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so late,” she exclaimed, staring at Joe’s face with regret mingled with dismay. “I have to go.”
Flooded with embarrassment and confusion, she snatched the sheet to her chest and spied her clothes strewn all over the floor of his suite. So far away. What foolishness. She wasn’t a silly virgin unaccustomed to a lover’s lust-filled gaze. She’d made love to the man twice. He’d slid his hands and mouth over every inch of her. Why was she now so reluctant to let him see her naked body?
There was nothing else to do. She simply had to get dressed and go find her daughter. Elana had been acting odd for weeks. This wedding was too important to let anything go wrong.
* * *
Thom stands at the foot of Harrison Marshall’s bed. The once powerful, charismatic tycoon lies as still as death, trapped in his coma. Around the patriarch’s bed cluster his children and wife. Each of them stares at the man in the bed, their faces inconsolable masks of sadness and regret.
Beside him, Elana weeps softly. Thom hasn’t ever seen his fiancée so sad. He yearns to put his arm around her and offer comfort, but Rafe occupies her other side and she leans her head on her brother’s shoulder. For a second Thom envies their closeness. What would it be like to have siblings to lean on? To share secrets with and be able to count on?
Thom would give anything to have a brother to share the burden of the family business. To spread the load of his parents’ expectations. Expectations that are leading him to marry Elana to look “normal.” Although Thom isn’t sure what normal is anymore.
Harrison opens his eyes.
“You’ve lied to everyone.” Harrison’s accusation echoes ominously in the silent room.
“I’ve...what?” Thom recoils from the icy fury in the man’s eyes and stumbles back several shocked steps. “No.” Tearing his gaze away, he glances from Elana to Rafe to Mariella and back to Elana. At Harrison’s words, their heads swiveled in his direction. Searing, unblinking gazes fix on him. “No.” He’s moaning now. “I haven’t lied about anything. I swear.”
Harrison sits up in a fluid motion. Back stiff, eyes cold fire, his arm is extended, finger pointing straight at Thom. “You lie about the reasons you’re marrying my daughter.”
“I... I...haven’t. I’m not. I swear.” But the last word comes out weakly. He’s hidden the truth for so long, it’s become second nature to be who everyone wants him to be.
Abruptly Luc points a finger at Thom. His voice is the acid hiss of hatred. “Liar.”
“Liar.” Rafe whispers the word. His eyes brim with disappointment.
Mariella scowls. “Liar.”
“Why did you lie?” Tears fill Elana’s eyes.
Thom stumbles back, away from her sadness. He bursts through a door. Blinded by the brightness beyond, it takes a couple of seconds for him to realize where he is. Above his head is a flower-festooned arbor. The sweet scent of so many blossoms fills his nostrils, making his head spin. A minister’s deep voice intones the beginning of a wedding ceremony.
“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today...”
Thom’s fingers clench into fists as he turns his head and spies Elana. She’s gorgeous in her white wedding dress, her face obscured by a heavy lace veil.
As the minister drones on, Thom begins to calm down. He’s doing the right thing for everyone—his parents, Elana, her parents. He needs to focus on making Elana happy. He can do that. They’ve been friends forever. He wants the best for her.
Calmer now, at the minister’s directions, Thom turns to face Elana. It’s nearly time for their vows. He will promise to be true to her. And he will keep that vow. Till death parts them.
“If there is anyone who can show just cause that these two should not be joined together in holy matrimony, let him speak now...
Thom starts to reach for Elana’s hands, but she steps back and snatches at the hem of her veil, lifting it. Suddenly Thom isn’t looking into Elana’s beautiful face, but Gabe’s. The Fixer. And he is laughing.
“Surprise.” Gabe sneers. “Did you really think I’d let you marry Elana? You are lying about who you are. It’s all your fault.”
“What’s my fault?”
“That.” Gabe gestures toward the chairs where the wedding guests sit.
Five hundred guests stare at him in cold accusation. At first he doesn’t understand why, and then he sees the carnage. The entire Marshall family is slumped to the ground like marionettes with their strings cut. They lie together in a broken pile. Crimson droplets are splattered over them like hundreds of rose petals, each one glistening wetly as if drenched in tears.
Who could have done this and why?
“You did this,” Gabe says as if reading Thom’s mind. “This is all because you told.”
“You told.”
“You told.”
A rising chant swells from the guests. Five hundred pairs of eyes pin him where he stands paralyzed by terror and confusion. There’s no escape. Flies begin to buzz over the Marshall family’s lifeless bodies, dipping and lurching through the air as if drunk on the taint of all that blood.
“You told.”
Thom’s head starts to spin, and he sways. “I swear I didn’t.”
And then Gabe’s hand comes up, blood soaked and bearing a silver knife. Thom has a split second to take it all in before that blade begins its deadly arc in his direction. Sunlight glints off the razor-sharp edge, blinding him. He throws up his hand to ward off the killing blow and...
Thom jolted awake. Heart pounding, adrenaline surging through his body, he realized he was sitting straight up in bed. Never had he had such a vivid dream. All that blood. He could still smell the coppery tang of it. He gazed wildly about his suite, half expecting to see a dozen hollow-eyed corpses crowding around him.
“Holy shit.”
No doubt a large percentage of grooms woke in a cold sweat on the morning of their weddings. But Thom was pretty sure not for the reasons affecting him. Secrets. His head was full of them. And not all of them his. But he was keeping the truth from enough people that this wedding—not to mention his marriage—was built on a house of cards. It would only take one to send his entire world plummeting.
Flopping onto his back, he stared at the ceiling and contemplated his options. They were limited. Marry Elana. Keep his mouth shut.
Breathing hard, Thom shuddered. The sheets of his king-size bed were a damp tangle around his legs. Giving vent to his anxiety, all too aware that his heightened apprehension was the product of his own subconscious, he kicked his feet free.
Terror and panic continued to rampage through him. He could recall the tiniest details, from the way Elana stared blindly at the cloudless sky to how Luc and Rafe had collapsed over their mother as if trying to protect her. He grimaced and swung his legs off the bed. Feet on the floor, he glanced around. Everything was in its place. Not a drop of blood anywhere.
“It was only a dream.”
A dream. Or a premonition?
It was obvious who had killed the Marshall family. Gabe had been the one wielding the blade. He’d struck down his own aunt and cousins. The man had gone mad with power. But was he mad enough to harm the people he loved? Had he already? Was he responsible for what had happened to Harrison? Impossible. That had been a tragic accident. But wasn’t making things seem one way when they was actually another part of what being the Fixer was all about?
And if Thom was the only one who knew, didn’t that make him obligated to keep everyone safe? But at what cost to himself?
What was he supposed to do?