“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, Marie
lla 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.
Taming Her Billionaire Page 22
