Secrets Of The A-List Complete Collection, Episodes 1-12. Cat Schield

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СКАЧАТЬ “It looks angrier than yesterday.”

      He grinned and shrugged. “I’m sure Luc’s looking a lot worse.”

      Elana nodded, dipping her head forward to hide her smile. When it came to a sparring match, she’d have put her money on Luc every time. But her heart would always have gone to Rafe. He just didn’t have the same motivation to win a fight as their perfect older brother, that was all. “Probably,” she said, meeting his eyes when she’d flattened any suggestion of amusement from her pretty face.

      “It was stupid,” Rafe said after a moment. “I was just so fucking angry with him. He never misses a chance to sling mud my way. He’s such a pompous asshole.”

      “Yep, he can be,” she agreed but couldn’t help adding, “Still, next time you get struck by the urge to put him back in his box, maybe choose somewhere a little less...”

      “Visible?” Rafe supplied with a humorless laugh. He lifted his hand and dragged it through his hair, shaking his head ruefully.

      “Um, yes. Public.”

      “I wasn’t thinking straight.”

      Elana put an arm around her brother’s waist and stared up at him. “None of us are. This is so messed up.”

      The words were thick with unshed tears and even Rafe, in his distracted state, must have detected her grief. “Hey,” he said softly, tilting her chin upward with his thumb. “What’s going on?”

      “Apart from the obvious, you mean?” She blinked away the sting of hot tears.

      “Yeah. What is it?”

      She shook her head from side to side, making a visible effort to calm herself. “Nothing. I’m fine.”

      Rafe’s eyes narrowed, but he appeared to let the line of questioning drop. “How’s wedding planning going?”

      Her laugh was soft. “Even for us, it’s going to be kind of epic.”

      Rafe ran a hand over his jaw. It was covered in fashionable stubble; she heard the grating sound and out of nowhere thought of Jarrod. Elana’s gut clenched.

      God, she needed to see him. Somewhere, in the midst of this crazy mess, sex with Jarrod would make sense of it all. Their affair was like a tiny island at the heart of a raging ocean.

      “Epic is bad?”

      “No, no,” Elana was quick to correct. She swore softly and put her hand out, grabbing Rafe’s wrist. “Rafe?”

      She felt his eyes boring into her, seeing more than she wanted to show, and she looked away, her features heavy with regret. She didn’t see the way his own face bore a mask of apprehension, as though he, too, was burdened by a weighty confession.

      “I... Don’t judge me, okay?”

      “Judge you?” His voice was hoarse. “You kidding? I’ve got your back, Ellie.”

      She smiled at the childhood nickname that only her dad used these days.

      “What is it?” There was urgency in his tone, urgency Elana was quick to read as impatience with her, rather than any more personal bent.

      The assuredness she’d had that morning shifted, drifting away for a moment. Marriage. Becoming a wife. A frisson ran down her spine.

      “I’m... I’m just not sure I can go through with the wedding.”

      A shocked silence surrounded them, heavy with recrimination and disbelief. Incredulity, too.

      Taking his silence for censure—and heaven knew she’d had enough of that in her life—Elana rushed to explain herself. “It doesn’t feel right without Dad. How can I get married when he’s lying in a hospital bed? You don’t think I should, do you?”

      Rafe put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close to his chest. He was warm and strong. He held her tight, stroking her hair, waiting for her to calm down, and then he loosened his grip. “Have you spoken to Thom about this?”

      She nodded jerkily. Canceling the wedding at this stage would be a disaster. Her mom would flip. So would Thom’s parents. As for Thom, he’d made his feelings perfectly clear that morning.

      “This morning,” Elana murmured. “At least, I tried to broach it, but he wasn’t what you’d call receptive.”

      “Of course he wasn’t,” Rafe said with a hint of reproach. “He loves you. He proposed to you. And you guys have gone and invited pretty much everyone on the Forbes rich list, and all their friends. I think it’s a done deal now.”

      “That’s not helping,” she muttered, shaking her head.

      Rafe jammed his hands in his pockets, and Elana could see that the conversation was making him uncomfortable. She was pretty sure she could guess why, too. How many times had she failed to meet their family’s expectations? In fact, it was pretty much the only thing she was good at. Here she’d gone and done something no one had expected—she’d landed a sexy, gorgeous, wealthy, socially comparable bachelor as her fiancé and she wanted to bolt.

      “I’m not going to do anything stupid,” she promised. “I just wondered if maybe we should wait a bit. Until we know what’s going on with Dad.”

      Rafe kicked the toe of his loafer into the graveled drive. “Yeah, well, what if he never wakes up? You can’t put your life on hold forever.”

      Elana paled visibly. It was almost exactly what Thom had said. “Jesus Christ. Forgive me for not being able to be so cavalier about my dad’s possible death.”

      “He’s my dad, too,” Rafe pointed out with infuriating calm. “I’m not being cavalier about it.” He expelled a sigh. “I just feel like there’s something else going on here.”

      Elana opened her mouth and then closed it again. Her eyes didn’t quite meet Rafe’s. “You’re paranoid,” she said finally, weakly. “I’m still reeling from all this. His life is literally hanging in the balance and I’m supposed to be staring down the barrel of festivity central? I’m just not there.”

      “I don’t know if I’ve ever seen Dad happier than when you and Thom got engaged,” Rafe murmured.

      “So?” Elana’s one-word response was the definition of stubborn.

      “So—” Rafe’s smile seemed forced “—do you think he’d want you to put the whole thing off?”

      Elana spun around and pressed her back to the sun-warmed sedan. Standing shoulder to shoulder with Rafe, she felt more estranged than she had in a long time. “I don’t know.”

      “Yes, you do,” he said gently, bumping his shoulder to hers.

      “God. Why are you so damned fired up for this wedding to go ahead?”

      Elana sliced her gaze to his face and could have sworn she saw something like guilt dance in his eyes. Only for a second, and then it was gone.

      When СКАЧАТЬ