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CHAPTER THIRTEEN
SHE was leaving her heart in Argentina, while duty and a very different type of love was taking her to England. It was too late to wish she had told Diego about her father. He couldn’t have come with her anyway. And why would he want to? How could she be so selfish as to even think of asking him in the middle of a match that would decide Diego’s future?
Even now she might arrive too late to find her father alive. With no one to see her she let the tears come as the powerful jet engines carried her swiftly above the cloud line and everything she had longed to be part of. She had to find the old, organised Maxie, who would immediately know what to do, but she was gone.
So she’d get her back, Maxie determined fiercely. First she had to prioritise. There would be other matches, but this visit with her father couldn’t wait. She couldn’t live with herself if she didn’t go to him and he died alone.
And Diego?
She would call Diego the moment she arrived in London. She would tell him and he would understand. She hoped he would understand, Maxie amended as her heart contracted into a tiny, defensive ball.
Nacho’s helicopter took Diego to Ezeiza International. From there the flight to London would take the same time as the jet. He was a mere six hours behind her. The trail was still hot.
His investigator was waiting for him at Heathrow with a fast, unobtrusive car. ‘Move over, I’ll drive,’ he told the man. ‘Just give me directions.’
And that was the extent of their conversation until he pulled in through the gates of the Nuttingford Nursing Home.
‘What’s this?’ he said, peering out of the windscreen at the imposing Victorian façade. ‘Has Peter Parrish taken to swindling old ladies these days?’
‘It’s a retirement home, for those who can afford it,’ his investigator explained.
‘Thank you.’ He cut the man short. He could see for himself that there was everything here to make a con-man’s twilight years extravagantly comfortable. Anger exploded inside him.
Peter Parrish was evidently prospering in this overblown honeypot while Diego’s friend Oresto was rotting in his grave. Spinning the car across the gravel, he screeched to a halt in front of the steps. Springing out, he slammed the door and took the steps in a couple of bounds. The front door was open and the PI followed him in. He was ready to do murder by the time he reached the reception desk, so perhaps it was as well that the investigator supplied the name under which Maxie had registered her father.
‘You can leave me now,’ he told the man, dismissing him without a glance.
He would confront Peter Parrish first, and then he would tell the world about a man without scruples so no one else would ever fall victim to his scams. If Maxie was with him … He steeled his heart. If Maxie was with her father she would have to admit her role in covering up his whereabouts and lying about his name. She must accept the full extent of her father’s fraudulent dealings, together with their tragic consequences.
Guilt and anger vied inside him as he mounted the stairs, dragging on stale air at least five degrees warmer than it should have been. The thought of redemption and penance within his grasp drove him on. The upcoming confrontation wouldn’t raise Oresto from the grave, but it would be the end of a journey he had once feared would never be over.
Stalking along a richly furnished corridor that boasted a faint scent of overcooked cabbage and beeswax, he found the room on the second floor. One of the better rooms, the receptionist had told him. As if he cared. As if he was interested in anything other than the fact that Peter Parrish had feathered his nest at the expense of who knew how many others apart from Oresto. He grasped the handle and threw the door open without the courtesy of a warning knock.
‘Diego!’
‘What the hell?’ He whirled in turmoil before he had a chance to see inside the room, to find Maxie standing right behind him. His angry mind threw him back to the past even as he tried to absorb this new information.
She had just been coming out of the restroom when she spotted Diego. So he knew. He’d come. He was here for her. This was right. In that instant all the lonely sorrow banked up inside her changed to relief. He understood, she registered numbly as Diego steered her towards the empty visitors’ lounge. When they were both inside he shut the door and leaned with his back against it so no one could disturb them.
‘Well?’ he said.
Oh, thank God to be with someone who understood without the need for words. Diego’s voice penetrated the mud in her head, just as the sight of him filled her heart with soothing balm. ‘Oh, Diego …’ She stopped. There was so much she wanted to say to him. ‘Thank you for coming.’ He made a sound, as if to say anything else was unthinkable. She could see the passion in his eyes—the fierce, fierce passion. ‘I wish I could have waited for you. I wish I could have stayed to see the end of the match, but this …’ Her hands lifted and fell again. There were no words.
‘The match?’ he said without inflection.
‘I know how much it meant to you …’ She lifted her gaze then, and stared him in the eyes.
‘You had to be here,’ he said in the same calm voice, his burning eyes the only reflection of the deepest of passions swirling inside him.
‘Yes, I did. Thank you for understanding.’
The sound he made now was both primal and terrifying. ‘Understanding?’ he spat out, grabbing hold of her. She cried out like a frightened animal when he yanked her close. Staring furiously into her eyes, he said, ‘I only understand that you’re here with him.’
‘Yes, I know—I should have been with you.’
‘Me?’ he said, staring down at her as if she were his most loathsome enemy. ‘You were never with me.’
‘What are you saying?’ Shock coursed through her even as bewilderment sapped the strength from her legs. ‘Diego, I don’t understand …’
‘You don’t understand?’ he raged. ‘You were always with him—calling him—speaking to him—thinking only of him.’
‘Diego, please!’
He let her go as suddenly as he had grabbed hold of her and stood back, breathing heavily, lost in some place where she couldn’t reach him. The world was going crazy. This wasn’t her tender lover or the friend she had trusted above all others.
‘Diego, what is it? Are you talking about my father? Are you jealous of my father? Diego?’
A discreet tap on the door made them both go still. Maxie’s heart contracted. She knew what this meant.
‘Diego,’ she said softly. ‘I have to go now.’
When she left him his fury subsided, leaving only the knowledge that he loved Maxie with all his heart, and that life without her was unthinkable. If she wanted to be with her father in private he would understand. He would be here for her, whatever happened. If Peter Parrish chose to ridicule and belittle him, then he would take that on board too. Love had no boundaries, no restrictions. Love was unconditional.
Walking over to the window, he stared out, remembering Oresto as the rain fell bleakly down.
The door to her father’s room was partly open, and she heard the nurse outside explaining to Diego in an undertone, ‘He doesn’t have long. Please don’t stay for more than a few minutes …’
The nurse’s voice seemed to come from a long way away, while Maxie was in a bubble that excluded the rest of the world, apart from her father and now Diego. When the door swung wide to allow him in and she saw Diego framed in light calm fell over her, as if Diego being here at this particular time was part of the natural order of things. All the petty concerns and fears that jabbed away, making small problems seem huge, had been collected up in a holding pen to be dealt with at some later time. It was the only way individuals could cope with great grief, she supposed.
She heard Diego murmur something in reply to the nurse and then they were alone. Still holding her father’s hand in both of hers, as if she could will some of her own strength into him, she turned to look at Diego.
Why hadn’
t she told him? He had remained in the visitors’ lounge until he had begun to wonder if Maxie had left him again. He’d gone looking for her and a nurse had explained. And here she was, seated on an upright chair, holding the gnarled hand of the old man on the bed. His heart pounded with concern for her even as incredulity swept over him. Was this his enemy? Was this the man he had wasted so much of his life hating?
It took him a few moments to accept there could be any connection between the confident, robust individual he remembered and the frail old man who lay dying on the bed. The shades were drawn and there was no sound other than the ticking of an antique mantel clock and the old man’s involuntary breathing. Peter Parrish had passed to the last struggles of a body ready to surrender, and while Maxie appeared resigned to this, he could feel her anguish and her deep sense of impending loss.
‘Diego,’ she whispered, reaching for him.
Taking hold of Maxie’s hand in a firm grip, he raised it to his lips and pressed a long kiss against her palm. Only then did he straighten up to stare down at Peter Parrish. So this was the devil on his back. This was the man who had haunted him. How sweet were those thoughts of revenge now?
‘I’m so glad you’re here,’ Maxie whispered.
He stared down into her eyes and saw only goodness in them. Maxie had never been to blame for her father’s actions. She hadn’t been hiding wickedness from him—she had been hiding love. Peter Parrish might be undeserving of that love but he was Maxie’s father. And if there was one thing Diego understood it was family. There was only one thing he could do now, and that was to forgive Peter Parrish as Oresto’s family had forgiven him.
