Secrets Of The A-List (Episode 2 Of 12). Clare Connelly

Vanessa hovered beside her, and Mariella took comfort from her proximity, though the woman was slight and looked almost as terrified as Mariella felt.

      The man’s smile was supercilious. Mariella’s manicured fingers itched to slap it off his face. “That’s what we’re here to determine, ma’am.”

      It was the ma’am that did it. The way it was spoken with such contempt. “No.” Mariella was used to being listened to. In her business, when she wanted something, she got it. And usually ten times over.

      Her impact wasn’t lessened by the current circumstances. The men who were engaged in searching her drawers, pulling shoe boxes out of her wardrobe and tossing them carelessly onto the carpeted floor, and even the ones on their bellies, scrambling under the bed, paused to give Mariella their attention.

      “No,” she repeated, with a quietness to her tone that was more powerful than a scream might have been. “You will not be in my bedroom. Not now. I don’t care what that piece of paper says. Until my lawyers have seen it, you are not to be here.”

      The man’s smile grew wider. “I don’t think you understand. You don’t have any rights here. This gives me all the rights. All the power. I can do whatever I want.”

      “No, you can’t,” she responded, her cheeks slashed with color. “Get out now.”

      His laugh was her tipping point. A soft sound, it felt like blades were being drawn across her back. She launched at him, pushing his chest hard. It felt good! Pent-up emotions were powering out of her palms, hitting him hard, and she pushed until he connected with the wall opposite.

      The man let her push him. His eyes locked to hers as she hit him again and then flicked over her shoulder. She lifted her hand, ready to slap him hard across the face, but her wrist was caught in a viselike grip. Her other followed, and the unfamiliar sensation of cold handcuffs being snapped around her flesh curdled her blood.

      What the hell was going on?

      “That, Mrs. Santiago-Marshall, is called obstruction of justice.” His smarmy smile was back. “And you’re under arrest. You have the right to remain silent...”

      She froze, the last minute of her life playing out like a horror show before her eyes. What had just happened? What was going on? Sleep was pulling at her, begging her back to bed, to blot out the rest of the world.

      “If you cannot afford an attorney...”

      The words droned on without properly registering. She’d watched enough bad cop shows to know the Miranda rights by heart.

      “Vanessa—” A husky sound. “Vanessa. You need to find Harrison. Harrison? Harrison! Harrison, help me!”

      The knocking was back. Louder now. Where was it coming from?

      “Mariella? Are you okay?”

      Vanessa’s voice through the closed door rang with concern. Disoriented, Mariella could only stare at her bedroom. It was empty. No shoe boxes strewn over the floor. No detectives wriggling under the bed looking for evidence of her wrongdoing. The nightmare was swallowed by reality, but her heart was still hammering in her chest like a hangover of the fear that had knifed her final few moments of rest.

      Her fingertips drifted across the bed on autopilot, seeking the source of her comfort for the last thirty-two years. Whatever she’d faced in life, Harrison had faced it with her.

      He wasn’t there.

      She lifted shaking fingers to her lips as the memories that had been tormenting her sleep began to order themselves in her mind. Truth sifted itself out of the dream state, and reality crystallized.

      “I heard shouting.” Vanessa pushed the door inward. Unlike the Vanessa who’d appeared in the nightmare, the housekeeper was now as immaculate as ever, her curvaceous figure in uniform, her hair swirled into a neat bun at the nape of her neck. Vanessa’s eyes moved through the room and then landed back on Mariella.

      “You’re mistaken,” Mariella said, her dark eyes clashing with Vanessa’s.

      Vanessa frowned. “I’m sure I heard—”

      “No.” Mariella’s smile was perfunctory, and Vanessa took the hint after a small hesitation. “Everything’s fine.” It wasn’t, though. Harrison! Grief was as tight about her heart as the dream handcuffs had been on her wrists.

      “I’m sorry for the intrusion, then.” A hint of frustration came across in the abrupt delivery of Vanessa’s apology.

      Mariella waved a slim hand in the air. “Don’t worry about it. It’s morning now anyway. Time I was awake.” She had a day to face. A day that she somehow knew would be one of the hardest of her life.

      “Would you like anything?”

      Peace. Quiet. To find that this, too, had been a dream. Her eyes drifted to his side of the bed. A sob was rising in her chest, but she sure as hell wasn’t going to let anyone see her cry.

      “Coffee,” she said with a tight nod. “Thank you.” It was a curt directive, and the message was clear. Get out.

      “My darling,” Mariella whispered into the room as the door clicked shut. Her eyes fluttered closed and the image of Harrison as he’d been in hospital was right there. His powerful body almost lifeless. His tall frame long in the hospital bed. Wires protruding from his arms and chest, eyes closed. The background noise of machinery and technology.

      The way the sun had filtered across his face—now, in hindsight, she didn’t see the sun so much as the shadows it cast.

      A shiver ran the length of her spine, and she pushed her feet out of bed, planting them on the thick carpet and standing in an effort to stave off the coldness she was feeling.

      He had to be okay.

      He had to rally.

      He had to!

      The possibility of living her life without Harrison loomed like a cavern that she couldn’t enter. They were a team, a partnership.

      More than just husband and wife, they were friends and colleagues. Her strengths were his, and vice versa. When she balked at a challenge, he had her back, and she knew how to encourage him through anything. He was her everything.

      But had she been his?

      She crossed the room, stopping at one of the windows that overlooked the sprawling estate. It was still early; the sky had hints of pink and purple, reluctant to give up their purview to the blueness of the daytime sky. It was a losing battle. Dawn could never triumph over day.

      Mariella confided in Harrison about almost everything. Up until yesterday, she would have said the same of him. She would have sworn until she was blue in the face, and on the lives of her children, that she and Harrison had no secrets. Had she been wrong?

      “In certain circles, this person is called the Fixer.” Such a confusing statement that had, at the time, made Mariella impatient with Joe. Only their years of friendship and an affection born of loyalty had kept her quiet after the strange statement, giving him the respect of explaining what the hell he’d been talking about.

      The Fixer.

      How she’d already come to hate those words! That her husband had a secret business that sounded distinctly unsavory was a truth that kept detonating through her mind. If she’d had any doubts about Joe’s information, the bank account statement had served to support his assertion.

      Harrison had a fortune—and not a small one—that he’d kept from his own wife. Not by accident, either, in that way that could be explained by how busy they were. He had created an offshore account in his own name. He had steadfastly failed to mention it to Mariella. And, in the meantime, it had been filled with a hundred million dollars. Where had it all come from? And why had he kept it secret from her, of all people?

      Only one reason seemed to make sense, and it was unpalatable as it was frightening.

      Harrison