LITMIR.BIZ

       Chapter Four

      It was a perfect afternoon. Sunny and bright, with the hint of a breeze carrying salt from the ocean. Elana breathed in deeply, waiting for the usual heady sense of relief the tang of the sea gave her.

      But her nerves were too stretched, almost to breaking point. They were going to see Harrison at Whispering Oaks. She wanted to see her father, of course, and yet fear lodged in her heart when she imagined what might confront them. Would he be worse?

      It wasn’t easy to get out there, either. Since his accident, the paparazzi had been camped out on the street near Casa de Catalina, though Santa Barbara PD had a few motorcycle cops perusing the perimeter. Going undetected meant eschewing their usual chauffeured limo and employing measures worthy of a spy drama. The cars Rafe and Luc had organized were understated and matching, so that they could take separate routes to divert any paparazzi who pursued them. Rafe had even said he’d bring baseball caps and dark glasses to keep their anonymity.

      Elana had laughed when he’d suggested it, but she wasn’t laughing now.

      Rafe and Luc were late.

      Only a few minutes, but enough for her to be tempted to ignore their plans and take her own car. Just as she was contemplating asking a chauffeur to bring around the Merc the crunch of tires on gravel alerted her to someone’s arrival. She stopped walking and watched as the car pulled to a stop right beside her. It was a black sedan. A family car. Hardly the kind of thing any of them usually got around in. The windows were heavily tinted, and, Elana admitted grudgingly, it would definitely blend in to the crowds.

      She waited to see which of her brothers would emerge and was relieved when Rafe stepped from the vehicle.

      “Hey,” she said, unprepared for the wave of intense emotion that besieged her at her brother’s arrival. “You’re late.”

      “Traffic was a bitch.” He grimaced as he stepped from the car. Dressed in slim-fitting jeans and a Façonnable polo shirt, he looked much the same as always. But when he flicked his aviator sunglasses onto his thick, dark hair, she saw he had a graze on one cheek and a bruise across his jaw.

      “Ouch,” she murmured, standing on tiptoes to run her nails across the scrape. “It looks angrier than yesterday.”

      He grinned and shrugged. “I’m sure Luc’s looking a lot worse.”

      Elana nodded, dipping her head forward to hide her smile. When it came to a sparring match, she’d have put her money on Luc every time. But her heart would always have gone to Rafe. He just didn’t have the same motivation to win a fight as their perfect older brother, that was all. “Probably,” she said, meeting his eyes when she’d flattened any suggestion of amusement from her pretty face.

      “It was stupid,” Rafe said after a moment. “I was just so fucking angry with him. He never misses a chance to sling mud my way. He’s such a pompous asshole.”

      “Yep, he can be,” she agreed but couldn’t help adding, “Still, next time you get struck by the urge to put him back in his box, maybe choose somewhere a little less...”

      “Visible?” Rafe supplied with a humorless laugh. He lifted his hand and dragged it through his hair, shaking his head ruefully.

      “Um, yes. Public.”

      “I wasn’t thinking straight.”

      Elana put an arm around her brother’s waist and stared up at him. “None of us are. This is so messed up.”

      The words were thick with unshed tears and even Rafe, in his distracted state, must have detected her grief. “Hey,” he said softly, tilting her chin upward with his thumb. “What’s going on?”

      “Apart from the obvious, you mean?” She blinked away the sting of hot tears.

      “Yeah. What is it?”

      She shook her head from side to side, making a visible effort to calm herself. “Nothing. I’m fine.”

      Rafe’s eyes narrowed, but he appeared to let the line of questioning drop. “How’s wedding planning going?”

      Her laugh was soft. “Even for us, it’s going to be kind of epic.”

      Rafe ran a hand over his jaw. It was covered in fashionable stubble; she heard the grating sound and out of nowhere thought of Jarrod. Elana’s gut clenched.

      God, she needed to see him. Somewhere, in the midst of this crazy mess, sex with Jarrod would make sense of it all. Their affair was like a tiny island at the heart of a raging ocean.

      “Epic is bad?”

      “No, no,” Elana was quick to correct. She swore softly and put her hand out, grabbing Rafe’s wrist. “Rafe?”

      She felt his eyes boring into her, seeing more than she wanted to show, and she looked away, her features heavy with regret. She didn’t see the way his own face bore a mask of apprehension, as though he, too, was burdened by a weighty confession.

      “I... Don’t judge me, okay?”

      “Judge you?” His voice was hoarse. “You kidding? I’ve got your back, Ellie.”

      She smiled at the childhood nickname that only her dad used these days.

      “What is it?” There was urgency in his tone, urgency Elana was quick to read as impatience with her, rather than any more personal bent.

      The assuredness she’d had that morning shifted, drifting away for a moment. Marriage. Becoming a wife. A frisson ran down her spine.

      “I’m... I’m just not sure I can go through with the wedding.”

      A

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