind her of why she was in Vegas in the first place, she launched herself at the source of her immediate woes. The slap erupted from her hand before she’d registered the action, but the pain that ricocheted up her arm only spurred her on.
She grabbed a handful of her sister’s hair and yanked her forward. “I hate you!” she snarled her face.
“I don’t fucking care, you bitch!”
Mariella yanked harder, heard a rip as Ana’s dress gave way. Her sister’s cry of disbelief was followed by a desperate grab for Mariella. They staggered sideways, toward the giant fountain in front o
f the nightclub. The sound of water gurgled closer as they fought for a grip on each other.
Her feet twisted beneath her, and she felt her shoes fly off as Ana dragged and pushed. Her bare feet scraped along the asphalt, her eyes stinging with tears. Pain rippled through Mariella’s side, and the taste of blood filled her mouth.
“Bitch!”
“Puta! You’re dead to me from this day on, do you hear me?” Mariella screamed.
“What the fuck?”
“Oh my God. Luc, do something!” Rachel screamed.
The sound of their gathering audience barely registered as Mariella clawed at her sister. Her hip bumped hard on concrete and she registered peripherally that they’d stumbled over to the fountain.
Good. She would drown her fucking sister once and for all and be done with it. Snatching a deep breath, she tightened her hold on Ana and dragged her toward the swirling water.
But despite her inebriation, Ana still had a lot of fight in her. She began to twist out of Mariella’s hold. She held on tighter, planted her hand on her sister’s back. And shoved with all her might.
Chapter Four
The satisfying sound of her sister landing—and hopefully drowning—in the fountain never came. Mariella flicked her disheveled hair out of her eyes in time to see Gabe snatching Ana back from a much-deserved drenching.
Another lightning bolt of anger lanced through her. She lunged forward, intent on finishing the job. A pair of strong arms grabbed her by the waist and lifted her off her feet.
“Jeez, Mom, what the hell were you thinking?” Luc demanded in a stunned whisper.
“That I’ve had it up to my eyeball with this...this bitch, that’s what,” she hissed at her sister, who was glaring at her from Gabe’s restraining arms.
“I always knew there was a hellcat buried underneath all that false class. Showing your true colors now, aren’t you, sister?” Ana snarled.
“Enough, both of you,” Gabe growled. “Have you forgotten that not twenty feet from here, a pack of reporters armed with cameras is just waiting for a scoop like this?”
The reminder was like a bucket of ice water thrown over Mariella. “Let go of me, Luc,” she commanded her son.
He released her.
Breath catching, her gaze snapped to the double doors leading into the nightclub. The thankfully still shut double doors. Relief punched hard through her.
Because this was an invite-only opening, the bouncers were stationed inside the doors, not outside as they would be once the club was open to the general public. And although there was a lot of foot traffic on the Strip, the semi-circular driveway which fronted the club was a distance from the street to allow patrons to valet park without holding up traffic. A design for which Mariella was very grateful for right now.
God. This could’ve been a total disaster.
About to turn back to the tackle her sister, she saw the two valet attendants eyeballing them from the far side of the parking lot. Shit, they had two witnesses.
She stumbled forward, then stopped when she realized she wasn’t wearing any shoes. “Gabe...” she stuttered.
Gabe was already nodding. “I’ll take care of it, Tía. As long as you two promise me this...whatever this is, is over. We’ve had enough fireworks for one night, no?”
Mariella waved him away, anxious for him to take care of the valet attendants before TMZ got ahold of her little lapse of judgment. “I’m fine. Please, go.”
“Are you fine? Really, Mom?” Rafe stepped forward, holding her shoes.
“Yes,” she bit out, her heart still racing at her total loss of control.
“So what the hell was that all about?” Rafe pressed.
She avoided his gaze as she slid her shoes back on. “It...it was a misunderstanding. Blown out of proportion by one too many drinks.”
“You barely had anything to drink tonight, Mom,” Rafe supplied helpfully.
She glared at her sister. “I wasn’t talking about me.”
Ana bared her teeth, but Luc stepped between them before her sister could speak. “We all agreed to play nice, so let’s stick to the plan, shall we?”
Mariella drew her fingers through her hair and took another breath, aware of the wary looks she was attracting from her sons. Rafe still looked puzzled, but Luc’s narrow-eyed gaze flicked between her and Joe before he looked away.
Had her son guessed at what was going on between her and Joe? Come to think of it, Gabe had also had the same look. Shit. She couldn’t worry about that now. Not with the threat of exposure hanging like a damning sword over her head.
She took a few steps away from their censorious scrutiny, in time to see Gabe pressing wads of dollar bills into the hands of the valet attendants. A minute later he was striding briskly back to the group, holding their phones.
“It’s all taken care of,” he said.
The force of the adrenaline leaving her bloodstream left her lightheaded and tearful. “Thank you, Gabe,” she murmured. Despite all her efforts to the contrary, she’d let her sister creep beneath her defenses. She’d lashed out, in public. Gotten into a catfight with her sister. Over a man. She closed her eyes in chagrin.
She was so ashamed of herself.
“It’s okay, Tía. The attendants aren’t allowed to use their phones while they’re on shift, but I took them anyway, so there’s no record of what happened, and they have a little incentive to keep their mouths shut.” Gabe embraced her for a brief moment and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Everything is back under control. Let’s make sure it stays that way, okay?”
She jerked out a nod, took a deep breath and stepped back from him.
Gabe looked over at his mother. “Ana, you’re coming with me. Luc, Rafe, can you get your mother out of here? We can’t risk anyone coming out here and seeing her like this.”
“Sure thing, I’ll get the driver to bring the car around.” Rafe pulled out his phone and dialed.
Gabe walked over to a curiously subdued Ana. Her dress was ripped, and a thin welt ran down her arm where Mariella’s nail had caught her. He pulled off his dinner jacket and draped it over her shoulders before marching her purposely to the curb. A raised arm later and a cab pulled over next to them.
He hustled her in, and they drove away.
For the first time that night, Mariella drew her first full breath. But her hands and her insides still shook from residual shock. And her stomach was threatening to regurgitate the meal she’d eaten a few hours earlier. She stumbled to the curb and bent over, placing her a hand on her stomach.
A moment later, hands grasped her arms. She jerked upright to find her sons on either side of her, the looks in their eyes wary.
“Let go of me,” she instructed with more than a hint of chill in her voice.
Luc’s mouth tightened. “Mom—”
“I’m not drunk, Luc. I’m just very, very pissed off.”
They got the hint and let go of her, but she noticed they didn’t move away. Exhaling her irritation, she whirled around to find Rachel behind her. The younger woman was opening her clutch.
“I have some makeup with me, Mariella. Would you like a touch-up?” she inquired with a little smile.
Mariella glanced down at herself, grimaced at the smears and tiny rip in her beautiful dress. She looked a mess. “No, but thank you. Makeup won’t fix this. I can’t go back inside looking like this. I’m going back to the hotel. Vanessa will help me change. You boys take Rachel back inside. I’ll take Elana back with me—” She stopped and frowned. There was no sign of her daughter. Or Thom. Or Joe, for that matter. “Where’s Elana?”
The sound of quiet retching came from the vicinity of the fountain. They whirled around to see Elana bent over, clutching the concrete edge, with Thom and Joe on either side of her. Her daughter was
vomiting into the fountain as her husband held her hair back from her face.
Mariella stumbled forward, a new feeling eroding her anger. “Elana, baby, are you all right?” She reached her and laid a hand on her back. From the corner of her eye, she saw Joe watching her, but she wasn’t ready to deal with him right now.
“I’m okay,” her daughter responded weakly. Her face was pale, and fine trembles rippled through her body. “Seriously, I’m fine. Stop fussing.”
“You’re not, though, are you? You’ve been running to the bathroom for days now. I think—”
“Oh my God,” Rachel murmured.
Then Thom’s eyes went comically wide. “Elana, are you...?”
He stopped, seemingly unable to form the words. Everyone froze.
Luc was the first to break the silence. “No way! Congratulations, man!” He slapped him hard enough to send Thom stumbling forward. He managed to catch himself on the edge of the fountain. Then he imitated his wife by clinging to the edge. “Um...thanks.”
* * *
Elana stood, happily stunned as her family hugged and kissed her, offering congrats to her and Thom. Her mother had happy tears in her eyes as she cradled her cheeks. Tears filled her own eyes as she basked in the united love of her family.
She glanced over at Thom, saw his face-splitting smile, and her heart lurched.
This baby had to be his. Any other scenario didn’t bear thinking about. Her family had been ripping each other apart not ten minutes ago. Her news had replaced that with joy. She would give anything for that joy to continue. The baby had to be Thom’s.
They were still laughing and ribbing her about hurling her dinner in the fountain when the limo pulled up.
Her mother, back in take-charge mode, turned to her brothers. “We’ll be back in an hour, and we’ll celebrate properly. Make sure everyone inside is entertained. Come on, Elana.”
She followed her mother to the car, smiled at Thom as he helped her in, stepped back and shut the door. They rode in silence for a few minutes before her mother turned to her and grasped her hand. “I’m so happy for you.”
