Майя Блейк – Secrets Of The A-List (страница 2)

“Give us the room, Doctor.” She infused her voice with enough grit to make sure he understood it wasn’t a request. “And tell your staff that we don’t want to be disturbed.”

If the doctor found her request a little strange, he chose not to voice it. They weren’t paying him for mindless chitchat.

She felt the weighted stares of her family as Dr. Aebischer left the room but waited until the doctor’s footsteps had stopped echoing before she strolled around to the top of her husband’s bed. For a moment she stood looking down at him.

“Mom, what’s going on?” Rafe prompted.

With a deep breath, she turned around. “We can’t keep going on like this. We can’t wait for your father to wake up.”

Elana gasped, her face going a pasty white. “What? You’re not going to pull the plug on him, are you? I—we won’t let you—”

“Dios mío, of course I’m not going to pull the plug on him! Why would you even think that?” She frowned. What on earth was wrong with Elana? She’d been acting oddly since she got back from her honeymoon, with her emotions seesawing all over the place. God, she hoped she wasn’t flaking out at being married already. She would need to keep a closer eye on her. Something else that needed taking care of.

She stared at her daughter until Elana gave a tight-lipped nod. “Sorry... I just...this is so hard,” Elana said.

Mariella suppressed a sigh. “It’s fine. We’re all under a lot of pressure. Which is exactly my point. We’ve been hoping for a miracle, one that might yet happen. Who knows? But we need to mitigate that with a little bit of reality.”

Luc frowned. “What does that mean?”

“We can’t just sit around, waiting for your father to wake up and save us.”

“I didn’t realize we needed saving,” he bit out.

“Then you need to dig your head out of the sand, Luc.”

Luc’s jaw clenched, but he knew better than to talk back to his mother.

Mariella’s gaze shifted from one son to the other, then to the other occupants of the room. Gabe was no longer leaning against the wall, but his arms were still crossed, his gaze watchful.

“As we discussed over dinner, the Marshall brand is suffering. The tabloids are ripping us apart every chance they get. They can’t make up their minds whether Harrison is dead or he’s run off and abandoned us. It’s a goddamn circus out there, and we’re the star attraction.”

“Mariella, I don’t think—”

She held up a halting hand. “No, Joe, I’m sorry, but I won’t be convinced that things aren’t that bad. They are,” she snapped. She didn’t even feel bad when he tried to hide a wince. Enough was enough. “We can’t keep pretending it isn’t happening. We’re turning into the next hashtag joke on social media.” She glanced down at Harrison, at the steady, useless rise and fall of his chest. Then she locked gazes with each member of her family. “It needs to end. Now.”

Stunned silence greeted her. After a minute, Luc nodded. “So what do you propose?”

Relief punched through her. She’d been expecting opposition. Her children knew she was strong when it counted, but for all their lives, Harrison had been the head of the Marshall family and she his stalwart support. She’d never taken command like this.

But things were changing. Her gaze drifted to Joe. Things had changed. She blinked away the curious question in his eyes as Gabe stepped forward. Before he could speak, his phone rang.

Mariella saw the apology in his eyes as he fished the phone out of his pocket. A glance at the screen, and his face hardened a touch. “I’m sorry, Tía, I need to take this. It’s business.”

“Of course.” She waved him away, watched him walk briskly out of the room. In a way she was a little relieved he was out of the way. Her nephew was nothing if not an alpha male. While she relished that on occasion, she needed to establish implacable control right now as the head of the Marshall family. Her family’s reputation and well-being depended on it.

“We’re already hosting the masquerade ball, Mom. What else can we do?” Rafe asked.

“I’ve got an idea,” Luc suggested.

Mariella turned to her son. His eyes were gleaming, a sure sign his clever brain was working at warp speed. Pride punched through her. “What are you thinking?”

“We take the masquerade ball, and we super-size the fuck out of it.”

She bit her tongue against admonishing him for swearing. He would always be her baby, but he was a grown man. Instead, she smiled as the idea took root and sprouted. “Yes! That’s an excellent idea, Luc.”

Rafe nodded, too. “We could also take a little of the heat off by doing it out of town. We arrange private jets to fly the guests out to the ball—for extra, of course—make a huge deal out of it.”

“I play golf with the CEO of Westfield Jets. He’s been on my case for months to find a way for us to do some business together. I’ll give him a call if you like,” Joe offered with a warm smile. “He’ll cut us a good deal on a fleet of jets. He’ll welcome the publicity, too.”

It felt a little treacherous to be smiling at her lover when she stood next to Harrison, but dammit, they’d gotten on board with her need to reestablish themselves with barely a hint of the disagreement that’d been rampant these past weeks. And she deserved to be a little pleased that things were going her way.

So she smiled. “Thank you, Joe, that would be wonderful.”

Anything for you, his gaze said.

Feeling a little more settled than she’d been a mere fifteen minutes ago, she stepped away from the bed. Stood firmer on her feet. “It’ll be a great time to announce our new venture, too. The nightclubs in Cancún and Miami are still under construction, but Club Elana in Vegas is almost ready, isn’t it, Joe?”

He nodded. “A few days to a week, tops.”

“You have five days. I think Vegas will be the perfect place to hold the ball. We slay two birds with one stone with the nightclub opening on Friday and the ball on Saturday. Plus, it’s not too far for our guests to fly. I’ll get the MSM team to move everything to Club Elana. The masquerade ball will be our best event ever.”

Mariella looked at her daughter, who’d been staring at her father for the last few minutes. “Elana? You have something to add?”

Elana shook her head and shrugged. “Looks like you’ve got everything covered, Mom. It’ll be great, I’m sure.”

Mariella narrowed her eyes at her daughter. “What’s on your mind, Elana? Spit it out.”

Her tone was a little harsh, she knew that. But she was done cuddling and cajoling. This family would sink if they didn’t grow bigger cojones. That included not skirting whatever delicate feelings her daughter seemed caught in.

“Well...what about the Fixer? Are we forgetting that this...person is still out there, pulling our strings?” Elana demanded.

A spike of anger and frustration threatened to upset Mariella again as her gaze flicked back to her husband. You’ve done this, she silently screamed at Harrison. But she composed herself and turned to face her family.

“I haven’t forgotten about the Fixer. But neither am I going to waste any more time on who it is or what their intentions are. This family is my number-one priority. It’s my only priority going forward. I’m taking control of it. If the Fixer, or anyone else, has a problem with that, they know where to find me.”

She picked up the purse she didn’t remember discarding on the bed, ignored the slightly alarmed looks her children were exchanging and walked out of the hospital room.

Chapter Two

Gabe bit back a pithy curse and wondered, for the hundredth time, why he hadn’t hung up on this irritating phone call. Or even better, sent this client packing the moment she started to piss him off.

Yeah. Right. This was business. The shrill, aggravating voice was jumping on his last nerve, but beyond that was the more shocking notion that this woman was engaged to marry Luc. Gabe might not get along with his cousin, but still... The idea that Rachel had not only resorted to seeking the services of the Fixer to get rid of her rival but was going a step farther to advocate cold-blooded murder made his stomach turn. The timing of this phone call too made him think it was the reason she’d made her excuses not to come with the rest of the family to Whispering Oaks. Talk about stone-cold, selfish priorities. Jesus, did Luc even have the faintest idea the type of woman he was marrying?

Whatever Gabe did, he needed to handle this very carefully, or he risked this situation blowing up in his face.

Suppressing a sigh, he withdrew deeper into the darker part of the corridor. He was risking a lot taking this call here as it was. Not to mention he was missing whatever his aunt had been about to tell them.

The determined look on her face had bothered him a little. Hell, a lot of things bothered him these days. But he couldn’t afford to be out of the loop on anything, no matter how big or small. He certainly couldn’t waste time on this phone call.

“Did you hear what I said?” the voice demanded.

“You’re no longer happy with just running your competition out of town and you want to change the parameters of our agreement,” he supplied smoothly. His ability to compartmentalize was one of the reasons Harrison had relied so heavily on him. That and his complete lack of emotion when it counted.