“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 c
lothes. 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’d 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 hi
m 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.”
A Touch of Love Page 25