LITMIR.BIZ

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suggestion that the accident had been anything but. Why couldn’t people just leave them alone?

      She compressed her bright red lips, pausing midway down the long hall to stare out the window. The gardens in the foreground were some of the most beautiful in the world, but she didn’t appreciate their beauty. She looked beyond them to the distant ocean. She tried to orient herself, to find the familiar landmarks of the coastline that she knew so well.

      And failed.

      Nothing was familiar. It was as though the milestones of her life, all the anchor points she counted on, had shifted during the night. Was it possible for earthquakes to be localized to one person?

      She gripped the railing, a shining gold, highly polished, perhaps used by patients at Whispering Oaks who were not easily able to move about. Her knuckles glowed white.

      She couldn’t put it off any longer. Her husband was around the corner. She straightened her spine, pulled her imported Italian shawl around her shoulders, and resumed her walk, her heels clicking efficiently against the tiled floor.

      The corridors were hauntingly deserted. She saw not a soul as she got closer to Harrison’s room, but eventually she heard muted tones of conversation.

      He wasn’t alone.

      She pushed the door inward, and her eyes were drawn to her husband immediately. Until that moment, she hadn’t realized she’d been holding her breath, hoping, wondering, believing in some small part that he might have recovered. That he might have given an interview after all! If anyone was capable of defying the odds, it had to be him.

      But, alas.

      Not this time.

      Harrison lay in the bed, pale and flaccid, his handsome face almost unrecognizable. His injuries had swollen more overnight. The marks on his face that had been red and abraded the day before were now bright purple and dark blue. Angry marks of accusation and blame.

      A wave of grief burst through her; she pressed her hand against the door frame, taking strength, needing support.

      “Mariella.” Joe was the first to realize she was there. He stood, scraping his chair back so that it squealed against the floor, making them wince.

      She didn’t look in his direction. She couldn’t. Her husband, so unmoving, stirred love within her, and suddenly, it was hard to think of anything but him. The strange relationship with the Fixer, the fortune in his private account, the possibility that his crash had been orchestrated, the mystery about his supposed interview—it was all irrelevant. All that mattered was him. His body, so strong and capable, had been reduced to a weak, wounded shell. She stared at him, and their thirty-two years of marriage flashed through her, filling her with an almost paralyzing emotion.

      “Harrison,” she murmured, lifting her fingers to her lips. The machines in the room gave a low moan. A constant droning sound punctuated by intermittent beeps.

      “Mom.” Elana, on the other side of the bed from Joe, smiled weakly. Her hand was resting on Harrison’s, but she dropped it to move to her mother. “I need to speak to you. It’s urgent.”

      Mariella lifted her eyes to her daughter’s face. Dark emotions were flitting behind Elana’s eyes. How were her children coping with this? It had been a nightmare for Mariella, but this was their hero lying in a hospital. Guilt that she hadn’t really thought about their feelings since the accident added to her emotional tangle.

      She wanted to stay with Harrison, to study him, to come to grips with his condition, but Elana obviously needed her. Besides, Harrison wasn’t going anywhere, she thought with a macabre desperation.

      Her attention moved to Joe. Dependable Joe, always so capable and reliable. “Is there any...”

      “No change,” he said quietly, his handsome face lined with a worry that matched Mariella’s.

      Mariella nodded and stepped out of the room. Elana was right behind her.

      “Mom.” Elana reached for her mother’s hands, gripping them in her own.

      “How are you?” Mariella asked, reaching up and removing her glasses so that she could see her daughter properly.

      “I’m... Mom? It’s about my wedding.”

      The statement caught Mariella off guard. It was the last thing she’d expected.

      Capitalizing on her mother’s stunned silence, Elana continued. “I don’t think I can go through with it.”

      Mariella heard the words from beyond a veil. “Your wedding?” she repeated, a frown forming a line between her brows. “Your wedding to Thom.”

      “Of course to Thom,” Elana responded waspishly and then shook her head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap.”

      In the midst of everything, Mariella had practically forgotten about the looming event. Strange that only a week earlier it had been the focus of her thoughts and now it was incidental. An irrelevancy that had become background noise.

      “Darling, it’s normal to have cold feet.”

      “This isn’t cold feet, Mom,” Elana whispered.

      “So? What is it?” Too sharp. Mariella scolded herself inwardly. Berating Elana had never achieved more than rebellion. If she wasn’t careful, Elana would throw the entire wedding away and go to Ibiza. The next thing Mariella would know, Elana would be all over the news in a state of drunken undress. Her wedding had to go ahead. Marriage to someone like Thom was the only way to keep Elana out of trouble for any stretch of time.

      “Do you honestly think it’s the time to be planning a wedding when Dad is lying in a hospital bed? We don’t know yet whether he’ll live or die, and I’m expected to go for gown fittings?”

      Mariella narrowed her eyes. Elana was many things. A clever liar wasn’t one of them. Oh, of course she was worried about Harrison! But there was something else. Something lurking beneath Elana’s appearance of concern.

      Another reason for wanting to put off the wedding.

      And because Mariella had come to expect the worst of that day, her mind went to the most unpalatable reason she could imagine for Elana’s reluctance.

      Was it possible that her daughter was still involved with that lecherous Jarrod Jones? Wanting Elana to settle down and calm her wild ways had been a huge part of why Mariella and Harrison had encouraged the engagement to Thom. Her ill-thought-out affair with the married film producer was another.

      That business had high-profile scandal written all over it.

      Besides which, Jarrod was hardly known for his discretion. Elana was too shortsighted to see the dangers that lurked in her involvement with that man.

      No, she needed to be married. And Thom was the perfect husband. Staid, sensible, kind, and his family was an excellent match. He might not be the man Elana would have chosen, but that was definitely for the best. The thought of waking up one day with a man like Jarrod Jones as her son-in-law chilled Mariella to the core.

      “The wedding is planned. Everyone will expect it to go ahead.”

      “People would understand,” Elana objected, shaking her head so that her hair flicked around her face. “My dad is in a coma. I can’t get married without him! Who would walk me down the aisle? I can’t imagine it. I can’t.”

      “Elana.” Mariella snapped her daughter’s name and then softened it with a smile. “Your father would want you to get married.”

      Elana startled, becoming perfectly still. “Even without him there?”

      “Absolutely,” Mariella said, nodding. She would not have the wedding added to the scrap pile of disasters she was currently navigating. “Do you know something?” She leaned closer to Elana, lifting a hand and cupping her daughter’s cheek.

      “What, Mom?” Elana was whispering now, her eyes just

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