Page 43 of The Forbidden Fling

He pursed his lips, then offered the seat opposite with a practised gesture.

Diana sank into the cool faux leather. On the inside, she continued to sink lower and lower, wishing she could disappear completely.

She couldn’t have spent the night with one of Molly’s exes. Life couldn’t be that cruel.

She suppressed the urge to roll her eyes at herself. Life absolutely could be that cruel.

“She’s gone, Dee,” her dad’s words echoed in her ears, and suddenly she was small again, sitting in the oversized armchair in the living room. The room still smelled like fresh bread from that morning.

She’d been pencilling her mum a picture of colourful flowers, the kind she always admired in the fields, albeit more lopsided. Their neighbour, Mrs Waddington, had told her it was a lovely idea, so she’d sat in the corner, creating picture after picture until her fingers ached, until her neighbour had returned home to let her two terriers out for a wee.

But now Mrs Waddington had gone, and her dad stood in the doorway like a hulking shadow, groaning as he dropped his bags beside the door.

“Gone where?” she asked, in a small voice.

He groaned again as he slipped his coat from his broad shoulders and hung it over the door. His long days working the farm meant he was always carrying aches and pains somewhere.

Diana held a breath as he crossed the room, pulling a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and lighting one. The orange tip glowed, highlighting the thick scruff on his chin. He grasped her shoulder, giving it a little shake.

“She’s gone with the angels now. With Grumps and Granny Sue.”

“No.” Tears she’d been fighting all day filled her eyes. “Tell her to come back.”

His hand stilled as he took another drag, the stinky smoke curling around them. “That’s not how it works, Deedee.”

She scrunched her nose, tears escaping freely. She hated the nickname. She hated how teasingly he used it after her mum asked him not to. Deedee Dumdum. She hated the smoke and how it would stick to everything like a parasite, lingering long after the cigarette had been stubbed out. Mum always made him smoke outside or in the kitchen when Diana was home. But Mum wasn’t here.

It was all wrong.

“It’s just the two of us now, Deedee.”

Diana moved her shaking hands from her face, and the bright lights of the office brought her back to the present. A lone tear slipped down her cheek, and she brushed it away with her fingers.

Wordlessly, Marco Marcos offered her a box of tissues. She tugged one from the top and dabbed under her eyelids. Her chest tightened as the flood of emotion continued to rock inside her. How she waited up every night, hoping there’d been a mistake and her mum would walk through the door. How she took on the role of housekeeper while her dad worked himself into the ground, smoking like a chimney.

Her life had changed irreversibly that day. The weight of it still floored her. It was too much for a little girl to carry.

“I never got to say goodbye.” She sniffed, embarrassed by her confession.

Marco Marcos stilled, kindness falling over his features as he waited for her to continue.

“My mum died when I was ten. Brain aneurysm. One day she was there, the next…she was gone.”

“I’m sorry. That must’ve been very difficult for you.”

Diana wiped her nose. “I’ve been thinking about her a lot. Since being here.” She sighed, feeling a lump rise in her throat. “There was so much I never got to say to her.”

“It sounds like you’re still holding onto a lot of that pain.”

Her eyes snapped up from the beige carpet. “Have you ever lost a parent, Marco?”

He wilted a little under her gaze. “No, I haven’t.”

“Then how would you know how it feels?”

Another wave hit her hard, and she put a hand to her forehead, feeling a headache coming on as another memory came to her.

Her dad slammed his empty glass down on the counter, plucking the photograph from her fingertips. “You need to stop with all this blubbering now. It’s not helping anyone.”