Large patches were blocked out for his trips, but these she knew about, too. Paris, where he was scouting a new restaurant that would rival Le Jules Verne for uniqueness and prestige. New York, where they had invested in their first share of a high-end dining and entertainment complex and he’d been more involved of late.
She was about to click out of the calendar when a single entry caught her eye, mainly because it didn’t make sense.
“After five,” was the caption, and in the more-information tab, she saw only a string of numbers.
Her stomach lurched; curiosity giving way to doubt. Was this the clue she’d been looking for? She dug her teeth into her lip, her mind spinning through possibilities as one might fiddle the lock on a safe.
Was this another bank account? She counted the numbers and shook her head. No, that wasn’t right. Offshore accounts tended to have really lengthy account identifiers.
And there was a ‘plus’ sign before the number.
Her pulse was raging so hard and fast she could hear it in her ears, pounding like the ocean in the midst of a storm.
On autopilot she reached for her phone and dialed the numbers on a hunch. She pressed the green button and waited.
Sure enough, the bleep-bleep-bleep sound informed her that the call was being placed over great distance.
It rang then, a muted, robotic noise, flatter than the call sounds she was used to.
Finally, after what felt like a very long time, a man’s voice answered.
He spoke in a foreign language. Mandarin? Cantonese? Mariella couldn’t tell. She opened her mouth to say something, but he pushed on. It was an answering machine.
She frowned, hung up and dialed again. This time, she stood from the chair and moved quickly across the room. Fingers that shook scrambled inelegantly for a pen, finally wrapping around an inky-blue Montblanc pen. She sought a piece of paper and selected at random the back of a photograph.
The machine answered, and the random words clicked down the line at her. Try as she might, though, she couldn’t discern a single word from the torrent of sounds.
With a curse of frustration, she called the number again and this time pressed the button on her phone that would record the monologue.
It probably wasn’t important, anyway. Harrison had contacts all over the world. She disconnected the call, cutting off the recording, and returned his office to its usual state. Whatever secrets Harrison was keeping, the answers were not to be found here.
* * *
“This is a fucking joke,” Luc grunted, his eyes glaring at the television as if he could reach through the screen and spear the content. Even like this, with his black eye and bruised cheek, his expression grim, his body slumped forward in the enormous bed, he was breathtakingly stunning. Rachel lifted her fingers and toyed with the strap of her La Perla bra. It was a custom piece Luc had given her a month into their relationship. He’d joked at the time that he wanted to adorn her breasts with something as beautiful as they were, even though he had been annoyed that they’d been enhanced by another surgeon. He certainly didn’t seem to have any problems with the end result of her surgery, if his obsession with running his hands over the generous curves was any indication. Besides, she’d had them done long before she’d met Luc—an eighteenth-birthday present from the daddy who would never disappoint her.
“What is?” Rachel didn’t like seeing him upset, even though it gave an edge to his handsome face, a passionate intensity that lit fires in her blood. Desire clenched her gut. Was it insensitive to be mentally undressing her boyfriend when his father was lying in a hospital bed, possibly inching toward death with every pained breath he took?
“This.” He nodded toward the television and winced sharply. “This chasing after my family as though we’re fucking entertainment.”
Rachel pursed her lips—though they were perfectly sculpted, that was a twist of genetics rather than surgery—and moved closer to Luc. When she stood beside him, his head was at eye level with her breasts and she leaned forward a little, provocatively close to his mouth. She put a hand on his shoulder, so smooth and warm, and ran her fingers over him comfortingly. “You are entertainment,” she said with an attempt to sound sympathetic. “You’re the Marshalls.”
His eyes narrowed, and he flicked a quick look at her before resuming his vigil of the television. “So?” A grunt. Not exactly a disagreement, but a sign that he didn’t like her observation one bit.
“So,” she responded slowly, her nipples straining against the gauzy lace of the bra, “you’re high profile. You know that.”
“This isn’t the opening of a casino, Rachel. It’s my father. Lying in the hospital.” His expression was hollow. “God knows if he’s going to make it.”
She thought of Harrison Marshall and nodded slowly. The man was a veritable goliath—and this coming from a girl who had a congressman daddy. But Harrison was different. He wasn’t straitlaced or dull. He had the kind of power and charisma that gave itself to playing outside the lines. She recognized those traits because Luc also had them in abundance.
“He won’t die,” she said with a confidence she didn’t necessarily feel. She hadn’t seen Harrison in the hospital, and the pictures of the crash site looked awful. His mangled wreck had been comparable to a soda can ready for recycling. The black Carolina Herrera dress she’d picked up in New York last month would be an excellent funeral option.
“How do you know?”
“Because he’s Harrison.” She curved her lips into a smile and moved closer, dropping a kiss against Luc’s dark hair. His cheek was cushioned between her breasts. She lingered, waiting for him to turn his head a little. To purse his lips against her flesh and kiss her. To throw her against the mattress and lift his strong, capable body over hers, straddling her, making her his. A shiver of anticipation danced goose bumps across her sun-kissed flesh.
“Rach—” He flinched away from her a little, intent on the TV.
She couldn’t have said which she felt stronger—rejection or frustration. Neither was in great enough measure to cool her jets. Rachel Franklin was no shrinking violet. She wasn’t dating one of the most eligible bachelors in America by accident. She’d seen Luc, she’d wanted him, and she’d gotten him. All nicely tied up in her bed and in her life—and she intended to keep him there. Theirs wasn’t a relationship that would peter out. Oh, no. Couples like them had one trajectory. Power couples begot power. Sex led to dating, which led to proposals and marriage, and babies, she supposed, one day, when she could face the ugliness and mess that entailed.
She sashayed toward the television with a deliberately sensual swagger then sat down on the carpet, stretching her legs in front of her. She curved her back, dropping a finger over her toes and letting her body move almost like a cat’s. Yoga was one of her favorite exercises. It kept her lean, not to mention flexible. She lay back on the floor and lifted her legs over her head, peeking at Luc to see if he was watching. That he wasn’t was only a temporary setback.
She stood and then walked her fingers down her legs until they connected with the carpet. Bent in two, she looked at him, knowing that her cleavage was the only thing he’d see if he looked her way.
“Such bullshit. They’re waiting for him to die, for God’s sake.”
“You know what the press is like,” she said, a real kernel of sympathy coming out of nowhere. “Anything for ratings.”
“Vultures,” he grunted. But he did know what the press was like. They’d been an active part of his life for as long as he could remember.
“Luc,” she said quietly, and was rewarded by the swiveling of his head.