LITMIR.BIZ

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      “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.

      Mariella filled her lungs with air, exhaled and did it again. Feeling calmer, she spoke again. “I refuse to accept that you might die, that you’ll leave me here alone. We have our children’s weddings to attend, grandchildren to spoil. Yeah, we scream and fight and bitch and growl, and there have been times that I’ve wanted to smother you in your sleep, but we’re a team. I need you. I can’t be Mariella Santiago-Marshall without you.”

      An alarm beeped, and Mariella jumped, her head whipping around to look at the bank of machines keeping her husband alive. God, he would hate this; he would loathe the idea of being connected to this technology, to being kept alive by ventilators and brain shunts. Harrison was an I’ll-do-it-myself-or-move-on type of guy. If Harrison could talk, he’d be telling her to get him the hell off this crap and let him take his chances; it wouldn’t matter that his chance at survival without the machines was less than zero. It wouldn’t be the first roll of the dice he’d made against the odds. But that was business and this was his life...

      A life that he’d come so very close to losing.

       Chapter Three

      They allowed Mariella to stay with Harrison for a scant fifteen minutes, the nursing staff telling her they’d given her five minutes more than

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